New Photo Gallery

I am not satisfied with how Blogger posts images I send in from my phone, so I'm trying out a new service called Text America. Here's my gallery:

http://spanishturtle.textamerica.com/

I'll throw up a link on the left as well. It's just a simple gallery, which I like.

My Extra Hour

Not Television
I walked with Maria to the train this morning (15-minute walk), and realized upon getting to the station that I forgot my wallet. So I walked home (30-minute walk), got it, and walked back (45-minute walk). In between I took a few minutes to drink Cherry 7-Up and watch Sportscenter, in hopes of turning the annoyance into a nice break to start my day. It sort of worked - the morning walk(s) were really nice, and the weather was pretty great, so my day didn't start in a funk like I was afraid it would.

Today I ordered an iPass, one of those little RF tags you can put on your car to drive through the express lanes at tolls. I figure this will be very nice for the upcomming drives to Madison/Bfield/Iowa. Hopefully it'll arrive in time for my trip up to Bfield on Saturday to see my parents.

Speaking of my parents, I found out my Dad is in Boston this week! I've had a strange urge to visit Boston for a while now; it seems like the nicest city ever (I base this on nothing, except perhaps Cheers). I would really like to visit the city sometime, but I'm not sure if it's really a vacation destination - what I really want is a buisness trip there or something (just like my Dad is doing - lucky Dad).

Tonight is wine night number... I've lost count. We'll see how the crowd develops, we just decided to host one yesterday (as today is Halloween, and we weren't going to have one this week). Hopefully the core will arrive, at least.

HALLOWEEN
Halloween was nice, we went to a friend's apartment and hung out with the new circle. I was dissapointed to find that only Maria, Paul and I dressed up. It really wasn't very halloween-ish. I had magic tricks ready to go, and they never even got busted out. For all the craziness that goes along with halloween in Madison, it was always an event - something to look forward to. In a somewhat fun moment this morning, I got an email from Mootzgorilla telling me that State Street wasn't too bad this year, then I got an email from Paul (who I had told about the craziness in Madison), with a link to a CNN story, and his comments of how nuts it was. It's all about standards. Despite not being halloweeny, it was still a very good night.

You can see my GOB costume in our hallway mirror there. It wasn't too far off, actualy, though I'm afraid my giant head and my huge hair totally ruined it. I had to take this picture with my phone, as I discovered yesterday that my camera is dead! No more digital camera. As rarely as I used it, I always loved having one - at least now I have an excuse to buy one of them new-fangled new super-thin pocket cameras! Now all I need is some money...

Television
What a sad week of TV this will be. No Lost, no Arrested Development, and no Gilmore Girls. From my investigations, it appears that next week everything returns full blast, which will be great. Luckily I have The West Wing, Prison Break, and The O.C. to get me through.

Mesothelioma Attorney

I've discovered that there are keywords that are supposed to potentially generate decent money per click. So ignore this post, it's solely to get these supposedly high-paying ads to display.

Mesothelioma sure isn't fun. But if you find a mesothelioma attorney, or a mesothelioma lawyer, you might be able to get out of your mesothelioma mess without a whole bunch of hassles. Check out the way that malignant pleural mesothelioma and Asbestos Cancer gang up on people and steal their trans union. It's no fun, is it? No. Peritoneal mesothelioma is no walk in the park either - it's no lung cancer, but mesothelioma is nothing to sneeze at. Remember when we were growing up, and mesothelioma and lawyers got along? Attorneys can help people get along sometimes too. Check out your local library for mesothelioma books. Lung cancer is a jerk.

Lists

A very rare weekend post.

Boat Trip is on TV right now.

I just saw that "It" commercial for ebay. Look closely - in the shot of the crazy Japanese show with the dude dancing around with "it", the freaking bear from Arrested Development is there dancing around. The blue one on the right side of the screne. Jean Parmagian (or whatever the grandma's P.I.'s name is) dresses up in that same bear costume in an episode from the first disc of season 2.

If I only had a decent computer...

• Age of Empires III
  
• Half Life 2 (and the 007 mod for it!)
  
• Civilizations IV
  
• Battlefield 2

Music

• Death Cab For Cutie
  
• Broken Social Scene

Cities

• Dublin
  
• Boston
  
• San Francisco
  
• Rome
  
• New York
  
• Stars Hollow

Candies in the Bowl Today

• 3 Musketeers
  
• Kit Kats
  
• Crunch
  
• Smartees
  
• One Fun Dip
  
• One Tootsie Roll Pop

Welcome, Drax

The Drax is onboard, with his Drax Report running strong (four days, four posts). I just found out about it from our friends at the Blogulator. I expect great, hateful things from that man.

Not Television
Last night we went to Best Buy, which was nice. It was the one in Evanston, which is a real life, honest-to-god Best Buy (with a parking lot and everything). It is sort of nice that just the presence of easy parking can make me smile now. While there I scooped up the new season of Arrested Development. We also tried to check out the iPod video, but (amazingly) they did not have a video on their iPod video. I can't begin to imagine how it's too much trouble to take that tiny little device about fifty feet over to computers and dump a couple music videos on it. Smooth move, cellular & MP3 department of the Evanston Best Buy (slaps forehead).

Also last night we made pasta and brocolli. Not bad, I think I went a little heavy with the oil in the sauce. Still, it satisfied my pasta craving.

Finally, last night, I killed a couple more colossi, and they're starting to get much tougher. I'd say I now spend as much time figuring out how to get onto the Colossi as I do killing it. The last couple have been such that you walk into their cave or valley or whatever, and you can see them, but they're way out of reach, and you have to get them to attack you somehow. Pretty awesome.

Television
We just watched a couple of episodes of ArrDev (as Pat calls it). I think I missed a lot of the season 2 episodes, so I'm very excited. The experience has lead me to think very seriously about going as GOB for halloween. As I am not spending a dime on any costume, and a GOB costume could be almost be pulled off just by wearing sandals, I think it's a winner.

I Am The One Who Is Lost

No Lost last night. This week we are to have no Arrested Development, no Gilmore Girls, and no Lost. The top three shows, gone. Schwoop! Wah-wah-wah. WONK WONK.

Those noises describe how this makes me feel.

Not Television
Shadow of the Colossus continues to be great, though I am getting more and more fed up with the horse. That horse is hard to control. I suppose that's like a real horse, though. The game seems to have a very natural feel when you go where you're supposed to, like there's no other way to possibly go. But when you get off that track, it's almost impossible to get to your target. Last night I had to jump off a huge cliff to get to one of the Colossi. Still a great game.

I also briefly tried out SOCOM 3, which seems okay. I always find the SOCOM games really diffucult to control for some reason. In Halo or Timesplitters I have no trouble aiming, but something about SOCOM's controls leads to a lot of me shooting walls next to guys and finding it almost impossible to move my crosshairs less than ten feet at a time.

