Delayed Gratification

Video Games
So I did, in fact, get my Xbox 360 yesterday. Which is awesome. The games look amazing (high def is fantastic), and the two I have played (Project Gotham Racing and Perfect Dark Zero) are both a lot of fun. The "dashboard" interface is really nice as well, and I'd say they've actually succeeded in making this thing more than a game console. You can download movies and music, talk to friends, all that good stuff. And best of all, it's easily accessible mid-game, even. Just push the X button and it'll ask if you want to leave your game. Pretty snazzy.

Unfortunately, the system I got is one of the few ones out there with a memory problem (not the over heating problem that is plauging so many users), meaning my games lock up, especially when loading new levels or tracks or whatever (Perfect Dark Zero freezes everytime I try to ride the elevator up (Elevator rides are classic loading times, for those not familiar)). I was impressed by Microsoft's tech support, who I spoke to this morning. They're sending me a box to send them my Xbox in, and they'll fix it and send it back. All the shipping is paid for by them, all over night, and can all be handled from home. The whole process is supposed to take a week or so. So while it blows that I have to get this thing repaired, I knew that was a real danger when buying a first-generation console. I very much look forward to playing the second level of Perfect Dark Zero.

Not Video Games
The result of me going out to buy games, playing games, and fighting with my defective Xbox was a night far to lacking in quality Maria+Dave+TV time. Tonight we shall make up for it. New Lost, dinner, Maria, a couch, sounds like a great evening.

A Morning of Bad News - Getting Better

I'm having a morning of slightly frustrating stuff, which is beginning to wash away.

Annoying Things Thus Far:

Actually last night, but we got our electric bill and its five times the usual ammount. I was very concerned that the heat was actually electric, and we had gotten royally screwed by our landlord.

I woke up and checked on the electric bill numbers (checking the meter, etc), and everything seemed to check out; further convincing me we were about to head into a monumental battle with our landlord.

I stopped by Sears on the way to work to see if they happened to get any XBoxes, and was given an awful lot of attitude by the guy working there. And no, no new xboxes.

I got to work and found I can once again not access the new file server IT setup (poorly).

Those things getting resolved:

Maria took it upon herself to handle the electric bill issue. It is incredibly nice to not have to worry about some things because Maria gets them. Very nice to know someone has my back.

Maria just emailed me and told me the electric company saw that they screwed up, and will send us a new bill. (phew!)

I realized as I left that that dude was about my age and working behind a counter at Sears. He may be a jerk, but he's a jerk with a crappy job. Point: Dave.

Well, the server still doesn't work, but they're getting us the files we need, and all of us non-IT folks get to complain about the IT guys.

Wow, I just realized how very much that last thing sounds like something a person working in an office says. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Moving on, last night was Wine Night, which was very nice. Caroline and Ellery (I'm not sure I'm spelling his name right) hosted in their cozy apartment (which has the added bennifit of being within walking distance). I was really in the mood to make a late night of it, but for some reason I was dead tired. I suppose I was still recovering from the weekend of driving, perhaps. I'm feeling much better rested now. This weekend should be fun; video games on Friday, bowling on Saturday, possible a movie on Sunday. I'm looking forward to a weekend in town. Things are looking very much up.

A Thanksgiving Feast of a Blog

Hello one, hello all! I hope everybody had a fantastic Thanksgiving and is now home safely. Mine was very nice, but also quite a bit of time in a car. I love that gas is cheap and that my iPass continues to kick ass.

The Weekend
Maria and I visited Bfield for a couple of nights, which was very nice. We got to see Harry, Pat and Chris and Molley in Brammer's basement for a bit, and even got to play Mario Party (gasps). I very much enjoyed a little old-fashioned basement time fun. Leon!?! lived up to the hype, and sodas were drank. Two thumbs up. The actual Thanksgiving festivities were nice - lunch was awesome, my grandparents were lovely, and my cousins and I actually spoke a little bit (which is not the norm). My grandpa seemed especially lucid during their visit, which made me very happy. Good family time.

Thanksgiving night we attended a late-night showing of Harry Potter, and were graced by the company of Girzle O'Ger! Great to see Dan. I thought the movie was not as good as it could have been. The problem was a complete lack of pacing. The movie felt like a two-and-a-half hour long "Last week on Harry Potter" recap. It just went from even to event at a pace that didn't allow for any moments of peace, or even character development. Maria and I actually just watched Harry Potter 3 last night, and what makes that so much better is that they take time to have some mood, some nice little character interactions, things of that nature. The most recent Potter didn't even feature the usual journey to the school or the full opening ceremonies. It was like if you asked me to describe the book in under a minute and I just rambled, "They went to the quiddich world cup, and then they were attacked, and then they went to hogwarts, and then..." I feel a bit robbed.

