I am wearing Sandals

Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of content lately. Things have been busy around here but I think I have a few minutes to throw a post together. First of all, I was starting to think that The Television Review might be on the way out, as even I hadn't been there for a week or so, and the average daily visitors has shrunk to single-digits. But I finally got over there today and found that there's actually a little community building on the forums! We have eight members now, and posts are comming in quite regularly. Being pretty psyched about that discovery, I made a few little cosmetic changes to the site, and put up some filler content on the show pages. I'm thinking that eventually I'll make the page almost entirely the forums - I don't think there's any need for the specific show pages. I'll have to look into customizing the look of the forum. If you're at all interested in that sort of thing, head on over and get on the forums!

Life has been good outside of the computer; Maria and I have been finding more time to spend together lately (time not infront of the tv, that is), which really increases my quality of life. I'm hoping tonight we'll get to play a little tennis even, as it's so beautiful out. I'm very much looking forward to spring afternoons spent outside of the apartment. I've also been reading some great stuff these days - Maria set me up with Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (which we read part of in high school, but never the whole thing). It's very nice to be reading something a bit deeper again. I like fantasy, but I haven't read anything you might read in school for a long time. I'm also making my way through some awesome comic books that Paul lent me. I'm really enjoying them - I've had a couple of ocassions now where I read some comics, love it, say I want to read more, and never do. Perhaps having friends with immense ammounts of comics on hand will help me actually get into it this time around.

The upcomming weekend is strangely devoid of any plans. There isn't even anything planned for Friday just yet. I'm thinking of watching the Final Four on Saturday, but I'm not really all that enthralled by it; I wish I had a friend who was all about it who was having people over to watch. But other than that possibility I don't think we have anything at all on tap. If you live in Chicago, and you have something you want to do with me, now's the time. Especially because the next month or so of weekends is jam-packed. The first weekend in April we have two seperate groups of friends comming to town (Laura + Bacon & Jess + Kat + Marcus). The next weekend I'm heading back to Brookfield to see people who are comming home for Easter, and both Harry and Dan have been talking about coming to visit sometime in April - meaning that all four weekends could easily be occupied.

It's amazing to think that when all of that is over it's going to be May. By mid-May we'll have a new apartment lined up, Maria will be on summer break, Laura and Bacon will be moving in soon, and it will be hot outside. It's going to be a good time.

The Good Part is in Red

All-star cast set for "March of Penguins" spoof
Friday March 24 8:07 PM ET

Actor Samuel L. Jackson has signed on to narrate an upcoming spoof of the Oscar-winning documentary "March of the Penguins" with an all-star supporting voice cast, independent studio ThinkFilm said on Friday.

"Farce of the Penguins," mixing archival wildlife footage with an R-rated screenplay written and directed by comedian Bob Saget, is aimed for a late-summer theatrical release, ThinkFilm spokesman Alex Klenert said.

In press materials, ThinkFilm described "Farce of the Penguins" as the story of "one penguin's search for love while on a 70-mile (112-km) trek with his libidinous buddies on their way to a hedonistic mating ritual."

Saget will supply the voice of several characters, including the lovelorn penguin at the center of the story, with Tracy Morgan, Lewis Black and Mo'Nique as some of his pals.

Saget, who hosted the popular TV show "America's Funniest Home Videos" for several years after starring on family sitcom "Full House" from 1987 to 1995, also has rounded up a group of well-known friends for cameo voice roles in the film. They include Jason Alexander, James Belushi, Norm Crosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Gilbert Gottfried, Jon Lovitz, Norm Macdonald and Abe Vigoda.

Jackson, an Oscar nominee for his role in "Pulp Fiction," will narrate the picture, a takeoff on the French-made nature film that became worldwide box office hit and won the Oscar for best documentary.

The original film, narrated by actor Morgan Freeman for the U.S. release, chronicled the journeys of emperor penguins across the frozen wasteland of Antarctica to mate, lay their eggs and bear their young.

Saget said he got the idea for the film while watching the original "March of the Penguins" at a friend's house.

"I couldn't stop doing the voice-overs of the penguins, reminiscent of when I did those animal voices on that video show back in the day," he said.

Privately owned ThinkFilm also was a distributor behind the Oscar-nominated documentary "Murderball" and the film featuring Saget and other comics performing various renditions of the off-color "Aristocrats" joke.

Reuters/VNU

Narrowly Escaping a Defining Moment

Fair Warning: This entire post is about buying a car. If you don't care about such things, may I recommend you read RitManWich's blog for advice on getting on Jeopardy instead? (Awesome find, Mike!)


I'm not saying you're defined by what you drive, but your car certianly does make a huge impact on your life. As anyone within earshot of me knows, I have been obsessing over buying a new car for months now. I've come close to actually buying one a couple of times, and have sworn off the hunt all together at least once (in blog-form, even). The last week has been another period of intense car-wanting, and I was checking out a Dodge Charger last night. The car is nice, basically I love everything about it except the fact that's its pretty huge and maybe ugly (I can't quite decide). I really considered buying it for a while, and it made me think long and hard about myself.

Far beyond the financial ramifications of buying a car, I was facing the reality of being a guy who drives a gigantic muscle car. The most American of cars; a huge, powerful beast of a machine. Despite the fact that the car is more nimble and easier to drive than just about anything I've ever driven (amazing, considering the size) and the astoundingly good gas mileage, it's the spirit of the thing. This is the ugly american car. This is the car that XXX will drive in his next movie, or the car that will be that weird american car in 3 Fast, 3 Furious. I don't think I want to be the guy that drives it. Pulling up to Wipert's house or Atlas in this car might be identity-shattering.

A car is really the only purchase I'll ever make that has this type of impact. (Except maybe a house?) Something like a car, which is a HUGE financial commitment for years to come, and is really just a luxury item, says a lot about you. It's the long-term payment plan that really gets me - you have to be okay with driving that car for a decade, more or less. If a car was something like a TV that I could pay off in one shot and be done with it I don't think I'd feel the same way. I felt almost no trepidation over buying my TV, but I get downright queasy when I think about actually buying a car. Whenever I do pick a car, it will be paid off after about five years, and I'll be left with a five year-old car that I need to still love.

