Father's Day

I had an awesome Father's Day weekend. My write-up of it is on Evie's page, here. Amy wrote-up a bit herself, here. I won't really bother repeating any of it here, other than this picture, which is incredibly mega-awesome and will be put everywhere:

Seriously. I dare you to TRY and resist that. Isn't she awesome??

Speaking of awesome, if you haven't already, make sure to check out the big news over at the Lair. Most Excellent.

Google released an update to Picasa which offers some web uploading/album-type stuff. It's very similar to Flickr in a number of ways, but has some differences as well. I used the pups to experiment with it, check it out.

Last bit of crazy news: using some Father's Day cashola courtesy Amy's mom, I snagged my 1,000th CD today. It is: Warmachine: The Beginning Of The End. (That says Import, but I got it for a domestic price at Magnolia Thunderpussy. Gotta love that place.

Shots, Random Links

Evie had her two month doctor's appointment today, complete with four shots. She tried to be tough, but four big needles poking in such little legs was sure to produce screams and tears... Still, she did great. I'll write-up more at Evie's page (hopefully). Here she is flying (excuse the quality, it's a phone pic):


Some random links from all over the scope of things:

• Article: Was The 2004 Election Stolen? by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., written almost like a legal brief. I'm not really a big fan of the whole "conspiracy! scandal! fraud!" camp of Dems & libs, but it's still a very interesting read.
• An interesting, scholarly write-up of everyone's favorite word, Fuck.
• A hugely successful-looking new anti-HIV drug. How is this not bigger news??
• A BORAT movie!! Score! I've been wondering what Cohen's been up to lately. Trailer here.
• Because Ann Coulter is truly a psycho maniac, Henry Rollins writes her a love letter.
  
• Fun, addictive new game: Stackopolis.
  

Enjoy!

The Bistro, the Baby Show, and the Birthday

Well, as alluded to on Friday, we had one hell of a busy weekend... didn't spend a whole lot of time just lounging around (or even working around) the house, as we were almost on the run from dinner Friday straight through to Sunday night. Here you get one long review and two brief summaries. The Saturday and Sunday events will get their longer write-up on Evie's page.

Friday: Nostalgia & Tropical Bistro Madness
As planned, we hit up Tropical Bistro Friday night. It definitely lived up to the hype -- the menu is almost a clone of the old Kahiki menu (the drink menu is the exact same picture as the old Kahiki drink menu), the atmosphere tries -- it's kind of heavy on the Chinese Buffet-style decorations, with the golden dragons, pagodas and the like, but it's also got some tiki heads, polynesian lamps, and when we were there Friday night they had a ukulele player from Hawaii playing some awesome Aloha-jams.

Drinks-wise, they have a lot of great choices, including all the Kahiki standards, in their distinctive mugs (which you don't get to keep any longer, unfortunately)... I had a Headhunter, which is rum and various tropical juices. Laurie had a Smoking Eruption in all it's dry-ice glory. Amy was tempted by the Vicious Virgin, but asked what was in it, and it was NOT virgin at all... Even for a non-drinker such as myself, the drink selection was a lot of fun.

Food-wise, the menu is split into "From the East", "From the West", and "From the Islands" just like the old Kahiki menu. Standards such as the Royal Pu Pu platter, Beef/Chicken Skewers, the Tahitian Mermaid (crab & cream cheese between two steaks - excellent), and such are still there, augmented with new choices like lettuce wraps and sushi. I had the beef teriyaki skewer, which was filet mignon cooked pefectly, on a skewer with a whole onion, some pineapple and some tomato, served with rice and a teriyaki dipping sauce. The whole thing is on a big metal skewer and finished off with an open flame tableside by the server. Lots of fun, and very tasty. Amy had the Sesame Chicken, which was good, Laurie spoke highly of her Tropical Chicken (served in a pineapple shell), and Gary had the aforementioned and phenomenal Tahitian Mermaid.

For dessert, pictured above, we had to get the Big Fat Mamasan, a Kahiki classic - a huge pile of vanilla and chocolate ice cream, with chocolate sauce and various fruits (including, or so Amy has told us, coochie fruit). How can you not enjoy a flaming, smoking mountain of ice cream?

So yeah, we had lots of fun, and I highly recommend the place to any good food lover, but especially to fans of the old Kahiki food and service. As a bonus they do daily lunch buffets (other than Saturday) and a brunch buffet on Sundays! For another take (and a horrible picture of me), see Laurie's review here.

Saturday: Evie Goes to Cincy
[pictures are here]
Me, Amy & Evie headed down to Cincy to visit with the Voellmecke clan. En route, as always, was a required stop at Sonic for a cherry limeade. Amy made a potty run at the La Rosa's next door and out of guilt bought a lifetime supply of LaRosa's pizza sauce in the industrial size "feed the whole famdamily" bag. We met up with some of Amy's family on her Mom's side briefly, then spent the rest of the day in the Voellmecke jungle. Saw pretty much all of them in the area, as well as the Chicago contingent. On the way home we hit-up Jungle Jim's... WOW. That's a helluva grocery store. Bought lots of fun stuff including:

• Jolt Cola
• Virgin Cola
• HP Sauce for Gary
  
• Gulab Jamun
• Palak Paneer
• Brown Bread in a can
• some Vegemite!
  
• Two kinds of etouffe mix
• various candies
• and some other stuff I'm not recalling at the moment...

Sunday: Alaina I.'s First Birthday!!
[pictures are here]
Sunday we hit Dayton with Gary in tow for Alaina's first birthday party. Irene & Jeremy put on one heck of an awesome party. Some awesome grilled kebobs, chocolate-covered strawberries, an awesome strawberry snake cake, cornhole, and a huge inflatable jumping room. Plus the birthday girl herself, who is a heck of a lot of fun (I can't believe Evie will be up and around and doing those things in less than 10 months!) And on top of all the other fun and comraderie, we got to meet their new pug puppy, PIRATE! Check out this mug:


Only 9 weeks old and already in prison! A true pirate indeed!

Friday Yo

Can't complain about Friday. Got a pretty busy weekend ahead of us, though, so I expect going back to work on Monday is going to suck even more than usual. But that's how things go.

Best Of '06
Wednesday Amy & I hit up Shadowbox for Best of the Box 2006. It was, as you might expect, reeking of awesomeness. I typed up a pretty extensive review on their forums, so I won't really get into it here, other than to say that I definitely enjoyed it, and hopefully things work out so that we'll be able to go back again at least once before Freak Show rolls around.

Tropical Bistro
Tonight Amy, Laurie, Gary & I are going to try out Tropical Bistro, which is kind of a reincarnation of the Kahiki! Or "Kahiki Lite" as it were. We loved the Kahiki, and as with many folks, were very very sad when it closed back in '00. I'm still holding out hope that it'll come back with a full-blown fancy building and everything, instead of just in some strip mall, but with almost the same menu, drinks, several important staff, and a lot of decorations, I'll take what I can get. I'll let you know how it is...

Tomorrow: Cincy & the V-clan.
Sunday: Dayton for Alaina's b-day and hopefully to Casa Fish for game night afterward.
Monday: back to work...

Dream Dinners, Strawberries, 6/6/06

Dream Dinners
As mentioned previously, Saturday morning Amy & I tried out Dream Dinners in Westerville. Amy's already talked about it on Evie's page, but I wanted to get my own say in as well. Beforehand, I was unsure about the price, as it's a lot of upfront money to put out, but we had a lot of fun there putting everything together, and it's looking like it'll actually work out to be a really good deal. It is a lot of upfront money, but we made 12 meals (11 entrees and a dessert). The meals typically serve 4-6, so of those we split 9 of them (including the dessert) into two portions, making 19 meals and two desserts. Since then, we've had two of the split meals and they were definitely large enough portions for both of us to eat our fill AND have enough left over for me to take to lunch the next day. Given the amount of money we'd probably spend at the grocery store on trips for all those meals, let alone the time and energy we'd spend prepping everything... I can safely give a strong recommendation for Dream Dinners.