The next morning I opted out of the day-after-thanksgiving shopping and we headed off to Iowa. We visited with Maria's parents and brother, enjoyed "ham balls" (another of Mrs. Parrott's various delicious inventions), and relaxed. Saturday we ate a lot more, played with dogs, met Helen and John (Maria's best friend and her husband), and went out for some drinks with a large mob of Iowa City townies. Comming home on Sunday wasn't too bad at all (traffic-wise), thanks to the magic of the iPass, and we plopped down on the couch to eat pizza, watch the good Harry Potter movie, and see a couple episodes of Law & Order. Nice, nice, nice.

At work today we moved into the new office, and I took a few pictures.

John and my new desks:


My new L-shaped desk:


The huge empty side of the room:


The new view of the park (pretty much the exact same):


Our new southern-exposure window looks down Michigan Ave. at the Arts Institute:


Also, while poking around in my camera, I found this old picture of Arun, Harry, Pat and myself. Go ahead and soak in the blurry, dark glory of playing eucher in a trendy Hollywood bar. Hopefully New York is next up on the chopping block...

Moving Day!

Not Television
Greetings from snow-covered Chicago! (In all honesty, the snow has all melted in the last hour.) It turns out that that move I wrote about earlier (the office expansion) is happening today! I move my desk this afternoon, and our occupancy of the huge room shall begin. Also today was the first time in weeks I stopped to get myself food on the way in, and there were also donuts waiting in the office! Oh, Thanksgiving eve, you bring so much wonder and suprise.

Everyone is straggling in late, and the office is relaxed and feeling sort of like we're all already on vacation. It's a bit of a shame, as today we finally have our new forms testing full-tilt, and I'm looking forward to really building out those reports. I think I'll have a while to work on that before we move, though.

Television
The OC
I finally watched this episode from last week. I was happy to see that things were calmer than the preview seemed, and I liked the heavy focus on Seth, but all in all the show is still a boring pile of pretties. I wanted Luke to come back last night again - when Ryan was all worried about fighting that guy. Remember when the two of them fought the entire baseball team or whatever together? Super sweet.

I work at the best place ever -or- I am an unsuccessful nerd

So yesterday I was told by my boss and his boss that I was to take as much time off as I needed today to secure an Xbox. Nerds helping nerds. Unfortunately I was into work by 10 this morning, empty handed. I was hoping that weather I got one or not, the experience would provide an interesting story. As this is not something I would ever do without good reason (like being told to take off work to do it), I decided to go all out. I planned my route, where I'd stop, checked when stores opened, all that jazz. Unfortunately, it turns out Best Buy sold their stock at a strangely unadvertised midnight opening, and every other store I checked had sold out before I got there. Underwhelming.

The only interesting bit was when I arrived at Target 15 minutes before they opened and there was a small group of dudes. I guess Target had given out tickets to the first 20 guys or so, which gauranteed them a system, and the rest of the line went home. Several of the guys offered to sell me their tickets for $100 (or as low as $75), but thankfully I still have some sense about me.

So I came to work an hour late, and got to enjoy an extremely fast and empty train ride downtown. I wish I could come to work an hour late every day - it was lovely. I'll just have to wait a few weeks to get my hands on my new toy. Until then, I guess I'll just push up my giant glasses and play Urban Dead.

Another Weekend Down

Not Television

Friday night Maria and I met the usual AIC crowd for drinks at a place called The Lodge - a somewhat cozy little bar which is somewhat downtown, and full of somewhat handsy middle aged professionals. Top handsy moments: 3) Various girls got a bit felt up as men passed closer than needed. 2) One girl accidentally touched a dude passing her, mistaking her for her boyfriend, and the guy & his friend got a big excited and almost made too big of a scene about it. 1) A woman took a step and a half and fully extended her arm to pinch Ted's ass. All in all, a strange ammount of physical contact. Also on Friday, I saw the first AIC Extra Dave: a student journal nammed after me. Really.

(Taken from my Appearance in Mr. 3000)

Saturday I drove up to Madison. First, Doofhouse, Packard and I went to Red Robin and enjoyed decent service with delicious food and hugely satisfying burgers. I am still enjoying the mass of mints I grabbed on the way out. I missed Red Robin so very very much, and it was great to stuff myself with fries and meat.

After lunch I attened a full day of Atlas activities. Advanced class from 4-6, shows, then some dinner and Catan. Class was fun, the kids are all comming along very well, and I like the little crowd they've formed. Good stuff. They also played with us in shows, which were small but fun, and it was exciting to play with the up and commers who I hadn't played with before. Dinner was highly anticipated, and consisted of good old fashioned Madison favorite Glass Nickle. They really do a good job of providing a mass of food of varied types and having it all be pretty deece. Then we played Catan on Neil's awesome new hand-made Catan board! Here are some pics. It's all Maple, stained different colors. The cards are laminated, the pieces stored in cloth bags with draw strings. Even the numbers were hand cut and stamped.