Last night the White Sox completed their sweep of the World Series. Which is awesome if you're a Sox fan. It makes me crave Pasta Bowl.

Also, note that I have added Google AdWords to the bottom of this blog. I have always heard (and told people) that you generate basically zero income with these ads. I fully expect that I will never see a dime from this, but I am curious, so I'll run them for a while and let you guys know if anything comes of it.

Television
In the absence of Lost, we watched the West Wing from last Sunday. Pretty good, but I think I like the old episodes of this show better. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one out here who watches this, so I won't bother commenting.

I'll Need More Thumbs to Give Enough Thumbs Up

Last night was a night of great stuff. I heartily enjoyed Gilmore Girls, Maria made us delicious chicken quesadillas, and I played Shadow of the Colossus for the first time.

Not Television
Quesadillas
Mmm mmm Maria. That girl makes good food.

Shadow of the Colossus
If you like videogames, even in the slightest, go play this game. It's unreal. The graphics are insane (especially for PS2), the controls are fantastic (my only complaint about the entire game thus far is that the horse is too hard to stop and it's easy to stand next to the horse and jump up and down, rather than mounting it), but the concept is what really blows me away.

You're basically trying to kill giants, and you have to figure out a way to crawl up onto them, then make you way to a weakspot on them, and stab them until they die. It's so simple and beautiful, playing it is a great experience. There are no other enemies, just colossi, and the entire world is basically one valley (at least thus far). Each battle with a colossi is like an entire level; once you figure out how to get a grip on them, you still have to make your way up their body to whever their weak point is. The colossi try to shake you off, and when you stab them they freak out and try to slam you into the ground and whatnot. It really feels like you're battling a mountain. The story is also interesting, you're doing this to save a mysterious girl's life (we don't know who she is). You take her to a temple and a voice from the heavens tells you to go kill these Colossi. But after you kill each one you seem to be releasing spirits, and hurting yourself in some sort of spiritual way. Seems that voice from the heavens may have its own agenda?..

If you have access to a Playstation, go get this game NOW.


See the little guy on his sword? That's you.
And the game really looks this good.

Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond
I'm reading this on the train right now, its pretty enjoyable. Thus far the author is going into a lot of detail about the Polynesian islands, and how a single population settled all these islands, then became drastically varied over just a few hundred years. He's using it as a small study of how geography can effect cultural development before trying to explain what happened world-wide. I knew almost nothing of the Polynesian islands, so it's great to read about them.

Television
Gilmore Girls
Was good! I liked it - not much to say, I'm going to leave detailed breakdown to the boys on 208.

Current Log Jam, Future Drought
I have yet to watch The West Wing and Prison Break from this week. Probably Thursday.

I am upset about the upcomming week with no Gilmore Girls and no Arrested Development. What will I do with myself? At least Fox shows return after baseball, but the WB is just randomly holding out on me - increasing my misery. I'll just have to turn to actually speaking to other humans, I guess.

: *

We will become one.

I Want Hoodies

Theres are sweatshirts that I want.
Send me $100.

Back to Books

I've started reading books again - rather than playing Advance Wars - on the train. I started reading Guns, Germs, and Steel today. Seems like it'll be a good read. Enough chit-chat, I have a lot to blog.

Sports
Packers
Let's start it off with the bad news. As Qualler already discussed, the Packers suffered a completely disheartening loss to the Vikings yesterday. How you blow a 17-0 lead to the f'n Vikings is a mystery to me, but I guess that goes along with how the Packers have looked this year thus far. I thought the comeback was continuing up through half-time, but they came out looking awful. I would have been much less upset if we had blown such a lead to the Lions or the Bears - teams which, despite sucking, still have a little kick in them. The Vikings BLOW. So clearly, to lose in such spectacular fashion to such an abysmal team, we must blow the hardest of all.

In all fairness, we lost yet another receiver, and were basically playing Driver, Chatman, one rookie, and tight ends for much of the game, but we should still be able to hold a 17-point lead together. (I hereby also officially offer mad props to the Vikings' kicker - unbelievable.) Oh, well, Packers. The good news is that you can still win the horrendous mess of "football" that is the NFC North. Though I really don't see that happening. Quite a feat, getting into last place in this division.

Madison
Now we're talking - the Badgers came off their close call with Minnesota to beat Purdue in commanding fashion this week. I was even able to miss part of the fourth quarter in transit to a bar without worrying. I must call out ABC on their practice of not showing the score on the screen for minutes at a time. This is entirely unacceptable. I need constant updates so when I arrive at a bar to catch the last few minutes and the coaches are yelling at refs I don't freak out and almost die. Good job, Badgers.

White Sox / Astros
I'm not a big baseball nut - though I enjoy watching a game now and then. The previously mentioned trip to a bar was to watch game 1 of the World Series, which was a good time. The White Sox have impressed me with their hitting - I didn't think they had such big bats on the team. My Astros fan friends are probably not happy today, hopefully they'll win a couple at home to make the series interesting.

Not Television
Friday night we stayed in and lounged around. Nothing of note, really. I finished the Advance Wars campaign, which was satisfying. Saturday we met up with everybody at Gamekeepers to watch the Sox/Astros game, then went to a place called something like "Chedder Corn". It was basically a big, old, fancy restaurant which was now a Brats-type bar, pumping loud rap music and offering surprisingly affordable drinks. Not bad at all. Sunday featured lots of yelling at the Packers and a sort of slapped together doubleheader. (Watch Life After 208 for full movie reviews.)

We got our heat turned on Saturday, and it's amazing. Every time I walk into a room and it's warm I'm delighted and feel like a king. Our furnace uses radiators, though, and is a knocking, whistling bastard. Why on earth you would put nozzles on your radiators which whistle when letting off steam is beyond me. In Madison they'd just silently let out steam, here they blast forth with periodic whistles. Perhaps this is to let you know you should turn that radiator off if you paid for heat (which we don't, so I intend to run as much hot water through those radiators as possible). The bad news is that the radiator in our bedroom closet turns out to be not a functioning radiator, but just an old radiator that is taking up space in our bedroom closet. Why is it in there? Is it a clever trick to make incoming tenants think their closet will be warm? Or is it just there to make the closet more full or radiators? It doesn't particularly matter - the heat circulates through the apartment quite well as it is.

This week I'm finally going to try to get the Neon registered in Illinois, plus I want to get an i-Pass for all the inter-state driving I'll be doing in the next couple months. We've had a couple of weekends at home in a row now, which is awesome, but I'm looking forward to getting back to Wisconsin again soon. I'll be there almost every month in November, plus quite a bit in December as well. It's insane that we're just about to enter the crazy time spanning Halloween and New Years - before I know it it'll be 2006.

Television
Hmmm, did I watch anything? Oh yes. Yes I did. Fat Albert. Look to 208 for the review that I promised earlier. Otherwise I didn't watch anything of note. Not that I can remember, at least. I'm looking forward to next week, when the World Series will be over and my beloved television shows will return like a parade of supermodels. I think Prison Break comes back tonight already. Which means Arrested Development may be back too... That'd be great.

