CDogWeblog

Remeber Hockey in Chicago?

2008-01-23T10:55:00.000-06:00

Admittedly, this is the All-Star Game, and it's in the United Center as opposed to the old Chicago Stadium, but: Wayne Messmer!

(HT to Going Five Hole for reminding me this YouTube video existed.)

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T22:14:00.000-06:00

For my holiday project, I decided to watch all 6 Christmas-adjacent episodes of The West Wing. Only 6, as the 7th season had a wedding episode in the slot that a Christmas episode was normally in, and I don't remember it being at all Christmas-y. I did this because there's something wrong with me. In any event, I did it. Then I remembered I had a blog gathering dust, and realized I could commemorate this event. So, in reverse quality order, they are:

6th Place: Abu el Banat (Season 5)

I didn't hate this episode as much as I hated a lot of season 5. That's the best I can say about it. Grandkid Bartlet not being prepared to flip the Christmas tree switch was enh, the bit about assisted suicide wasn't developed in any interesting way, and the CGI Christmas tree at the end of the episode was borderline offensive in its fakeness. You had to zoom UP from Jed and Grandkid Bartlet turning the tree on and off? Really? You couldn't pull back to the whole of the White House with the tree blinking on and off? It's the only bit that the kid was vaguely charismatic at, and I liked where Jed was at, bringing him out there, and then I get all pissed off about the tree looking awful. I liked well enough the "Bartlet Family Can't Seem To Eat Together" subplot, but it wasn't anything new, and I hated-hated-hated the dumb son-in-law that wanted to run for Congress.

Oh, and apparently there was a subplot about missionaries being arrested in the Sudan or something. Clearly, that wasn't memorable. I guess I was pleased that the characters I liked were being who I recognized, more or less. Season 5 was a parade of characters saying things that kind-of-but-not-totally sounded like their usual selves. (It was, as you recall, the first season that Sorkin didn't write.) I've now wracked my brain for a few minutes, and gone back to the recap, and I can't think of anything specifically nice to say about this episode other than I didn't hate it. Oh, well, at least it's out of the way. Toby moves Will out of the West Wing because he works for VPOTUS Bob in this episode. It's very Cranky Toby v. Passive-Agressive Will, and I don't like THAT either.

5th Place: Impact Winter (Season 6)

The good news: Josh and Leo have the conversation about finding The Guy (who turns out, of course to be Jimmy Smits), and it's a delightful little exercise. Josh manages to be his post-Sorkin single-level self (frazzled to a degree that edges towards incompetent), which is always disappointing, but it's not egregious. There's a bit about an asteroid which actually involves a couple pretty funny exchanges, even if they're totally drama-free. No rational individual ever thought for a single instant that there would be any resolution other than "It missed us! The world didn't end!"for that storyline. President Bartlet visits the former location of Cleveland? The rest of the season is filmed darker, with everyone wearing parkas, as soot blocks out the sun? Daring, but unlikely.

The bad news: Donna quits, which is interesting dramatically and is character-driven, but the really obscene part is that they put a sassy temp in her position. A sassy temp who seems to have no idea how the White House works or that it's even, you know, an important place. It's super lazy and a dumb throw-in bit, and while I get that there has to be some evidence that she's left, it doesn't have to be a scene that doesn't make any sense at all. You'd think that the temp they'd hire would need stratospherically high security clearance and therefore be at least vaguely qualified to work in the West Wing and not, when requested to book the next available flight to Houston, respond, "Texas?" and then "hang on, hang on, let me get a pen..." This may be one of my top 10 least favorite moments in the show ever. The only reason this doesn't torpedo the whole episode:

The Curtis: I love Curtis and the Prez. They should have their own show. In the beginning of the episode, where the temporarily paralyzed Bartlet and Curtis "make a jailbreak" off of Air Force One is one of my top 10 most favorite moments. Maybe it's that Martin Sheen plays the weakness-and-power mixture so damn well, or that the actor playing Curtis is so damn earnest, or if it's something else, but this moves the episode into the 4th spot, if not for the bit about the temp and the drama-less asteroid drama. Meanwhile, the bit with Jed and Abby in the hotel where they both end up sitting on the bathroom floor with Jed raging about his paralysis is something I've almost taken for granted from Martin Sheen, but is really damn good, too. Still not enough to overcome the asteroid and the dumb-ass temp.

Oh, and also: the negotiations with China (the reason that Curtis had to carry Jed off of AF1) were so-so. But the end of the episode was deliciously drama-filled as the president collapsed as CJ was on the phone celebrating with Leo, and CJ and Toby get to be framed in a doorway (hallway?) as Abby shuts the office door on them. It's, again, an okay episode. I remembered that Kristin Chenoweth ducks under an open filing cabinet in this episode while avoiding briefing the press, and while the institutional terror of the press is a bit of a crutch (Afraid of The Press: Annabeth, Will, kind-of Toby. Terrible with The Press: Josh, kind-of Toby. Good with The Press: CJ... and that's it.), I like the visual gag. Congrats, episode, you just tied for 4th.

T-4th Place: Holy Night (Season 4)

Toby and Toby's Dad are good, and a reasonably charted sub-plot. Whiffenpoofs, snowed-in, Leo and Jed are troubled by the assassination of the Saudi Fauxrabian defense minister, so they make Josh do a lot of last-minute busywork. (Church of the Nativity repairs/infant mortality in the HHS budget) Oh, Dr. Stanley's back: I love Stanley, even if he's only in this episode so Jed can talk at someone and brag about his SAT score. We get good Sorkin lines like "pregnancy is a binary state," and "You said, 'no no no no, no.' Then you called me Mr. Justice." Danny's also back. As Santa Claus! Yay! And he's probably figured out about the Saudi Fauxrabian guy! Yay? In an unlikely-but-well-written-so-it's-almost-of-plausible way. But I like Timothy Busfield, so I'll allow it.

