Catch the Fever

Not Television
This past weekend was really satisfying. It never felt busy, but we were always doing something, and good people were always around. Friday night I went out with Pat, Molly (a friend from highschool) and Jess (Molly's friend). We ate at a place called D.O.C. pizza, which was quite delicious. We also watched the Baxter again, and Pat loaded up my new iPod with some TV shows for me to watch. Molly and Jess handle the Brookfield style of social interaction (which is fighting about stupid shit all night) very well.

Saturday we slept in late, and started off the day with a trip downtown to the Bongo Room, a very nice little restaraunt south of the loop. My sister gave us some gift certificates there for christmas, and we bust them out whenever we feel like having insanely delicious pancakes and breakfast sandwiches. I highly recommend it if you ever find yourself downtown and hungry. On the way back we did a little shopping, took a nice walk, and picked up the mysterous package that I've been getting delivery slips for. It turns out to be a very cool russian sailor's shirt from Russia, care of my friend Tony who's over there for a year. His crayon-written letter included a declaration of intent to join the Navy once he finishes school; a declaration I think is a joke, but I'm not 100%. I hope it is - I don't think Tony's back rubs and elbow-based greeting system would go over to well in the depths of the SS Latrine Duty.

I called up Paul that afternoon and he and I slogged our way through four hours of X-Men or so. It was a good time, and starting to get much better, when we decided to pack it in for the day. We had tried to save the game earlier, and didn't see an option, so we just turned the system off. To our horror, it turns out you have to save manually, but can only do so at specific points, so we just lost four hours of progress (We hold Brammer 100% at fault). We managed to get probably a quarter of the way back through what we lost by plowing through levels on Sunday, but it'll still take another hour or so to catch up to where we were. Sigh.

Sunday morning saw a really great basketball brunch, complete with very competitive games, fantastic weather, and arguing over rules. Man, basketball just isn't basketball without somebody having some weird-ass rules to live by. I look forward to the day we get 3-on-3 going. It sounds like next week will be a break, but the week after we'll be back full-strength. After that the usual crew assembled for videogames, and we ended up spending most of the night playing Puyo Pop and watching Cops. (It's a good thing Paul and I got our true videogame nerdery out of the way the day before or I'd have been lacking in my weekly requirement.) From the discussion that night it sounds like we may make a move to push Wine Night to Friday night form now on, making it more of a party. I'd be very much for that, as I find Mondays a very hard day to come out and be lively. I just got shocked back into the week on Mondays, and I just want to sit on my ass, you know? I'm also going to try to change videogames to a week-night occurance. I'd love to see it on a specific night of the week like clock work. Tuesday night videogame night was a perfect mid-week break. It's tough to come up with a night that works for everybody when they're in school, though. Time will tell.

This week should be pretty normal, though changing our weekly schedules will be fun; kick everyone out of our late-winter ruts. Teddy Wedgers and Patrick "Caroline" Ewing are moving today (assuming their new and crazy landlords decide to let them in), and I'll probably slip out of work a bit early to help move boxes. It'd be very nice to start off the week with a nice short day followed by some physical labor followed by a lazy wine night (hosted by our very own Maria Parrott!). It sounds just right, and I'm excited.

Television
The Zales Jewelry Commercial - A Call for Help
Maria has tried to explain this to me multiple times, but I simply cannot grasp what this commercial is supposed to be portraying. We've all seen it, here's a quick recap: A man and woman are frolicking around London, being in love, when he stops her in front of a big bank of steps. He pulls out a ring and gives it to her, saying something like, "You know, I think I'd marry you again, in front of all these people." She answers, "Yeah, right," then suddenly notices her parents in the crowd on the steps! "Mom? Dad?" Then she smiles at her husband and kisses him, and everybody on the steps stands up and applauds. The end.

So it's supposed to be a grand romantic gesture of some kind, I get that much. He flew her to London, and bought her this ring. Right there it totally makes sense, and would be a very happy moment. But her parents being there is definitely part of a bigger, even more romantic gesture. I can not figure out what that large, uber romantic plan is supposed to be. I also don't get why the other people stand and applaud (though I'm quite comfortable just chalking that up to fantasy happiness stuff). Clearly this is a big plan we're seeing come to fruition, but what's the underlying idea? If we got some sort of back story that they had eloped and she had always wanted her parents at the wedding or something, I'd get that. I'd also get if he had set up a second ceremony to renew their vows or whatever. But this is basically a second proposal? In front of her parents? What am I missing?

Somebody help me out. This commercial has been around for long enough that it must make sense to other people, but I really can't wrap my mind around it. Please, explain it to me; it'd make me very happy if this made sense.

My Life as a Blog

Not Television
Am I the only one who finds themselves composing blog entries as events happen? I did that last night as I took an extremely frustrating, but high payoff trip to Best Buy. I droped my iPod off for service about a month ago and had yet to hear a thing, so I finally called up and asked what was going on. I was transfered and put on hold at least seven times before I finally got on the phone with someone who could look up my record and see what was going on. Turns out they sent my iPod to the wrong repair place and thus it was going to take another three weeks for me to get this thing back! So I called back, sat on hold for another twenty minutes, and finally got on the phone with a manager, got disconnected, called back, sat on hold again, got ahold of a different manager, and FINALLY explained what happened. Thankfully, the guy agreed it was their screw up and said they would replace it!

So I hopped in the Neon, got about half way there, thinking to myself, "Gee, the traffic sure looks back going in the other direction! I hope that clears up before I head home!" And then remembered I left my recipt at home. I couldn't believe it. Avid readers of this blog will recall that I did this exact same thing the first time I tried to drop the iPod off for service. After fighting my way through traffic, getting home, being rude to Maria, grabbing my recipt and getting back on the road I realized this was shaping up to be a sub-par evening.

The actualy stop at Best Buy was pretty smooth, the manager I had spoken to met me and really took care of the whole thing. Every other employee involved kept saying how this was against policy, or they couldn't do it, but John the giant bald manager with gang tatoos on his wrists just pushed everything through. It was very nice, and made me quite happy.

Alas, upon returning home it took the rest of the evening to convince my computers that they should link up with the iPod. The problem seems to stem from the fact that the iPod really wants a USB 2 plug, and all of my outdated PCs only have USB plugs. Eventually it did link up, but not before I was a generally grumpy jerk and got myself all 'bent out of shape', as it were. (I've noticed that computer problems really piss me off ever since my last couple of CS semesters at Madison.)

But in the end, I am the proud owner of a new video iPod which is loaded up with all of the movies we've made plus an absurd number of photos and songs. I still need to load up a lot more of the pictures from my PC, but the fact that this iPod finally integrates an easy way to dump files into a folder on the iPod and take them off elsewhere is awesome (you can do this with the picture folder). It's quite a cool toy, I like it a lot.