I did hear that Adult Swim is offering up like 10 episodes of their shows online for you to watch (streaming from their site). Right now it's only Friday nights, but they're talking about making it available 24-7. This would be great, and would greatly reduce the amount of time I have to spend not watching television at work. (Crosses fingers)

P.S. I just used blogger's spellchecker - it does not recognize the word "blog".

I'm Probably One of the Fanciest

Not Television
Last night maria and I went out to eat at a fancy-pants restaraunt called Tomboy, where we ate like kings and swore like pirates. There was even a jazz duet. F-A-N-C-Y. And it was still good food, and filling - some fancy places I've ate at give you tiny portions and they're all about making it look pretty, not taste pretty. This food tasted beautiful.

Before we ate, I missed my train stop (too busy playing Advance Wars), so I got off one stop past ours. Let me just say the walk home from the Bryn-Mawr stop is one heck of a walk. It turns out that Balmoral (one block north of us) over by Broadway (a few blocks east of us) is this amazing neighborhood with huge houses and tons of trees and niceness dripping off of every surface. I thought it was super nice a couple of blocks south of there, but I was awed by this new street. If I'm ever looking for a new place and want to stay in Andersonville, that's where I'm looking. I give the walk from the Bryn-Mawr to our house two thumbs way up.

Television
Over There
I watched an episode last night in which the usual team has to work with new Iraqui solders, it was pretty bland. It seems the show relies on being hard-hitting and controversial, and now that it's settled into trying to get through the middle of a season, it has nothing to do. Every episode is about one more tough issue, but it's just getting old. Ther story from episode to episode baaaarely holds together. This has been downgraded to "watch when there's nothing else on".

AVP
I saw the end of this on HBO last night - what a sorry sack of a movie. I wish it had been cool, as both franchises were cool in the past. I saw this in the theaters, and then I watched it in HD last night, and it really made the special effects look terrible. That seems to be the true test of how good CG stuff looks, seeing it on an HDTV. If the lighting is wrong at all it's immediately obvious. There is one neat shot in this movie which appears almost at the end - the queen alien is standing over the last human survivor, about to kill her, when the last predator survivor comes flying through the air and sort of holds in this pose for a moment, then slams a spear through the queen alien's head. Pretty... um... bad-ass?

I am a Baker

Not Television
So as you by now know, today is Maria's birthday. Which translates into, 'Last night I made a cake!' It turns out, cakes are easy. Making a cake is a piece of cake. It's easier than making pasta. Here's the ease-heirarchy of foods I have made recently:

• HARDEST
  
• Pasta
  
• Chicken & Stuffing
  
• Cake
  
• Ordering Chineese
  
• Pizza
  
• EASIEST

This discovery has led me to think we could have cake literally all the time. If I can find a reliable source for Cherry Chip Cake, I might just make a bunch of them.

Yesterday I also decided to give this whole Bittorrent thing a try. I have my computer at home hooked up to my tv, and they already have iPod video videos out there, so it seems worth checking out. What I've found majorly dissapointing thus far is that it's SLOW. I know Mootzgorilla used to have to run torrents overnight to get us episodes of stuff we'd miss, but I assumed that was because there was a queue. It turns out you download at like 3KB/s. So much for downloading from tons of people at once and getting it really fast. I'm letting a couple of things run for the next couple of days - I'll see if it's worth it.

Finally, I've noticed how people in the city litter all the time. They're holding a wrapper or something in their hand and they just drop it. What the fuck? I guess we were brought up a lot differently in Wisconsin, but that's just not acceptable. Not littering is something you learn in first grade. Before first grade, even. It's such a small thing, but just put that in your pocket and throw it away later if you're not by a trash can. It baffels me - despite it being a small decision, it's something that I'm 100% different from other city-dwellers on (not all of them, of course). All they're doing is making their home crappier. It's really just a symptom of the complete manners break-down with a lot of people around here. They cut in line, walk right into you, talk super loud right next to you, all those little things that'll get on your nerves. At least I can take comfort in my feeling of superiority.

I'm looking forward to tonight, I get to take Maria out for her birthday, and finally give her her gift, and somehow it's already Thursday? Crazy.

Television
Lost
Nice episode - I really liked the shot of the supposed 'Others' legs, and getting some more back story on Sun and Jin. I also love that the second group of survivors is comming back to the first group - it'll expand the area of the island the show takes place on. I'm looking forward to hearing what's been happening to that second group. Lost is so unpredictable, every week they throw something new at you, and it's always really fun to watch. It's good to have a few shows that you can always count on to be good.

The Colbert Report
I've seen two episodes of this now, and I must say I really like it! His long monolouges at the top of the show are fantastic thus far. They call it "The Word", it's very flow of consciousness, and it's been brilliant the first two weeks. Sure, it's a lot like the Daily Show, but I think it works really well as a compliment. It's so very much like news networks that run show after show after show that's almost the exact same thing, just with differnet hosts.

I don't think saying that the show is too much like the Daily Show is a reason to put it down. I'm pretty sure that's the idea - they're building a complimentary show, building off the success of a show that's been great for years. The Colbert Report brings a different feel, it's all about Stephen, and he plays his "I'm the shit" character. The Daily Show is much more of a talk show/news report, where the Colbert Report is just his opinion. He doesn't report stories, he doesn't interview guests about their latest book or movie, he basically just preaches his views and then talks to a guest about journalism (thus far). I wish I watched the 24-hour news channels, as I'm sure there's a perfect comparison out there with real news shows. To me these two fit into different categories. I just hope Colbert keeps the quality where it is.

Top Model
Maria and I watched an episode of Top Model last night - what an awful show. Tyra Banks is an IDIOT, and she seems to flaunt the fact that, despite being dumber than everyone, she gets to be on TV. Ms. Banks spends most of the show making stupid faces and asking questions in painfully dumb ways. The show seems to make a conscious effort to keep her out of any actual challenges (or whatever they call the events), and only let her participate in a commentator role. Also, many of the contestants are mysteriously unattractive. The picture above is the best photo I could find of one in particular. Haha, ouch. Oh, I'm just kidding. That's actually a horse. But really, a lot of these girls don't really seem to belong in this type of competition. Think I'm kidding? Here's a real picture of the girl that throws me the most:
What's that? She doesn't have makeup on? Okay, how about THIS:

Haha, god, I'm such an ass. But really, this show is presented as, "Here are the most beautiful women we could find. All of them are legitimate candidates to become professional models." And I'll have no arguments along the lines of, "Modeling is hard, it's a skill, it's not just looking pretty." Because I've heard Tyra Banks (an uber successful model) talk, and I'm pretty sure she hasn't even mastered buttons yet.

Okay, sorry, I just found these pictures on the top model website I feel you must see them.


What The Fuck. Yeah, this show deserves air time.