Strawberry Love
Sunday we went down to Troy to hit up the Troy Strawberry Festival with Gary, Irene, Jeremy & Alaina. At the festival we met up with Amy's cousin Emily and her friend Dan too. It did rain off and on while we were there, and I got pretty soaked while waiting in the ridiculous line for butterfly fries (or twister chips, or shaved potatoes, or whatever). They were good. Still, I'll take the rain over the 92-some degree heat and humidity of last year. Strawberry-food summary:

• Deep-fried strawberries
• Strawberry pizza (I had some of Amy's)
• Strawberries & Chocolate (some of Irene's)
  
• Strawberry & Lemon Cooler (like a Lemon Shake-up but with strawberry goo too)
• Strawberry salsa (some of Emily's)
• Strawberry donuts
  

They were all tasty, but the deep-fried strawberries and the cooler stood out above the rest. And of course, the strawberry donuts ROCK. Jeremy's a total champ for taking on the 1.5 hour line to get us some hot & fresh donuts. They were fantabulous. For NON-strawberry food I had a bloomin' onion, the aforementioned butterfly fries, and roasted sweet corn. Mmmm tasty.

6/6/06
June 6, 2006 -- or 6/6/06 as it were. As you might expect there are all kinds of tie-ins to this. As I mentioned previously, it's the National Day of Slayer. They're releasing an EP exclusively to Hot Topics today with at least one new song on it, and I believe they're doing a t-shirt thing for it as well.

Elsewhere, they're having a party in the real-life town of Hell, Michigan. (I think all Buckeye fans aren't surprised to find out Hell is located in Michigan).

The Omen remake comes out today. It looks pretty decent, but I'm not sure why a remake was really needed.

There's plenty more places talking about it as well... Apparently some bookmaking websites are even making odds on the world ending today. Not really sure how you'd collect on that bet though.

Gah~!, Go RPS yourself

So of course I've spent the past half-hour or so writing up a nice blog post summarizing the fun of the day's lunch selection dramas and Randy's apparent new nom-de-guerre "Catfish", when wouldn't you know it, Firefox (!) crashes and *poof* all gone.

I'll write it up again sometime soon I guess, but for now, I just want to throw a link out there and be done with it. But it comes with a bit of a story. Back in the day, in my early days at OSU (and working at the good 'ol Customer Services desk), Beth & I would use Rock-Paper-Scissors all the time to decide who had to do the next crap-job, or make the lunch run, or help the next customer, or whatever. The problem was, we knew each other so well that most of the time we'd tie over and over again. Well, one of us found a solution to this on the nascent World Wide Web in the form of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard, and it's 5 possible signs. Well, we had a desk job that had decent periods of down-time (or even more often, mindless work time), so we figured why stop there -- so we worked out the 7-sign version Rock-Paper-Scissors-Spock-Lizard-Dynamite-UTS. After all, there's always some stupid kid that would try to play dynamite and "blow everything up", just to be a pain-in-the-ass brat, and this gives it actual balanced results.

Obviously, we weren't the only folks to figure out that the game works with ANY number of symbols as long as you're always adding two more, and some dude took it to the extreme with RPS-25. That's twenty five signs for some insane number of different combinations. You've got all your usuals there, as well as Bowl, Axe, Monkey, and even Devil and Nuke. Check 'em out:

My Musical Tastes

It seems to happen fairly regularly, but I still enjoy it when I search for an album on Amazon (especially when I add one to my Wish List), and it pops up the old "Customers who shopped for XXX also saw these items..." , and it's such a unique combination of stuff that it can ONLY be using my own data to build the list from.

PQ Update, Shadowbox Podcast!

PQ's surgery went well... and was a good deal cheaper then they originally estimated. When they got in there, the vet was able to confirm that it was just a stopped-up oil gland cyst. They still removed it just to be safe, and drained another he had on his leg that we didn't know about. But they're nothing to worry about, and other than being kind of dopey and needing to get his stitches out in a couple weeks, he'll be fine. It's basically the same thing I had removed from my back a couple years ago - PQ just wanted to be more like Daddy. The other funny thing is that because of where his stitches are, the vet recommended putting him in a child's t-shirt to keep him from fussing with it (rather than a cone-head). I'm not normally a fan of clothing for pets, but vet's orders and all.. Evie gave big brother PQ one of her onesies (with the bottom cut off) - here's Evie helping PQ recuperate:


In other news, Shadowbox now has a (video) podcast! Ownage.

PQ's Surgery

Pasquale's getting surgery today (at this very moment, I'd imagine) to get a lump on his side removed. It's been there for about a year (maybe even a bit longer?) and doesn't seem to be too serious, but it has gotten a decent amount larger in that time, and they're going to remove it and send it off to the labs for analysis just to be safe. I feel so bad for the little guy! Think good thoughts.

Been kind of a crazy busy week for us - Amy at home especially. Amy's already summed up most of it on Evie's page , but to summarize the highlights of the past and coming week, starting from last Friday:

• Hit La Chatelaine for lunch b/c I was craving a Croque Monsieur. Well, they ran out JUST before I got to order - "sorry, we're out - no more for 45 minutes! You should try this instead, it's very tasty!" Person2: "Or this, try this, you'll like it" Person1: "Yes, you try this!" Me: "Go f-yourself, I wanted a damn Croque Monsieur, I don't want this other shit!" ... Ok, well of course I didn't actually say that -- but I was pretty grumpy to the lunch crowd (including Amy & Evie!), since that was the only reason I'd suggested the place at all...
  
• Saturday Nana & Grandpa babysat while Amy & I saw The Da Vinci Code. It was a pretty decent movie. Still not a huge fan of Tom Hanks in the role, but all the major cast did a good job, and it was a solid adaptation. A few logical changes (for timing, etc), a few very odd changes (maybe to make it "easier to follow"? -- oddly enough they seem to make it more controversial), but still, worth seeing, especially for fans of the book.
  
• Sunday was church, errands, and brunch at La Chatelaine so I finally got my Croque Monsieur.
• Monday was the holiday - cookout & hanging out @ my parents house. Evie slept almost all day, which was very odd...
  
• Yesterday we had our new freezer delivered, the driveway sealed, and finished collecting up and hauled out all our collected basement crap to the curb.
• Today is PQ's surgery, the freezer guy returning to check out a dent, bulk pickup comes to GET all that crap.
• Tomorrow is Crazy From The Heat at Shadowbox.
• Saturday we're doing Dream Dinners.
  
• Also this weekend is the Columbus Arts Festival and the Troy Strawberry Festival. I hope to do at LEAST one of those, and I guess it's remotely possible we'll end up doing both...

Pesky Bill of Rights

It just seems to get in the way doesn't it?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

And that's just the First Amendment. There's also the Fourth, with it's pesky laws about unlawful search and seizure, and the Fifth, with it's silly due process.

Is it 2009 yet? Or will we just get more of the same? I don't exactly have high hopes for things to turn-around. In fact, in Ohio I'm pretty sure that this asshole will be our next governor. After all, he's used to "helping" close elections [pdf].

Lost Rules, No more TV...

The Lost season finale was definitely worth it. Even in the first 30 minutes it was MUCH improved over last season's anti-climactic finaly, and they had a good mix of revelations while still progressing things AND setting up a couple (maybe three even?) great cliffhangers for next season. I already can't wait, and it's not until SEPTEMBER. In the meantime, you can brush up on all the little crazy details, secrets, revelations, etc, at the VERY awesome Lostpedia. (Warning: If you haven't seen any of this season's episodes -- the site is VERY spoiler-heavy). You can also fill up the off-season following the Lost Experience ARG (alternate reality game).

Speaking of nothing to do until September, Lost was the pretty much the last of them -- all our shows are now over for the season. Doctor Who still has a few episodes, and I think The Sopranos and Big Love might as well, but all the standard network fare is over. I guess we'll have a lot less TV to watch and a lot more time to play with and stare at Evie instead. I'm also keeping my eye out for good off-season shows - for example, season 3 of The 4400 starts up in a couple weeks -- so if you see anything else good, let me know.

Mothers Day, TV

So this past weekend was Amy's first Mother's Day. As we've done the past few years, we hit up brunch at the Blackwell. It's kind of pricy, but they go all-out with one heck of an awesome spread, and we had a great time. I only wish I'd been able to eat even more - there were so many great options that I just couldn't fit it all in.