Honestly? I watched these in reverse chronological order, so I was just glad to have Sorkin's voice behind the characters again. Seasons 5-7 were always a little weird with somebody else writing the main characters. 7 was the best of the bunch because Vinick and Santos and Friends were new characters, so it was harder to say "Well, that doesn't sound like Leo/Josh/CJ/Donna/Jed/et cetera." It's tied for fourth, but there's a distinct gap between Holy Night and the third-place episode.

The top three I'll get to on Christmas proper, because I'm kind of tired.

There's No Reason I've Left My Blog To Moulder

2007-11-06T10:24:00.000-06:00

So the blog-o-sphere is aware, I'm writing this entry to avoid writing my personal statement for my grad school application. If I have any more difficulty figuring out what to write about, I'm going to actually clean my room. And if that doesn't work, I'm going to take the room apart and rebuild it with recessed bookcases and secret passageways. Since my room is approximately 5 feet by 6 feet, these plans will either a) require acquisition of parts of Ryan's room or b) leave me with a space the size of a coffin. Cheery!

However, there's no good reason that I haven't updated this or It's Still Football since August. We even got an e-mail from Brett Dietz asking where we've been. So, perhaps I'll work on that, too. Clearly I'm going to mention ISF in my personal statement, as it's one more example of why I live my life by the axiom of "It seemed like a good idea at the time." If families still had mottos, going forward, mine would be "Is Videor a Parilis a Bonus Informatio Procul Vicis." Or something. Free web translators give me both the heebies and the jeebies.

Leaving aside the fact that it sounds like I don't know what I'm doing, that'd be an hilarious inclusion in said essay. Right now, it looks like this:

I’m sure there are tons of applicants and aspiring producers who will say that they’re business-savvy, tenacious, creative, and hungry. While I’m all of those things (indeed, I am literally hungry as I write this), I am also batshit insane.

While certainly humorous, I don't think it's the wisest strategy I've ever had.

It's also not that humorous.

My Office Blocks Blogger

2007-08-04T11:19:00.000-05:00

Hello, zero people who read my blog. Countrywide has decided to block Blogger, so I can't kill twenty minutes writing something amusing. So, that's that update. Also, It's Still Football has been busy with our tickets to the Arena Bowl, which has made updates to this less critical. A side effect of the Arena Football focus is that I haven't had much going on to blog about on this side.

In other news, I was having a discussion over AIM with a friend, and she asked, "why do men always prefer the super skinny blond floridian type who prefer books like The DaVinci Code and like Dave Matthews Band?" Now, I don't mind The DaVinci Code, and as I recall, there were a lot of people once upon a time who thought that Dave was one step removed from the Second Coming. If he had written a song about his battles with Stigmata, it would've been ON. But the point's still valid: what's up with those girls? My immediate jokey response was, "Well, not all men like that. For example, I prefer redheads." But I managed to get a pithy philosophical argument out there, and that was this:

"If you're looking for a guy who's not a challenge, you're going to see a lot of girls who don't challenge themselves. Does that make sense?"

I'm not totally sure what I mean by that, but I thought it sounded very Zen. And so it goes on my Wall of Miscellaneous Ramblings.

When I Grow Up

2007-07-09T08:24:00.000-05:00

An addition to the list of People I Want To Be When I Grow Up:

Mark McKinney. Not only worthy of rescue from the Studio 60 Island of Death, but insanely enjoyable in Slings and Arrows. I don't remember his years on Saturday Night Live, but there's the whole Kids in the Hall thing. I'm adding him to the emulation list, which needs reviewing anyway.

By the way, if you haven't watched Slings and Arrows, you're doing yourself a disservice of the highest order.

Oh, and I broke my foot over the weekend.

You Have Failed Me For the Last Time (Probably.)

2007-07-04T10:48:00.000-05:00

Dammit, Aaron Sorkin, you and I are through. I'm breaking up with you. It was good for a while; we had a lot of good times, you and I. Your friends Tommy Schlamme and Snuffy Walden were cool to hang around with, and they brought a lot to the table, but it's just not working anymore.

I just got done watching the series finale of Studio 60, and this is the decision that I have made. Much like actual breakups, I miss the way things were, but you can't reclaim the past. The potential for greatness remained, but it's just not the same. Suddenly, there were obvious axes to grind and morality to preach and a really boring/irritating relationship arc to get bogged down in. Everything was so promising, and for a while, I thought it could be like it was in the past, but alas... Somewhere, buried, is the stuff that made me want to work on a Sorkin show so badly I'd stab a man, but it's not that sort of relationship anymore. Lately, all we do is fight, and I rail against the fates asking why things can't be the way they used to be. I'll pop in the West Wing DVDs, or hunt for Sports Night, or even gain some solace in the bits of S60 that were good. All it does, though, is prompt me to ask why it can't be like that all the time.

This is all probably a pointless excercise: I'd probably come back to Sorkin, if given the option. You don't forget that kind of thing, and there's always, quietly, the hope that you can get back to where you were when things were good. Josh Malina's going to come walking down the hall, talking quirkily with Brad Whitford, and it'll be like nothing ever changed. But you can't count on that, and I've gotten mad too many times at Sarah Paulson and Matthew Perry barely salvaging conversations that real people don't have to fall back into it that easily. Sorkin's going to have to prove to me that it can consistently be like it used to be, or that we can at least meet somewhere in the middle. Perhaps I'll see other television shows for a while, but when the name comes up on my screen, it's likely that it'll still hurt. We'll see. I don't wish him ill - I just want it to be better.

Sorry, Aaron, but it's for the best.

Dammit, why couldn't that show be good? I really liked... everything I've said in previous posts. We almost made it. Damn.

iPod Wins Again!