Sunday was kicked off by a strangely bad visit to The Original Pancake House in Monona. Rude service all around, only deece food, and $3.25 for two sausage patties made it qutie off-putting. The manager told us off for not answering when our number was called, despite us standing literally two feet from the counter for at least twenty minutes and not hearing a thing. (We had been told it was a 45 minute wait. We got cash and waited outside, and moved inside after about 25 minutes. Waaaaaay before the estimated time.) In an attempt to not just rant about the ammount this pisses me off, I'll move on. I drove home after that, and Maria and I hung out, ordered some burgers, and watched The Return of the King, which I had been hankering for. I like that movie a lot. During the drive home, I was enjoying my new iPass immensely, and I thought, "Hey, this might actually end up being one of my best purchases ever." Which spawned this:

Best Purchases Ever

iPass: It feels like this cuts 15 minutes off my drive to Madison. It saves me 50% on tolls, and even has a reassuring little blue light that shows me everything is working properly. I love watching the suckers wait in line as I cruise by at 30 mph. This is very much like my...

Train Pass: It's on the list for the joy of walking right through the turnstyles, without having to put money on a card like all the suckers I see every day. Plus I use my montly pass enough to make it actually cost less than using cash, all with the bennifit of looking super cool. I like purchases which continue to produce returns well after the fact.

My TV: I love my tv. Lately I've been thinking perhaps I should have gotten one with a reflective screen (like a Toshiba or a Mitsubishi), but I really like that I can sit next to a huge window and not see it reflected in the screen. My TV is awesome.

(Honorable Mention) Pizzaz Jr.: Mootzger's Pizzaz changed our lives. Upon moving away I was terrified of life sans Pizzaz, but Maria came through in a huge and psychic way, getting me a fresh new Pizzaz! Oh how I love it. This, coupled with the toaster oven, rule the kitchen. This is an honorable mention only because I didn't actually buy it.

If I felt like writing more, the list would probably include: Air Conditioners, Laptop, XBox, iPod, and the box of Popsicles we're still working on from summer.

Television
MNF
I'll be missing most of the Monday Night Football game tonight for Wine Night. Perhaps I'll try to catch a few minutes now and again. The Packers are playing the Vikings, and I predict some serious payback asskicking. Gado's smash-mouth running, and Culpepper's injury will give Farve just the canvas he needs to smear Minnesota's embarassing team all over the Lambeau. I wish I could watch the whole thing, but I expect I'll at least get to see the end.

Otherwise
Nothing got watched this weekend, except The Eyes of Nye, which I recommend to anyone who likes science shows. I will be catching up on The OC soon, and enjoying Gilmore Girls and Lost later this week.

Arrested Development
R.I.P. I didn't want to believe it. But the ratings just aren't there, apparently America is that dumb. I hope to see this picked up by another network, or perhaps a cable channel. (Hey, Comedy Central, you want something funny?) As long as they keep the cast and don't try to change it, the show could thrive somewhere else. I've read that Fox has offically stopped production, and has not ordered any new episodes for winter. All indications are that the show won't be ordered again, and then will be let go next season. Hopefully a new deal can be worked out after that, I'd hate to see AD just die with no end.

Anyways, three day (or less) week, people! Enjoy it! I'll see many of you soon.

A Poor Excuse for a Panorama

Here's a rough estimation of what I see from sitting down at my desk (sorry, it's dark in here at the moment, and my screen is making the camera go even darker):



From Left to Right:
That's where Michael sits - he took off early.
That's Chris - a designer.
That's where John sits, but he's off interviewing people right now.
The edge of my desk / start of the window.

And this is what I'm seeing outside my window right now.


It looks really cool when it's really dark. Like this:

Friday DIE DAY!

Ah, the weekend, she is about to begin. I find myself at work after a pretty slow day, with very little to do. I have several projects I'm working at, but they've all lined up such that I'm waiting for answers back / other people to finish their work on all of them. This means that early next week will be extra busy, but for right now I'm taking a deep breath and looking a the shadows of buildings on buildings.

I just found out that we are moving some people around. We were planning on getting a new office a few blocks away, but due to some uncertianty about a specific certification we are counting on to make us a shitload of money, the bosses are playing it safe for now and simply expanding to a third floor of the building we're currently in. This marks the company growing from one story to three during my time here (a little under six months). The move basically means the developers, designers, and possibly the QA guys from this floor move up a floor, the online marketing guys (John and I) move over a room into the the giganto room the developers currently call the "war room" (which currently houses around eight guys), and Kevin gets the room I'm currently in for his office.

I'd estimate the room I sit in now is something like 10'x15', with a closet taking up a corner of it. We have four people in here at the moment (a new sales guy spilled over into our room for a couple of weeks until the move). The room we'll be moving into is around 20'x20' and initially it will be John and I. We are seriously talking about getting a foosball table. At the very least I will be investing in some raquette balls. Why all the room? Well, John is currently interviewing for a SEO person and a content writer. They will join us in there. We'll also be hiring a bidder or two sometime down the road, and we'll also probably share the office with what was only described to me as "an admistrator not directly related to us". That would bring the number of people up to seven or eight, and only four in the forseeable future. It's going to be sweet to have more room. (Though I must say I enjoy my little corner once I get settled in here.)