I'm trying hard to not let things get to me, and perhaps I can learn from this one. I tend to get frustrated from time to time and act in a way that I don't like, but last night I really hated how I was acting while I was doing it. I especically dislike the way I treat other people once something gets under my skin. So I guess this is a resolution of sorts, to be more like a duck. I actually woke up this morning in a really oddly good mood, and feeling overly healthy / fit. Maybe I just need to get all jackass-ness out once in a while; I just need to find an outlet that doesn't involve a person I like. Maybe I'll start playing raquetball with Harry and take it out on him. (AWWWWWWWWW DAMN! Just kidding, Brammula.)

So anyways, the only other news to report from yesterday was that the thing that finally made me break out of my bad mood was watching the end of The Penguin Movie. Chris' soda box dance is just as good as I remembered, though it was truely a shame that we didn't have just one more box for his head. Also, Jonnah's dirty bird dance is nice.

This weekend is going to be a nice once. For the first time in ages I don't have anything planned for much of it. Tonight we're going to get some pizza and see a movie with Pat, Molly and Jess, and on Sunday it looks like we'll be able to play basketball, but otherwise I've got nothing. It will be nice to have a long relaxing weeked to just sit back and do nothing for a while.

In closing, I just rediscovered Counting Crows. It was sitting on a network server here and I threw it on the new iPod, and it's so good. It makes me think of Basset St. and Mootzgargamel. I like it when songs become associated with a good memory. Moo-Gar, I expect you to visit Chicago some time very, very soon, and I will do my best to organize a visit up to your neck of the woods as well.

EVERYBODY'S WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND!
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EVERYBODY'S WORKING FOR THE WEEK!

The Blogulution is Dripping in Hilarity

Reading Brammer's latest post and Chad's amazing iGo post, I was inspired to come up with some sort of post to post. (Also, for some reason I'm swearing a lot right now, so watch out for all the f-bombs.) It's really been quite a busy couple of days around my life, and not in a very interesting-to-you sort of way. Ya'll probably don't want to hear about the super-fucking-amazing sandwiches I made last night.

Oh, what's that? You do? Aight.

SANMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM(itches)
First of all, I've realized the 'sandwich' is one of those words I have mispelled forever and ever. I spell it 'sandwhich', and I find that I cannot change. So I must apoligize for spelling that all daved-up for the rest of this. DEAL.

My sandwhiches were like a pair of big, fat, juicy bombs to Glen "GIMME DEM BOMBS!" O'Hallerhammy. They were my standard Dave chicken 'n cheese melt, with layers as follows:

-a pretty large ammount of butter
-bread (booooring)
-damn tons of butter
-bunches of cheese
-a whole mess of chicken fingers, chopped into smaller pieces
-a base layer of cheese
-damn tons of butter
-bread (yawn)
-a pretty large ammount of butter

Instructions
Cook the chicken first, once that's done you can start preparing the sandwhich. The typical method of cooking is to assemble the sandwhich upside down on the pan (it seems pretty impossible to make one without your hands getting totally covered in butter and then crumbs sticking to that butter, so be ready if you choose to make one). Cook it for a little bit, just to toast that bread, then flip it over. If made properly, flipping the sandwhich will involve two spatulas and a fair bit of coordination. Flip it right-side up (note that the proper "top" side is the side with the larger ammount of cheese). Let this cook at a lower temp for quite a while so that the cheese melts and runs between the chicken chunks and solidifes the whole sandwhich together. Once the cheese is melted and everything is a little toasted, flip the sandwhich twice more and cook both sides at a higher temperature. This sort of locks the whole thing together into a single mass which harkens back to Chad's hillarious mantra, "My strategy is to locate that which contains the most calories and consume it!" Chad should try one (or two) of these.

The two I made last night were especially buttery on the outside, and made with Wonder Bread. This seemed to be a problem at first, as the bread got pretty soggy and seemed like it would fall apart, but after the solidification round at higher temperature, the whole thing came together nicely. Still, I'd recommend a higher quality bread. The butter layer on the outside was a bit much last night as well, so much that my hands were a greasy, delicious mess after eating. If that's a problem for you you may want to dab these monsters with a paper towel before going at it.

Clean up can be a bitch, as you end up using a couple of knives, two spatulas, at least one pan (depending on how many sandwhiches you make), some sort of preperation surface (which will get all kinds of butter on it), a pan (to cook the chicken), and a plate, but it's totally worth it.

Not Television (Or Sandwhiches)
The last couple of days have featured longer-than-usual hours at work, followed by nights where I suddenly realize it's 10:30, followed by mornings where I come into work early. So you can see how there's been a lack of blogable material. The few things that have happened are mostly news comming in from other fronts. Two of our good friends are moving up near us, away from their now immensely inconvienent location off of the blue line. This move means that the entire videogame night crew lives within walking distance (totally awesome). It sounds like this weekend may feature a moving party. I also caught wind that some people that work in a meat packing plant won that giant 300 million dollar jackpot thing. So that's probably pretty cool for them. It doesn't really effect me, but it did make me happy when one of the guys said, "Well, I've been retired for about four days now..." at a press conference. Good for you guys!

Puyo Pop Fever arrived yesterday, and Maria mopped the floor with me in it for a while. Watching her find joy in beating me in videogames is sweet. The game is actually really interesting, once you spend a couple of minutes really paying attention to what's going on. Setting up chains is much more deliberate than in Tetris Attack (at least for me), and there are some very unique points to the game play. I like it. I also like that the guy I play as yells "Onion!" every time I do anything even slightly correct. When we first started it seemed that perhaps Maria's dominance in the game was a fluke at the museum, but she quickly regained her Puyo legs and took me in about 4 of the last 5 games. It reminds me of how Amanda was inexplicably amazing at Dr. Mario and used to kick Pat's ass.

Television
Lost
They reran the pilot last night, which I was pissed about at first, but then I watched a little bit and noticed that there are all these little things that have new meaning now. There's a line where Jin said something like, "Don't worry about the others, just say by me" to Sun. I thought that was pretty cool. I was also really impressed how all of the characters had their characters locked in right off the bat. Some of them seem to have gotten harder over the course of the show (especially Kate), but that even seems to be a reasonable progression from post-plane-crash to island-survivor. So it was kind of cool.

24
Nice episode, I continue to love love LOVE everything that is happening at CTU (the impending mutiny, Jack slipping away, etc), but hate the president / first lady combo. What's the agent's name that Jack knocked out? Curtis? I think that's it - I'm really liking him this season. He seems like a good hard-ass secondary agent. I'm looking forward to - aw, shoot, I forgot his name. That dude that's unconcious in the hospital right now since the carbomb attack. I'm looking forward to him waking up - he's good stuff.