The other car I would consider right now (in my price range and new) would be a Mazda 3. It's a nice little car, gets rave reviews and is supposed to be extremely well built. But the thing is that it's basically a new Neon. In five years, if I own a five year old Mazda 3, I'm basically in the same spot (car-wise) that I am right now (except it would have power locks, probably...). It's a maddening problem of only being able to afford what I don't want, which is easily solved by the simple decision to drive the Neon until it rusts so badly that it blows away one evening. I'll come out to drive somewhere and find a pile of dust and a goodbye note. At that point I think I'll feel better about picking a new car, as I'll have an excuse for the purchase.

It's frightening to face the prospect of making a decision that will effect you every single day for the next ten years. The best thing I've found from this experience is that after I come close to making such a decision, and then putting it off, I feel great. I don't have a care in the world, and perhaps that's the greatest feature the Neon has to offer. I think tonight I may actually go clean the car - it's been dirty inside and out for about two years straight now. I wuv you, Leon Jr. II.

Now that that's been said - SPRING BREAK!!!

Spring has Sprung

It was super sunny this morning. I doubt that has anything to do with the sudden classification of the season as spring, but it may have something to do with the sun being happy again. Now the days will start being sunnier than they are dark, and thus I will begin staying in my coffin more often than not. Good thing I've got a PS3 in there. How did I get a PS3 already, you ask? I'm a vampire.

I was able to find a torrent of the 24 episode I missed, and it's being downloaded at home right now. I'm still looking around for a Prison Break torrent, though I'm sure one will appear soon. It looks like that 24 episode is downloading pretty quick, so hopefully I can catch up on that one sometime soon.

This week is cruising by at a decent speed, but it feels like a Wednesday, no doubt. It usually feels like tuesday right about now; sometimes even Monday. I'm thinking that tongiht may reset my week-clock, as Maria and I are heading out for an evening of dinner and partying. You see, it's the arts institute's spring break, and although many of them have to work, and they only get two days off, the instinct to party is so deeply rooted in all things college-student that they must gather and get wasted. I, on the other hand, will never know the joys of spring break again, and thus will be cautioning them against the evils of dancing and holding hands. It should be a good time.

In my attempts to call Brian Hilgeman last night I accidentally called Harry Brammer (my memory of highschool phone numbers is all mashed together into a small corner these days). I got Harry's mom, asked for Brian, apoligized and hung up. Talk about a sticky situation.

I am copying a Terrible Idea

So The Television Review just got indexed by Google (still no page rank, but it will come soon), so I jumped out to do some searches and see if I could find it. No luck, but I did come across a page called Teen Ink, which features television reviews written by teens. The page I was landed to featured the most astoundingly flat-out wrong opinions I have ever seen. It was a review of Dharma and Greg which praised the show for its "phenomenal supporting cast", and proclaimed, "It is amazingly entertaining, brilliantly funny, and does contain a whole lotta sex (and undoubtedly worth the half-hour). So if you're so primitive and sad that you actually don't own a TV, beg your friend to invite you over this Wednesday night. I guarantee that by 9 p.m. you'll be spending that hard-earned college money on a big screen and surround-sound because come next Wednesday, you'll already be hooked.."

Thank goodness I already have a surround-sound system so I can listen to... Dharma and Greg... in stereo. The site also featured some sort of daily featured picture which, was captioned "By Caleb L." It was just a picture of a kid in a sideways cap with a toothpick in his mouth. I can only assume that that is, in fact Caleb L. The combination of that caption with a picture of himself seems really odd to me. Like he made himself. I'll have to include that feature on the review.

Outside of stumbling across the future of journalism in America, I must offer up a “good job, Joe Pfeiffer” award to Joe Pfeiffer, for getting The Penguin Movie converted into several formats for us all. The only problem is that Joe also wins the, “Joe! The iPod video format version doesn’t work!” award. This effort by Joe has resulted in me being able to watch The Penguin Movie for the first time in months. Let me just say, this is one fine piece of whatever it is. I’m somewhat embarrassed that we (I?) actually wrote this script, but every one of the actors makes the horrendous dialogue work in their own way; Polley makes it campy, Pat makes it loveable, Joe smoothes it over like a Best Buy sales pitch, and Halibus sounds like a robot. If nothing else, I’m overjoyed to still have my hands on a pseudo soda box dance (no 24-pack for the head? I can’t believe I didn’t drive to Kohls to get one).

Last night I pulled the old two-TVs-in-one-room so we could watch the finals of the World Baseball Championship and play Mario Strikers at the same time (Pretty sweet, eh Brammer?). Alas, I should have wired it via the cable box, as I inadvertently robbed my dvr of the connection it needed to record 24 AND I missed the return of Prison Break! I’m going to have to do some investigating – perhaps they’ll be available via iTunes – that’d make for some good train viewing this week. I’m in need of new material anyways, as I’m just about to finish The Lord of the Rings anyways. Jet is loaning me some X-Men comics to read, but I’m thinking that may be a evening activity, as they’re too big to put in a pocket when I’m off the train (I’m big into not carrying stuff). Anyways, the point is that I’m pissed. (Crap, I just checked – neither show is available on iTunes. Am I going to have to bit torrent this crap?? I hate doing that.)

HAHAHAHA – I just saw the scene with Chris’ “You ARE the popsicle, Pat!” and “Calm down Pfeiffer, you’re the FRECH bread!” I take back everything I said about this being a bad script.

“Something’s out to get us – something more terrible than we’ve ever possibly imagined.”

I am copying a Terrible Idea

So The Television Review just got indexed by Google (still no page rank, but it will come soon), so I jumped out to do some searches and see if I could find it. No luck, but I did come across a page called Teen Ink, which features television reviews written by teens. The page I was landed to featured the most astoundingly flat-out wrong opinions I have ever seen. It was a review of Dharma and Greg which praised the show for its "phenomenal supporting cast", and proclaimed, "It is amazingly entertaining, brilliantly funny, and does contain a whole lotta sex (and undoubtedly worth the half-hour). So if you're so primitive and sad that you actually don't own a TV, beg your friend to invite you over this Wednesday night. I guarantee that by 9 p.m. you'll be spending that hard-earned college money on a big screen and surround-sound because come next Wednesday, you'll already be hooked.."