My View

I'm not sure why I never posted this before. Here's the view from my office window. The autumnal colors have made is exceptionally great today. My phone's camera doesn't do it justice.

An Ode to Fencehouse

Oh Marzipan, how you have warmed our lives. You come through the door, we all call, "Goozer!" and you deserve it. You deserve every, "Great catch, Moose House," and every, "Woah, awesome french bread pizza, ZZZ," that you get.

You are often quite content.
-
But sometimes you go crazy.
-
At the end of the day, though, cake makes you smile again.
-
You will always defend your friends.
-
And know when to just laugh.
-
Now you have big muscles, too.
-
I have no pictures, but artists have rendered your form.
-

There are many imitators,
But only one Honker.
-

Here's to Mootzgerino!

Gloom and Doom while things go Boom

Ah, what a nice, relaxing weekend. I did basically nothing, and it was fantastic.

Not Televison
Friday night Maria rented Spirited Away for us. We watched it on the TV, but it was a movie, so I guess it can go here. I really liked it - the animation looked very liquid, and the story was simple but good. A very plesent movie to watch late at night.

Saturday was a fantastic day, we went down to the lake and walked around Lincoln Park for a while. There were about five billion little kids' soccer games going on, too. We watched some kids play soccer - there was a little girl ("goggles"), who was totally cleaning house. Saturday night Maria went out with some friends and I hung out watching more football and playing videogames. I had rented Prince of Persia 2, and I did not enjoy it. Always good to have not bought games when they turn out to be boring. I played it for about a half hour, then completely lost interest.

Sunday was also nice and slow-paced. We went grocery shopping and bought a lot of candy and a pumpkin. Unfortunately, Maria fell victim to a stomach bug Sunday afternoon, putting her down for the night. Sounds like she's already feeling a little bit better, though. One of the side-effects of Maria being sick was I got to babysit her friend's aunt's kids alone. Two boys who know more about baseball than I do. We watched the White Sox game and talked about why they thought baseball players were idiots. Great theory put forth by John: When a baseball team wins the World Series, the relatives of the players (specifically the cousins) go crazy and smash all the lamps in their house. He was a little unsure that they went crazy, but positive they smashed all their lamps. Winning the World Series is expensive for your extended family, apparently.

Sports
Big 10 Football rocked my world this weekend. First the Badgers and Minnesota played a great game, with Wisconsin comming back to win in the last minute, thanks to Minnesota choking harder than any orginization has choked in the history of choking. If you saw this, you know what I mean. First Minnesota almost lost an onside kick, resulting in them starting on their own ten after said onside kick. Then their kicker dropped the snap on the punt with thirty seconds left, and Madison recoved in the end zone to take the lead. Then they also somehow managed to fumble the kickoff! It was awesome, I wish I knew some really hardcore Minnesota fans, I would have called them right then. As a follow up to this great win, Michigan beat Penn State at the last second to put us in a tie for first in the conference. Amazing.

You can't run away from how much you suck.

The USC-Irish game was also very fun to watch, I was lucky enough to catch large chunks of it. Both of those teams are fun to watch - very mobile and air-oriented. Too bad Notre Dame lost, I'd like to see USC knocked down a notch (they seem to deserve it, they keep barely winning games, yet still get ranked number one).

Both the Astros and White Sox won this weekend too. Lots of friends are Sox fans, and Ted is an Astros fan, so I am, by association, a litle interested in seeing those teams win. It'll be a fun series to watch if the Astros can cap it.

Television
Nothing watched of interest this weekend. I saw a new PBS show hosted by Bill Nye (who I love), they were investigating genetically modified food. It amazes me people are worried about this, every study ever shows it's as safe as regular food. People just love freaking out about stuff, I guess. I also recorded a show called Extras, starring the boss from the british Office. I'm excited to watch that tonight - much potential there. Otherwise all I watched this weekend was sports and videogames.

John is back in the office this week, so my front-line exposure will go way down again. I'm looking forward to being behind the walls again.

A Picture Share!

Pauline's = Luke's! (I took this with my cell phone)

Nothing But

Not Television
Wow, good stuff right now. It's Friday, I have absolutely nothing to do this weekend, and I already have all my major work done for the day. The upcomming weekend is going to consist of basically nothing but hanging around and enjoying the weather. I'm considering possibly trying to put a Risk game together for Saturday night. We shall see. I also actually have a couple of errands to run - which is weird. I am not one who usally "runs errands".

Ted came through in a huge way last night - it turns out his land lord was the one that called to have my car towed, and when Ted asked him about it he felt really bad. I guess he didn't know it was Ted's friend parked back there. So basically the landlord paid for $80 of the ticket, and we can park there from now on, just put a note on the car. Awesome news all around.

That's about it, really nothing much to report. No TV watched, no advancement in David-science, just sort of bland goodness. Oh, one of the doors was broken in our train car this morning. And Maria and I saw a girl with a big diamond ring. And Maria saw a skirt that said "Hurley" on it. Maybe I'll watch Lost and/or GG again tomorrow.

We just got word that we're ordering lunch in today. Sweet, free lunch! I went with a Breaded Chicken Sandwich (#22), Cheese Fries (#61), and a Coke. Pretty standard David fare. I love it.

In closing, I like blog posts with a picture in them a whole heck of a lot more than blog posts with no pictures in them. Thus, I present to you a picture of a baby with cake smashed all over her face.

Check out Picasa

 


Google's got this free program called Picasa that's a simple photo editor/ogranizer - it's got a really convienent "blog this" button. I'm trying that out here. Enjoy Joe and Paal being friends. 

Don't Fuck with Sawyer

Have people learned nothing from Lost? Don't fuck with Sawyer. This guy is dead.

'Lost' Actor, Wife Robbed at Gunpoint
Thursday October 13 7:36 AM ET

Josh Holloway and his wife reportedly were robbed at gunpoint in their home. There was no indication that the robber recognized the 36-year-old actor, who plays hunky con man Sawyer on the ABC castaway drama "Lost," television station KHON reported.

The robber rousted the couple from bed early Wednesday, took cash and credit cards and drove off in Holloway's Mercedes-Benz, which was found abandoned a short time later, the station said.

Honolulu police would not release any information on the robbery.

Holloway's agent did not immediately return a call to her Los Angeles office.

Wham Bam, Thursday, Ma'am

Not Television
Ah, Thursday. Thursday holds the warm glow have having just watched Lost, packed together with the week almost being over, and tied up with the promise of videogames. I spent a couple of hours unlocking characters last night in Smash Brothers (a suprisingly frustrating experience, I must say). I found that Donkey Kong's "slap the ground" move was really useful.

DK can kill 128 tiny Marios like a hot knife can cut butter.

This upcomming weekend is a bit of an enigma for me. Maria is going out with some friends Saturday night, and I have nothing planned at all. It's odd for me to not have the whole weekend full, and even odder to be facing the prospect of a quiet Saturday at home alone. I'm sure things will come up.