I've been following the various fall TV season announcements the networks have been making. So far I've seen at least bits & pieces of NBC, ABC, and CBS. It's hard to find a really comprehensive compilation of all the news about it out there so far -- times like this I really do miss the Entertainment Weekly subscription. Anyway, from what I've gathered, the following shows on my DVR are returning for next Fall:

• LOST
• CSI
• House
• NCIS (without Mark Harmon? This may get dropped)
  
• Cold Case
• Without A Trace
• Numb3rs
• Ghost Whisperer (this too may get dropped...)
• My Name Is Earl
• Doctor Who (assuming Sci-Fi picks up the 2nd BBC season which is already airing)
  

...yeah. Just looking at that is pretty scary. I watch WAY WAY too much television. 9.5 hours per week there. 24, I understand, HAS been renewed for three more years, but I assume as usual won't be coming back until January or so so that it can run uninterrupted. I haven't seen anything from FOX yet, so I'm only guessing about House, but how could it NOT be back? On top of those, I'm interested in the following new shows:

• NBC: Heroes
• NBC: Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
• ABC: Six Degrees
• ABC: Day Break (mid-season mix with LOST)
• ABC: The Nine
  

Should be interesting. I'm guessing that I'll have to find things in both lists to trim out as Evie takes up more and more of our time, and I'm sure some things in there will crap out anyway, so it should all even out. Besides, who needs that much TV anyway?

Friday Fun

Well, I've almost made it through my third day back at work. It hasn't been as bad as I expected getting back into the swing of things here - though Wednesday itself was pretty tough.

Luckily, to keep me going through the brain-drain, the Intarwub (primarily YouTube) has provided entertainment:

• Heat Vision and Jack -- this is a pilot for a TV show with Jack Black, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson that was DOA. This is one of the most entertaining things I've seen in quite some time - it's so ridiculous.
  
• For the comic book folks - Civil War reenactments? Try SECRET WARS reenactments!
• C For Cookie - Sesame Street meets facism, anarchy is gluttony?
• Though it's still more than a month away, you may want to start getting ready to celebrate the National Day of Slayer - June 6th, 2006.
  

Two Weeks Later, Sci-Fi Day Pass

Been two weeks since Evie was born, and they've went by in a flash. As we've done for the past 9 months, I'll still keep most of the purely Evie-talk over at her page, but that doesn't mean that this will be purely devoid of baby-mention. Still, for baby-talk and pics, be sure to stay on top of things there.

Because Amy is the awesomest wife/new mom ever, I did get to hit the 23rd Annual Ohio Science Fiction Movie Marathon this past weekend. Since Evie was originally due on the 20th, it was really unlikely that I'd be going, but since she came early and friends & family were available to help out, Dad & I did get to go, which was awesome. We've been going every year since I was in middle school (I'm pretty sure 1990 was the first year we went), and it's a heck of a lot of fun. These days Gary and Hutch come too, as well as other folks depending on availability. The highlights of this year's marathon for me were definitely Godzilla: Final Wars (which I hadn't seen) and Serenity and Forbidden Planet (which I had seen before - the latter quite a few times). They also showed about 6 Batman serials from the early 1940s (during WWII) which were hysterical - so different from anything they'd show today - Batman got knocked out at LEAST once per episode, sometimes more often, and was constantly getting bailed out by Robin and even Alfred!

Getting ready to go back to work later this week, which means polishing off yard work and such so that Amy will be able to just relax and hang out with Evie during the days. Found out that we've got a robin's nest on our fence. We didn't really want one because the dogs might bother it / get into it, but after tearing down two completed nests, it came back a third time and now there are eggs in it, so I'll just try and leave it be and keep them safe:


There's three little eggs under the proud parent there. I don't think the dogs know about the nest, so lets hope that things stay that way. You'd think that even in a neighborhood without any mature trees like ours, there's still GOT to be a safer/better place to nest, but hey, I guess for a bird this persistent, we can allow a little backyard squatter.

April 11, 2006

All details, and links to more pics over at Baby T's page!

Make It Stop

Another weekend, another Monday. Not a whole lot of note done over the weekend. Saturday Amy & I just hung out and relaxed, Sunday Amy went out with the girls while Gary & I hung out, gamed, & relaxed. So relaxation is good.

Going back even further for a sec to pimp Shadowbox - Go see Crazy From The Heat at Easton. It's a damn good time, including new sketches for quite a few of their better regular characters - Jason's Scary Stories, American Top 40, Dr. Mystery, the game show gang, etc. Lots of fun. Additionally, of course, BillWho? rocks the house with some great tunes.

Today was a pretty busy day at work, but I did get a bit o' free time here & there to do some interesting reading. This is what really got me worked up - Telegraph headline: "Bush is planning nuclear strikes on Iran's secret sites". ARE YOU SERIOUS? I mean holy crap, as if the whole propaganda parade wasn't already bad enough, now they're alleging that folks in the administration are refusing to take the nuclear option off the table. The story has spread to a lot of other sources as well, and SERIOUSLY. SERIOUSLY - the fact that military action is on the table AT ALL here is a testament to how deluded folks in Washington must be about how things are going over there. Given the news from Iraq, the fact that we're still in Afganistan, how could we POSSIBLY afford (money-wise, troop-wise) to open up yet ANOTHER front? This does make last week's story about the US plan to build new nukes for the first time since 1989 (possibly up to 125 new nukes a YEAR!) a LOT scarier...

A senior Pentagon consultant said that Mr Bush believes that he must do "what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do," and "that saving Iran is going to be his legacy".

...YEAH. And that's your warm fuzzy thought of the day right there.

Illness, April 1st Fun, Further Evidence

So I'm pretty well recovering from the plague that struck me down last week. Unfortunately, I've passed it along to Amy, who isn't open to get the same NyQuil/DayQuil benefits that got me through last week. I feel really bad and hope that it makes it's way through pretty quickly.

We did have a pretty good weekend. Saturday I spent a good portion of the morning checking out all the various Internet April Fools shenanigans that were out there. I think the overall quality was a hair down this year (perhaps because it was a Saturday?), but there was still enough good stuff out there to make for an enjoyable hour or two. The nice thing about April Fools Day on the Internet these days is that most folks are wise to the games now and basically nothing is taken seriously that goes up, is announced, or changes on 4/1. Which means the malice is gone and it's just fun. Although a lot of the original pranks are gone now, this is a pretty comprehensive list of what WAS there. Some of the standouts for me were Google Romance, My Little Pony the RPG, Burgercraft, and Wikipedia's homepage, which was redone with all fictional stuff. Of those, all are still up except for the Wikipedia changes.

As promised, I gave the Evidence another shot. This episode was definitely MUCH better than the pilot, especially as far as the acting and dialogue goes - Estes and Jones felt a lot more natural and not as forced... so it wasn't BAD like the pilot was, but it also really wasn't all that stellar - falling into a "meh" category that might get it watched every now and then, but definitely isn't going to earn it a place in the already way-too-crowded regular viewing schedule. The gimmick of seeing the evidence first and last isn't holding up well either... it's somewhat intruiging, but not really all that earth-shattering. Ah well, still LOTS of other TV to watch, not like I needed one more show.

Still In Tact, The Evidence

Well, I'm still in one peace, and the healing process is coming along pretty nicely. At this point, it's really just down to some achiness at times, and the "steri-strips" (basically tape which takes the place of stitches on small incisions) are still hanging on, but all-in-all, things seem to have gone well.

I've mentioned it before, but I still contend that DVR is a larger contributor to my brain-rot than video games, regular TV, and the Internet all put together. You'd think that after we got the dual-tuner DVR box with more storage space, Amy & I would have trouble keeping up with everything being recorded.... but you'd be wrong. Instead, we keep adding new shows to the DVR schedule just so that we can keep it stocked with things to watch. I'm thinking we may need to join a 12-step program.

Anyway, the newest thing I threw on to check out was the pilot episode of ABC's The Evidence. I've been a fan of Orlando Jones since the "Make 7-Up Yours" commercials, and the premise sounded SOMEWHAT interesting... (that you see the evidence first and have to try and piece it all together, then see what it's actually from as the show rolls on). Anyway, I WANTED to like it - but I was VERY unimpressed. The acting felt REALLY stilted from both leads (Jones and Rob Estes) - there was a lot of "buddy movie" type lines but they felt SO forced, I don't know that the chemistry is really there between them. The show itself, aside from the attempt at the new spin with the evidence thing (which is VERY minor), is just another Law & Order / CSI rip-off crime drama, and didn't really present anything new. Because I really dig Orlando Jones, I may give one more episode a shot, but right now this one's a definite pass for me.

So, I lived

Well, despite my absence here, I did make it through the surgery last week just fine. Since I hadn't really mentioned it here, if you hadn't heard about it, don't worry, it wasn't a big deal. I didn't really go out of my way to let folks know, but I wasn't dodging the topic either.