The one complaint I have from this week's episode (except for the first family), was the super-lame gun fight chase between the two types of bad guy. The dude Jack saved kept prancing around between pillars shooting one handed and then skipping off behind a freezer of sky light. I dunno, it just didn't have much weight to it. I guess he wasn't supposed to be a fighter, though, so maybe that makes sense. Yeah, probably does. Nevermind, it was great except for the first family. (Oh man, if the first lady dies I'll be so happy!)

The Olympics
I've read a couple of posts/comments from friends recently who discuss how they hate the winter olympics (and the summer ones are much better in comparison), and I must agree with that. The winter olympics' events all feel like pseudo-sports. They're competitions to be sure, but my friend Paul points out that they're all so specialized and use so much equipment that they loose their raw competitiveness. And, as Polley tells us, it's already cold outside, so looking at more snow sucks. I bet people in the southern hemisphere love it, though!

Further Muffin Details

Muffins
Pat: It was a prepackaged muffin bought from the snack shop downstairs. It was one of those ones that you used to buy the chocolate variet of. I can't remember the name, but you know what I'm talking about.

Not Television
Last night I was feeling really tired for some reason and I also came into work early today for a meeting, so I skipped wine night. Maria struck out and made important social contacts for us while I lounged infront of the television and worked on a particularly cool project I'm doing at work right now. Good times, good times. Except for a canker sore. Wah-wah.

Working around online ads and for an internet business all day long has had me thinking about starting up my own website for some time now. I don't know what form it would take, or how it would differ from this blog, but having even the slight know-how that I do I feel like I should be able to put together something of interest. It will probably be heavily blog-based, even if it involves an html front, and will hopefully produce a small ammount of income, even if just to pay for sever space. I'll post about it here if anything of interest actually happens.

I got a mysterious phone call from my Dad yesterday which resulted in me getting word that my parents may be moving... to New Berlin?!? Weirdos. I'm pretty indifferent about them moving out of the house; I really like it there, but it doesn't really feel that much like home anymore. My room is a sewing room now, and everything's changed since I lived there, so while it's a really nice place to visit, it's not like I'm losing my boyhood home. The house they're trying to make a move on sounds pretty nice - three stories, a sun room, some sort of semi-hidden room with a fireplace in it which you can only access through the master bedroom closet, a back poarch and a wooded back yard. Not too shabby, it seems.

Hearing of my parent's plans to move made me excited about our own planned move, which is to come in June. Every once in a while I'll cruise through Craigslist with Maria and look at places. I'm pretty confident that between Craigslist and Apartment People we'll find a couple of viable options which have more rooms, are closer to the train, and cost less. I have a pretty signifant wish list when it comes to our new place, but really so long as it's cheaper and a shorter walk I think we'll both be somewhat flexible. But if we should happen to stumble across a two bedroom with gas forced heat (included, of course), an included garage and a hot tub I'd be happy to move in.

Television
Nuthin'. I watched The Transformers Movie last night, which still totally rules.

Bannana Nut Muffin: Suprisingly Tasty!

Not Television
We had a pretty nice weekend around these parts, ladies and gentlemen. Despite it being horrendously cold we managed to warm ourselves through the love and cuddles of friendship. And via radiators. Every time it gets legitimately cold outside I realize just how poorly insulated our apartment is. Thanks to viewing several episodes of Holmes on Homes which dealt with such subjects, I feel pretty confident in saying that there is probably no insulation between the floors, and there are probably gaps in the insulation in the outter wall where the floor meets it. The kitchen and bedroom both get extremely cold, especially the floors, which bites. Luckily we don't pay for heat so I can play the old, "turn the thermostat up to 76 degrees" card, which usually does the trick.

Friday night was spent watching Olympics (ice dancing) with Maria and Pat until Paul and Maria Numero Dos came by and we hung out at Simmon's for a while. What a suprisingly nice little bar that is - I'll definately be making that my new hang out should need arise, rather than the Hop Leaf. Maria Numero Dos is really nice, good job, Paul!

Saturday Jess and Kat came down and we visited the Museum of Science and Industry and saw the Game 2.0 exhibit. It was pretty sweet - just a series of rooms with videogames you can play. I was absolutely thrilled to find a new game that Maria likes called Puyo Pop, which I ordered a copy of upon returning home. It's pretty fun, sort of like Tetris, sort of like Tetris Attack, lots like blobs of goo sticking together. And she can kick my ass in it. We don't know how the game works yet, but somehow she gets into this crazy attack mode thing where her side of the screen goes nuts and she dumps tons of garbage on me. I don't understand it, but I'm extraordinarily pround to see my baby beating people down in videogames.

Afterwards we ate at Charlie's, enjoying their delicious burgers, and went to IO, which I haven't been to for ages. It was very fun watching some improv, I haven't seen or done any for almost three months now, so it sort of reawakend the bug. I'd love to perform somewhere that gets the crowds that IO gets. Maybe someday when I have some extra time and $100 a month I can blow on improv classes I'll get into the IO system. Until then we'll have to get up to Madison some time soon to visit Atlas. Due to the cold we just went home after IO and watched some more Olympics. What kind of Olympics, you ask? Why, Ice Dancing, of course, as it's the only thing that's ever on. Sunday was very lazy, with just a splash of videogames and pizza to liven up an otherwise couch-potato day infront of the TV. Not that I'm compaining. Oh, and we watched more Ice Dancing.

Ice Dancing
I was a very vocal opponent of ice dancing while we watched it. As such, I've already annoyed Maria and Pat with my whining, so to them I apoligize for putting them through another round of this, but this is my blog, and as such I must call Ice Dancing on being totally lame.

It's almost figure skating, but without the jumps. It's sort of like if you played football but took away the hitting and just judged who won plays based on who ran their routes the most precisely. It struck me as we watched our third evening of it on Sunday that it's a LOT like American Idol. At it's core it's pretty boring, but you get your favorites and want to watch every night to see if they fall or win or whatever. Plus there's patriotism involved, which is always fun.

What path does one follow to become an ice dancer? I really doubt that any little kid grows up wanting to compete in the lamest thing ever. My guess is that these people all started off as figure skaters, but couldn't hack it, so they opted for ice dancing instead. Take away all those pesky jumps and you've got a much more managable activity.

I'm sure it's really hard to do well, and I could never do it in a million years, but it's just so goofy. One round of the competition features the couples doing an identical dance (save the beginning and ending bits), and having to do it as perfectly and as in sync with each other as possible. It's physically taxing and you need to be a fantastic skater, but this is sort of like having runners run a mile but while they do it they have to perform intricate, predetermined hand gestures with a partner, and they're judged not on their time but how perfectly they patted their head and rubbed their stomach at the same time. The later rounds in which they get to make their own routines brings in the issue that the teams with easier routines only have so many potential points, where the harder routines have a higher possible score. Factor in pretty arbitrary judging and the scores seem to become pretty questionable. Not to mention the fact that there are twelve judges and a computer randomly selects nine scores to count for any pair of skaters, meaning that if you get lucky and you get the more generous judges for your scoring you do better.