Last night Maria made us BLTs. This is the third night in a row Maria has cooked for me, which means that my stomach is extremely happy all the time. There's really something amazingly nice about coming home from work and being able to just plop down on the couch and lovingly made food appear in your lap (especially when said food is like 400 times better than what I make for us). I'm totally going to cook Maria pizza by ordering it tonight. And give her a high-five.

Television
Lost
Oh how I love Lost. This episode was not very Lost-like at all. Instead of the usual plot-heavy, twisting narrative, a large part of the episode was a pretty simple story of Hurley, giving us some insight into how his mind works. I loved it. I am a Hurley fan from back in the day, and seeing him so happy at the end was fantastic. I love that dude.

Still, we got a few important plot points, mostly from the other side of the island.

• We found out that the supposed "others" are just the tail-section survivors. It's weird so many survived, as the plane broke apart, it's even more miraculous than the nose-section people surviving. And if we can believe tequila-and-tonic's story from when she first got thrown in the pit, they landed in water!
  
• Also interesting, that group also found a Dharma station. They're living in it, it's apparently been deserted for a long time (unlike the first station). This makes me think that all six stations are on the same island.
  
• This group is much more militarized. They've lost like 15 members of their group, so I wonder if there's been battles. They did make mention of other people as well, so there must be at least a third group on the island: the others, perhaps?
  
• There was reportedly only enough food to feed one guy for three months in the hatch. So how did Calvin and Desmond survive? Maybe the shots they took were suppliments that made them only have to eat a little?
  
• Locke sure was polishing that giant gun with the huge scope. I'm assuming he was thinking of hunting with it, but it's worth noting that the group is now armed to the teeth: next time the others show up it may not be so one-sided!
  

The Daily Show
I struggled in finding a good cartoon to watch in the mornings, so I'm trying the Daily Show (Maria's suggestion). It seems like a pretty good idea - I laughed out loud a few times this morning, making me realize how good it feels and how much it wakes me up to laugh before work. (I also laughed my ass off at Pat's "Mootzgore of a Differnt Color" post on our blog - the man's a genius.)

iPod Video

I hate to do exactly what Apple wants me to do, but oh my god: video.

You can buy episodes of TV shows for 2 bucks on iTunes. I could buy an episode of something at work, and watch it on the train home. Or rip stuff at home and watch it for free. This makes me able to watch tv anywhere, which is pretty much my dream come true.

It's smaller than my current iPod and costs 300 bucks.

Yaba-Haba-McSklaba-Baba.

Breakfast!

Our lovely boss, Ed, brought breakfast in for everybody this morning. Oh how I love when breakfast is here. Mmmm mmmm, croissant (not as good as the McDonalds breakfast day, but still pretty good).

Not Television
The week sans John is going fine thus far. The entire campaign I was to build has been built (except one tiny bit), and it's all up and online. Today I get to bid everything (which will take a while, but it's not a bad way to spend a morning). I was strangely out of it yesterday and last night, my head was sort of plugged up and I never felt fully awake. Today I feel better, and I'm psyched to go home and watch Lost with Maria.

Last night Maria made us one of my favorite Maria-Meals: Chicken + Mashed Potatoes Burritos. Soooo good. She made her own blended sauce for them too - totally amazing. Maria Parrott: taking random foods I like and putting them together into a food I love since 2004.

Also worth talking about: Freedom Knot. Ted was telling me about how he worked on this site (or possibly a previous iteration of it?) for this random dude in his home town. The guy wanted to revolutionize the way people tie their shoes, and get rich in the process! How do you sell a knot-tying technique? Not sure. Probably via an awesome website. So very much worth checking out.

Television
Gilmore Girls
I'm not even getting into it here. Look on the Life After 208 blog later today for my huge, blow-out review.

The Office
Delightful! Very nice, I like it when the show is about horrendously boring stuff but it's still really fun to watch. I never noticed before, but it's great how the other girl is just like Pam, but dumber and a little bit hotter. She's the perfect Pam-subsitite for Jim's life.

-OH MY GOD, STOP THE PRESSES-
I just found out there's ham and cheese in my croissant. Awesome!
-Continue-

Morning Cartoons
I've decided to start getting up like ten minutes earlier and, instead of wasting ten minutes in the morning, I'll waste TWENTY minutes, and watch cartoons! I'll be dvr-ing Cartoon Network anime junk to watch. Maria and I finally watched this really strange show called (I am not kidding) Bobo-Bo Bo-BoBoBo. Or something very very close to that. We did not choose to record this, it just showed up. I will not be watching that show in the morning. It was weird. From what I could tell, the premise is the usual duling idea of all the crappy cartoons these days, but they duel by seeing who can "wig out" the best. "Wigging out" is done by like putting on weird plays and seeing whose is the saddest? It makes no sense, the characters randomly don flower disguises and so forth. And the bad guys were a group of bald men who wore wigs and stole people's hair to make into more wigs. Very weird.

"See my silver box here?"

Last night was a night of ups and downs.

UP: Leaving work "early" at 5:30
UP: Comming home, and Maria making us quesidillas
UP: Driving over to Ted & Caroline's for wine night, and getting to park in their lot
DOWN: Being towed from said lot after being there for under three hours.
DOWN: Noticing my car is gone
UP: Momentary thought "maybe it's stolen and I can collect insurance - new car, here I come"
DOWN: Nope, towed.
DOWN: Oh, there's a huge sign that says you can't park there
DOWN: $125 to get it out of impound? Ieeeeee...
UP: At least Ted could drive me down to the lot, and Paul came along for added muscle
DOWN: Nasty part of town, sketchy impound lot, talking to a lady through a steel wall (where the title comes from)
UP: Car was fine, at least. No new dents or scratches or anything
UP: Going home, sleeping.

And now it's today. The money sucks, but it's not that much. What blows is that 1) I don't have a good place to park at Ted & Caroline's like I thought I did, 2) Everyone else feels bad about it, and 3) It made me sorta grumpy around new friends.

In another testiment to our new pals, at least three individuals offered to help pay for the ticket. Good people all around.

But today is a new day. A new day filled with hope and promise. I welcome this new day, and the Arrested Development and Gilmore Girls it brings with it.


O'Ryan out.

Oh How I Long for Burritos

I just visited www.theonion.com, and saw the "Personal of the day". It's made me really strangely angry. Join in my hatred of...


danada
"If I could be anywhere at the moment: "1940's Paris - on an overcast or rainy day, sitting in a hole-in-the-wall cafe with Camus.""

I know if I could be anywhere, I'd choose to be in a war-torn city that's either 1) Under attack, 2) Under Nazi occupation, 3) Trying to recover from years of war. Sounds awesome, let's date. Also, nice hat. And weirdly professional / boring photo. Super cool that your name is almost "you're welcome" in spanish. What on earth do I have to thank you for? And why do I hate you? Grrrrrr, I sure do, though. Feel free to comment with your own reasons to hate this lady.