Anyway, recovery has gone pretty well. I was back at work on Friday. In pain, but back at work. Which is good because of the vacation the week before, and the coming baby-leave, I really want to miss as little work as possible. I'm still in a bit o' pain today, but hopefully everything's on the right track.

In the meantime, things keep rollin' on along, and I ought to get back to work...

Lists of Bests: Mindless Web Fun

So I'm newly re-addicted to Lists of Bests. It's been acquired by the Robot Co-Op and tied into 43places, 43things, and All Consuming, and revamped with all kinds of new goodness. The downside is that it didn't retain the things I'd already marked as "consumed" from the old Lists of Bests site... but the upside is that it's got a new fresh look and snazzy new features - the ability to create your own lists being among the best, definitely.

Recently at TechCrunch they posted a really awesome looking preview of Google's forthcoming online web calendar, CL2. I've checked out a number of the many new webcals so far, including 30Boxes, Spongecell, Eventful, Kiko, and Planzo... honestly they're all pretty much the same with maybe ONE distinguishing feature or focus for each. CL2's integration with Gmail alone should be enough to push it through to the next level -- basically it's moving towards more of an MS Exchange-level of integration. I'm really excited to try it out, so hopefully it makes it out of private status soon.

Ahh, Vacation

Earlier this week Amy & I took our last pre-parenthood vacation, heading down to Glenlaurel Inn in the Hocking Hills for a brief yet incredibly relaxing and much needed vacation. Our goal (sure to take many years' time) is to eventually stay at least once in each of their rooms. This time around we were in the MacKenzie Royal Suite. The story being that in the olden days, Scottish nobles would always keep one suite or room always ready in case the king or queen decided to stop by for the night. It was a really nice room, a little larger than the pictures make it out to be.

While we were there, Amy was a serious champ and we hiked Cedar Falls, Ash Cave. and Glenlaurel's own Camusfearna Gorge. Not too shabby! Pictures of the nature-type scenes, and a few of the room are here. There wasn't really any snow on the ground (it did snow briefly while we were there, but didn't stick), but there were lots of great icicles along the cliffs:


I think we even managed to capture a couple pretty decent pictures of me in the process as well. Can't beat that.

We came back Tuesday night and were still off on Wednesday for some relaxation around the house and to get a few errands done. Unfortunately Mr. Migraine paid me an unwelcome visit, so I had to turn in early on the errands, but I did manage to make it through a visit to baby Alison! She's an awesome girl, and even at less than two weeks old was a lot of fun - she makes some seriously funny faces. Can't believe it's just over a month now until Baby T comes along...

March Already

I can't believe it's already March. Seems like time alternates between flying by so quickly you can't catch a breath, and crawling so slowly it's worse than watching paint dry.

Anyway, here's a few links to keep the March boredom away:

• MC Hammer has a blog!
  
• Homeless blogging! (NOT by MC Hammer)
• Hilarious Something Awful Photoshops: Choose Your Own Adventures!
• Re-Imagineering: Disney and Pixar professionals talking about "imagineering missteps" (in park design and such) and musing on the future. Given that I'm an admitted hardcore Disney-phile, I agree with a LOT of what they have to say on changes to the parks which haven't worked, what could improve things, etc. I really hope that some of this stuff catches the right ears (er, eyes).
  

Farewell 2Co's

Saturday night was the last show at 2Co's, and Amy, Randy, Gary & I were there. Heather was originally going to be joining us as well, but unfortunately she couldn't make it. We headed down around 5pm and there was ALREADY someone in line, even though the doors didn't open until 7pm. We killed some time at Randy's apt, then I headed over and got in line at 6pm. The others all went back to Randy's apt to stay inside in the warm. Which was probably a good thing, because it was DAMN COLD out, and I was pretty well frozen by the time they finally let us in. It was a full house - after only selling a few tickets they closed it to the general public and made it invitation only, filling the place up with hardcore regulars and a few former staff. There was a lot of great energy coming out of the audience and the performers really gave it their all, making for one hell of a great show. Amy & I had already seen it once before, but it was MORE than worth seeing it again, and this one was really all out with some excellent performances all-around. After the show there was much applause, some crying, and a nice speech by Steve Guyer, then everyone retired to the gallery for cake and a little reception. All-in-all it was a really great night and I'm so glad that we were able to be a part of it. I'm really going to miss a lot of the performers who aren't moving on to Shadowbox (including a few who had already left), but I can understand folks wanting to move on and wish them the best. If you never got a chance to check out a show at 2Co's, you missed out on one hell of a great experience...

Sunday we hit-up Shadowbox proper for the matinee of The Who's TOMMY. Wow, that was way cool. First off, just the stage alone blew me away - they've got a cap over the middle stage to make it equally as tall and deep from wall-to-wall and it's just crazy looking, being so used to the regular setup. It was also a blast seeing the Newport who came up to be in the show. They did a really great job with it -being more faithful to the original album then the Broadway musical or the 70s-tastic movie. I do love the movie, and I missed the religous overtones, but it was an awesome production, and included some REALLY well done video work on the screens. And of course solid performances from some of their best folks. If you like Shadowbox, or musicals, or The Who, you NEED to see this show.

Damn You Axl Rose!

I have had G'n'R's "Patience" stuck in my head for way too damn long. When did it come out? '89? Maybe since then. It all starts out with that whistling hook, and then worms its way into my brain like a termite and takes hold. Based on this absolutely scientific evidence, I submit that it's got to be one of the catchiest or most addictive songs of all-time.

This would rank up there with Deep Purple's "Smoke On The Water", Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner", and others which I'm not thinking of at the moment that may or may not be as bad as those three. Musical viruses that work their way into your system and never really leave. You can drown them out with other music, other catchy tunes, etc, but you're only treating the symptoms - the cause is still there, waiting, and it won't be long before you find yourself mindlessly whistling that hook YET AGAIN...

In other news - Shadowbox Insanity Week pt. 49 commences tonight: Sex At The Box '06 tonight, 2Co's Final Show Saturday night, and Tommy at the matinee Sunday afternoon. There will be much good times (and most likely a fair helping of melancholy) to be had! Viva Shadowbox!

The Boondocks

The Boondocks is one of my new favorite comics. It's actually been around for quite some time, and I can even remember when it started being carried in most papers and such, but for some sad reason it didn't really catch my attention until it became a cartoon on Adult Swim. After catching a few episodes there, I went out to start reading the strips, and they're definitely well worth the read.

The best thing about it, in my opinion, is that it's got a good mix of urban social commentary and liberal-flavored political commentary, but even while putting all this out there, it doesn't fail to take potshots at itself and those fields as well - Huey (the protagonist) is usually the voice of reason, of educated African American youth, but his extremes play off of Riley (his younger and generally more sterotypical brother) and his views aren't safe either - like the cartoon episode regarding wanting to "tell white people the truth".

It's just a great read, almost always has a great laugh, and manages to sneak a few good messages by in the process. Check it out.

Date Movie Dump

In retrospect, I probably should've known better, but over the weekend I talked Amy into going to see Date Movie with me. I had high hopes, as I thought the first Scary Movie was good, and really enjoyed the spoof Not Another Teen Movie. The SM sequels were nowhere near as good, abandoning satire and parody in favor of over-the-top farce and bathroom humor. Maybe I'm too old, but that kind of crap really doesn't do it for me. Date Movie had a few good moments, but overall was just "lets cram a whole bunch of references to other popular movies in and hope people think that's funny parody instead of worthless nonsense". Yeah... just pass on it. At BEST it's a cheap theater flick, but really it's a catch it free on TV or not at all kind of thing.

We also had dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen - that was a pretty good time. My first time there, I avoided the pizza of course, but they have lots of other great choices, including a plethora of great salad options. I had the Thai Crunch Salad (with avocado!) and Amy had the BBQ chicken salad. I liked mine better but both were good options.

Gotta run and do the grocery shopping (whoo-hoo FUN)...

Happy Valentine's Day

...every day, the 14th. Well, OK not really, but it's a song, you know? Yesterday was also Chris's b-day, which I of course completely forgot about, despite it being such an easily rememberable day. Yeah, I suck like that.