2007-06-27T20:52:00.000-05:00

Also, a few days ago, the following songs came up in order on my iPod, much to my delight:

Hey Baby, Northwestern University "Wildcat" Marching Band
The Hands That Built America, U2
Elephant Love Medley, Moulin Rouge Soundtrack
Paint it Black, Rolling Stones
Here It Goes Again, OK Go
I, Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha
Find Your Grail, Monty Python's Spamalot
Smoke, Ben Folds Five
Crimson + Gold, Carla Werner
The Long Day is Over, Norah Jones
One Angry Dwarf and 100 Solemn Faces, Ben Folds
The Pony Soldiers, NFL Films
Look Down, Les Miserables
Desire, U2
Heavy, Collective Soul
Tusk, Fleetwood Mac

At the time, this seemed very portentous. Now, I can't remember the connections. In any event, it's rare that I get through 16 songs on shuffle without skipping through stuff. I think the crossword/sudoku probably helped with that, along with me occasionally going "Hm, this really encapsulates how I feel right now," and then not paying attention again. As evidenced by the fact that I felt like "The Long Day is Over," "One Angry Dwarf..." and then the NFL. So, perhaps that theory's bunk. Also interesting is that I have a surprising amount of songs from musicals (we'll count Moulin Rouge in that category) on this list.

So, there's that. Good for you, iPod.

I Was On Vacation, I'm Back, I'm Avoiding Work Already

2007-06-27T10:21:00.000-05:00

I was waiting for my bags in the Midway Airport baggage claim yesterday, and I was interrupted from my iPod-based reverie by a crazy-eyed, but professionally-dressed woman who asked me how much the baggage carts were, while actually pointing at the price printed on the baggage cart dispenser. It made my answer ($3) a breeze, but was the last tumbler in the mental lock, and I knew I needed to write down what I'd do if I ran an Airline.

Simply put, I'd have a test. And if you passed this test, you'd get a card, or a key, or a password to allow you to join me on my airline of joy and peace, flying to specially-equipped airports. If you want to stratify, we'll add first class, so rich people can still show off. The test will be comprised of the following factors:

Intelligence: Can you follow somewhat complex directions? Can you manipulate objects in three dimensions without smacking people around, or taking an inordinate amount of time? Failing that, can you ask for help in a competent and polite manner?

Conversation: Can you avoid talking endlessly about stupid shit? Can you take a hint and leave your seatmate alone if they don't want to talk about your cats, or oil, or the government, or golf, or sports, or big business, or your goiter? If you are talking, can you do it in a tone of voice that doesn't involve everyone in the two rows behind you?

Odor.

This one was going to be Attractiveness, but that's really not fair. No, I take it back; that's completely fair. We'll leave it in. I want to fly with people who aren't freaky-looking. Take that, political correctness!

Creepiness. Can you avoid being freaky to the flight attendants? And other patrons? Do you make people nervous? We'll have our crack team of adjudicators follow you around surreptitiously for a week to see how strangers react around you. That's the plan for the Conversation category, as well.

So, yeah, this isn't fair or equitable, but it's my airline, and I'll be discriminatory if I want to. And perhaps we'll weight it so if you smell somewhat weird, but aren't creepy, we'll let you on board. If you pass the test, and then act like an asshat on the plane, refusing to read signs, or trying to fit a queen-sized mattress in the overhead bin, or something like that, the plane will land immediately, put you off on the tarmac, take off again, and serve free drinks to the remaining passengers to make up for you.

The guys behind me talking loudly about how we sold F-16s to Israel and really really simplified foreign policy for three hours? They'll be ejected in mid-air. The people who wouldn't turn off their phones on the way out of Vegas? Placed in the cargo hold, and their phones smashed with hammers. Incapable of figuring out where to go to claim their baggage and what to do when they get there, without running over 35 random people in the process? Fed to wolves.

Additionally, if a member of my staff happens to be walking past a Southwest gate and hears someone in line complaining about their A/B/C system of boarding, they are empowered to strike that passenger with an open hand, at their discretion. It's not like they keep that a secret, idiots. You chose to fly Southwest, and part of the reason that it's cheap is that you deal with being treated like cattle for a few minutes.

11 Votes Up...

2007-06-12T15:07:00.000-05:00

Well, I made it to Round 2, but got moved to the Campbell Conference bracket. That's okay - it's where I wanted to be in the first place. It reminds me of when hockey was a sport in this town and how the old Chicago Stadium would sound like it was going to fall down during Wayne Messmer's rendition of the National Anthem, or after a Blackhawks goal, or better, a fight. How we complained that the Bulls got to use the sound system, but the 'Hawks couldn't, so they had to use the organ. Of course, in the United Center, the organ's tied into the sound system. It's not a huge pipe organ winding its way through the rafters of an old barn anymore. Well, there it is.

Anyhoo, vote for me, if you're one of the three people who read my blog.

I'm Not Sure How To Say This...

2007-06-06T11:55:00.000-05:00

But the It's Still Football gang (just me and Joe, really) entered ourselves in the Ladies... "Hot Blogger Bracket." I got a 5-seed, which is ridiculously flattering, and Joe got a 13-seed, which is a little low, I feel. In any event, my "worthy" first round opponent is begging for votes, so I must also beg for votes now.

To answer your questions, yes, we blog about Arena Football. We thought making fun of Professional Bonehead Bowl (Now With Sproingy Nets!) would be a good time, and it is. But now we know to much about Arena Football, and sadly, we can't un-know it.

Also, yes. I entered myself in an online popularity contest against strangers. Le sigh.

Vote for me!

Also vote for Joe!

This Has Been About Work WAY Too Often

2007-05-24T13:54:00.000-05:00

New busywork project:

Hey, Tom, could you go onto that Print and Go Marketing thing print off a copy of all the flyers, and put them into a binder, organized by type? So it's convenient to the guys.

Um, it's on the Internet. Not only is it already in the most convenient place imaginable, it's not wasting paper or ink. It's ON THE INTERNET. If anything changes, the list changes automatically! I'd have to know actual magic to do that in real life. IT'S ON THE INTERNET. YOU CAN LOOK AT IT ON THE INTERNET.