This is a problem with any judged competition, and I actually am sort of down on that as a scoring system in general. But I realize there are things (like ice dancing) that you simply can't quantitize. And I'm totally hypocritcal of it, as I would much rather watch snowboard half-pipe or ski jumping than ice dancing, and I wouldn't compain about the scoring there at all. (I suppose if I'm calling out ice dancing I better call out myself as well.)

But, even with all of that, I must admit I can see the attraction of following your country's team through the whole thing. And there are times when a team falls and are thus penalized, which makes the whole thing make more sense. So, much like Four Kings, I may question it's validity, but I will still watch and be happy if the hott ex-Canadian-now-American girl and the mousy-looking guy win. U S A! U S A! U S A!

Not Television
We played tennis last night, which was pretty cool. It was good to be in a large, warm area so we could run around in shorts for a while if nothing else! The courts are a pretty nice facility, and it looks like a big reason its so hard to get a court is that they do lots of weeknight lessons. I'm very glad to be playing tennis again (though I just realized I forgot to call this morning, so we won't be playing for a couple more weeks... damn!)

After tennis we watched a few minutes of some intermural hockey game which was pretty entertaining. I like a little hockey now and again; the atmosphere in a hockey arena is pretty gull dern cool. It made me want to go up and see a Madison hockey game (which I won't ever do, of course).

It's really f'ing cold. Super cold. Cold enough that I'll drive to the museum tomorrow, even though parking will probably be expensive. Cold enough that poodles have to wear leg warmers.

Television
Huge Lost Ramble
Sort of odd. This episode was an excellent example of what seems to be a troubling trend with Lost right now. The big event was the french lady finding a supposed other, Sayid brought him back to the hatch, but then the french lady just dissapeared, and never showed up again. Sayid's back story was kind of cool, but nothing spectacular. And we say Sawyer sort of becomming a person again, which I didn't like. I'm also not entirely sure I agree with Hurley having a secret stash. But between all of these things we didn't learn anything.

I did really like seeing the other symbols after the countdown - I'm sure that will fuel all kinds of speculation that I'll get to hear about from Jess this weekend. They looked egyptian? Also, the idea that they may have an other is neat, though they really didn't do anything with it during the episode. I'd say they set up some cool stuff here, but not very much actually happened.

I'd really like to see the show start making some links between things. Right now we have the countdown, and have no idea what it means. We have the others, and have no idea who they are. Walt and Michael are missing, and everyone seems to have forgotten about them. The monster shows up from time to time, but no one is scared of it anymore. The horse is missing, the polar bear dissapeared, the original guy from the hatch is out there somewhere, etc, etc. The point is that there are a million questions and as of yet we've only gotten a couple of answers. Also, all of the characters have an unfortunate habit of forgetting everything from episode to episode.

I don't really want them to start revealing the truth about stuff yet, I'm fine with being kept in the dark for a long time yet, but we need a unifying thread. The first season became about the raft and the hatch (and running from the others at the end), but this season as of right now feels like it's almost at the breaking point. They need to tie a couple of mysteries together, or at least focus on one, to get things moving again. I feel like we're floudering in all of the plot lines. I'm going to try to put everything that's currently going on in a list here (I'm sure there will be things to add).

*Main plot arc
-Sub points, unaddressed issues, unanswered questions

*Michael and Walt are missing
-The only gun Sawyer doesn't control is with Michael
-Michael spoke to Walt on the computer
-Walt was appearing to people, dripping wet

*The Others
-Who are they?
-They clearly have a base of operations, as they have a boat
-Why are they willing to leave the rest of the survivors alone?
-What did they want with Walt?
-Why are they on the island, why do they stay there?

*The Hatch / The Countdown / The Button
-What's behind the big cement barricade?
-They stopped trying to get inside the magnetic room behind it
-Where is the original hatch guy?
-What happens when the countdown stops?
-Why did Dharma stop sending people to man the station?
-What was the other Dharma outpost for?
-It was implied there were six stations

*The Monster
-It showed Eko pictures of his past
-No one worries about it anymore
-Is it related to Dharma?
-It tried to pull Locke into a tunnel
-Trees are uprooted every time it appears

*All the Random People & Animals
-The horse
-The polar bear (is it still around? did walt really create it with his mind?)
-The hatch guy
-The other tail survivor lady (what ever happened to her?)

*The Island
-Multiple crashes have happened there (the main flight, french lady's flight, pirate ship, etc)
-People seem to develope strange mental problems / powers there
-Inhabited by a monster
-There is a transmitter running on it

So the first four are really the big ones right now. I really enjoy that there's so much going on, but the plot lines have fallen pretty stagnant for the last month or so. Something big needs to actually happen, not ALMOST happen. In the past month we have seen them almost fight the others, almost let the timer get to zero, almost fight/confront the monster, etc. Here's hoping next week brings something crazy!

'Twas the night before Bloggmass

Not Television
Last night Maria baby sat her friend's counsins and I was left all alone in our big scary apartment to watch an immense ammount of television. And eat a pizza. Not too shabby. I also did our laundry, and am happy to report that for the forth time ever I went down to do laundry and found the washer empty! (The dryer was still full, but it's a start...)

The same friend whose cousins Maria was babysitting asked her if we could DOGsit their little pomeranian named Dodger for spring break. I think that'd be fun, we would get to see the complete other side of the spectrum from Ernie in terms of dog size. I hope that happens, as I think it'd be good for my desire to have a dog again. Plus, Dodger is pretty fun to hang out with.

I just saw that the high temperature for Saturday is 17 degrees. And that just happens to be the day that we have friends in town (and so will be walking around at night). It's gonna be a cooooold trip to IO.

Television
Scrubs
I finally bit the bullet and watched the Mandy Moore episodes, and was able to pretty successfully skip her parts. They were both pretty good, I did enjoy Turk's dancing as promised.

24
Way too much president / first lady in this one. I still hate them. So much. SO MUCH! During the part when the president was making the decision if he should let the terrorists release the gas in the mall, was he trying to show an emotion of some kind? I have no idea what he was going for. Anguish, I guess. Well, I was the one anguished, buddy, from having to watch your ugly mug. Jack shooting guys in his gas mask was pretty cool, though. Not as good as the first few episodes, but I definately enjoyed it.

The O.C.
Not so good - pretty dull, in fact. I was very happy about two things, though: 1) Ryan might be leaving Marissa. She's a whiny, self-centered, stupid girl, and I can't imagine wanting to date her. Yes, she's hot, but she's f'n crazy. And 2) The line when Seth said, "Underneath this manly exterior there beats a heart of a fourteen year-old girl", and then he slapped Ryan. That was just funny.

You can definately tell they're going to keep Seth and Summer together so they can go off to college together (though I'm sure we're about 12.3 dramas away from that successful departure), though it seems Ryan and Marissa could possibly part ways... I'd like that. Back to the redhead! (Seriously, what ever happened to her? She was the mom's f'n sister for goodness' sake, shouldn't they at least call her on Christmas?)