Amy & I had a phenomenal dinner last night at Morton's, which has definitely been our favorite of the anniversary steakhouse tour to date. The return trip didn't disappoint at all - I had an excellent Chicago-style bone-in ribeye, and Amy had the double-cut filet mignon, both excellent, excellent cuts o' meat. I also partook of the lobster bisque, some of Amy's chopped salad, and for sides we had broccoli and hashbrowns, the latter being especially tasty. For dessert, the hot chocolate cake, which was superb... though still a notch below Lindey's. It was a great time, and I'm really glad we got to enjoy it, since this was our last pre-parenthood V-Day. I think Amy's also trying to work in one last pre-parenthood trip to Glenlaurel as well, though the timing is pretty tight and I'm really not sure if it's going to work out.

I know I've linked Cute Overload before, but I just had to make special note of a post overthere today - this page has a good number of pics like the awesome one to the left -- fish-eye lens + puppy cuteness = the awesome.

I mean, how can you NOT look at that and say "awwww"?

I Have Lost All Faith In Humanity, pt. 32

The commercial tells me that When A Stranger Calls is currently the number one movie in America. There is something seriously wrong with this. Not only is it based on one of the oldest and most well known urban legends/campfire stories there is, but it's ALREADY BEEN MADE INTO A MOVIE ONCE BEFORE.

I pray for the future of humanity...

Where Did The Week Go?

Wow, missed more than a week there. What happened?

Well, the damn Superbowl was part of it. I can't believe the Steelers won again. So frustrating - especially since the Seahawks seemed to really try and win the game only to fall short with stupid penalties and dropped passes. Even more frustrating is that we're now officially all out of football until next fall. Basketball and hockey aren't bad, but I just can't get into them anywhere near as much as football - especially as far as watching them on TV goes. It doesn't help that it's nigh impossible to catch a Tampa Bay Lightning game on TV... The Cavs are a bit easier, but the games tend to be on at odd times...

In other sports news, the Winter Olympics have started over in Italy. I have trouble really getting interested in the Olympics, but especially the winter version... I'm just not really as into the events... snowboarding, skating, skiing.. meh. Fun to do, but pretty dull to watch. Nevermind the fact that the coverage these days is all recaps and 30-minute segments so we can "get to know" the athletes. Part of what I saw last night they spent 30 minutes talking to a skiier (Bode Miller I think?) about how he thought about not going to the Olympics, and didn't really want to have anything to do with the media, interviews, etc. Then WHY THE HELL DIDN'T HE JUST SAY NO? I mean the Olympics can't force the athletes to give interviews can they?

Anyway, things seem to be rolling right along these days. Amy is currently on her last (planned) work trip before the big day, getting back sometime late tonight. Can't wait to see her... not really sure what I'm going to do today, but I'm sure something will come up.

Anyway, for those looking to kill some time, check out McVideogame - obviously done to protest all the shady dealings associated with McDonalds and fast-food business in general, but ignoring all that, it's an entertaining little webgame. This mystery game wasn't too bad either. The download lets you play the full version for free for 60 minutes, which got me through the first 5 levels or so -- it was a pretty good time, though I don't know that it's anything really worth paying for. Been thinking about joining Netflix lately, since I know a lot of friends really happy with the service, and we may have a higher demand for it once Baby T comes along, but a) we already watch a lot of TV thanks to the evilness of the dual-tuner DVR, and b) something really bothers me about a company that penalizes it's best customers.

Shadowbox Overload

Can't believe it's February already. And yet somehow we haven't had the Super Bowl yet. Not that I care all that much about the game, other than the obvious massive hope that the Steelers get destroyed. I don't know that I've ever rooted for the Seahawks before... hrm.

Anyway, yesterday I called the Shadowbox box office and made a passel of reservations, for as follows:

• 2Cos: Best Of 2Cos & The Blues Thursday 2/2 7PM
• Shadowbox: Sex At The Box 2006 Wednesday 2/22 7:30PM
• Shadowbox: The Who's TOMMY Sunday 2/26 2:30PM

As far as I know, there are still tickets available for all those shows, so if you're interested, go ahead and add yourselves on (and let me know so I'm not surprised by the overall group total when they call to confirm), or if you really need it, let me know and I can add you on. I'm guessing this Thursday will be too short notice for most folks, but for the other days, it's fair game.

Really looking forward to seeing them do Tommy especially. Should be a good time.

Speaking of overloads, Amy & I are still finding ourselves in a TV overload, caused at least in part by the power of our new dual-tuner DVR. Shows currently being recorded and watched on a regular basis are: CSI (all three), Without A Trace, NCIS, Cold Case, Numbers, Ghost Whisperer, Distraction, My Name Is Earl, House, 24, Lost, Veronica Mars, and Boston Legal. In addition to this, Amy has a few shows she watches that I don't care about, and ditto for me. So yeah - that's insane. Brain rot galore. I suppose we should live it up now though - in a few months, time will be a precious commodity.

And The Beat Goes On

Still going. It's midweek already - when you're busy these days just fly by. Some interesting news lately:

• Read about the Crack Tax in Tennessee today. It blows my mind. Here's a thought - when these people come in to pay this tax, how about ARRESTING THEM FOR DEALING DRUGS??!?? Seriously... "Well, this drug problem is getting pretty bad... what if we try and make some money off it in the process?"
• Disney buys Pixar for Eleventytrillion dollars. $7.4 BILLION. Seriously. That's just obscene. It worries me, because Disney is getting desparate, and throwing out that much cash could seriously come back to bite them. Hopefully getting Jobs and his vision more involved at the House of Mouse will freshen things up and revitalize the Dis.
• 24 Shocker: CTU has ANOTHER mole! Who'd have thought it?

Amy has a doctor's appt today and I have one tomorrow... gotta love it. The one tomorrow is INCONVENIENTLY right-smack in the middle of the day, which means I had to take a full day off. That's a pain, but at least things aren't TOO crazy here...

Whootsauce

Shadowbox finally announced it: Coming in February, Sunday Shadowbox performances of The Who's Tommy! Should be a great time. Nice to see them kicking it old school Rock Opera-style. I wonder if they'll bring one of Steve's pieces out of mothballs once Tommy's done?

24 clichés, This Day In History

So 24 has finally started back up. Four hours in, and it's promising to be another good season. Lots of good action, some serious house-cleaning of old characters, plenty of twists and turns and "off-protocol" stuff. And including plenty of usual 24-cliches:

• someone Jack cares about does something stupid & makes the situation much worse. (See: Terri, Kim, Chloe, new kid, etc)
• Jack has a reason not to fully trust/cooperate with CTU, leading to him talking other agents into working "off-protocol" with him as well.
• Jack does stuff SO INSANELY off-the-board/illegal but does something so heroic his crimes are absolved/not spoken of, except by:
  
• New "uptight administrator" from District to take over and cause more drama by acting like a dick & preventing people from doing their jobs.
• MORE moles! The 24-world government is made out of frigging swiss cheese it's so full of security holes.
  
• "Face in shadows" guy who's running the terrorist operation from some remote location... (who may yet turn out to be NOT the main bad guy, but just another lackey himself)
• The "multi-layered threat": It LOOKS like this situation is bad enough to warrant significant panic/CTU attention, but it's really just a set-up for THIS next, WORSE situation.
  
• Plenty of "with all due respect, sir"... which admittedly isn't just a 24-cliche, but used in almost every drama on television. It translates to: "Fuck you pal, you're wrong."

There are plenty of others I'm sure, but those are the ones coming to mind at the moment.

In other news, 16 years ago today Washington DC mayor Marion Barry was arrested for possessing/smoking crack. He is convicted & does jail time. Five years later he is RE-ELECTED MAYOR. Gotta love it.

Friday the 13th Linkfest

Just a few quick links to keep you going today - most with a slightly spooky tint to help you get your Friday the 13th on:

• Fun simple little game - Keep Oscar Awake.
• Vampires in Asia? Well he can't be photographed...
• Maybe it's because he had some glow-in-the-dark pork...
• I'm fairly sure this is a gag (99%), but if it's not, watch for the news article on three yayhoos beaten to death while trying to break up a mugging...
• Vampire running for governor? Why not?
• The NFL All-Scrabble Team!
• Get whatever pic you want on a REAL US Stamp - even your own!
  

Stupid Cough

I wish my cough would go away. The damn cold I had back in the last week of December (which also happened to be our VACATION) is pretty much gone, but I've got this nagging cough that's driving me crazy. I don't WANT to have to do back to the doc, but we'll see.