There is no more convenient place to look at images!

I Enjoy Making Stuff Up

2007-05-24T09:10:00.000-05:00

In between trying to repair the paper folding machine, and deciding what real work I was going to do today, I followed up on a phone call from my boss that asked if I could explore where a customer's monthly mortgage statement went. I found the relevant information, and called our servicing department, who said they'd send another copy out to the customer ASAP. I then called the customer back, and had the following conversation:

Me: [After telling him how much he owed, etc.] Sorry for the confusion,
sir. You'll get your statements in a regular fashion from here on out.
Him: Well, what happened? How come I didn't get a statement?

Now, I could tell him what the rep on the phone thinks happened (his state wasn't listed - zip and everything else was valid), but that's not as interesting as:

Me: Well, you know how you live in [redacted], IL? Your statement was sent
to [redacted], LI. Which isn't a state.
Him: Oh! LI, the 51st state in the union!
Me: Indeed.

There was absolutely no need for me to make that up, especially because the
truth is nearly as weird and idiotic. I think there's something wrong with me.

Now, back to making the paper folding machine work, because I'm not folding all of these letters by hand. Even monkeying with the machine isn't necessarily appropriate. Fold them yourself, John. John [deleted - see note], whose name I will use in full, so that when you Google yourself like the insecure pervy wanker that you are, you will discover this: fold your own damn worthless letters, you miserable hack. You and your letters are a waste of otherwise useful carbon. Were I to receive one of your poorly-worded, 2-page form letters, obviously signed with a variation of Brush Script MT font, I would go back in time to intercept the mailperson at before he/she reached my home, and commit a federal offense by tipping his/her truck over and setting fire to it. That's how you commit mail fraud.

The best part is, I'm unlikely to be confronted about this, because I'll know that this post was discovered by the Googling of onesself, of which you should be embarrassed, you simpleton. So you can feel better: you're not the biggest clown in the office; you're just the most recent shiftless greed-driven coward to request that I do something stupid because you're lazy and don't want to do it yourself.

At least the phone call was fun.

[Note: While it was amusing to put his full name in, briefly, I realized that the consequences could actually be dire. So, forget it. Pretend it's in there - the rest of the post won't make sense otherwise.]

I Don't Think This is Correct

2007-05-18T11:35:00.000-05:00

I like Northwestern's chances in 2007, if this (thanks to ESPN's Spring Preview Thing) is the correct schedule:

2007 Schedule
Sept. 1 at Florida

Sept. 8 West Virginia Tech

Sept. 15 Eastern Kentucky

Sept. 20 at Middle Tennessee

Sept. 29 at Bowling Green

Oct. 13 at Ball State

Oct. 20 at Indiana State

Oct. 27 North Carolina Central

Nov. 3 at Chattanooga

Nov. 10 Troy

Nov. 17 Morehead State

Nov. 24 at North Texas

We'd get waxed at Florida, but I think we have a good chance to win the... Sun Belt? And go to the, I don't know, Empty Bowl?

(Apparrently we got the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers Schedule somehow. Odd. Also: football! Only a few months away!)

Cool!

2007-05-14T12:53:00.000-05:00

MapGameday.com lets you tag the football stadia you've been to with Google Maps. The only one I couldn't add was the Alamo Bowl, but that's okay. I have the Sun Bowl on there (UTEP's home) and the Motor City Bowl (Ford Field), and I hope I haven't forgotten any.

The map breaks my blog, so it's embedded after the jump.

Embedded:

[Your browser does not support frames or is currently configured not to display frames. However, you may open this this page online.]

Oh, Monday...

2007-05-07T08:58:00.000-05:00

I walked in and noticed a couple of things that immediately made me angry. Clearly, I ought to be doing something else with my daylight hours.

1) There are four boxes of stamped envelopes sitting on my desk. The corpses of the people who carried them from the postage meter to my desk must have already decomposed, because you can't escape the building without passing a mailbox. Therefore, I have to assume that the person or persons who dropped these letters off suffered a tragic accident before they were able to carry the letters to the elevators and to a mailbox.

2) The candy dish, full on Friday when I left, is empty. This is meant primarily for customers and non-assholes. Your home-schooled wolf-children fall into neither category, letter-abandoning lard-ass. And if it was you who devoured an entire bowl of Fruit Gems, then I hope you lose a leg to diabetes and I can beat you to death with it. I don't want your ill-concieved spawn to get diabetes; diabetic children are tragic. I just hope they fall into a well.

Once Again, I Am Full of Fury

2007-05-03T11:40:00.000-05:00

They finally got around to blocking Facebook at work. I'm tired of this game. What do you have to do to be released with severance pay? Can I bring this entire office down?

In other entertaining news, a client asked to be re-assigned to another consultant, and I don't really know what to do. I'm going to ask my boss.

[Time Passes]

Yep, that's what I expected. I was told not to do anything other than tell the original consulant. Awesome. I hate everybody.

Okay, So, That Didn't Work

2007-04-30T16:48:00.000-05:00

I have a longer post that sort of sucks still, but I feel like it needs to be said, and now-ish:

Added to the lists of "Things I Want to Work On/For," as well as "Delightful TV Shows That I Know I Like Because I Cheerfully Hum Their Theme Song" is 30 Rock. I know I'm about 35,000 years late to the 30 Rock party, but tough noogies. I can watch it on NBC.com, and it = funny. So, there, lame-os.

Oh, I Almost Forgot

2007-04-16T12:18:00.000-05:00

Victory Right - Chicago 2016! Wooo!