Thank goodness I already have a surround-sound system so I can listen to... Dharma and Greg... in stereo. The site also featured some sort of daily featured picture which, was captioned "By Caleb L." It was just a picture of a kid in a sideways cap with a toothpick in his mouth. I can only assume that that is, in fact Caleb L. The combination of that caption with a picture of himself seems really odd to me. Like he made himself. I'll have to include that feature on the review.

Outside of stumbling across the future of journalism in America, I must offer up a “good job, Joe Pfeiffer” award to Joe Pfeiffer, for getting The Penguin Movie converted into several formats for us all. The only problem is that Joe also wins the, “Joe! The iPod video format version doesn’t work!” award. This effort by Joe has resulted in me being able to watch The Penguin Movie for the first time in months. Let me just say, this is one fine piece of whatever it is. I’m somewhat embarrassed that we (I?) actually wrote this script, but every one of the actors makes the horrendous dialogue work in their own way; Polley makes it campy, Pat makes it loveable, Joe smoothes it over like a Best Buy sales pitch, and Halibus sounds like a robot. If nothing else, I’m overjoyed to still have my hands on a pseudo soda box dance (no 24-pack for the head? I can’t believe I didn’t drive to Kohls to get one).

Last night I pulled the old two-TVs-in-one-room so we could watch the finals of the World Baseball Championship and play Mario Strikers at the same time (Pretty sweet, eh Brammer?). Alas, I should have wired it via the cable box, as I inadvertently robbed my dvr of the connection it needed to record 24 AND I missed the return of Prison Break! I’m going to have to do some investigating – perhaps they’ll be available via iTunes – that’d make for some good train viewing this week. I’m in need of new material anyways, as I’m just about to finish The Lord of the Rings anyways. Jet is loaning me some X-Men comics to read, but I’m thinking that may be a evening activity, as they’re too big to put in a pocket when I’m off the train (I’m big into not carrying stuff). Anyways, the point is that I’m pissed. (Crap, I just checked – neither show is available on iTunes. Am I going to have to bit torrent this crap?? I hate doing that.)

HAHAHAHA – I just saw the scene with Chris’ “You ARE the popsicle, Pat!” and “Calm down Pfeiffer, you’re the FRECH bread!” I take back everything I said about this being a bad script.

“Something’s out to get us – something more terrible than we’ve ever possibly imagined.”

Do I know my shit or what?

I called beer in the office by noon - it just arrived at 2:52pm.

It's Bud Lite, though - what's with these people??

Things to be Excited About

First of all, who saw the return of Four Kings last night? Oh man, everybody thought it was dead and then BAM! A full-force Four Kings blast to the face! The return episode even began with a shot of a dorky guy with a big iguana on his shoulder. From that moment I knew we were in for a truely remarkable demonstration of Four Kings' hardest attempts at humor. And not a single one of them worked. It was beautiful. What a fucking car wreck! Haha, the iguana? The trying to get free chineese food? The other bland guy not getting to sleep with a girl? Brav-O!! You can look for a more complete discussion on The Television Review's forums.

Also to be excited about, X-Men 3! My goodness, I just watched the trailer for the first time. Now, I know that judging from the trailer there's a real danger that they're about to ruin this series with a stupid explosion-filled mutant war, but I think there were enough moments shown to give the impression that this will continue the spirit of the first two movies. I am extremely excited to see some Pheonix shit if nothing else. The ending shot with her and Wolverine? Duuuuuuude.....

Brian Hilgeman will be visiting tomorrow, and I'm pretty damn excited to hang out with him and his mystery girlfriend. And tonight I have a SAIC party to attend. AND Pat gets back on Saturday! So it's shaping up to be a top-notch weekend.

Furthermore, it's St. Patrick's day! I'm wearing green, and my boss just got done blasting irish folk music on his stereo. I'm pretty sure there will be Guiness in this office by noon, and quite frankly I'm looking forward to it.

Dodger leaves us today, which is has exciting ramifications on my nights. I'll get to sleep! Haha! Saturday morning I have nothing to do, so I'm very psyched to sleep in and not have a tiny mammal running around on my head.

Phew! That's a lot of good stuff comming down the pipe. It should be a pretty good couple of days here. Last night was spent hanging around and catching up on TV. I'm hoping to get the new sites some page rank sometime soon, as neither has been indexed by Google just yet. I just submitted them yesterday, and I plan on getting a Google Site Map up for both sites in the near future. That should help, especially once I start getting some more htm pages up.

With that I'm off! Have a great St. Patrick's Day!

Continued Improvements

So the sites continue to eat some of my free time after work. Thus far I've redesigned both front pages with very basic shapes that I think will work until I have time to make something decent, and The Television Review has a fully functioning, locally-hosted forum now. Congrats to Qualler for being the first ever post on what will surely become a major internet hub. Spanishturtle now hosts two of my movies from college, and as soon as I get my mitts on a decent copy of The Penguin Movie (I know Pat has one), I'll upload that, Caps Making Popcorn, and A Six Pack of Sunshine: The California Story.

Other than the sites there is not much to report from Chicago. I'm pretty sure Maria and I will be glad to say bon voyage to Dodger tomorrow night. She's a fun little mutt, but really needy. This morning I discovered that grabbing her and shoving her under the sheets seems to be a good way to convince her she should sleep a little more, rather than continue to bark at the foot of the bed. But despite the little annoyances, she's so f'n cute when she's sleeping on the back of the couch or playing with her monkey. I'll remember my evenings with her fondly.

We may be in for quite a bit of snow today. I've heard a couple of reports that warn of massive winter storms, and some that say there should just be a flurry. A few flakes are just beginning to appear in the sky, so we'll know soon!