Had a pretty good weekend. Hung out with Pat & Cindy for the first time in awhile, and played a couple different versions of the Scene It DVD trivia game, which was fun. Pat & I had two nice comeback wins. The Disney version of the game (as you might expect) is pretty damn easy, but the TV version is HARD! I mean, they include a pretty good mix of stuff, but no one (or hardly anyone at least) is going to be familiar with ALL that stuff - from soaps to sitcoms to cop dramas, etc...

Also saw The Producers with my parents. The reviews on it are all over the place, but I have to say it was great. I highly recommend it - Nathan Lane is hysterical, Mel Brooks's dialogue and lyrics are great, and Broderick, Thurman and Ferrell do good jobs as well. If you're totally not into musicals, you still won't like it, but I don't think this is really tied to the stage version for success in the same way that RENT was. It's not quite as innovative & blow-away good as Chicago, but definitely a great time.

I need to get back to work, so linkage:

• For the caffeine buff who has everything: racoon-shit flavored coffee...
• These new Monopoly rules look interesting. Some stuff to try to keep it fun.
• Every underage college student in the tri-state area is trying to get to this Applebees....
• Someone made a Flickr group for pics of people seeing the "Goatse" pic for the first time. That's just wrong... but as you might imagine, there's some good reactions in there. Though if you don't know what "Goatse" is - trust me, you don't wanna know.
  

Tired, Sore, Happy

My back is hella sore this morning, and I'm pretty darn tired, but I'm still in a pretty good mood.

Texas beat USC for the national championship last night. That's quite possibly the best non-OSU college football game I've ever seen. It definintely lived up to the hype, and I'm SO glad that I don't have to hear about how unstoppable USC anymore (for now, at least).

Futurama may return, a la Family Guy. I'm STILL not a big Family Guy fan, but I'd LOVE to see Futurama make a comeback - that show is hysterical, and definitely deserving of a second life.

Looks like campus is getting a new "cereal restaurant" - this sounds pretty interesting. From the Lantern:

Cerealicious Café will open soon on the corner of 16th Avenue and High Street, said Jeff Coyle, part-owner of the café.

"Our slogan is 'What's in your bowl?'" Coyle said. "Basically, it's a mixture of cereal and toppings. Mix any cereal you want with any topping you want and it's going to taste incredible. Pick your favorite, then flavor it."

Upon ordering, the customer will watch employees of the restaurant put two scoops of cereal and one scoop of a topping of their choice, into a carryout container for them, Coyle said.

The customer will then have the choice to get skim, 2 percent, whole or soy milk for themselves, he said.

One of these three-scoop bowls costs $3.50, Coyle said.

Meghan Griesemer, a senior in English, is skeptical.

"It sounds like a cheap meal, but they have to have the cereal I like for me to go there," she said.

Coyle said Cerealicious Café will have 30 cereals to choose from, including favorites from four major brands: Kellogg's, Quaker Oats, Post and General Mills. It will also have 40 different kinds of toppings, including fresh fruit, freeze-dried fruit, cookies, candy and nuts.

Holy 2006 Batman

Yeah, it's 2006. I can't believe it either.

The break/vacation was great. Amy does a way better job of summing up our vacation then I ever could (stupid horrible memory), so go read her recap. If you care, that is... Out of me you'll get some quick highlights:

• Shadowbox x2 (Hoopla again, and Shindig)
• Lots of good XMas gift giving & getting
• OSU beats Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl
• Visits with Irene & Jer, Jen, the ex-OIT gang, etc.
• Browns actually WIN a game
  

All in all, a good time. And I almost don't mind being back at work.

Which I really should be doing now - but I wanted to mark these links so I can find them later, and share them with you...

• 18 Tricks To Teach Your Body
• Chopsticks w/ Sauce

Happy New Year!!

Thought I'd sign in for one last time in 2005. Been having a great time on vacation, and we had a wonderful holiday. I don't know that I can really sum it all up now, but we got lots of great stuff, spent a lot of really good time with friends and family, and overall had a really wonderful, memorable holiday.

Amy & I are going to Shadowbox for their Shindig tonight, as is the tradition. Laurie & her guy are going with us as well, which is a 100% increase over our group size from last year, so woo-hoo for that. Hopefully we can drum up more folks for next year, but the price tag isn't as great as it was when we were winning the table in the Fireball auction.

Anyway, hope everyone had a happy holiday and wishing everyone a happy & safe new year.

See you in '06...

Bird Flu

Pretty sure I have the bird flu. Or SARS, or West Nile, or whatever the paranoid "all must fear" bug of the moment is. At any rate, it set in pretty suddenly on Monday, got significantly worse yesterday, and seems about the same today - though today I have OTC products with which to mitigate the horrible suffering.

Add onto this the fact that at my doctor's appointment on Monday, I had my blood drawn. The guy had trouble finding a working draw and stuck me all over both arms and one hand. I'm not typically a hard draw, nor am I typically weak-headed, but I damn near passed out. I guess I turned all green and white and sweaty. They gave me a teeny juice-box and some crackers and had me rest for a bit, then another lady came and got all they needed in one poke. Go figure.

So yeah, not exactly having a great week so far. I DID manage to finish almost all my X-mas shopping. I'd be done if I hadn't gotten so damn sick. Just need to pick up two very quick & minor things, and of course wrap everything, but that shouldn't be too tough.

Hoping I recover enough to still make the Lunchbox show tomorrow. I don't forsee it being a problem, provided I keep well-medicated. We're also hoping to catch the Xmas at 2Co's show again either tomorrow or next week, but I'm thinking I'll wait until tomorrow to try for it, to see how I'm feeling (and if they're sold out). If you're interested, let me know.

Linkage:

• Mega-insano crackpot conspiracy theory of the moment: Dave Chapelle and the Dark Crusaders
• Check out Year One, a webcomic marvel comics parody done all kiddie style.
• I'm very sad that Morning Sedition was cancelled. Now where am I going to hear the latest on the NeoCon Death Cults and the ChristoFacist Zombie Brigade? Seriously though, Maron brought the funny, and he'll be missed on my drive in.
  

Hoopla'd !!

Hit up Easton last night for Shadowbox's Holiday Hoopla 05. I have to admit, I was worried going in, because it sounded like there was a lot of duplicate stuff, and although it hadn't bothered me that much last year, I was hoping for more new stuff this time around.

Well, there was definitely a lot of older stuff, but I thought it was freshened up enough and they had enough new stuff added in that it made for a great show. I'd definitely recommend it, even if you have been to a Hoopla before, and even moreso if you haven't (there may not be a better time to get your first Shadowbox experience than during Hoopla!). While there we booked up for the Lunchbox on Thursday, and opening night of Sex at the Box '06 (1/5). You should come join us. We're also going to the Shindig for New Years, if you haven't already made plans. You know you want to...

Also fun was a new food menu at Shadowbox. All the old favorites are there, but they also added in a BUNCH of new stuff. They've got a full bar now (including all sorts of different boozes, for those that care about that kind of thing), but also ravioli, the lunchbox BBQ chicken sandwhich, fancy godiva hot chocolate, and a phenomenal (nay, crack-laced) beef tenderloin sandwhich.

Just one quick link to leave for now: I challenge you to check out Cute Overload and NOT say "Awwwwww" at least once.

Holiday Spirit

I guess we finally drug ourselves into the holiday spirit this weekend, and got the tree and decorations up on Sunday. I'm still not quite there yet. I was in the same boat last year, and I can't figure out why. What's keeping me from being all Christmasy these days? One of the biggest complications of the whole thing is that it makes it a big-time chore to do the X-mas shopping when you're not really feeling the season. Maybe I need an egg-nog IV or something. I could tie myself down and subject myself to 24 hours of It's A Wonderful Life, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and small children a-wassailing my sanity away. Not like I have a choice to wait any longer - we're in full XMas mode this week: Holiday Hoopla Wednesday, the work "holiday luncheon" on Thursday, a friends' party on Friday, and Amy's family XMas on Saturday. YOU WILL BE MERRY.

Still, I do want to get over the Grinch thing here. XMas At 2Cos is phenomenal this year, and we actually saw that back on 11/30, so that helped a lot. I don't have quite the same high hopes for Hoopla, unfortunately, as it appears to be 100% recycled stuff, except for (I'm assuming/hoping) the Santa Babies. We'll see how it goes tomorrow I guess.