Also spinning around in my mind is that my "six month review" is comming up, and with all these new online marketing folks being hired, I'm about to get a significant senority jump. Having never had a real job before, and having never worked at such a small office, I really don't know what these two events combining will have on me, my reasponsibilities, my pay, etc, etc, but I hope it equates to good things. It certianly seems like it should. Even if things stay the same, I'm pretty jazzed about being able to work barefoot.

-Dave

Hats are People Too

And don't you forget it.

Brrrrrrrr

They opened the ice skating rink in Millennium park today. I'm told the base under the rink is chilled as well, which would be necessary to keep the ice frozen during some of the warmer days we've had lately.

Sim City Style

A Nerd's Dream Week

Not Television
I am a nerd. Big time. And as such, I am very psyched for two upcomming events.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Probably the best Harry Potter book yet becomes what has been hyped as the best Harry Potter movie yet. Carrying a PG-13 rating, and warnings that it might scare little kids, I am very excited. The first Harry Potter movie was pretty bad. The second wasn't much better. But the third started getting it right - much darker, much more serious, it felt less like a children's story, and more like a fantasty that adults could like too. I am very excited to catch this one - the trick will be finding a showing that won't be full of chattly little kids, though. I'm thinking it will be best to go to a 9pm showing so as to minimize the number of youngins. (Nothing against kids, but you don't want to watch a movie in a theater full of 'em.) I'm looking at Thanksgiving night as potentially a good time to see this. Ultra screen, at Westown, late night, sounds great. Go out afterwards and try to find any restaurant open for a bite to eat? Faaaantastic! Then, of course we'll need to get to bed early so we can get up for Best Buy's day after thanksgiving sale (if anything good happens to be available).

X-Box 360
Speaking of fighting crowds at Best Buy, the X-Box 360 comes out on Tuesday. While this is currently the next-gen console I am the least interested in, I am salivating for some good content to show off my HDTV. I am still debating if I should try to grab one right away.

There seems to be a lack of immediate "must-have" games. There are definately a few games that look great: Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing, Quake 4, Gears of War, Battlefield 2, etc. Funny that most of the games I want are first-person shooters that are going to look amazing. From what I can tell, at least a few of these will be launch titles, but there's no Halo 3 that would force me to want one the day its available.

The online compoent is also going to be great, with a much expanded "Live" system. Between the new online toys, the graphics, and a few of the games, the temptation may be too much if I see one in the stores.

The reason I would hesitate to buy on is that the system is untested. First waves of new hardware often prove buggy, plus there is some (as of now completely unfounded) speculation that the drive may be upgraded to an HDCD drive later on. Plus none of the games have been reviewed - they might all suck.

I'm guessing I should wait until after Thanksgiving at least, see what I hear about the games, then probably end up picking one up anyways. If I do that I might end up between the fist big shipment and the Christmas shipments, and may not be able to get one, though.

Chances are I'll write about how I bought one next week.

Grocery Shopping

I am going shopping tonight. This is my list thus far.
(I might be tempted to print this out and use it at the store, but you can't print a blog.)

FOR MARIA:

Milk

Egs

Monterey Jack Cheese Block

Five (5) Fuji Apples

A Loaf of Nice Bread

Frozen Veggies (Corn, Brocolli, etc)

FOR DAVE (Those of you from Bassett will recognize this.):

Like Eight (8) Pizzas

Fish

Breaded Chicken

Chicken Breast

French Fries

Soda, Soda, Soda

Motzerella Sticks

Mashed Potatoes

Stuffing

Pasta

Alfredo Sauce

Maybe some Cereal?

Pickles

Lettuce

Cheese Curds + Crackers, if Cheese Curds can be Found

Cherry frosting to go with my Cherry Chip Cake

I feel like I'm in a food rut; if you have something good to suggest, you should tell me so I can enjoy something new!

Catch Up, People

Madison Mash-Em-Up
The Madison Mash-Em-Up was a great time. I'm suprised by the lack of blog-a-tude surrounding the event, but let me be the first to say it was a fun weekend. Between Qdoba, bars, The Original Pancake House, Glass Nickle, and Hawks, much of the weekend revolved around food and drink. And lord knows how much I love my food and drink.

Card Games
"The Boys" sat around a table at a bar supposedly not named after a newscaster and invented several genius card games. Polley, we'll need the story you concocted posted at some point. It was good to see the spirit of sitting around in basements just killing time is still very much alive, and can be transplanted into bars.

Atlas
Atlas is small, man. All the people leaving one by one over the last few months has really taken its toll on the crew. Had Maria and I not been there to play the 8 o'clock show on Saturday they would have been down to a 1 on 1 theatersports show. I would have loved it (Phil vs. Neil? Get outta here.) but I have a feeling most would not be so enthralled. The incomming class seems like good stuff - some real potential there, which is good since they'll be playing very shortly, and make up about half of the company.

Harry Brammer and his Basement
It is awesome to have Harry back in the area for a few months. I am very much looking forward to a week from Wednesday, tentatively scheduled to be the first night in Harry's basement in a looong time. I can't wait for some Ken Griffy Jr. baseball, Mario Tennis, chips, sodas, and sitting on stools.