Wheee!

Not Television
Yesterday was a great birthday, complete with a home cooked meal and Wallace & Grommit. The new W&G movie is fantastic thus far (we only watched the first half last night). It features a very large number of little clay rabbits with pig noses who are pure joy to watch. I can't wait to see the end of it tonight. They even yell "Wheee!" when they jump sometimes.

Outside of my nice relaxing birthday evening, work was pretty good yesterday. I had a full afternoon with a couple of meetings and a couple of new projects to work on. I'm happy to have some larger things that are on-going to do at work. And of course I got Qdoba yesterday and smiled endlessly. It was great eating with Pat and Glen at the Doba-dome; it felt very much like being back in Madison.

Speaking of feeling like I'm back in Madison, I never reported this online, but Laura's moving to Chicago! That's pretty damn cool, as I'm quite fond of lunches with her. Now all we need is for Dan and James to move here and we'll have the band back together. The way I see it, Chicago needs more super smart monkeys, and those monkeys will need someone to care for them and someone to program their super smart cyborgnetic brains. James and Dan: sounds like a perfect opportunity to me...

Television
Holmes on Homes
HELL YEAH! Best episode ever. The home owners had been trying to get a new kitchen installed for six months and the contractor was sitting on their cabinets and appliences and whatnot (and a huge chunk of their money), so Holmes actually goes to this guy's shop with a camera crew and bitches him out. It was amazing. He managed to get the materials from the guy within a day and built the kitchen by the end of the week. He was constantly pointing out everything the guy had done wrong (measurements, duct work, etc), and kept calling him a weasel and whatnot. I really hope that the Holmes bitch-out becomes a trend on the show. There's something about this giant Canadian dude in overalls showing up in a kitchen store demanding cabinets that makes for great television.

Whatever happens to be airing during The Soup's time slot
I'm guessing this is E!'s fault. I have my DVR setup to record The Soup, but it's almost always some fashion show or a stupid celebrity news report or something instead. I demand biting commentary!

I am Older than Pat

Every year, for ten glorious days, I am a whole year older than Pat Hayden. Today marks the beginning of that week-and-a-half opportunity for Pat Hayden, young and inexperienced, to learn from my vast, time-earned wisdom. While Pat may be a smart guy, he simply doesn't know the life lessons that one learns in 23 years on this planet. He's a good kid, though; I'm sure he'll be fine once he gets his head out of the clouds.

Not Television
Nothing of note has really happened in the last couple of days. I'm looking forward to spring big time. I always dilute myself into thinking that Feburary is spring, and expect it to start warming up any day. That first 60 degree day is going to be pretty sweet this year.

My parents visited on Saturday and brought me five new pairs of pants. Five! Or, in the words of Hilgeman, "FIVE?!?!" It's a lot of pants. They're nice, though. Some of them are the stain-resistant stuff you can pour liquids on. I'll be testing that out later. Video game night featured the first known appearance of X-Men Legends 2, and I must say it did not go over well. I'm going to give it another go with the more interested parties later on, but for now the best part of that game is a toss up between Harry's name in the manual and the fact that half of our team died because we jumpped off of a bridge during one of our marathon "The only thing we can do to make this less boring is jump around" sessions.

Sunday we played actual 2-on-2 at Basketball Brunch, and let me tell ya, it was a great time. Having someone to pass to makes basketball a lot more fun. I followed that up with an odd grocery shopping trip; the store was markedly empty, but when I got to the registers every one of them had a huge line. Perhaps I was there just after the big rush and the lines took a long time to thin out. This was the first time I've stayed under my $100 grocery budget in a long time, and I even had to buy toothpaste!

Yesterday was a pretty normal Monday, complete with off-site Wine Night action in a friend's cousin's uber-modern condo. It was the condo that the single young lawyer in the movies goes home to after losing his first case or whatever. Good times. I cut my finger on the patio door early on and a piece of my brain spent the rest of the night worrying that I'd bleed on one of the four million dollar couches.

I'm meeting Pat and Glen "Stink Factory" O'Hallerbalm this afternoon for a burrito at Qdoba (I'm very excited). The whole Valentine's Day / Birthday combo thing is always a little bit odd, as I'm never entirely sure how to treat it. I'm glad to be with Maria, who doesn't really mind when I don't go out and buy her a new yacht for whatever the holiday of the week is.

Television
Love Monkey
Reportedly got the axe. Oh, well. I'm suprised they brought it back for the third episode (which aired a couple of weeks removed from the first two, complete with extended recap nonsense at the beginning and new opening credits). I suppose it was the producer's last desperate attempt to make the show work. No big loss; at least it managed to JMJ's (John Mayer Junior) singing career.

The Olympics
I never watch as much as I want to. I really like watching speed skating, skiing, curling, louge, all the good events, but somehow whenever I turn it on it's always figure skating, it seems. I like that thus far the Americans have won about half of their medals in snowboarding half-pipe competitions. We totally rule.

What is it, Exactly?

What is it, exactly, that makes people incredibly rude?

(Note: I've just returned from a night at the bars, so please forgive any typos or grammar mistakes that I may miss.)

Pat and I went out and met up with my friend Jeremy Kraft tonight, a guy I know very well from Madison. Kraft is a fantastic friend. A guy that has been there for me for years, a guy I'd trust him with my children. But tonight we not only met up with him, but with his friends and their friends as well.

Most of his friends were very nice people, but there was one girl there, whose name I don't even know, so we'll call her "Trina". As soon as we met up with Kraft's other friends at a bar, everyone noticed that Trina was very loud and annoying. I proceeded to talk to another of Kraft's friends, a guy we'll call "Mark". Mark was a very nice guy to me - we chatted about internet business and life in general, and he seemed like a decent enough human being.

Then Trina starts wailing on Mark. I mean fucking out of control, unfiltered, even-though-you're-drunk-it's-still-not-cool character bashing. Pat and I had been talking about something, and he ran to the bathoom, so I poked my head up for other conversations, and heard Trina telling Mark, "I have heard other people say you are a racist, and a biggot." This suprised me. I don't know Mark very well at all, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. So I asked this Trina, "Woah, woah, I just met Mark, but he seems like a nice guy. Somebody need to step in and defend him here. Did you really hear someone say this?" To which she reasponded, "You just interuppted me. I have heard other people call him a racist and a biggot." "Okay, wait, but seriously, have you heard people call him this? Because this is really mean." "YOU'RE INTERRUPTING ME AGAIN!" (at this point she sort of stood up and tried to intimidate me, I guess).