Not Television
Pat and Dan visited this weekend, it was a good+ time. We saw weird-yet-fun "diverse" comedy, and played a little Smash Brothers, and generally paled around. Best Friends moment of the weekend: We all ordered the exact same thing at Charley's - Coke and a burger - except the cheese. Pat = Chedder, Dan = None, Me = American. I think that speaks volumes about our personalities.

On Sunday I attended the Windy City Rollers' derby, which was awesome. I was a little worried at first because they spent a lot of time doing introductions and bad powerpoint videos and so forth, but once the action got going it was great. The underdog team, The DoubleCrossers (who we all decided to root for) won their match, to much screaming and clapping. Then afterwards we saw a group of wanna-be-gangsters in their crapola early 90's Impalas with super blinging 20" rims peel out of a grocery store parking lot where they were hanging out* (*Notice that this is what my friends and I did when we were like 16). A guy either didn't see them or decided to be cool, and walked out into the column of the cars and almost got run over. Then he (a stereotypical Chicago tough-guy, dispite being quite tiny), and the wanna-be 50 Cent yelled at each other for a while, then parted ways. Totally awesome. There was less chance of a fight there than there was at the derby. (And there was a pretty vicious one, actually, girls kicking each other with roller skates! Jeez!)

My boss / co-worker / whatever John is in Italy this week, meaning I have to run all the bids and do everything this week. Not a big deal, but I do have to turn ads off at midnight and on at 7am every day, which is annoying. The bankruptcy law also changes Monday (we do a lot with Bankruptcy lawyers), so this week will probably hold some craziness.

Television
I have to remember what all we watched over the last three days. There's been quite a bit.

Lost
Great episode, there's so much going on. I finally got to read all the emails from Jess and Kraft and Judkins. Their emails tend to make the episodes even better, as they raise so many questions and point out stuff I never noticed. I don't really feel like doing my usual "Dave's thoughts on Lost" this week, but there's a lot to say. I'm looking forward to having a quieter week this week than last, so we should get to watch Lost right away on Wednesday!

The West Wing
We just watched this last night - pretty good. A whole episode with no president and no CJ and no Leo, but the new characters do a pretty good job. I like how they're showing the day-to-day of the campaign, I have no idea if it's accurate or not, but I enjoy it.

The Office
A decent episode with a funny premise. Not the greatest show of all time, but I always like seeing it. Maybe we can get some more movement on the Jim loves Pam front next week.

The Badgers and The Packers
Clearly this needs its own section. Woe is me, people! Woe is me! Every year the Badgers look fantastic, then we play NW and this group of nerds beats us! Every year! It looked like we'd cap off a great come back, but alas Stocco decided to throw an interception instead. It was a good game, but the point is that it shouldn't have been a good game. We should have absolutely destroyed NW. Oh well, fun to watch, at least. I just hope our ranking doesn't take a nose dive after that one.

The Packers totally beat the arf out of New Orleans, but I did not get to see it. Damn this Chicago television and its lack of Packers! I just read the recap on espn, looks like Davenport is down for the season, which is really bad. That guy was an excellent blocking back (my Mom credits him as being the best player on the team). It looks like they had really good defense, and put together a couple of good offensive drives. Without seeing it, I can't really say if Favre is back or not, but this is certianly a good sign if anything. I hope I get to see some Packers in the weeks to come. You'd think with all the money I give my cable company they'd hook me up with some football, eh?

A Picture Share!

Look, I'm Pfeiffer!

A Picture Share!

LOST TONIGHT

Not Television
Last night we had Ted and Caroline over for the Astros game, which was a good time. The game was dull, but those two are good stuff. I made us a hodgepodge dinner of chicken fingers, french fries and buiscuts. I made a sandwhich out of chicken, a biscuit and ranch, which was pretty good. We also had no clean plates, so we ate from bowls. I like that when I make dinner it's random foods in inappropriate dishes, but when Maria makes food it's gourmet and nicely presented. I'm lucky she's around, or I'd probably die of malnourishment (I figure it was only Qdoba and Red Robin that kept me going before).

Work is busy and fun lately, we're launching a new site suddenly, so I have one big project to work on (instead of lots of little things to do). My boss, John, is leaving for Italy for a week (which sounds awesome), so I'm sort of running the show next week. I did so once before, but this time it's right before the bankruptcy law change, so there's going to be tons to do. It should be interesting.

Dan and Pat are also visiting this weekend, they arrive tonight. Mantsch is also around Sunday, we're going to the Roller Derby. This weekend will be very busy/fun. I don't have my lazy nights at home as often as I was expecting, which is probably a good thing. Just so long as I can find time every now and again to cram in my...

Television
Tonight, after work, Maria and I will FINALLY get to watch Lost. And I will get to watch The OC, and The Office. This orgy of television is owed to having friends over the last two nights, and thus not having time to watch our TV. I also still have last week's West Wing to watch, which I may try to cram in as well. Dan and Pat should be getting to our place around 10 or so, so we should have a few good hours to watch TV (and perhaps make chicken & mashed potato burritos?..)

I am excited for the next 84 hours.

The Best Weather Ever

It's so nice outside. I wore a sport coat today, and I look like I'm either going to play in a band or run a business. The hillarious part is that I'm doing neither! I am constantly fooling everyone who sees me when I'm outside, and they have no idea. Take that, you pile of suckers.

Not Television
Last night was videogame night, which consisted of an awful lot more watching baseball than usual. It was fun, we went on Halo and got killed by people who were much better than us. I really might have to buy a GameCube. I want to play Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Super Smash Bros, Zelda, etc. You can get a used system for quite cheap. (Now that I think about it, a little Zelda sounds fantastic.)

We also got Art of Pizza last night. What a great place. The delivery was really slow again (AoP is off it's game in that department lately), but the pizza is so delicious. I'm not sure what we'll eat during the Astros game tonight. Oh the things I get excited about...

Television
Very oddly the only television I watched last night was baseball. We saw the right inning of the sox on sox matchup, which was exciting (the inning in which the sox of the white variety scored three runs after a terrible error by the sox v. red). Tonight we're watching the Astros game, at which point I'll have watched more baseball than I have in the last four months.

Hopefully tonight, otherwise tomorrow, we will finally watch Lost. I've been recieving emails talking about it and how great it is, and it's all I can do not to read them. I'm looking forward to seeing what all the hoopla is about!

A Funny Thing Happened

I think I'm starting to like Chicago.

I've always liked what goes on in Chicago - I like Maria, I like our apartment, I like my job, having friends visit, seeing shows, driving up to Evanston, etc. But the city itself has always felt like an obstacle to overcome; something that got in the way of all that good stuff. Several things seem to have come together to break that view.

The first is the coming of autumn. Chicago in the summer is a lot like other places in the summer, but muggier and full of people who are in bad moods because it's hot and muggy. It's looking like fall in Chicago will significantly alter the feel of this town, and I'm liking the change.