This weekend has lightened up a bit, as Dan and Laura have decided to hold off on their visit (boooooo). Brian and his lady friend will still be comming through for Saturday night. I should remember to call him today and advise them to bring basketball gear if they want to play. I'm really looking forward to everything planned for this weekend; it sounds like a very nice combination of stuff to do and downtime inbetween. Should be good stuff.

The Good Part is in Red

Bode Miller's Future in Skiing on Hold

By ERICA BULMAN, AP Sports Writer Wed Mar 15, 8:08 AM ET

ARE, Sweden - Bode Miller's left knee has put his skiing future on hold. Miller hurt the knee on a jump earlier this season, an injury that has caused his thigh muscle to atrophy. He aggravated the injury Tuesday while training for the World Cup finals downhill.
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"My knee is pretty sore, it just depends on how that can shape up this summer," said Miller, last year's World Cup overall champion. "That's going to be my top priority in the spring, getting that fixed up. That was a major issue all year. It's really not that fun when you're trying to race and train and you're constantly dealing with an injury like that.

"Meniscus damage is something that if you can deal with the pain of it, it either works itself out or finishes itself off."

Miller said his knee was swollen for three weeks after he injured it landing the Golden Eagle jump in the downhill at Beaver Creek. It seemed to get better, but he hurt it again in a giant slalom in Alta Badia, Italy, a few weeks later.

"I just hammered myself there and it just ballooned again and I haven't been able to tighten my quad," he said. "It's wicked atrophied now. It's almost (an inch) smaller than my right one."

Miller, who skipped recent races in Asia, exacerbated the injury when he landed heavily on the top jump during training.

"I just landed a little bit ... harder than I needed to and the knee doesn't really feel that great," he said. "I would have liked to go to Korea and Japan but in hindsight those races are always pretty tough and those conditions I think probably would have hurt it some more."

Miller has wavered during the last couple of seasons over whether to continue on the World Cup circuit.

Last year, he threatened to skip the Olympics and launch a rebel ski tour. He often talks of a deep lack of motivation, and complains about sponsor obligations and excessive media attention.

"Everyone seemed to think I was just kidding when I was saying I might not go to the Olympics," he said. "I was considering retiring last year for sure.

"I am more of the belief (now) that I can still find a lot of enjoyment and a lot of really specific focus and goals in my skiing. Last year, with so many people trying to do that for me and with the expectations from my accomplishments the year before, it was hard to figure out what I was going to challenge myself with. I'm not saying I'll be able to do it, I just feel like the possibility is there."

On Tuesday, Miller said he wasn't eager to break away from the U.S. team, and Bill Marolt, president and chief executive officer of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, said he would talk with the skier after the season regarding his declining performances.

"There isn't a benefit there right now (to break away from the team)," Miller said. "I think there's strength in the coaching of our team. I think there's strength in the training partners I have. I don't think there's any negatives for me except that I have to respect what they ask me to do."

The New Home of Blogging

Hey, everyone! Welcome to my new site. This post should mark the end of my "Not Television" and "Television" splits, as I plan to put my TV thoughts on the Television Review forum from now on. Note that it is a public forum, and you should all post there as well. Eventually I'm hoping to grow the site and build up some traffic, hopefully building the community out beyond the blogulution, but that will take some time.

This site, spanishturtle.com, will serve as a repository for things that I think people may want to get their hands on. Things like our movies, pictures, etc. Nothing is up just yet, but once I get some content uploaded and a basic design put together you should be able to find good stuff here. If you have any good ideas of what either site should include, let me know!

Other than buying urls, life has been good. Work has been somewhat slow, as I find the higher-ups working on important matters and I am basically maintaining campaigns that are starting to come into their own, and thus don't need all that much fine tuning. I'm pretty excited for the next week or two, as we're about to run some major optimization testing on our sites. Two of our sites are currently not making all that much money, but have massive potential, so I think we'll see some serious improvement. Which is always fun.

This week we're dog sitting the little bundle of hair and sinew that is Dodger. Dodger typically falls into one of three categories: 1) Adorable 2) Super Fun or 3) The most Annoying thing Ever. Sleeping? Adorable. Piling toys on you until you give in and play with her? Super fun. (And somewhat adorable.) Yapping and whining to go outside just after you took her out and are trying to sleep? Annoying. But all in all she's a sweetheart, and I'm enjoying her stay with us.

I went to Madison last weekend and had a fantastic time. It was great seeing everyone, and I got to attend the Atlas state-of-Atlas meeting, which made me feel very assured about Atlas. I'd been pretty worried about the future of the group, but after hearing everyone so excited about building business, it seemed almost like a fresh start for the company. Also, the new cast members are awesome. Every single one of them blew me away this weekend. I liked them all at tryouts and before, but they've come together into such a cohesive group, and merged with the old-timers amazing well. So all of that makes me very happy, as I like Atlas, and I want to have it thrive and grow for decades.

This weekend is shaping up to be very fun and also very crazy. But I'm not too concerned for a cluster-fuck, as we don't have any overly-ambitious plans. Friday night Dan and Laura are talking about comming to town, and Saturday Brian Hilgeman and his girlfriend will be arriving as well. Pat is actually in New York Friday, but will be back Saturday night, so I'm guessing we'll mostly just hang out, get smashed at Friday Wine-Night hit the bars, and perhaps see a movie. It should be awesome. And if it does turn out to be a cluster-fuck, I can always look forward to the one inspired moment of anti-cluster-fuck in which Joe gets his head stuck in Chris' pants. (That still makes me laugh.)

This Blog has MOVED!

Sorry for the lack of content lately. It is largely due to my new projects:

www.spanishturtle.com

and

www.thetelevisionreview.com

Feel free to check them both out. My blog will be hosted on spanishturtle.com from now on.

"Not a Bad Day"

Not Television
The office dog is in again today, she's wearing a Sammy Sosa jersey, and generally seems a bit aggressive and her pecs are huge. I smell steroids. She sheds more than any dog I've ever seen - I just scratched her butt for like three full minutes and hair was still comming off like a blizzard.