I can't really continue on with a play-by-play, but suffice to say that this girl claimed to have heard others call this guy a racist. And then she refused to back up that claim with anything but further idiocy. She was a moron. Plain and simple. I went to Kraft to ask for some background on what was going on, and was told that:
1) 'Mark' wasn't exactly the most innocent guy in the world.
2) 'Trina' had known Mark forever
3) These two were both trashed, and were probably both to blame for the fight continuing.

So I left well enough alone; if they really both get off fighting with each other, go for it. But if somebody told me that unidentified third parties were calling me a racist, drunk or not, I would have a real problem with that. That's way over the line to me. This girl, who acted like she was a saint sent down from on high to expose a racist asked me such tactful questions as, "How many black friends to YOU have???" as soon as I piped up, daring to question her.

So in the end, I met a guy that seemed pretty nice (it sounds like he had his share of problems, but we shared a nice conversation), and a girl who was immensely rude and unpleasent.

What makes people this way? I can't imagine telling someone they were racist - or even worse, telling them that their friends in general thought they were racist - without having the balls to back it up. I also can't imagine being obnoxious enough to cut off anyone who was willing to challenge me with as much unabashed stupidity as this girl showed. If you're going to be rude, at least have some intelligence behind it.

This interaction once again showed me how lucky I am to have the friends that I do. My friends from college / highschool, and the friends that I have made here through Wine Night are truely rare. There are too many people out there that are rude, stupid and just plain mean. It seems almost a survival instinct that the good ones should stick together. So if you're reading this, you're a friend of mine, and I just want to say thanks. Thanks for not being blindingly stupid and unaccpeting of others' opinions. Thanks for lettting other people speak their mind without fear of getting slapped. Thanks for having an I.Q. above that of a rock. Thanks for being good people.

FrIIIIIIIIIIday!!

Not Television
So first and foremost I really need to chill out about getting a car. (deep breath) I'm excited, but I don't want to do anything until this summer anyways, so I'm going cold turkey and not looking at cars anymore. Chances are that when the time comes to actually buy something my sensibile side will win out and I'll buy a new but inexpensive car, rather than a fun used car that's already five years old. But until at least May I'm not going to obsess anymore. I swear...

I have a zit right on my lip that is bugging the shit out of me. I hate it. It totally looks like I'm having an outbreak of something.

On to the good stuff, this morning I finally, FINALLY reserved a tennis court! It took about three weeks, but I finally did it. Thursday evening at 8pm Maria and I will get to play tennis for an hour. AND IT'S GOING TO ROOOOOOCK!!!

We had a meeting with the guys from the SAIC that we're hiring as contract writers last night, and that seems like it's going to go pretty well. Really it's quite a sweet deal; I'm actually thinking about doing a little sanctioned ghost writing in Maria's name to make some extra cash myself. My master plan is to write them on the train, but that would require my laptop actually working and having enough juice for a full hour of typing. Both of those are pretty questionable.

This weekend has filled up in the usual fashion, with fun stuff galore. Mr. Jeremy Kraft of Atlas Improv Co. fame will be in town tonight, and it sounds like we'll meet up for some expensive drinks and snacks (if we repeat the outing from last time he was in town). It's always fun to go out with people who don't go to the neighborhood bars, as you get to see another side of the city. I'm guessing Pat will come over before hand, and perhaps we can have a few "to the death" Mario Striker friendlies.

Saturday my parent's are comming to town for a late lunch birthday extravaganza. I got a box of home made cookies from my sister a couple of days ago; they're amazing. Birthdays rule. After the lunch the usual gang will be comming over for drinks and videogames. I'm itching to get a gin and tonic going, so maybe I'll have to hit the store before hand. I'm also going to try to cram a trip to Best Buy in there somewhere so I can get the PS2 version of X-Men so we can start killing some goddamn mutant haters. I really want to kill some mutant haters.

Television
Four Kings
Yes, I am still watching this. Last night furthered the evolution of the dumb one into more of a simple, friendly everyman, almost Kramer-esque in a way. I'm actually liking him and Seth Green's characters, they seem to have a nice little dynamic going, but the other two guys are dullsville. I think their problem right now is that they're both the straignt man, ya know? Three's company, four's a crowd, it seems. In the world of Seinfend, the dumb guy is Kramer, Seth Green is George, and both of the other guys are Seinfeld. Another problem seems to be that they always pair up the two crazy guys together and the two boring guys together. Perhaps if they all stayed together things would work better. First they definately need to work out the characters of the two generic guys - they just can't both be generic (and 'democrat' and 'republican' are not characters). I'm amazed, but I actually see potential.

How I Met Your Mother
I actually like this show. It's nothing but another silly comedy, but the cast just feels right (once again, it's all about charm). I love the guy from Freaks and Geeks, I always liked that little red head from Buffy, Doogie Houser (sp?) has totally won me over, and the rest of the cast manages not to annoy. I also like the idea that this whole show is like the journey of how the narrator met his wife. We don't know who she is yet (though we are supposed to think it's 'ol big chin), but I like that larger arc. All in all, I will continue to watch with interest.

The Office
This was sort of a let down. Nothing really happened, Michael and the boss kissing agian was sort of cool, but that was basically the only thing that happened. Thumbs up to the giant teddy bear, and to the Dwight Bobble head, though. (Hahaha, "It's me. I'M the booble head!") This was a filler episode in a show that two months ago didn't have a cohesive enough plot to feature filler episodes. The fact that the Office has come to the point that I can complain about filler episodes is a good thing in and of itself, I guess. All in all, some funny stuff, but generally ho-hum.

My Name is Earl
Give me a second to remember this. I think I was on the computer or something as we watched this one. Okay, so yeah, again; the big guy's plot was great. He's so funny. When he was riding the tricycle at the end? Get otuta town. Earl's plot line was okay, I guess we need him to have a love interest at some point at least, but would it kill them to find a new face? I was also glad they didn't make it into a long-term thing. So overall it was okay, better than last week, but not as good as the weeks before. Kudos on the CG bee, though, that thing looks pretty good.

"Don't be opening no sodas in here! It'll attract them DAMN BEES!"
"But we're inside?"
"You gotta look out for them INSIDE BEES!"

Where do the Weeks Go?

Not Television
I'm constantly suprised how quickly time seems to pass. I thought that once I began working I'd probably feel bored a lot, but the work weeks have been slipping past me like some sort of impossibly smooth eel. Before I realize what's going on it tends to be Thursday, or at least Wednesday. This is always nice, as I definately enjoy the weekends. I am not so much working "for the weekends" as the lyric goes, however, as I also enjoy my weeks. Weeknights include such fine times as Wine Night, television with Maria, and hillarious episodes of Cheers. But the weekends are where the true joys of sleeping in, staying up late, and seeing the sun lie. I really am enjoying this routine.