Saw II
I'm pretty sure we ruined this movie for anyone who thought it was actually good or scary. But laughter is inevitable when you show us things like a woman being thrown into a pit of hypodermic needles. That shit is funny! While this film was definately still creepy and messed up, it just didn't have that same demented, thought-out insanity the first one did. I left the first one thinking that the acting was pretty bad, but the ideas were cool. This one was a pretty standard Hollywood sequal, and nothing special. For a movie like this, being bland is much worse than being horrible. Still, we had a good time, and got to spend fifteen minutes or so talking in the hallway afterwards. In conclusion, here are some of the best quotes I can remember from Saw II:

"The only door you know how to open is between your legs."
-Big beefy guy. When he said this I totally thought those two had a history - turns out he just choose to jump straight to calling a stranger a slut. I actually got the feeling that these two were supposed to know each other throughout the movie - maybe they cut out a sub-plot?

"The only thing you people have in common is holding me back."
-Also the big beefy guy. I'm starting to notice a pattern in his sentance structure.

"Where to NOW?!?"
-Main detective dude as he punches the jigsaw killer really hard.

Television
Laguna Beach
We sure did watch an awful lot of this show. Oddly scripted, but you get the feeling that this is the sort of crap these kids would do even if it wasn't scripted. What amazes me the most about this show is that any parents would let their kids be on this. It must be annoying as hell to have camera crews around all the time, and these kids have got to have the biggest heads in the universe.

Also of note, Harry memorized all their names after two episodes.

Mash-Em-Up Day Has Arrived

Not Television
The day has finally come! I'm excited to head up to Madison tonight, and I'm leaving work an hour early to try to beat the rush (which is good, of course). We'll have to decide if I can live without a towel and Maria can survive without her school work, but hopefully we'll leave straight from the train (where the car is parked). I know it's incredibly nerdy, but I'm excited about taking a new route out of town. As I see it, we'll take Ridge up to Evanston, then take either Touhy or Howard over to 94 (depending on how busy Ridge is). This will get us on the freeway pretty far north. I'll be going with 41 to avoid the tolls, as I didn't recieve my iPass in time (boo). I'm a little concerned about taking 41, as it is pretty much a local highway, and it might be quite bogged down around rush hour. We shall see.

There is a dog in the office today. She is a little rat terrier or something, and very friendly. Everyone loves her, and she's having the time of her life. And this serves only to fuel my dog desire. (2 months...)

Last night was good, we played some Halo, and I stayed up late to catch up on the O.C. We ordered pizza from the place I had previously gotten a calzone from - their pizza is pretty good. I accidentally got us thin-crust instead of pan, though, so it could have been better. I'm concerned about the fact that I'm pretty damn tired today - I'll need to wake up tonight so we can stay out until all hours.

Television
The O.C.
Bland. I can see they're trying to reinvigorate the show with the new characters, but they're just dumb. I honestly thought they were a one-episode joke, as they're the bizarro version of the main group of friends (especially "Chilly" and Seth). Why the f did Ryan punch that dude? That made absolutely no sense at all. And why the hell did he and Summer not go to the lock-in? They continue to act like the girlfriend drama shit is more important than school, and he just got baited into punching a dude he didn't have any beef with whatsoever. It's really getting just plain dumb. What happened to Ana? She was fun. And she knew when to leave.

My advice: You need to scrap Ryan and Marissa's relationship. Everything was better when they were apart. As a couple they're just too cookie-cutter, and having stuff revolve around them automatically makes it boring. Make the show more about Seth and Summer's crazy adventures, and get a couple of new characters in there that we can love. No one is buying this "tough" public school crap. As soon as you find out they're all surfers, it's basically done. Let's move on.

I am not wearing shoes.

Not Television
Word to your mother, ladies and gentlemen. This Friday is the long-awaited Madison Mash-em-Up. I'm hoping to slide out of work around 4, so Maria and I can slip out of town a little after 5, and we can swoop into Madison around 8. We'll see how all those maneuvers work out.

It's going to be great to be back in town for a full weekend - I can't wait to spend some time just wandering around and going to Genna's and whatnot. Thanks to Pat and Mootzgorilla and Mootzgorilla's roomate and my sister for putting everybody up. Maria and I are even going to stick around for Atlas' advanced class on Sunday! Smiles for miles, baby.

I noticed a strange thing when walking up the stairs from the subway yesterday - the woman in front of me walked up stairs by planting her whole foot on each stair. Her heel would touch the step, and her weight was distributed across her whole foot (or appeared to). I realized that I go up and down stairs exclusively on my toes. I'm normally a quick stair-stepper, usually a two-at-a-time guy, but even when I'm walking behind someone slow and have to go slow I go toes-only. Does everyone else plan their whole foot? Or maybe girls do that and boys use their toes? Let me know your style.

Sometimes its fun to type with your keyboard in your lap and not let your hands rest on the keyboard.

Television
Gilmore Girls
My socks were rocked off. I really need to watch it again; it was hard to concentrate, because we had some guests over. I'll probably at least skim back through it tonight. I am definately ready to get into a new chapter of the show, so the appearance of Jess to mix it all up was more than welcome.