The last couple of days have felt sort like a recouping period. Work has slowed way down, and our evenings have been just about as lazy as possible. In about two hours, however, I'm off on my great adventure to Madison. Leaving work around two will get me on the road around three, and up to Madison by six. I'm actually thinking this may be a bit early, as I'm going to meet Moozgurgle for dinner, and he probably won't be leaving work until five. But I'm trying to sneak out of town before any hint of rush hour begins, so I'd be okay with hanging out in the Red Robin parking lot for a while if need be.

Nicely timed with this outing is a window of really nice weather. I'm pretty excited to see 60-degree temperatures reported in our neck of the woods, and I'm really hoping for a beautiful basketball brunch on Sunday. This will, unfortunately, lead to the day we've all been dreading when we have to start competing heavily for courts. We've seen kids out there the last couple of weeks already, and you throw a 55 and sunny day at a city that's been under cloud cover for four months and you've got a lot of people wanting to shoot some hoops. The point is that I'm probably going to have to convince Pat to beat up some little kids so we can get a court.

Television
24 Part 2
I finally got around to watching the second episode from Monday, and it was certianly better than the first. I don't like Edgar dying, as I was hoping he and Cloe were going to get all up in each other's beds. You know, the two antisocial weirdos hooking up is always fun. Just look at Chris and Qualler. OHHHHH! (goofin')

I'm sorry to report that both the president and the first lady live on.

Homles on Homes
I watched the most boring episode ever last night. Talk about running out of good projects. The outrage this week was that someone had a poorly tiled kitchen floor. That was it. They retiled it (and put down a new floor board beneath it), and the people kept talking about how the floor ruined their lives. They showed the floor, it looked nice; the problem was that the grout was cracking and a couple of tiles were chipped, and the one of the owners actually said, "Tears have been shed on this floor". It was ridiculous, and beneath Holmes. Holmes should have taken one look at that job and been like, "This isn't challenging enough," and set the house on fire. And burnt-out house? Now THAT calls for a Holmes on Homes!

Calm Down, Pfeiffer, You're the FRENCH Bread

Not Television
There is something extremely satisfying about turning the knob to our hallway bathroom at work slowly. You can feel multiple mechanical processes engage one by one, each piece of the assembly comming into contact as the latch withdraws. It's neat, and feels just right. I also really like using Maria's coffee mug rather than my little one with the cop on it who tells me to keep smiling. I like the new one because it's bigger, and I just make enough coffee to fit in it, so I don't have to drink coffee that's been sitting on a heating plate for a while. Better tasting coffee translates directly into more caffine in my blood, which translates directly into more foot tappin', which translates straight to a better quality of life.

This Friday I am making my first trip up to Madison in two months, and my first non-Jess' wedding trip up to Madison in like three of four months! I'm really excited. I've been thinking about hanging out with the guys at Genna's, and I almost cry. This is one of those trips to Madison where I have three distinct groups of people to see, so I have had to draft a rather strict schedule, but it's a schedule exclusively featuring fantastic events. Now, I know no one wants to know my plans in such detailed detail, but putting all of this in order is as much for my benefit as it is for your boredom. Thus far my schedule looks like this:

Friday
Hopefully leave work around 3, allowing me to beat the traffic out of town and get to Madison before 6.
6pm - Dinner with Mootzgargamel. I'm thinking Red Robin, perhaps.
8pm - Meet up with Kraft, with whom I am staying, probably play some Xbox and maybe hit a bar or two
1am - Sleep on the couch, probably with a cat all up in my business

Saturday
10am - Rise, get breakfast somewhere awesome
2pm - Atlas meeting, collect my Oscar pool winnings (AKA gas money)
6:30pm - Atlas call-time for shows
8pm - Atlas show #1
10pm - Atlas show #2 (if those are happening these days)
12pm - Perkins!! Oh man, I can't wait.

Sunday
10am - Meet Carrie and Brian (who I haven't seen for four months and six months, respectively) for breakfast somewhere amazing
12pm - Leave town, head back to Chicago
3pm - Basketball brunch
5pm - Return home, greet Maria and our dog-for-a-week, Dodger.

This return to Madison is also rekindling my nostalga factor for the city, and hanging out with everyone up there like we used to. Part of this greatness was videogame night, and I'm happy to say that we've finally gotten our opening for a weekday videogame night - we're sliding it in this week on the newly vacated Monday, thanks to Wine Night's jump to Fridays. I think this change is a substantial improvement, and I look forward to my second wine night at which I will stay past midnight. I'm also really looking forward to comming back from work on Monday and kicking back with some Halo with some friends. Good times-a-plenty are just over the horizon.

Today, however, there is business to attend to. Not at work so much, which is really oddly slow considering the busy week up until today, but at home - where we must go grocery shopping. I'm looking to shake things up this month. I've been told that Annies (of rabbit-brand mac 'n cheese fame) makes a good frozen mexican dinner, so I'll look for those. But in addition to a new option or two, I want to start buying some different bases - perhaps some fresh chicken rather than the uber-expensive chicken fingers I always buy, or maybe I'll get some mixed vegitables and actually eat them. Ohh, maybe I'll buy some potatoes. I'm not going to lie; I think I'll go a little wild tonight and buy some weird stuff. The results could be disasterous for the next four weeks of eating, but that's a risk you just have to take sometimes. Also, I'll probably end up buying the exact sames stuff I always do anyways, so nevermind.

Television
24
Why were there two episodes on Monday? That's weird. I watched the first one, and wanted to kill the president and first lady (per usual). I believe that when Jack shot the lady in the leg was the only time I can recall my jaw leterally dropping. That was wicked (like as in what wicked really means; I'm not from Boston). It was a fine episode, but not as good as the last couple of weeks. However, due to the double-up I assume that the second episode is going to be the better of the two. I've yet to watch it, though Yahoo news did present me with the headline of "Unlikely fan favorite meets demise on 24" (what a bunch of a-holes), so I'm excited to squeeze it in tonight or tomorrow. I really hope that all the other fans of the show like the president and first lady, and when they say "unlike fan favorite" they mean because why would anyone like such bad characters, and one of them is about to die. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed!)

Things to Review!