The second component was my recent trip to Minnesota. This is the first trip of any heft I've taken since moving here, and I was alone. This meant that coming home Monday was my first time coming back to Chicago when Chicago was the place I live, where my stuff is, and where Maria was waiting for me. This homecoming nestled quietly into my head, and I didn't really notice it at the time.

Thirdly, we now have friends who live here and friends who live right in our neighborhood. Besides being our first friends who we met in town, these are the first friends we've had who are here permanently. It was awesome having Pat around, but he was always a summer resident, we knew he was moving away. This alters the dynamic from "I live in Chicago, all of my friends live out of state." To, "I live in Chicago with some of my friends." It makes me part of a group here, rather than an outcast from a group elsewhere. Having everyone I knew live elsewhere before just made me want to leave all the time. The greatness of having friends around makes me several times more excited about friends potentially moving here. I bet Pat (hopefully) living here will rock the socks off everything. Seriously.

Finally, I think I was being stubborn in my impression of the city. It was a lot different, living here. I still love Madison, and enjoy the more relaxed pace of life that it offers, but I don't mind/notice the hustle so much now. My standards have adjusted, which makes everything easier. I'm even starting to take some pride in this city, which I think is linked to finding nice people here, and my impression of the residents of Chicago changing drastically for the better. When people ask me if I like Chicago, I launch into some explination of how the city isn't my favorite, but I like everything about it, and now I realize that's just dumb. There are a few things I don't love about living here, but largely I just didn't want to like the city.

So here I am, Chicago, finally giving you a real chance. Wow me.

Screaming into a Pillow

Not Television
Not very much happened outside of television last night. I got home late (as I overslept, so stayed late at work), Maria made us a really good dinner of pasta with meat sauce, and we sat down to watch us some tv. I noticed our landlord, Cozma, patched up our porch a little bit - that's nice. Tonight is the inaugural gaming night in Chicago, and tomorrow the same gang is coming over to watch the Astros game, and then on Friday Pat and Dan arrive for a weekend visit. Crazy! But the good kind of crazy.

Television
Gilmore Girls:
We all know what last night was. Last night was Gilmore Girls, specifically an episode of Gilmore Girls I gave a 66% chance of containing a reconciliation between Rory and Loreli. This, of course, did not happen. It came so close on multiple occasions, I held out hope literally until the credits rolled. I don't know about Squish, but I screamed into a pillow when Loreli and Rory were looking at each other right before that commercial break. The pain of the show is made worth it by memories like when Loreli proposed to Luke. The pay off from this will be of a magnitude previous believed impossible to create using human means.

The episode was fantastic, funny stuff, plots actually moved forward quite a bit, but more importantly both Loreli and Rory finally admitted how much they miss the other, and the first baby steps towards getting back together were made. I love how Rory is slowly (painfully slowly) realizing how sucky her new life is, how she seems to be getting fedup with Logan's crap and how seeing Lane made her realize how much she missed being home and the way things used to be. We miss it too, Ms. Gilmore.

I am afraid I must revise my previous estimated time of make-up. My previous estimate would dictate the make-up will happen by the middle of next week's episode. I have to say, judging from the scenes from next week, Rory is about to confront some serious shit, and straighten some stuff out, but will not be making up with her mother in the first half. My new estimate is as such: .9 - 2 episodes from now. I hold out hope that they may be friends again next week, like in the very last scene hopefully. Otherwise I put forth they will be happily back at Luke's the week after next. I'm thinking they will probably put the big reconciliation moment at the end of an episode, like Rory walks in the door and that's the end of the episode or something along those lines, so it'll probably be the end of one of the next two episodes. I hope they don't push it farther than that, as I almost died after this week.

Furthermore, regarding Gilmore Girls, I am becoming one with the show. While watching the part where Loreli picks up the tape to watch it, I yelled, "No! You call her!" And good lord, Loreli actually did it. Of course, Rory's number had changed, but that does not take away from the fact that I ordered Loreli and she obeyed.

Arrested Development
We also watched Arrested Development ("Hey, that's the name of the show!") last night - what a freaking genius episode. The face Buster makes after he karate chops the seal backpack on Rita's back was the funnies thing I've seen in ages. For some reason we got no Office last night (did my dvr miss it, or did it not air?), but this episode of Arrested Development made up for it. The perfect ramp-up for Gilmore Girls. Seems like the show is sort of shifting the hillarity from the present plot line to refrences to other things (sort of Family Guy style), but they also keep up with the incredibly complex weaving of stories. This show can do it all.

The surrogate for the Dad was great, the way the Dad's little side plot with the balloons was always there, but never the focus, and the slo-mo replay of Buster accepting his medal??? HA HA HA HA, "Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank yoooo-." I'm going to have to watch this again tonight. Let's not forget the montage of Michael's old girlfriends:




When he walks over to her after dancing, oh my lord... Just looking at these pictures kill me. Oh, and I finally found a picture of the coin suit on David Cross:

My point is that Arrested Development has found a way to become even funnier, to the extent that I feel like I need to watch the show several hundred times to get all the funniness it has to offer. Bravo, Arrested Development, bravo.

Saturday Night Live:
Finally, I would like to officially ring the death bell for Saturday Night Live. I know most people did so years ago, but I held out hope - it seemed there was always someone on there that just kept it scraping by (Tracy Morgan, Will Ferrell, the combo of Horatio Sanz and Jimmy Fallon made me laugh). This past weekend Steve Carrell hosted. I thought (and wrote somewhere) that if anyone alive on the planet could actually make an episode of SNL good it would be Steve Carrell (and pairing him with Kany West doesn't hurt). The show was awful. Maybe two entertaining moments in the whole thing. Hell, they even put Horation Sanz, my guiltiest of pleasures, on Weekend Update, and it was atrocious. Kanye West was dragged down as well, by putting him through a horrendous (and long) skit before he could perform.

So goodbye, SNL. Perhaps you will awake once again someday, perhaps when Matthew Craig is on you. But until that day, you suck.

The Green Bay Packers

The Packers
Let me just talk about the Packers game last night for a while. I believed again. For about a half hour the Packers were going to win the Superbowl. There it was, Favre, not so much a man as a force of nature, defying probability and the laws of physics. He was running, receivers seemed to jump randomly in the air and balls would stick to them like Velcro. He stopped being Brett Favre, interception machine extraordinaire, and became Brett Favre, one man football team. If you missed it, let me give you a quick run down of the last five minutes of last night's game.