Updates, In Sort of a Rambling Fashion

2007-04-16T08:54:00.000-05:00

So, this is ye olde pointless rambly post, mostly to catch my brain up to my life. We'll see how it works out. Most of the funny has been going on at It's Still Football, so that's part of the explanation. I also haven't had much to say other than "Wow, Friday Night Lights is a good television show," or "The mortgage industry is comprised almost exclusively of the dregs of humanity," or random personal-life things that are kind of boring and would turn this into the livejournal-y emo blog that doesn't have the kind of tone I like to play in. Nobody really needs to read about my navel-gazing, and it's not as cathartic to get it in pixels as I thought it might be.

That said, let's play Pro v. Con/Yay v. Boo/Tip of the Hat v. Wag of the Finger with Things. But I'm not stealing those titles. Instead, we're playing

Victory Right/Wide Left

Victory Right - The following conversation this weekend actually occurred:

Riggs: "Yes, but when two girls make out it's sexy."
Josh: "When Riggs talks about two girls making out, it's not sexy
anymore."
Riggs: "Why isn't it sexy anymore?"
Josh: "I don't know, but I'm mad at you for making it unsexy."

Wide Left - I look hugely creepy in the pictures from this event.

Victory Right - Last week, I was walking out of the Hancock building, and passed two tourist-y types, which isn't out of the ordinary. This, however, is:

Woman: "The energy here is very bad."
Man: "So we shouldn't go in today?"

I should say not. Very weird, made me laugh. The energy? What energy? Is there a spooky aura around the Hancock that only wackos can see?

4-Yard Rush Up the Gut on 2nd Down - I've already broken my system, because I couldn't decide where to put this anecdote. On that same lunchtime walk, I also passed a clump of three or four protesters on the corner of Chicago and Michigan. I guess Cheney was in town briefly, though I don't know where he was specifically, and these people had three signs.

One that said "Cheney War Criminal" (Points for brevity, I guess)
One that said "You suck, Dick." (Right, I get the joke.)
One that said "Don't shoot me in the face." (Oh, man, can we be over the face-shooting thing? Please? At least on protest signs?)

Please note that the face-shooting thing is still funny in satirical student films. Not that I'm thinking of one specificaly. Okay, I totally am.

Anyway, my point is that the only people who can get worked up over things sufficiently to exercise their rights to assembly and free speech and whatnot are the people who are least likely to be effective. These delightful examples of the American Spirit unfortunately were the wild-eyed, unwashed sort, with the poster-making accumen of a 5th-grade civics project. Well, plus the dick jokes. So, I initially got a chuckle out of it, and then was disappointed by the fact that we're kind of going to hell in a handbasket as much because of the gap between rich and poor as the gap between loony and cleverly industrious. I guess the difference is that those who are less-familiar with clever satire and the benefits of a regular shower end up with their signs on a (randomly chosen?) street corner, and those who are clever with the commentary are Steven Colbert. So, there's still kind of a meritocracy. That's good. I guess. I don't know what my point is.

Wide Left - Stupid timing-of-life stuff. No, emo-blog! Get away!

Victory Right - Mr. Marmalade, though my preparation for same might be sliding into the Wide Left category.

I Have No Idea - The Castle. I think it'll be good. I don't think I understand yet, necessarily.

Kicked Directly Into the Back of the Offensive Line, and Then a Meteor Strikes the Stadium, Leading to the Extinction of Life On Earth - This job is dumb.

Clearly, Our Dorkitude is Not Our Fault

2007-04-08T13:53:00.000-05:00

This Easter weekend, I'm visiting The Sister in Alabama with The Parents. Of course, I brought my laptop, because, well, why not? This lead to the following conversation (slightly edited for clarity only) over Instant Messenger, with Megan, at a distance of approximately three feet:

Re: Bringing your laptop on vacay to your family's place...

Megan: yeah, apprently that's not a normal thing. Who knew?
Megan: Why is our family so weird?
Megan: Freakshow.
Me: Bad genes.

We laugh out loud, and can't explain why, because it's mean. We're awful people. Bad genes.

Update: Megan, upon reading this post: "Three feet? Not. Even. More like A foot."

C-Dog SMASH!

2007-04-04T08:45:00.000-05:00

If anyone knows of a good day job that I could replace this one with, that'd be great. On Monday and Tuesday, the inane prattle of the people that actually deigned to show up at the office drove me equally as crazy as the brain-dead requests of those that rarely-or-never set foot in here. Today, my ire is compounded by the fact that Plans for Life Outside of The Day Job have been shot to hell and gone. The good news/bad news is that Mr. Marmalade is on like Donkey Kong, though the fact that opening night festivities figured heavily into the aforementioned Plans has somewhat dulled the lustre of my joy. I don't even get that to revel in.

So, my fuse is, to put it bluntly, short.

I, therefore, swear to St. Erasmus (AKA Elmo), patron saint of Ammunition and Ordnance, (seriously! I looked it up.) that I am going to rip shit up with extreme prejudice if the usual nonsense occurs around here. This includes, but is not limited to: my boss smoking in the conference room or kitchen and thinking he's being sneaky; the ass-clown who describes rolling out of bed at 11 and killing 3 and a half hours at the office as positively Sisyphean; further experiences of insane girl dating logic ("Well, I hope he's not getting too serious," "What would give you that idea?" "Nothing, I just hope he's not." "Nothing?" "No, I'm just worried about it." "Seriously? I'm going to remove your uterus using nothing but a FedEx envelope and my BARE FUCKING HANDS."); general laziness and shiftlessness. Unless I am the one partaking in said laziness and shiftlessness.

Also, St. Francis Xavier - whose name I took at Confirmation - is the patron saint of Argentinian pelota players. Why specifically Argentinian pelota players?

Seriously, on Monday I told people that I wished nothing but failure on my coworkers and I hoped that they were incapable of feeding their (doubtless spoiled/screeching/illegitimate) children. For those without children, I pray they are barren. Can guys be barren? Or do they have to be... something else. Whatever. That was Monday, it's now Wednesday, and life has become more screamingly irritating.