I'm very glad to see Rory hating her Grandma and Logan. Again, I'm not a Logan hater, but that guy's gotta go if we're ever going to get back to the good stuff. It was strange that the dog seemed to miss Rory - they've never even met. But whatever, I like the dog and I like Rory, so it makes sense that they should be friends.

And Luke at the table with the soccer team was priceless.

The Office
Continues to be great. I like the fact that I don't watch this show for the plot (specifically the plot between Pam and Jim), but that plot is always good when it comes up. Someday soon I figure they'll have an episode or two dedicated to that, but I really enjoy that the show is funny first, and has a nice little back-story to give it some structure. BIG, BIG ups to the look that Jim and Michael share after they're both sort of brushed off by their ladies. Women - yeesh.

Arrested Development
TWO new episodes this week? That was a great suprise, and both were very good. They finally confirmed that Rita is an... ahem... MR F, and the culmination of the second(?) episode with Buster and George Michael battling in Tiny Town floored me. Bravisimo!

What a Weekend

Not Television
Friday night was spent hanging around and drinking with friends at home and at the Hop Leaf (a great, but somewhat expensive & crowded, beer bar near us). Good times all around, probably the most interesting bit was Caroline explaining to me that art history folk actually graph the progression of art (like what kind of art will be popular at a given time), and can even somewhat predict what art will be popular in years to come.

Saturday I drove up to the Bfield and watched the Badgers get killed with my parents. A very rough game, but honestly pretty expected. Penn State ain't no joke. It was very nice and relaxing eating all the great food my Mom made, and just laying around with the dogs. Afterwards Pat and I hit up Mayfair for a double header. Weatherman was very enjoyable, Shop Girl was deece, but nothing great. I'll spare reviews of the movies, as Polley already took care of at least one of them. I will however point out that Point and Westown are 10 times better than Mayfair in terms of crowd noise. Mayfair was still better than most movies in Chicago, though. Shout out to Pat for his double-blind theater identification for Weatherman. It was in a weird, semi-unmarker theater that had leather seats and tables for you to eat on. Talk about SECRET POSH.

Also, far better than the movies, was the final, highly-anticipated verification that Pat is, indeed, moving to Chicago! *fireworks, parades, smiles* Sounds like he'll move down around the beginning of Feburary. I'm psyched.

Television
Family Guy
A bit hectic this week, but fun. The Stewie-provided laugh track in Stewie and Bryan's show was pure genius.

The West Wing
This was that special live debate episode. It was pretty cool, but in retrospect,a little strange. There was nothing but debate (save a very brief bit at the beginning). Without any story or other characters it became much less of a show. I think it will pay off very well in weeks to come as they disect and talk about the debate. I though that Santos won the debate, and that Vinick was defending himself a lot, but perhaps it was supposed to come across the other way, and they'll treat it differently in the show later. Hmmmm, you intrigue me, West Wing, with your stunts and your Ellen DeGeneres.

Simpsons Tree House of Horror
Hey, does anyone remember why they watch The Simpsons anymore? Man, this was awful. No funny bits anywhere, the show felt like it was written by some sort of highschool "Write Funnie!" class. In my mind this serves as a death rattle for The Simpsons. I haven't watched it in a long time, and it has long since passed as a show I consider really funny, but upon seeing a new episode (and what is a cornerstone of the Simpsons yearly run), and having it be this bad... *rattle*

You Picked the Wrong House, DEER!

Man Kills Buck With Bare Hands in Bedroom
Tue Nov 1, 4:08 PM ET

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - It looked like a crime scene, but no charges will be filed after Wayne Goldsberry killed a buck with his bare hands in his daughter's bedroom. The engagement lasted an exhausting 40 minutes, but Goldsberry finally subdued the five-point whitetail deer that crashed through a bedroom window at his daughter's home Friday.
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When it was over, blood splattered the walls and the deer lay on the bedroom floor, its neck broken.

Goldsberry was at his daughter's home when he heard glass breaking. He went back to check on the noise and found the deer.

"I was standing about like this peeking around the corner when the deer came out of the bedroom," said Goldsberry, demonstrating while peering around his kitchen wall. The deer ran down the hall and into the master bedroom — "jumping back and forth across the bed."

"I could tell he was really tearing up the place back there," Goldsberry said.

Goldsberry entered the bedroom to confront the deer and, after a brief struggle, emerged to tell his wife to call police. After returning to the bedroom, the fight continued. Goldsberry finally was able to grip the animal and twist its neck, killing it.

"He was trying to get up a corner wall and I just came in behind him and grabbed him by the horns and just started pushing down," said Goldsberry.

Goldsberry, sore from the struggle, dragged the dead animal out of the house.

Benton County Sheriff Keith Ferguson said that when he arrived he found the deer dead in the front yard. Goldsberry intended to have the deer processed for its meat.