Not Television
It's been a few days since my last post, and let me tell ya; I've been generating opinions on things since then. First of all, that picture over there has a three-fold meaning. First, you need a strong back to hold up the earth (or the sky, if you're being proper); a strong back like mine will soon be again (read on). Second, I drew on it to make a witty observation about why How I Met Your Mother doesn't entirely suck. Third, I'm going to Madison this weekend, and thus will be at Atlas! Oh, my, what an effective use of imagery!

On the opinions! My back, which has been hurting for so long, seems to be on the road to recovery! (*fireworks*) It dawned on me yesterday that my back has hurt approximately since when I bought my new Pumas. I tried kicking them off and running around the office barefoot yesterday and sure enough, my back felt much better. Then when I put them on to walk home my back and legs immediately hurt again. I switched out to my old Adidas shoes last night for Wine Night and my back felt pretty good. When I got home my legs were all cramped up, but by this morning I'm feeling pretty great back there. I've noticed since changing back to my old shoes that my back is cracking a lot, and my leg pain (which was just building up over the last week or two) has almost completely dissapeared immediately. I was able to stand around in Mary's kitchen last night without feeling like my kidneys were on fire, and I've been slouching on couches all over the place. I am extremely pleased with this development, and I hope the mending continues.

Summary:
Adidas Shoes - Comfortable, don't slowly kill you, they do fall apart a little quickly, though.
Puma Shoes - Slowly kill you, but look great!

I had the greatest Saturday ever this past weekend; I woke up, got breakfast with Maria and Helen, test drove a couple of cars, went to Toys 'R Us (and bought Magnetix), and played videogames all night. All of my favorite toys. The two cars I test drove were a 2003 BMW 325i and a 2003 Saab 9-3 Linear. Both cars were very nice, and of course, this leads to review number two.

The BMW was, of course, very solid. You can tell that they buy the absolute best materials to use on everything, and the entire car feels amazing. My one complaint (other than the price) is the general size of the whole thing. I think a 5-series would feel much nicer (Pfeiffer's 525 has a great interior), but the 3-series feels almost miniture. There's enough physical space, but all of the gauges and instruments are small, low, and I generally felt like I was in a car that was about 80% normal size. I'm sort of a big guy, so I guess that's understandable, but I was very thankful to get out of that BMW and not feel like I absolutely had to own one (as I doubt I can afford it). The areas that the BMW did shine over the Saaab were in quality of materials, and general performance. That BMW could move; the slightest press of the gas pedal and it was flying. I always like naturally asperated engines better than turbos for just this reason. It felt like there was always limitless power available at a moment's notice. It was a great drive, and an extremely well made interior, but probably not the right car right now.

The Saab, on the other hand, had a very spacious interior that felt a hundred times better than the pictures led me to believe. I'm glad I got to drive one, as I had serious doubts about the interior styling after seeing photos online. Basically the dash and the entire cabin look very sparse and basic, but once you're in there it feels great, and you notice that everything is there (including many nice extras), but just well integrated into the minimalistic look. For example, there is a button you press on the dash which then slides out and turns into a cup holder. There's no trip computer display in the gauge cluster, but there is one located just below the windshield so you don't have to take your eyes off the road (which is somehow able to pull song information off of the radio... magic). In general, I felt like I fit into this car. The shifter fit perfectly into my hand, and the wheel was the right size. My only initial complaint is that I'll need to find a new way to hold the wheel, as my four-spoke posture from the neon doesn't work on the three-spoke wheel of the Saab. The drive was suprisingly quick and agile - I didn't push the car too hard from a dead stop, but I defiantely gave it a couple of good runs from a rolling start and it felt superb. My experience with the sequential manual / automatic modes of these european cars has shown me that this type if transmission is fantastic if you put enough power through it. For example, a W8 Passat with a tiptronic transmission feels awesome; a V6 Passat with the same transmission feels boring and sluggish. You need quick and deep power to make the transmission feel good. The Saab ran the automatic mode extremely well, though their sequential manual mode has the same annoying delay between you telling it to shift and it actually shifting that I've found in all sequential manuals. I've yet to drive the higher-powered Aero model, but I'm very interested in seeing what adding another 35 hp does - it can only be good.

Summary:
BMW 325i: Almost the perfect car, just a little bit too small, and too expensive.
Saab 9-3: A great ride for us bigger folk, perhaps a tad under-powered, and the transmission could be tighter.

I can't drink out of cups with covers. I nabbed Maria's insulated coffee mug thing this morning to use at work, and I just tried to drink out of it with the cover on for the first time and got coffee all over my nice sweater. Dammit! I think I got it out in time, but this just goes to solidify the fact that I am unable to drink out of things with covers. I've only tried to drink coffee out of cups with covers, but I assume these problems would translate to any beverage. I got cocky, and I paid for it.

Television
Holmes on Homes
I visited Holmes' website today (holmesonhomes.com, of course), and was suprised to learn that they're in their fourth season! I guess we're just getting into the action here in the States. I was also extremely excited to learn that I will soon be able to buy Holmes on Homes gear at the website. I can't wait to get the "I use 6mm Vapor Barrier" hoodie. I'm not kidding. I would absolutely buy that. I don't think I ever posted the dream I had featuring Holmes on Homes. I was on an airplane that was taken over by standard Russian James-Bond terrorist types, and the passangers were fighting back. We were just winning the battle when a giant Russian dude came up, clearly meaning we were about to be beaten into submission when I turned and called, "Take him, Holmes!" I didn't even know he was on the plane (dream-Dave did, of course, but real-Dave didn't), but sure enough there he was, Holmes stood up from his seat, in his overalls with his tool belt on, and took the big Russian dude down. You don't fuck with Holmes; not even at 35,000 feet.

Star Trek: The Next Generation
I went over to Pat's house the other day, and TNG was on his television. I didn't realize it was still on anywhere, but I was assured by fellow guests that G4 (a cable channel that caters to male nerds) plays it multiple times every day. I am very happy to say I have now watched two tivoed episodes, and I am violently back into Star Trek all of a sudden. Paul and I spent about a half hour of wine night reliving our favorite moments, and I'll definately be watching Worf get his ass kicked for the good of the plot as often as possible.