Anyway, that's why It's Still Football has been bereft of my writing, and why this space hasn't received the benefit of my wit either. Not that anyone is exactly on tenterhooks waiting for my next update.

Doing My Civic Duty!

2007-03-29T23:38:00.000-05:00

A public service announcement I wrote on a piece of paper and placed on the el seat:

DO NOT SIT HERE: MOIST

I'm really glad I didn't give into the guy who kept asking if I, or my travelling companions, wanted to sit. Because after he gave up on that, he stood up, shouted "Excuse me! Does anyone have any newspapers or something? Because someone peed on this seat." Someone? Sir, I have a sneaking suspicion you peed on that seat. So, after telling a couple of randoms that they shouldn't sit there, because there's a 75% chance of urine, we decided to make a sign. I'm proud of myself.

Nothing Since March 19? Really?

2007-03-27T10:10:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I think we can all agree that I've been remiss in doing anything other than make fun of arena football teams that haven't stepped on an indoor field since before I could drive, but certainly something amusing has passed through my head, right?

Checking my handy-dandy little notebook, apparently... I dislike my Mortgage Banking Overlords, for whom I will have to suffer through some sales workshop that has no bearing on my actual life next week. (Look forward to that, though I may avoid it, no matter what the chance for humor.) Oh, I watched the pilot episode of The Riches, which I rather liked. Even if Minnie Driver is the creepiest of the creepy when all strung-out. But Eddie Izzard is enjoyable, and I will steal his humor (he's British, so I suppose it's "humour") when it suits my fancy. And the daughter is good-looking and not a bad actress. (And not freakily-young, so no worries there.)

I also found out via Deadspin comments that John Spencer allegedly was a jerk to crew members, and made people cry. This bothers me deeply, but I can still want to be as skilled as John Spencer, and be nice to people. So, whatever. Also, a Google search on "John Spencer makes people cry" doesn't come up with anything. So, I'm going to file that under "L" for "Lies, lies! Why do you lie? What makes you lie?!?"

On the 21st, at 1:09 AM, apparently something happened that caused me to write the following:

iTunes Knows!
-Cecilia, Simon and Garfunkel
-Mr. Jones, Counting Crows
-Sheep Go to Heaven, Cake

So, that's cryptic. Not 100% sure what iTunes knew, because I can't remember what I was thinking about at the time, but iTunes in interestingly predictive...

I briefly considered taking the LSAT or applying to the CIA, but for the wrong reasons...

John Dixon looks like a young Dick Van Dyke, of which I'm envious, because I wish I was a young Dick Van Dyke...

That came up, because I'm understudying John for Dog & Pony's production of Noah Haidle's Mr. Marmalade at the Storefront Theater at/in/part of Gallery 37 downtown. So, that's going on. That and Kafka's The Castle, with the Right Brain Project, which opens at the Trapdoor Theatre on May 10.

The rest of my notes are my expenses and stuff. So, I guess I've been a little consumed with Mr. Marmalade and The Castle, and my Profiles Theatre class wrapping up. Kim had a going-away party last weekend that was delightful, and we'll miss her terribly. She'll be in Japan, teaching English for a year. Which is an excellent excuse to bring up this historical Conversation That Actually Happened, circa Spring 2001:

Why is she going there? [Ed. note - Prague, I think]
To teach English to people who don't know it.
For good?
No, for evil.

This has been another installment of Conversations That Actually Happened Theater. Good day.

I Know I'm Not The First to Mention This

2007-03-19T10:18:00.000-05:00

But, I will forever be amused by the Many Faces of Bo Ryan, Captain, Team Freak-Out.

2004/2005, I think. (Google has a tendency to lie.)

2005/2006. Probably.

This past weekend. I stole this from the Deadspin post, because I can't find the original to download to my computer and make a poster with which I can frighten children into behaving.

So, sorry for the bandwidth theft, Deadspin. I'll fix it eventually, and make this post more interesting than just "Ha ha! Look at Crazy-Ass Bo Ryan!"

It Would Be Difficult to Be a Bigger Nerd

2007-03-18T22:39:00.000-05:00

So. You can feel free to ignore this post, if you're some sort of connoisseur of quality writing, or in-depth analysis, because I'm just going to tell you that I wish I had been watching TV with someone, rather than by myself tonight, because I found myself to be very clever.

First, the only show I watched was Battlestar Galactica, which immediately limits my co-audience to people who aren't put off by the fact that the drama takes place in space, where there are robots-what-look-like-humans who are trying to kill our protagonists.
It's good drama, most of the time. Crisp writing. Plot twists. Good acting. So, get over yourself about the robots/space/future/imaginary-military stuff. You watch cop dramas, right? You watch 24? That's equally unbelievable - it's the story that's important.

But I digress. The two delightful things were as follows:

1) There's a guy who's on trial for being a bastard and letting a bunch of the robots-what-look-like-people kill a bunch of the people-who-are-in-fact-people-unless-they're-robot-sleepers-in-disguise. Bad crazy, president, bad! So, during this trial (in spaaaaaace), the prosecuting attorney lets us know that he, due to the allegations of genocide, must pay the Ultimate Price.

Clearly, Gaius Baltar will have to live with the Farrises[1]. And that's a television show I'd watch religiously. I'm going to pitch that as a television show, actually. As soon as I wrap my mind around it and can condense it into a sentence or two. Because right now it reads like this:

So, this genius scientist guy who's currently all scruffy and Jesus-looking has this megalomania thing going on, as genius scientists are wont to do, right? He's almost wiped out humanity twice, he found out his girlfriend was a robot, initially bent on the destruction of the human race, and he currently is hallucinating his sexy robot girlfriend and writing polemics on the rising aristocracy. He has to live with a college marching band director who's even weirder, and his wife, who is a total mystery, but briefly was thought to be a vampire. (This was later proven to be untrue. Or at least unlikely.) Hijinks ensue.