Quickies:

• Whole Foods Market is a fun place to shop. It's too pricy and limited for your everyday shopping trip, but there are some awesome things there, all sorts of unusual foods to try out.
• Here's a slideshow of musicians who died "before their time". It's missing a lot of folks, and there are a couple on there I've never heard of, but still, a sad list. The really depressing thing is I'm already older than some of the best people on there.
• Coffee and coke... why not?
• Oh hey look - at least California's in the holiday spirit.
  

The Power Of Spin

Check out this alernate Shining trailer.

Always look for the spin - how is this or that being edited and presented and spun to bring you in? Where's the bias? Something students writing research papers need to learn WAY sooner than they do these days...

Money, Football, and Jesus

I guess it was a decent weekend. Saturday night we went to Amy's holiday party at the dean's house. The house was a bit up Riverside drive in the hills, in what is obviously a ridiculously expensive neighborhood. There were a number of insanely large houses there, and the dean's was no different. For the first good clip while we were there, I was afraid to sit down or touch much of anything for fear that an ill-placed smudge could place us irrevocably in debt. Eventually I did settle down and relax a bit... after all, we probably make at least as much as the people paid to clean the place, right? To paraphrase Mel Brooks, "It's good to be the Dean".

Really brief football update for the weekend... as predicted OSU and Notre Dame will play in the Fiesta Bowl. No great surprise there, though I'm glad the rankings worked out so that we don't have to hear how Oregon was screwed. The cursed fate of the Browns continued this weekend as well, as not only did they blow a decent lead to the Leftwich-less Jaguars, they also lost yet another first round draft pick to injury.

Since the Browns don't get televised anyway, Gary and I went to see Sarah Silverman's movie Jesus Is Magic on Sunday. It was a pretty funny movie - though she definitely didn't shy away from taking swings at just about everyone and everything - no taboo subject left unturned, no viewer left unoffended (except me, because again, I think I'm too jaded to this stuff). It wasn't gutbustingly funny, but a good time, and I'm glad we went. Gotta love the Gateway Theater - probably saved a drive out to Drexel East.

RENT, Thanksgiving

Ok wow, I've got too much to say in one blog here. I guess I'll throw out what I can for now and either forget the rest (highly likely given my memory) or finish up another time.

So Amy, Randy, Heather & I saw RENT last Wednesday. Amy & I got there early and ate dinner at the Ugly Toona Saloona. It's kind of an odd place, as it's definitely very much a bar atmosphere (like Adobe Gilas), but they have a lot of seafood options... priced as you would expect for seafood entrees. I tried to keep more on the inexpensive side, so for the meal I just got a burger (as did Amy), but I had to try the Shrimp & Lobster Bisque. It was pretty tasty -- not as good as, say, Lindeys or the Ocean Club, but still good stuff. Judging by that at least I wouldn't be afraid of trying their other seafood dishes.

So yeah, the movie. I definitely enjoyed the movie. It didn't blow me away like I was hoping for, but it was good. Not quite as faithful of an adaptation as Phantom, but still pretty good, and the fact that it was most of the original cast was awesome. VERY cool seeing all those folks that I'm used to hearing from the original soundtrack - they all did a great job, and contrary to a lot of worries folks had, Roger (Adam Pascal) was really the only one who looked a little old, and it was only REALLY noticeable in one scene. I liked a lot of the visualizations added ... flashbacks to Roger & April meeting and such, images of the life support folks disappearing, the TVs in Maureen's show, Maureen flirting with the secretary while Joanne and Mark meet with Alexi... etc. I really missed a lot of the "in-between songs" singing... and just like in Phantom, the converted a lot of sung dialogue into regular spoken stuff. Which was kind of unsettling because 1) it was wierd knowing what they were going to say and 2) the spoken dialogue still rhymed, and people just don't SPEAK in rhyme... Also, cutting out a lot of the in-between music resulted in a number of the songs feeling more stilted, losing the flow. Some of the changes they made in pacing didn't make a whole lot of sense either. I mean, I can understand rewriting things (especially when you cut some stuff - you have to reinsert what was important there somewhere else), but why stretch out the beginning stuff? I don't see why Maureen's show had to be moved back, etc. Just odd. Another thing which I noticed in Phantom and here again in RENT. The movie felt REALLY LONG. Even with the stuff they cut out, there's just something about taking a show which typically has a 15-minute intermission and cramming it all together...
So yeah... good but not great. Definitely no substitute for the absolute awesomeness that is the stage version, but I'll surely get the DVD anyway. It'll be a nice option since the show's not always playing nearby. (It's coming to Columbus next year... April 22-23... Amy's due date is 4/20. Cruel fate indeed). If anyone else out there saw it, I'd love to hear what you thought.

Thanksgiving was a good time - parents and Amy's mom came over and we ate here. I think we may be nearing double digits on the number of times we've used the nice china in the past 5 years ;) . Almost out of leftovers... which is probably good, because a week is pretty much pushing it on leftovers anyway.

I think that's enough for now.

• SAD NEWS: 2Cos is closing 2/25/06. Going to be extremely sad to see it go - there's been a lot of great shows there and we'll miss it quite a bit. That said, with those financials, I can definitely understand the decision, and if I had to choose, I'd much rather see Shadowbox continue and keep going strong. Meanwhile, the current Christmas at 2Co's show is awesome - the best XMas show they've done. Lots of great music, some really funny bits, and of course, gotta love the Christmas Queenies.
  
• If caffeine is good for your memory, why is mine so shitty?
• If Lists of Bests were still updating, this would have been a great addition: Empire's 50 Greatest Independent Films. A good list, and I've seen a lot more of them then I expected.
  

No Day But Today

I'm probably more excited to see Rent today than a sane adult male should be. It's far-and-away my favorite musical (surpassing Phantom of the Opera right around when I saw RENT live for the first time). I seriously hope it's good. The movie version of Phantom was a good adaptation, so I'll hope for at least that level.

Not that I really feel like I need to, but if it makes you feel better about my manhood, how about a couple sports links?

• T.O. loses his suspension hearing. Kthxbye. Seeya next year (in a new uniform) sucka!
• Cavs beat the Celtics, and are on a 8 game winning streak. All hail King James!
• There are too many good lines and quotes in this Page 2 article. If you care about the NFL at all, check it out, I guarantee you'll get a laugh.
  

In other news, there is snow on the ground outside. A good start to the season, I think.

Holiday Weeks Go Fast

Which is good, because I almost took this week off, and decided not to.

The weekend finished out pretty well. Sports-wise, in addition to OSU, the Browns won (amazingly), Steelers lost, Bengals lost, my fantasy teams look good. The Lightning won, and the Cavs won one on Saturday. Really can't complain at all there.

Work went pretty quickly today - lots of stuff needing done, and a three-day week to do them in. The downside to not taking the week off is that it means still no vacation to look forward to in the foreseeable future. We could still take off some time in December, but don't really have anything in particular to do for vacation, trying not to spend too much money, especially on top of the usual holiday gift-spending. We're open to suggestions, however, if you have any particularly stirring suggestions.

A GOOD Heart Attack

OSU 25, Michigan 21.

Man, what a stressful game to watch. Haven't been too many of those close games this season, but this one definitely kept us on the edges of our seats. And when Anthony Gonzales came down with that pass on the 5 in the last minute, there was much rejoycing. Tressel goes 4-1 against big Blue, including two wins in the Big House. Awesome. Too bad Penn State won to keep the automatic berth and deny the outright championship - but on the other hand, good for JoePa bringing his team outta nowhere to a season like that. Also fun to watch last night was Georgia Tech knocking off #3 Miami. Should be good for us in getting one of the at-large BCS berths... UNLESS it means they don't win the ACC and steal one of the at-large bids.

Saw the new Harry Potter movie after the games last night. I still haven't read any of the books, but I must say the movies are very well made, with some very awesome scenery. Lots of oohs and aahs to be had.

Twice in one day?

Surely I must be crazy.

Well, that may be true, but there are a few things that I felt I had to share from Warren Ellis's page.

• Apparently in India, the whole witch hunt thing still makes for a fun pasttime. I know it's India being talked about here, but seriously - what year is it? And they just passed this anti-witchcraft law in 1999?
  
• Apparently it's against the law to be a revisionist historian in Austria. Laws against denying the Holocaust ever happened. Nutty.
  