On Monday in Pine Bluff, the principal of Coleman Elementary School rid his building of a deer by opening a door. Students were preparing for dismissal Monday when a deer crashed through a window and bounded through a hallway.

The buck floundered on the school's slick floor for about three minutes exiting via a door along the side of a hallway. Principal Bill Tietz said the deer was slightly injured from the glass and lost an antler. Tietz says the animal leapt a six-foot fence after leaving the school.

Laughs-a-Plenty

If you need a distraction, check out this, it's an archive of funny stuff people overhear in Chicago. My favorites of the moment:

Man to woman: Working with the homeless looks good on paper, but the homeless are assholes.
Woman: Well, whatever you do to the least of them, you do to Jesus.
Man: No one ever said Jesus was a motherfucker.


Guy 1 (walking a dog): Man, this dog is killing me.
Guy 2: What's going on?
Guy 1: My girlfriend put him on a special diet, and the dog food is $87 a bag.
Guy 2: $87!
Guy 1: Yeah (sigh), it's made from Kangaroo meat.


Guy: Two wrongs don't make a right!
Girl: Yeah, well, two shut ups make a shut up

Am I THAT Smart?

Not Television
I think I just finished my first crossword puzzle ever - the very first Red Eye one I ever tried. I think this probably points more towards the Red Eye crosswords being easy that me getting better at crossword puzzles. That is the single biggest thing I miss about college classes - crossword puzzles. I loved going to a total blow-off class and doing a crossword puzzle and reading horrible comics in the back of the room and still getting an A/B in the class.

The weekend begins tonight - people are comming over to play videogames and drink, and then I'm headding to Bfield! I also just got word that the Port and the Gooze are going to be there, and I am really super excited (even though I'm pretty sure they just took pity on me after my repeatedly begging them to come hang out with me). It's gonna be awwwwwwwwwesommmmmmmmmmmmme!

Television
The O.C.
I forgot this came back last night, Maria actually watched most of it with me (she normally can't stand to be in the same room as this particular show). It was sooo dull. I think this is a show that I absolutely need Dan and Laura around to enjoy. The two best parts of last night's episode: 1) They talked about Luke a lot. 2) Marissa convinces Ryan to not get a job on a fishing boat, and stay in school, because they love each other so much. Then the scenes from the next episode show her cheating on Ryan with this odd-looking new anti-ryan guy. Ohhh, O.C. (Definately second tier.)

Big Post

Hey, all. Lots to report on today.

Not Television
AdSense Riches
First, concerning this blog, remember how I put up those Google ads on the bottom a while ago? Just a quick status update there: 268 page views since putting those up, and 7 clicks on the ads (I'm pretty sure those were all me). That earned me, grand total, thus far... 75 cents! First, I'm almost positive they block the IP(s) from which I've accessed my AdSense account. I clicked on the ads twice from Maria's computer one evening, and I think it was those two clicks that earned me the 75 cents. Do me a favor, if you're here, scroll down to the bottom and click on all the ads that interest you. I'm interested to see if there's a flat rate to the payout. It's also semi-entertaining to see what ads they post, as it is related to what I write about (last time I checked they were all for pizza).

Work
I had a pretty flattering offer at work yesterday, I've been offered an SEO position here, rather than my current online marketing anaylst post. Basically an SEO person would create lots and lots of webpages to link to our existing pages to improve our natural search ranking on Google. It's esentially a job as a writer, requiring some knowledge of how the SEO game works. I've been writing stuff for various blogs, and I guess they like it. I'm not sure if I'm going to take the job or not yet - it would make me more of a seperate entitiy here, and there's a pretty good chance I'd end up with a small staff under me sometime in the next year or two, but it would also mean writing a huge number of very redundant pages for a long time. I don't need to know for a while, we won't bring the SEO position in-house for a month or two, it sounds like.

Zombie City
Is kicking ass, it's a fun diversion. My only complaint is that you can basically only play for a few minutes every morning, then you fall asleep. I'm getting close to earning my first new skill - like a kid in a candy store. (I found my first wire cutters today.)

Television
Prison Break
I watched the last two episodes last night - pretty deece. The plot outside the prison is finally somewhat interesting, and I was glad to see a little development in the main character. Still not fantastic, but definately entertaining. By far the best moment of the last two episodes: the characters outside the prison need to get out of Chicago, hide out somewhere for a while. Where do they go? F'n NEW GLARUS, WI! Haha, awesome. They can enjoy some delicious Spotted Cow while they're there, and maybe stop at the delightful little german restraunts with polka bands. I love that they're there.

West Wing
They've managed to suck me in. The show has been not all that engaging lately, but suddenly they've got me rooting for the underdog democrat, and they've setup this live episode (a debate) next week very well. I'm actually excited to watch it. It will almost certianly be exactly what you always hope to see when you watch a real presidentail debate. Until this week I really didn't care who won the campaign, and none of the characters carried any weight in my opinion. They've gotten me to put stake in the characters now, which really is the goal of any serial program. Bravo, West Wing - see YOU on the couch!