2) This is less involved. One character says, "I have a feeling about [something something]," leading the second character to say "Just a feeling?" Clearly, I must pause the TiVo, and sing Boston's "More Than a Feeling," briefly. I then un-pause the TiVo, to hear the character say "More than a feeling..."

I cheer.

[1]If you were never in NUMB, this was an actual conversation, once upon a time: "Then he'll have to pay the ultimate price." "He'll have to move in with Mr. Farris?" Of course, when he got married, it got amended to "the Farrises." I appreciate the correction to that quote, if it needs a correction.

Also, I'm Going to Take This Opportunity to Bitch, Briefly

2007-03-15T15:21:00.000-05:00

Right now, I could not hate these people more if they were actually, honest-to-goodnes Nazis, transported here through space and time. I know that probably sounds excessive, but I am really tired of the smarmy attitude and all the rest. I don't care if they succeed or fail. In fact, I would prefer they fail. I'm considering renting for the rest of my life. That way I would never contribute to the paychecks of these people, or people like them. I could also, concievably pay cash for a home, but let's be realistic... I'd be 90 by the time I had enough liquid funds to do that.

I'm going to put somebody in a coma today.

You Also Might Enjoy My Other Endeavors

2007-03-15T14:43:00.000-05:00

Or, if you're British, "endeavours."

The reason it's been a week between posts was that I've been collaborating on It's Still Football, a blog dedicated to the fact that we really like football, and are willing to make fun of the Arena Football League. It's like smack addicts who start injecting heroin into their eyeballs when they run out of veins. Or something. I stole that line, and I've been looking for an excuse to use it.

Anyway, we think we're amusing. Check it out?

Everything Old Is New Again: (The) Flight of The Phoenix

2007-03-15T12:56:00.000-05:00

The Greeks said that there were only a certain number of dramatic plots that existed, and everything is a variation on those. Occasionally, the movies say "screw it," and just re-make an old movie. I like old movies, I like new movies, I like movies. Are the originals always superior? Are the remakes simply vanity projects and lazy filmmaking? Or is it possible that you can improve on what's already out there? Oh, P.S., I'm spoiling these movies, so if you want to be surprised, go somewhere else.

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) vs. Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

Plot synopsis:

Crusty old-ish pilot (Jimmy Stewart/Dennis Quaid) is hired to fly a bunch of oil company people out of some craphole desert back to civilization. This goes exactly as planned, except for the fact that they crash in the desert (Sahara/Gobi), and are royally screwed. Roughly half the crew bites it, one way or the other, and a vaguely-creepy quasi-albino guy (Hardy Kruger/Giovanni Ribisi doing a Hardy Kruger impersonation) says "Hey, I can make a new plane from this old plane, because my company builds planes!" So, they all get to work building a impromptu plane, while fighting the desert and each other, and we all learn something about cooperation and weirdos in the desert.

Advantage, 1965:

Congratulations, Ben Nye: your work as makeup supervisor was exemplary in that I was completely repulsed by the open sores you created on Richard Attenborough and co., as well as the way you managed to make Jimmy Stewart look like hell on toast. Unless 1965 was just the year Jimmy decided to get craggy and jowly and ill-looking. But those sun-induced pustules? Truly unpleasant. Additionally, we'll give you points for involving Richard Attenborough and Jimmy Stewart, because they're quite good, making a relatively weak script look okay. Especially Sir Richard losing his shit towards the end and just cackling like a maniac. Also, way to not be afraid of starting your title with an article, there, The Flight of the Phoenix. Creepy Quasi-Albino Guy was German, which made everyone kind of nervous. Oh, the Brits and the Germans, and the Americans, working together in a post-war world, what will they think of next? The final take-off scene is actually preferable in this one, because they flew a real plane, and that's freaky-cool. But flaky skin and whatnot... eeegh.... That's really the champion, here.

Advantage, 2004:

90% of the supporting cast was more enjoyable in the future. If nothing else, we got Hugh Laurie as Corporate Douchebag, where he was smarmy to everyone and was pretty useful, unlike our 1965 CD, who just wandered around and looked sad the whole time. The rest of them may have been one-and-a-half-dimensional ethnic stereotypes (Diminutive Mexican Cook! Angry African-American With Something to Prove! Woman Also With Something to Prove! Middle Eastern Philosopher Guy!), but at least they were ethnic. Neither Cockney nor French counts, nor does having an ethnic-type-person in there for the first 3 minutes of the movie and then whacking them. (Bouzuki-playing Dead Greek Guy, and Hispanic Dead Guy, I'm looking at you.) For no discernable reason, co-pilot and pilot go through their pre-flight checklist as Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton, which was funny, but totally baffling. Jimmy and Richard don't imitate anyone.

You suck:
-Ernest Borgnine (1965). What are you doing in this movie? You're playing a crazy guy with no purpose! What the hell?
-Jury-rigged sexual tension (2004). Why does the one lady have to have the hots for the pilot? There's no real reason for it.
-Dennis Quaid's penchant for phoning scenes in (2004). He kind of gives up when he doesn't like the dialogue he's given. Suck it up, Dennis. You're way better, when you're having more fun.
-Music (1965). So, you're telling me you have a transistor radio that picks up Italian love songs, in the middle of the desert? Why even have the love theme? Don't get too smug, 2004, you included "Hey Ya."
-Denoument (1965). Wacky music + ending up in some random oasis = zzzz. Once they take off, I trust that they're going to be okay.

Better Crash Sequence:

This gets its own line because the 2004 crash sequence ruled. I know, I know, we live in a CGI age, where we can smash fake planes through sand dunes and really go apeshit with how crazy crashing in the desert is, but too bad for you, 1965! Your model airplane smooshing into a sandbox is not nearly as fun as some guy falling out of the back of the plane and sending up a little sand-plume.