Speaking of seeing the sun, it's starting to stay light out later these days. I always leave work within a half hour or so of five pm, and for months there has been absolutely no sunlight at that time. But within the last couple of weeks there have been a few quality sunny days when I leave work and the horizon is still that bluish-gray that tells you you JUST missed it! I even was thrilled on one evening when the train exited the underground portion of it's transit to reveal the western sky still glowing with dusk. That was pretty fantastic. I can't wait for daylight savings time to roll around so that I can head home under the watchful eye of Rah, the sun god. When I think about the summer, and how we'll be able to run around and play after work, I get pretty excited. Pat also reports that his summer will be pretty relaxed (at least compared to the winter, or "busy season"), so I'm sure lots of tennis and basketball will be played.

Television
Lost
Oh - mah - doodness. What an awesome idea, what an awesome moment when Sawyer emerged from the jungle (double meaning!). I loved it. That was some serious shit that just went down right there.

Love Monkey
Yeah, sure, why not? I'll keep going with this. It's funny, there's nothing great about it, nothing new, really. There is no greater story arc; no anticipated love or battle or achievement, but every week manages to put together a somewhat intriguing little scenario that involves our friend John Mayer Jr. I know that Ed is supposed to get together with Google-Eyes, but Big-Lips is gonna get there first and all that, but somehow there is no sense of continuity from episode to episode. But as I said, somehow it doesn't really matter.

Scrubs
I see those two Mandy Moore-tified episodes sitting on my tivo every time I go in there. And I want to watch scrubs. But I hate her.

Early Will & Grace
They're showing the first few episodes during the 10pm time slot these days, when Maria and I have typically fallen asleep to the immense weirdness that is Will & Grace. If you hate this show, but have never seen the episodes with Jeff Goldblum, go watch those and tell me this shit isn't funny. But the early episodes are just weird. I can't deal with the characters who are so one-dimensional and so well defined in the later seasons acting differently in even the slightest way.

Family Fear Factor
I watched like ten minutes of Joe Rogan fighting with nine-year-old kids, then I changed the channel.

*click*

24
Damn, this just stays exciting this season! I almost died when the mentioned his daughter, the brief but incredibly action-packed gun battle in the lobby, everything was fantastic- except for the STUPID PRESDIENT AND FIRST LADY. Barf me rotten, 24, could we please kill these two off and let the vice president guy run the show? You know, the actor I don't want to strangle? Too bad they killed the chief of staff, he was watchable too. I really REALLY dislike both the president and the first lady, and seeing them all lovey-dovey is even worse. Ugh. These two and Mandy Moore should get together and make a show, that way they'd stay off the shows I want to watch.

Not a place to take your date after the Prom

Not Television
Work's been good this week thus far. Things are getting done (though not the things that are supposed to be getting done), and sites are making money. All in all I'm feeling much more job satisfaction in the last few days than I was over the last couple of weeks.

The new programmer upstairs turns out to be a small-time film maker, who just got a project funded. He's making a 45-minute film about a guy in his bathroom with a talking mold. Amazingly, he already has a prototype wire-controlled anamatronic mold which he brought in today to show us. It's really pretty impressive, only the mouth moves, but it's cool as hell looking, and he knows an ex-Henson puppeteer who is going to control the final puppet, which will have many more controls. I'm pretty interested to see what he comes up with when he's done shooting.

I hate to say it, but I think I've changed my mind again about what kind of car to get. I'm now thinking about a BMW - either a 2002 325xi if I can afford it, or a 1999 525. I feel much more confident about getting a used BMW than I do about getting a used VW; the entire run of them from 1997-2003 are so highly regarded, and I'd love to get one that's in great shape, do a little work on it, and drive it for a decade. In other words, I want to be Pfeiffer.

Other than obsessing over cars and working, I haven't been up to much for the past couple of days. Caroline hosted a wine night which Pat attended and rubbed elbows with various highly imporant writers. Maria made us spaghetti last night which was pretty great, and she gets her glasses (hopefully) today. I bet she looks crazy hott in them.

Tonight I'm going to watch Lost, Love Monkey, and possibly other things. Hopefully Pat will be comming by for an evening of cable goodness. And maaaybe just a little Mario Soccer...

Oh man, I just found out a coworker has Sugar Gliders for pets. Fucking awesome. They look like this:

That'd be crazy - little things flying around your apartment. He tells me that when he's wearing a hoodie they love to crawl into the pouch (they're marsupials). I like that idea. Go do a yahoo image search for "sugar gliders" - they look like a lot of fun.

Television
Scrubs
DAMN YOU MANDY MOORE!! DAMN YOU! I couldn't watch it. I tried. I got past two lines of Mandy Moore's stupid voice comming from her stupid face and I had to leave the room. Maria laughed a lot, leading me to believe that Mandy Moore has robbed me of a full hour of Scrubs goodness. DAMN HER!

Gilmore Girls
I really enjoyed having a simple, happy, fluffy episode. No big conflicts, some little things happened / were resolved, but for the most part we just saw everyone happy and being nice to each other. I totally loved it. I think I'm going to watch it again, as it was such a peaceful and relaxing hour of television. By the way, big ups to Caroline for not actually talking about this week's episode. Word. To your mother. Hell yeah!

Illegal Use of Paws = Crapping on the Field

First and foremost: Chad - my gammer tag is spanishturtle

Super Bowl vs. Puppy Bowl
The Super Bowl was hosted at our place on Sunday, and we were graced by an absolutely stunning variety of chips and dip. We also saw a great variety of folks: specifically those who love football and those who love puppies.


Truly a battle to the death

The puppy contingent bunkered themselves in securely in the center of the room, near the couch and food (always a smart move). While interest in football was certainly shown, there was always a curiosity emanating from this region concerning what exactly the puppies were doing over on Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl II - a twelve-hour marathon of puppies playing in a room that looked like a football field.

When I first flipped past the Puppy Bowl I thought it was immensely stupid, though after seeing the reaction it garnered I must stand corrected. This thing probably cost two grand to produce, and generated twelve hours of content to cover the Super Bowl evening - practically dead air time for every station besides ABC. Pretty freaking genius. Ted had the perfect idea of putting the whole thing on ice next year (as puppies slipping around = adorable * awwwwww).

The football interest came from scattered pockets - the front corners and the back wall, largely. Unfortunatly, by spreading out the forces of football, and giving the forces of puppy such a cohesive unit, it seemed the evening was a bit more puppy and a bit less foot (it's a metaphor (or something)). It was a great time by any measure. I managed to lose five dollars in betting, but gain one back, so all in all I paid about a dollar per hour - a very reasonable rate.

Not Television
Friday night was a nice evening with Maria. We hit the Red Lion - which we haven't been to in ages, bought Turbo Tax, and lazed about, watching The Last Samurai. Saturday I test drove a V6 Passat, which was pretty nice, but I'll forever regret driving that W8, as I now know what I'm missing. Saturday night the ladies all went out together and the gentlemen congregated for an evening of Halo, Mario Strikers and Whiskey. Mario Strikers is amazingly entertaining once you become hyper-competitive about it. It seems we may finally have another regular in the line-up.