After being down 23-7, the Packers have come back to within 11. Five minutes left in the game. Not very likely, right? Well buckle up, because for some reason this is when Favre decides to shake off the dust of the last five years. No receivers - all but three are injured. Three! And they run three receiver formations CONSTANTLY. These guys are running the 40 yard dash on every single play, they're exhausted, but they're made of electricity. They can't stop running. They beat their coverage over and over again. Incomplete pass? Fuck it, let's run the same play again, I'll beat the guy this time. And they did it. No offensive line - two offensive linemen went down this game, including Flanagan, one of the anchors of the line. Favre was scrambling every play, but no one could touch him. The line even caught the energy - getting Favre time when he needed it towards the end. Everything was clicking. I thought Sterling Sharpe was going to trot out to fill in on a few plays. Buba's out? Put in Chewy, before he did bad things to little girls. That drive started with five minutes left and ended with a ridiculous pass to the end zone on fourth down with three and a half minutes to play. Still down by five, the Packers pull off a beautiful 2-point conversion, something they could never have done in any other game of the last four years. That's what solidified it for me. The swagger was back, the Packers could do anything. Favre ran around, Driver looked pissed and I lept about in my den screaming (thankfully no one else was around). Down by three, three and a half minutes to play, the Packers D steps to the line and shuts down a Caroline offense that's put 32 points on the board. Three and out - they have to punt. I couldn't believe it was really happening, they even got a decent punt return. Favre steps back out onto the field, and the Carolina crowd is dead. Ahman Green isn't even a factor anymore as Favre starts hitting guys again; I swear, he's throwing balls to hot dog vendors and cheerleaders. I heard he threw to like 10 receivers in that game - while only having three guys to line up outside. But a couple of incomplete passes and a short pass over the middle later, it's 4th and three. Any other game of the year, I know it's over - The Packers haven't pulled through in the clutch for several seasons - but I saw that 2-point conversion, and that touchdown pass on fourth down. This is a guaranteed complete pass; this may even end the game right here - Driver breaks a pass for fifty yards and the celebration begins. But no, a pass over the middle to Driver falls incomplete. My brain didn't understand - I looked for a flag for at least a minute afterwards. It was over, Favre was shaking hands with the Carolina Defensive Line. Unbelievable.
(Favre talks with former teammate Mike Wahle after the game)
This game was heart breaking, but also the best NFL game I've watched in years. Maybe it was just the beginning, maybe Favre's really back and they'll go 12-4. I sure hope so, as I enjoy jumping up and down and screaming.

Not Television
Other than the game, last night was also Wine Night numero tres! Ole! Very nice night, amazing food, a great apartment (Caroline hosted in her super sweet pad), and it was only a ten minute walk away to boot! Plans have been set for not only videogames this week, but watching baseball as well. So the week is suddenly full of good stuff - though Maria and I will have to find time to watch our television. I'm sure we'll find a way...

My phone (AKA my alarm clock) was still on silent from the wedding, so I slept until 9 this morning. Which was bad, of course, but also totally awesome. I got to work late because of it, but at least I'm well rested!

Television
I'm finally caught up on Prison Break now. I'm still enjoying it, though I constantly feel like it may slip away at any moment. There was a good twist over the last two episodes, when the main character (whose name I don't even know) comprimises the plan by going to save his girlfriend, the prison doctor. (Who is also the govenor's daughter, the one man who can pardon his brother... how convienent!) It also turns out both of the brothers can fight like monsters, which is cool, I don't mind that - one's on death row, and the other was planning on comming to prison, so I suppose he would take fighting lessons. The plot outside the prison is boring though, I hope that gets better. Looks like it probably will, with secret service guys pointing guns at kids and whatnot.

Reportedly my parents are now hooked on Lost (they're watching the first season on DVD and taping the second season until they're caught up). That's awesome, my parents and I haven't loved the same show since Star Trek: The Next Generation. I can't wait to go home for Thanksgiving and have really long conversations about it with them and confuse everyone else!

Tonight we'll watch Arrested Development and Gilmore Girls. God save the television.

Kris' Wedding Weekend

(I love this picture)
In what will almost certianly become the most blogged-about weekend in recent memory, Kris and Jes got married yesterday. Amazing weekend. Seriously, everything I was hoping it would be. (except maybe those movies. More on that later.) It was great seeing everyone and getting to talk to people I haven't really spoken to in a long long time. Friday night was just the sort of debauchery you need every once in a while, Saturday was a delightful day full of Haydens and DMD (Diet Mountain Dew). And Sunday was the wedding. Let's start from the beginning.

Friday night, I waited for Halibus at the airport and got to catch up with him. Dave hasn't changed, still a really nice guy, easy to hang out with, but apparently he's also a supergenius now, as he's getting his masters in materials engineering from Purdue. We arrived at Joe's and hung out with Joe and Bri for a bit, then Paal, Kris, Chris, Pat, Mark, Pat, and a whole bunch of Kris' friends showed up and we commenced drinking out of Joe's four little shot glasses. It was fun, the whole concept of hanging around and doing nothing but drinking hasn't come up in my life for quite a while. We hit the bars and showed Kris a good time, and generally made asses of ourselves. No one got hurt and no one embarassed themselves, so it was a great night.

Saturday the folks in the wedding had a rehershal dinner, so we watched football (Badgers kicked it quite well), then we headed to Big 10 for some delicious morning-after-drinking sandwiches. Afterwards Pat and I picked up Lauren (Pat's sister who is attending U of M now), and we HIT THE THEATERS! Polley joined us for the first half of our double header. See the Life After 208 blog for reviews of the movies we saw (to be posted later). I don't even want to start in on it here, as it would never do these films justice. But suffice to say, afterwards we got some BK and I got to see Chris' new place, then it was time for bed.

Sunday featured an amazing sleeping in session, followed by getting ready for the wedding. We headed out to "The Caves" (which is actually a cave that's been finished and made into a restaraunt), and met up with everybody out there. It was great getting to talk to Jess and Chris for a while, I've never really hung out with Jess before. Also, the suprise visit by Jean was out of this world. The ceremony was sweet and concise, followed by a really truely great dinner, and a little something we like to call CAVE TOUR! Whereas most cave tours I've ever been on feature things like bats, pools of amazingly clear water, and rock formations, this cave tour featured a fake tommy gun, a basketball hoop, fake cave carvings made by both the History Channel and Kevin Garnett, a pizza hut garbage can, a smaller cave full of really old garbage, and a baby that made noises. It was sort of dull, but also sort of charming. So after that we danced a bit, I tried to break Chris' glasses (and failed), I inadvertantly started a congo line (lame), and then we took off. That night featured a brief stint in the hot tub and four hours of sleep.

This morning Halibus and I got up at 4:30 and headed into the airport. Unfortunately my flight was delayed an hour, so I spent a total of about 2 or 3 hours playing Advance Wars in the airport. They totally sold out the flight attendants, too, they announced that they were just waiting for the flight attendants at least three times. "We have our captain, we have a co-pilot, the plane is ready to go, but we're waiting for our flight attendants." Ouch.

Anyways, now I'm home (at work, actually), and very much looking forward to seeing Maria tonight and going to wine night. That and going to bed. And the Packers game. Bravo, weekend, you were just as good as I'd hoped.