• He also passed along a status report on this season's new TV shows. Apparently I don't actually watch ANY of this season's new shows. I haven't even heard of a lot of those. Of the ones I can comment on:
• Amy watches "Commander in Chief". I thought it was just OK. Not a big fan of political drama. (Yes, that means I never cared about "The West Wing" either).
• Caught one episode of "Invasion" - it was confusing and boring. I'll pass.
• Caught one episode of "Ghost Whisperer" - it was pretty decent, I'd watch it again. Has a very strong "Tru Calling" feel. Not really sold on Jennifer Love Hewitt in it (man she's not looking so great these days), but it works OK.
• "Bones" - caught one episode. It was very uninspired, nothing there to set it apart from the scores of other crime dramas.
• Caught part of "Prison Break", and Gary's constantly selling me on it. It looks pretty interesting, but at this point I don't want to jump-in midway. Guess I'll wait for the DVDs. Also, I'm not sure how this concept could be drug out for MORE than one season without getting annoying.

Ok, that's all for today. If you care, don't forget the other new entry...

Snow Long And Thanks For All The Fish

Snow this morning. Insane. None of it stuck, but there were still a LOT of good sized flakes coming down for a good length of time. On the news this morning, they'd somehow managed to build a tiny little snowman out of it (like maybe 2-3 inches tall). The temperature drop from yesterday to today is obscene, going from almost 70 to snow. Gotta love Ohio.

I finished Lullaby last night. Once I actually dedicated my attention to it, it was an insanely fast read. I love Palahniuk's style, and this book was a very entertaining read, but I think it falls a little short of his other stuff I've read. Still, like I said, I enjoyed it quite a bit, and I'd still recommend it to folks who are fans of his style. Invisible Monsters remains my favorite Palahniuk book so far. Starting on Choke soon, if not tonight.

Was reading an article on one of the most recent PETA stunts, and saw a link to this 7 Things You Don't Know about PETA article. I don't know how much (if any) of this is exaggerated or taken out of context, but crazy man, crazy. #2 seems to be the height of hipocracy, and #6 blew my mind. Holocaust On Your Plate!! You have got to be kidding me. No matter how loony-tunes, you've got to admire their guts to try and pull crap like that.

Check out this Fun little brain-excercise/shape matching game to kill some time.

Stalker.Net Strikes Again

I've mentioned it before, but it cracks me up how careless some folks are with their personal information on Facebook and the like. I guess they figure "hey, only people at my own university or people I've friended can see it, so it must be safe"... or more likley, they just don't think about it at all. Maybe getting busted for drinking will cause folks to think again... after all, if the university will exploit it, what about all those bad guys out there? I also got a kick from this article on how it's affected the whole Greek scene. (and on an unrelated note, I love that "Big Picture" story-web CNet's using these days)

While I get back to work, amuse yourselves with looking up significant events from ANYDAY Today-In-History, or check out "Brainy History" for today...

F Your Monday

A three day weekend doesn't make coming back to work any easier. Finally getting over the bird flu, but it's left me with this lingering cough which is bugging the crap out of me. It also left me achy and sore most of the weekend. Fun fun.

The weekend wasn't an entire wash. Friday Amy & I checked out the new Drexel Gateway Theater and saw Shopgirl. The theater itself is pretty cool. Set up a BIT strange, being all on the second story, with very steeply inclined theaters for some serious stadium-seating. Brand new, so that means nice and clean. Seems to be sticking to their guns so far and showing more indie/art-film leaning stuff. Amy & I both enjoyed the movie. It was a nice little story, well acted by Claire Danes and Steve Martin both. It's got me wondering about the book now... I may have to add it to the list of "to reads".

Football-wise, OSU won, the Browns lost, and I split another fantasy week between my two leagues. With Priest Holmes out for the season in KC, what was looking like a very strong team in my one league has completely disintegrated. Trent Green netted me a whopping -6 pts this week. ROCKIN.

Gotta get going... some linkage:

• Time magazine considers our ineffable Governor Taft one of the worst sitting governors in the nation. Gotta love it. (Time article isn't online... the article on the five BEST sitting governors is here.)
• This guy raises some VERY interesting points... but at the same time, a lot of that reasoning comes across as really arrogant, and seems to be encouraging/egging on the hatred/fear of Islam already spreading through our country. And that really makes me nervous.
  
• Chuck Norris's tears cure cancer. (Thanks Gary)
• Check out #3 on the Private universities presidential pay on the right-hand sidebar. Good for him! If he's as awesome there as he was here, he deserves it.
• Japanese culture? Still crazy.
  

BLS, Football, Election Day, Linkage

The Black Label Society concert Friday night was a great time. It was at the Newport, and this was my first trip there post-smoking ban. Well, as you might expect, there were still a decent number of people smoking there anyway, including one chain smoker who was right below where we were on the rail, but even still, there was a noticable difference in the quality of the air. And people didn't really start smoking until the show started, so there was plenty of dead time before with smoke-free air and a remarkably clear view of the interior of the Newport. The show itself was a blast. Brand New Sin opened, and they were dead on. They were apparently filming for a live video or something, as they had a big ol camera, boom mic and the works, and were getting the crowd really jazzed up. A truly great response, especially considering they were they opening band. BLS took forever to get setup... I think there was a minimum of 45 minutes between sets, but probably more like an hour or more. It was pretty ridiculous, and the mega-long wait really took any "thrill" out of their big opening medley of recordings -- by that point I was like "get the hell out here and play already". They played a good long set, with lots of good stuff, but the mix was off pretty badly. From what I could hear the band was solid, but the mix was crappy and it made it hard to enjoy a number of the songs. Ah well... maybe next time.

This was a great weekend for football too. OSU won, which was pretty expected, but they really surprised me by actually covering the spread. They didn't look flawless, but it was a solid game, and hopefully they keep it up and run the table. Even winning out, I don't know that we'll get a BCS bowl-bid unless Penn State drops a game, but we should still be well-placed. Sunday was the true insanity, as the BROWNS WON! Didn't get to watch it on TV, of course (stupid Bengals), but Dad & I listened to it on the radio, and it was nice to see (hear) the Browns come through for once... especially after the disappointing loss to the then-winless Texans. As far as fantasy football goes, I split, winning one and losing the other, but still - the real thing's better than fantasy any day.

It's Election Day. Go out there and vote. I definitely plan on voting on my way home. In Ohio there are five big state issues, plus other important stuff like school levees and the like.

Some linkage on my way out:

• Crazy Google Maps Risk
• Jen sent me this video of a very talented dude with a skeleton marionette.
• How many servings of your favorite caffeinated drink will kill you? Find out here.
• Stupid gizmos I want but don't need, like LED-lit faucets.
  

Tonight

Holy November! Alone Again

Yeah, so it's November. Only two months left in 2005. I guess when you get old, time really flies.

Amy's currently on her last big trip of the season/year, which means that I'm smack-dab in the middle of the latest episode of Max's Home Alone Adventure. I must admit that I have found myself wondering several times what I used to do with all my free time in the days before City of Heroes. I have found that I missed out on a lot of great console games while I was sucked-in, so this is giving me a good chance to catch-up. Currently, I'm playing a lot of Def Jam Fight for NY, the sequel to Def Jam Vendetta. I'm a big fan of wrestling-style fighting games, so it's a great time. And it's insane all the people they've got in it. That's some mega-license-action. Also probably going to have to get around to checking out "Destroy All Humans", the X-Men Legends series, Civ IV, and more.

In other mindless entertainment news, VH1's new show But Can They Sing? is HORRIBLE. It's got the now familiar D-level "celebrities" in an American Idol-esque singing competition, complete with viewer voting. But they're pretty much resoundly TERRIBLE. It's like watching a train wreck. And to make it worse, they get mostly POSITIVE feedback instead of the tear-downs that really ought to be coming.

Quick and links:

• Cavs whipped the dislocated Hornets in the season opener. Roughly 70 more games like that and we're golden. Both former New Orleans pro teams don't seem to be faring too well with the displacement.
• I'm glad SOMEONE is questioning why oil companies are getting away with record profits while gouging us with record-high gas prices.
• As if it weren't already obvious enough, Facebook is seriously the new StalkerNet. It also works for universities to catch folks breaking the rules. I've heard rumors of this being done at OSU as well.
• Check out Hapland and Hapland 2 at the Farcade. They're both very cool, but kind of difficult.

Also been playing with Wallop, Microsoft's experimental (beta, or whatever) social-networking-type-thing. Not quite sure where the need for yet another social network is, but it's got a really interesting flash interface, so it at least makes it kind of fun to play around with for an hour or two.