How I Met Your Mother
What happened for Four Kings? Four Kings used to be the show that I watched and was embarassed to be watching, but couldn't stop. Now that that's mysteriously dissapeared, that honor falls to How I Met Your Mother. The tag-team duo of Doogie and the guy from Freaks and Geeks manages to keep this ever-more-obvious-Friends-clone going. I swear, I can call the next two seasons of this right now. But you know what? I fucking love it. Gimme some Mitch-Gammon and a evil plot to turn your lawyer friend corporate any day; I'll eat it up. I'm licking my fingers right now. Delicious.

Enjoy Your Weekend, Mother Earth

Not Television
I was just cruising around Best Buy's website, seeing if there's anything I should use my $15 in rewards zone gift certificates on, and found that tons of good Xbox 360 games are finally comming out! Battlefield 2, Oblivion, and Burnout all come out this month. That's awesome - it looks like I'll be spending a weekend or two infront of the 'ol idiot box. In the mean time, videogames remains homeless, often Fridays roll around and we haven't even thought about it. There's a glimmer of hope that it may land squarely on Monday nights, which would be nice. I'm thinking that this empty weekend comming up will serve as an excellent opportunity for me to finally play through more of Dragon Quest, which I bought about two months ago but have yet to get into. Ah, lazy weekends, how I love thee.

It's not entirely devoid of content, as Helen is visiting us, and Saturday is the tentative videogame orgy of the week. I'm hoping to kick it off a bit early today as my boss/most immediate coworker John is off on a mystery weekend vacation, care of his girlfriend and we can't begin working on our big business plan thing until he gets back. Today I'm pushing for some improvements to our new site, keeping an eye on bids, and pouring through a lot of reports, but nothing too critical is really going to happen between now and my first beer. Speaking of which, I should stop on the way home and buy some beer.

Last night I caught Wednesday's Lost episode, thanks to Pat's thoughtfully not erasing it. My DVR skipped it for some reason, but his picked it up. I also got to go home with Maria (as she had met me at work), which was lovely. It's clear that neither of us are in the mood for human interaction until we unwind a little bit, though. Me with a nap in front of violent cartoons, her with reading and being smart (pssh).

I just got a call from Best Buy (litereally, like one minute ago), telling me I can come pick up my iPod for service. Alas, I have morals and had to tell them that I had it replaced. If only I was a villanous liar - free iPod! Man, I'm totally going to become evil.

Television
Lost
Wow, great episode. When I first saw it I wasn't all the impressed, but as I thought about it I realized it had some major ramifications. The biggest thing we learned was that the others are not the scruffy jungle-folk they present themselves as, but rather some sort of science cult that kidnapps babies and sticks 'em with needles. That's pretty fucking awesome. I liked that we saw characters that were previously only possibly related in cahoots, and I really appreciated them starting to make some connections. Good job, Lost!! So as of right now it's pretty clear that the whole island is Dharma property. They have multiple labs, security system(s) (the shark, remember? and perhaps the monster.), and a lot of equipment there. I wonder if the others are original Dharma staff, or if they simply found the old buildings and are using them, or what?

The next huge things I want to learn are:
-Are the Others actually Dharma staff? They seemed to have a pretty serious surgical team, so I'm guessing that they're Dharma employees as of right now (which is awesome). Also, they seem to think they're helping people, are they really evil?
-How does Dharma relate to the monster (if at all)?
-We still don't know what the button is for, and we don't know why it wasn't being manned by an Other (or was that dude an Other?). Either way, why is Dharma entrusting it to the survivors if it's actually important?
-The nursery for Claire's baby had a mobile with Oceanic planes on it, so clearly they have some connection to the airline. Is that how they bring people to the island for their experiments?

Even as I write this I'm realizing how much last night's episode fundamentally changed the world of Lost. I'm glad they finally dealt with some of the big questions. It looks like we're heading towards a confrontation between John and Jack, something needs to happen with the supposed Other in the vault, and by the way, does anyone remember that Michael and Walt are still missing? We're starting to get a clearer picture of the Others, but the bigger magical stuff that's happening on the island remains completely open to speculation.

How I Met Your Mother
Not as good as usual; they made the mistake of dealing with Doogie as a real person and also built the show around a rather boring idea of everyone telling their most embarassing moments. But Mitchgammon was great (the buzzer was hillarious), and it's still better than most other sitcoms currently in production.

The Office
Dwight's speech was awesome. It was genius, what a fucking performance - I loved him pounding on the podium even after he was done talking. That two minutes alone made my evening. Nothing much happened in terms of Jim & Pam, but the entire episode was full of great little bits. They even managed to build the bland-as-possible idea of thermostat wars into something I liked ("I always set it on 69", *best face ever*). It's weird, but I'm actually looking for more than one central plot line in this show now. It's all about Jim and Pam, which was amazing when the show actually became about something, and now when they have an episode that doesn't further that I'm left wanting more. The trouble is that every character is pretty flat, a joke character, and I love them all - I'd hate them to make anybody more real and thus ruin them. And, of course, once Pam and Jim get together it's all over. How do you make a ten episode british show into a viable show for years to come? I'm not sure what the way out is - maybe Ryan?

My Name is Earl
Eh, not bad, not good. Let's get it back Earl - you seem to be slipping a bit. There were some funny bits, a weird "the government is your friend" moral and one fantastic line, "Aw... I was a tugboat again."

Finally Putting to Rest any Notion of Me Being Cool

Not Television
Last night was spent helping friends move closer to us, and father away from that darn Blue Line. I was suprised by how smoothly and easily the whole move happened, and I even managed to avoid any further back damage! Helping in the move included leaving work a little early, which was nice as yesterday was all busy and crazy (due to a new site being launched on Monday). That site launch has made work pretty busy, but exciting for the past few days. I'm looking forward to a nice lazy evening tonight, complete with oodles of television waiting for me on the DVR.