Saturday night also featured odd thumping noises coming up from the first-floor apartment. Having just watched the ending of Silence of the Lambs, we were all a little disappointed when it turned out to be the neighbors wrestling or something - rather than a crazed murderer. Ah, well, someday we'll get to assail a criminal with tennis rackets and lamps.

Sunday was the second weekly installment of Basketball Brunch (All-Valley Basketball Tournament?), and while the attendance was sparse, the weather was beautiful, and the basketball was ferocious. Power forward Ellery was the first to attempt to triumph over the evil forces of the fence, nearly clearing it on a beautiful leap, but the fence proved more than a match, clipping his toes out from under him and sending Ellery to a soft but squishy landing on the grass below. It will be many a brunch before anyone attempts such a feat again. Also, I'm happy to report that the secret to not hurting myself while playing is to take aspirin before hand - I feel great today!

Speaking of today, it is Moustache Monday. Mine is a somewhat well-defined snake of hair cascading down the sides of my mouth, creating a generally disgusting look that makes me uncomfortable every time I see my reflection. Only a few others went for the moustache look today, which is a little disappointing. I'll be shaving mine off as soon as I get the chance. Though maybe he'll make an appearance at wine night - "Oh, what's that? Do I have some Merlot in my Moustache?"

ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!

Not Television
I know I've been a bit stingy with the bloggings the last couple of days, so today I'm going to hit you with a triple-barreled haste rune quad damage shotgun blast to the blog.(Do you remember the noise in the title now? If so, you are Pat Hayden, Joe Pfeiffer or Dean Lorenz.) Wednesday really was pretty dull, my short bullet-point synopsis summed it up more or less, except of course for the most momentous occasion in human history:

The Formation of the Black Pearl
Documented thanks to my cell phone's camera, here, for the first time ever, is actual photographic evidence of the existence of the black pearl (I'm sorry for the small pictures, Sprint's picture site is down, so all I have are the previews in my email). Here, in chronological order, is the step by step account from pre-pearl to Pat celebrating:





Yesterday featured no world-altering events. Work was delightfully busy, afterwards I ate left over Chinese food and watched tv, and at night I slept in my bed like an ANGEL. So there really wasn't too much going on. There was, however, plenty of television watched (to be dealt with in the section titled "Television").

Monday has been declared "Moustache Monday" at work, meaning everyone is to do their best to grow a moustache between now and then. I haven's shaved for like a day or so, so I already have a little jump on stubble. I'm going to go for the full nose-to-sideburn moustache, if I can manage it halfway decently between now and then. The number of emails created surrounding this idea has been staggering. It was first announced thirty minutes ago, and I already have twelve emails in my inbox concerning Moustache Monday. The excitement is electric.

Television
The OC
Wow, out of no where there was this great episode of the OC! Seth is smoking pot now (ohhhh, edgy!), which basically means they've made him extra goofy - it's great! They also all got freaked out over something worth freaking out over, and the whiny guy I didn't like? THEY KILLED HIM!! Ha ha, awesome! The only problem is that they'll be crying about that for a while now, but I figure I'll just watch this episode over and over if need be.

Four Kings
I've realized that part of the reason I can't stop watching this is that it's on at 7:30, and everything else on Thursday gets a late start, so it just sort of fills the gap before other shows. It seems that they're making the dumb guy less dumb, and more just lazy, which I like. There was actually something that made me laugh last night, but crap, I can't remember it. It was something the dumb guy said. Unfortunately the whole democrat vs. republican thing was predictable and dumb, but the show still managed to limp on. Perhaps in a few years this show will be great, and everyone will remember the first few episodes where it was just awful and laugh. Or maybe it will be cancelled after two more episodes.

My Name is Earl
The carpet-on-the-freeway suicide is a great idea.

Quickie

First of all, I just read this and it makes me mad. While I do not think Favre is a superhuman quarterback anymore, I do think that he is a Packer. 100%, through-and-through, unadulterated Packer. If he left and played for TAMPA?? I'd be mad.

Other than that, work is pretty busy today, so I'm going to get back to it! Perhaps I'll have time to post a more complete summation of the last 24 hours, but for now, enjoy this bullet-point summary.

-Pat moved to town
-We watched some TV together
-Pat needs furniture
-Maria was contacted by The Chicagoist, she may get the chance to write for them
-No new TV was watched last night
-I'm hungry

Grrrrarg

Not Television
Ah, Wednesday - the day that comes just before the day that comes just before Friday. Work is going well today, lots to do this morning, and once we get updates from Google there will be lots to do this afternoon. At the moment, though, I have the opportunity to just kick back and write a blog post for a few minutes. I found some pictures of a dude's Passat, one of them is over there on the right. I really like the look of that car - that's what I want mine to look like someday. Very clean, not all garish and obviously modified, just a little more aggressive looking than the stock body. Everything has aligned such that May or June will be the time to get a new car, so until then I get to obsess over it.

Besides being the day before Thursday, today is also the day that Pat moves in. According to his estimation, he should be moving in RIGHT NOW. I'm not entirely sure, but it appears from what he said on his blog that he may have been in town yesterday... and didn't call me. I'd have to smash a lamp of his if that's true. But either way, I'm going to visit him after work and gossip the Chicago gossip. ("Did you SEE what the mayor was wearing today??" giggle, giggle, giggle)

There's not very much to say today. I'll just churn through the few little updates I have real quick. One of the annoying dudes in my office got arrested last night, I guess, so he's not in today. And a couple of our friends in the city are trying to move up closer to us, so that's cool. But nothing much is going on today. I'm happy it's Feburary already; I always feel like spring is comming once it's Feburary. And spring, she is good.

Television
Gilmore Girls
I sort of liked it, because they're striving to further return things to normal (by sort of resetting the grandparents' status). I also sort of liked the way that Luke elbowed out a little space to get to know his daughter, and the wedding isn't necessarily put off just yet. The newspaper thing was fun - by the way, I (for one) never thought Logan was a complete jerk. Everybody always hated on him, but I still say he was always a decent guy, just entitled and cocky.

However, all that somewhat good stuff aside, it was also pretty dull. I again say that there needs to be some larger story arc going on. It doesn't have to be a main focus, but the show needs something. Luke's daughter, the wedding, Rory & Logan, those stories aren't really going anywhere, and they're also not all that interesting. We need something bigger. Something like the Inn, or when Rory was first at school and becomming a reporter - something that drives story lines and matures other relationships. The current crop of stories are either stagnant (Rory & Logan), have pretty much already been resolved (the wedding), or have been done before (fighting with Grandma). Luke's daughter seems to be the main thing right now, but they're just not doing anything with it. I need something I CARE about, people!

American Idol
OH MY GOD. Yaaaaaawwwwnnnnnnnnn fessssssssssssssst. Let me think if I can remember anything worth writing about...