The Colbert Report
I've been watching chunks of this in the morning (and catching some on Comedy Central's new Motherload thing). It's starting to feel a groove, and is usually very funny. There have been definately lulls, though - check yesterday's Word. The best thing I've seen from this show in the last week was when Colbert had Jeff Daniels on. Jeff lives in Michgan, which Colbert didn't believe, so he grilled Daniels on the tiniest minutia from his hometown (prepped before hand by some lowly intern, most likely), until he stumbled across something Daniels didn't know. Awesome. This show has also fit into my morning ten minutes of tv watching quite well. It's a good show to watch in chunks.

The Office
GREAT episode from Tuesday. The whole thing was constantly hillarious, and the bit with Michael and Dwight fighting was great. Also a quick shout-out to Pam's stomach. (Pat - how you doing over there?) I'm glad to see how this verion keeps diverging from the British version. The BBC show is fantastic, but (obviously) it would be extremely dull if they just followed the same stories. The dynamics within the office are also becomming more and more different than the BBC show. Good stuff.

Blorgging

Not Television
I ate my last pizza last night, and I'm not grocery shopping for two more weeks. Where do all these pizzas go? I must be eating pizzas in my sleep. I'm going to have to turn to eating other foods for the next couple weeks. I'll be in Bfield on Saturday, so I'm sure my parents will feed me right, that'll get me through the massive ammount of pasta I'm about to eat. (Mmmmmmm... pasta...)

Work is going well these days, our new site is finally turning a profit, and I've been placed somewhat in charge of improving upon it. The part I'm working on hasn't started yet, but it's great to see the other changes people are making actually make a difference. I was skeptical at first - will chaning the color scheme really make the site convert much better? The answer appears to be a resounding "yes".

I'm still reading Guns Germs, and Steel, but it's starting to feel a bit like a text book (especially in that I'm having trouble staying awake when I read it). I kind of want to switch to some fiction for a while. Any good suggestions of something like The DaVinci Code, meaning it's like taking a Hollywood movie and cramming it into a novel? That's what I'm looking for at the moment.

Television
Arrested Development
Maria and I watched another couple episodes last night - and the plot inconsistancies are starting to confuse me. Maria pointed out that GOB's wife was in several episodes, then she comes back and they don't even recognize each other? I'm fine with that if the show wants to just have random stuff happen, or discount previous episodes if they see fit, but that stuff does throw me from time to time. We also recently saw back-to-back episodes where Buster reveals he's not actually in the army, and has to have GOB get him a fake army uniform, and then an episode which begins a run of him really being in the army. I now notice both of these things involved GOB. Perhaps they are but grand illusions.

Drew Carey's Green Screen Show
Oh Collin Mockery (sp?), you poor man. You're legitimately funny and enjoyable to watch, and you get stuck on this piece of junk. Even your tall buddy Ryan has left you. This show has an interesting premise (I never saw it before two days ago) - take an improv show, put it infront of a green screen, then animate in props and sets and so forth. Some of the stuff is kind of cool, actually, but the quality of the improv is pretty low. It'd be considered a below-average ComedySportz show.

The only laugh I've gotten from seeing two episodes was a game of "story" they played, in which Collin just sort of went nuts, and they animated the story behind the people talking - a good use of the whole green screen thing. (Greenscreen? That's two words, right?)

One of the most disturbing parts of the show is that Drew Carey bleached his hair:
It's not this long, but still blonde. Creepy.


Everything Else
I'm going to catch up tonight on my Prison Break and West Wing episodes. It'll be magical.

I Want This Phone!

Check this out.

A device that's as much camera as phone. 3 mega-pixel camera, 2x optical zoom, and it looks awesome. With my camera dead, I'll take a serious look at something a lot like this when the time comes for a new phone.

Halloween is Over - No More Costumes

I saw a baby in a dinosaur costume yesterday. It made me want to see Caps crammed into that dinosaur costume. Haha, good gord, the Capsasaurus is the best thunder lizard ever.

Not Television
Wine night was kick-ass last night. We drank a ton. Everybody hung out quite late and yelled and laughed and it was fantastic. I also got to witness the birth of the AIC (Arts Institute of Chicago) writer's journal. The guys from the writing program are going to create a magazine for their work - sounds good. I'm very interested to see what they pull off, what with all those big, artsy brains and all.

The Zombie City blog is up now, over on the left there. Our blogs are getting nerdier. If you enjoy zombies, or actually playing Urban Dead, let me know and I'll get you joined up.

I have been slowly collecting napkins from when I get lunch and don't use the napkins I grabbed. They're piling up on the windowsill by my desk, and they represent everything from Wendy's to McDonalds to Qdoba to you name it. (HOLY GOD I'M GOING TO QDOBA FOR LUNCH TODAY!!) I'll put up a picture when I feel the pile is impressive enough, perhaps.

I just thought of Qdoba right then - I'm really excited now. Just have to kill a couple of hours until I can go eat, eat, eat!

Television
When the first couple people showed up last night we watched some Law and Order - alwyas good to stare at for a while. That and a Seinfeld were about it last night. Tonight I'll start catching up on Prison Break.