Monday night we hosted wine night and it was a very nice, laid back time. There's talk of trying a Friday night slot for wine night, which I am very much for. Monday nights just simply aren't a good time for me to stay up late and drink. I'm also working on moving videogame night to a set week night at the same time as this wine night move. Tuesday night videogame night in Madison was so perfect, and oh so much more nerdy than the current generation; I'd like to see a return to the days when I'd walk in to find Marcus drinking whisky and playing God of War and the videogames wouldn't stop until we left (unless we decided to pause things to eat our Big Mike's).

Television
Gilmore Girls
Fair Warning: I geeked out pretty hard over this episode, and here is the immense residue of said geek out:
This was a very interesting episode. First of all, I liked it - it was enjoyable, everyone looked pretty, Kirk was funny, and there was lots going on. It wasn't just interesting because of what we saw, but also because of what we didnt' see. The good folks behind Gilmore Girls finally figured out what we all figured out a few episodes back; the current crop of whatnots isn't working, and they just pitched us about a half dozen new plot lines to see what sticks. We didn't see Luke's daughter this week, we didn't see anything about the wedding being postponed, we moved on from Paris' reign of terror at the newspaper, no grandparents fighting with Rory (no grandparents at all, actually), etc. Beyond putting on-going plot lines aside, they also seemed to completely dump one: Rory broke up with Logan, seemingly for good this time (it wasn't just a fight, he cheated on her * 4 - a major score for all the Logan haters of the world). I'd imagine the dude who plays Logan read this week's script and started looking for a new job.

So instead of all the old stories (or perhaps the new stories), they came at us with a whole new batch of threads this week. I'm guessing that in the next couple of episodes one or two of these will be scooped up as main plot lines (huzzah for potential!). Let's go to the list:

-Lane and Dude get engaged
Once again I must apoligize for not knowing someone's name. This seemed to be something they were building up to for a long time now, but decided to pull the trigger while the show was faltering. They slammed this plot line into the mainstream pretty hard, going from full-on break up to engaged in less than an episode. Which works, because we're all romantics. The band will also be getting back together (and certianly playing their own wedding in the near future). This demonstrates a continued transition in the show of late (and in all of these new plot lines): get back to what worked. Lane used to be a much more central character, and we used to see WAY more general happiness in Stars Hollow. Having a second major plot line in town gets us back there more often, and putting the band forward would mean a whole little crew of characters that they've spent some time on, but have yet to play out getting to step into the spotlight. This seems to be the major hope of the new plot lines, and I'd say it's a pretty promising one. The critical fault line in this whole thing is Dude's likability. He seems to play the lovable oaf pretty well, and as long as he's being sweet and basking in the love of his girl and bandmates I think this will work very well.

-Rory returns to reality (again)
Remember a few weeks ago when Rory broke up with Logan, made up with her Mom, and seemed to return to old-Rory that we all loved? Well guess what, that one didn't count. This week we saw her dressing in front of a mirror, listening to loud rock music on some super-fancy stereo system while her live-in rich boyfriend Logan drank some scotch and put on his suit. This was absolutely the most rich-snob we've ever seen Rory, and I'm pretty sure everyone reacted to it badly - and we were supposed to. Rory was thrown head-first all the way into the world of rich idiots she's been moving in and out of all season, and then endured a decidedly end-of-an-era moment when she found out about Logan's cheating. These were extremes. D.A.R. meetings and a fight in a bar pale in comparison to what happened this week. Shit went down. That's it, I'm pretty sure - Logan is out (out out; not out for a week out), and Rory is heading straight back to Rory circa spring, 2005. Logan is off to work for his Dad soon anyways, Rory's living with Paris, running the paper, and being super smart and polite. She's out of $2,000 dresses and back into sweaters from the Gap. (Oh man, while we're talking about it, that ending was fantastic.)

-Paris as old crazy Paris, not editor crazy Paris
This one was a bit more subtle, but Paris' character underwent a fundamental change this week (she was downgraded back to supporting cast, leaving the more predominant role she's enjoyed of late). They left the entire Paris' reign as editor plot line behind and put her firmly back in the crazy friend role. They did this in stages throughout the episode. First we saw her working at the paper; bitter about being ousted, but note that she's till there, in Rory's world, but back in her usual role of second best. Then she kicked her boyfriend out, giving Rory an in and creating a new non-newspaper Paris plot line. Then Rory moved back in with her, and Paris was able to accept her using the fight as a reason. Bing, bang, boom - we're back to normal, background character Paris. She'll take her boyfriend back, the whole boyfriend-necking-Rory thing will be brushed aside and Rory will be living in her usual setting again. I'd look for Paris and her boyfriend to decide they shouldn't live together, letting Paris and Rory live alone. Or, I suppose, Paris may dump him to get him out of the picture, but they set him up as being pathetic without her, so as of right now it seems he'll be back.

-Christopher's Daughter is a Brat
Christpher just won't die. They tend to bring him back to main-character status once in a while, and they just did it again. I'm not entirely sure how interesting this plot line will prove to be, but Loreli did promise to continue helping him, so unfortunately we may see more of the kid. The combo of a so-so plot line coupled with sudden friendship between Loreli and Christopher makes me fear yet another bout of Christopher trying to win Loreli back. But, this could also usher in an era of them just being friends, and Christopher and Luke being okay with each other. Obviously I'm hoping for the later.

-A General return to Normalcy
So all in all, we're seeing Loreli as a mother figure again. Luke certianly seemed to return to his old, gruff self (note that they never had him talk about his daughter, others took care of that), Rory seems to have finally sunk to the bottom of her rich-bitch self and risen out of it, and all of the supporting cast is well on their way back to good times. The new post-Gilmore-fight world was given a shake, but the show just didn't feel right. It was boring. Having realized this, it seems that we are heading back to the good 'ol days. Bringing back old characters and old plots, dumping new plots, and resetting character statuses to what they were a year ago all seem like good ideas. Change is scary and sometimes it doesn't work. Part of the glory of Stars Hollow is that a big change is when they put a window in between the diner and the ice cream parlor. It's easy, it's calm and it's reassuring. With any luck we'll look back on this episode as the week when Gilmore Girls got back on track.