Character Comparison:
Jimmy Stewart v. Dennis Quaid -- Stewart +10. Workmanlike efforts by both parties, but Dennis Quaid gives up too frequently.
Richard Attenborough vs. Tyrese Gibson -- Attenborough +50. Sorry, Tyrese, but you've got nothing on Sir Richard for pathos.
Hardy Kruger vs. Giovanni Ribisi -- Kruger +.1 Giovanni does a hell of a job being a weirdo, but he's kind of just robbing Hardy. Down to the hairdo and spectacles.
Hugh Laurie vs. Whoever That Guy Was -- Laurie +199. Sorry, Estate of That Guy.
Stunt Pilot Who Died While Making 1965 Version vs. CGI -- Late Pilot +infinity. This actually happened.
Other characters I don't care about vs. Other characters I still don't care about 39 years later -- Push. No, I take that back. Crazy Ernest Borgnine is slightly more irritating than Guy Who Is Irritating But Not Crazy, 2004. So, 2004 +.08.

I Prefer:
Ugh. To be perfectly honest, I'll probably never watch either of these again. The '65 version is a "classic," and if it shows up while I'm flipping through channels, I might tune in briefly, but neither of them gripped me in any specific way. If the '04 one shows up on TV, I'll watch it if it's the beginning, the end, or the bit where meeting with the nomads goes awry. If you could put Jimmy Stewart, and Richard Attenborough in 2004, I'd buy it and tell my friends to buy it. Otherwise, you have two underwhelming movies that are reasonably suspenseful. Oh, and the twist is the same in both of them, and I'm a huge fan of the twist, so that's good. But...

Final Letter Grades:
1965 - C
2004 - C+

CGI wins, with the exception of the actual flight of the Phoenix, which gets the nod in the '65 version, only because they built a crazy-looking plane, flew it, and it (unfortunately) killed a guy. You have to respect that.

Another Thursday, Another Meeting

2007-03-08T16:00:00.000-06:00

Okay, new plans for this week's meeting. First, everyone who isn't my boss will now be named "Mike." Because the odds are with them. Second, this sucked way more than last week - I fear we may have caught lightning in a bottle with that delightful examination. Either way, I wrote stuff down. Here we go.

You know what to do to continue.

10:32 The 10:30 meeting hasn't started yet, but the "hilarity" has already begun:

Me: "Did you bring the stuff from last week?"
Mike 1: "Oh yeah, I have what you just handed out."
Me: "What? From last week?"
Mike 1: "This week."
Me: "So... your answer is no?"

10:38 Review of the activity log (which was what I was referencing in the last post), which nobody did, really. Apparently, according to D., the goal was "to show you how short the week actually is." Hm. Too short to read the e-mails asking to bring the completed charts, apparently.

10:40 The main phone rings, I have to go get it. I'm sure I'm missing gems. (I will be proven wrong.)

10:42 D. is telling us how great recruiting is going. Okay. How are these guys who are awesome being awesome? 6 zillion dollars in loans per second, rollin' in Bentleys and stuff... These guys sound great. I'm sure they're fiction. Anyway, they fear change. That's not why they're good, that's just what D. said. Apparently, this ubermench's computer desktop is a clusterfuck. If you want to be successful, scatter icons all over your desktop. It means you've committed to technology. Which, apparently is what you want to be doing. The highlight of this is when D. describes how you can't really do anything new with mail pieces unless you create "a pop-up mailer that grabs the guy in the face." He then proceeds to palm his head.

10:46 Have we heard of Barry Habib? Of course not. (Actual guy. Google him, if you want to.) Apparently, D. and Barry met when D. was awesome. That's what I learned from D.'s story. Also, I learned to be consistent with your marketing efforts. Actually, that's useful if you're marketing. Know your market, that kind ofzzzzzz...

10:48 Whoever's next door starts sawing through the wall. This is shocking, but no one seems to mind, but me. I think I'm going crazy.

10:50 Think of this when you're buying a house: "Realtors stand there and say 'Wow, I wish they'd, I don't know, die?'"

10:51 But, we have to get back to Barry Habib. FYI: you do not use just one of Barry Habib's names. Leaving out his first or last name is displeasing to Barry Habib. D. made a website in, like, 1991. Out of stray electrons and grass clippings. The Internet was a wild place in 1991, and HTML was scary. We did get this golden exchange:

Drago: "I didn't know HTML, so I drew up my website sort of 'what you see is what you get,'"
Mike 2: "WYSIWIG!"
Drago: (slightly thrown by this outburst) "Yeah... And bought a book..."

The rest of the conversation is about how he used a complicated system of pullies and GHB to tame and seduce the Early Interwebs; screw that Prodigy, that CompuServe, that AOL... He was going to be on the frontier! Or something. I think this is just supposed to make us think that he's a bad-ass. Unless he's suggesting that these guys get into something that's untamed, like beaming signals directly into people's heads. I have no idea.

10:54 Is "metadata" pronounced "met-ah," or "me-tah"? I think it's the first, but D.'s pretty convincingly uttering the second. Also, he just says "To make a long story... longer..." Heh. He involved Realtors in his Daring Website Scheme, and they loved it, because they were from the Stone Age. "Realtors weren't young, like they are now, you see." I'm calling bullshit on that statement.

10:55 D. asks approximately 2,000 questions that no one understands, and they're critical financial thinghies. I'm serious, I think he started speaking in tongues. He mentioned Greenspan, and then proceeded to lament people quoting him out of context or some shit. I'm really baffled. My notes literally say:

Do you know where to find:
-I have no fucking idea

Now D. tells a story about a client who was a CIA satellite guru who apparently made some EMP Death Ray. I am not making any of this up. We are off the rails.

10:59 What the HELL are they doing next door?

11:00 You have to pay money to subscribe to these things D.'s suggesting The Gang subscribe to. Therefore, I guarantee they won't do it.

11:02 Now he's turned into Lao Tzu: "Thought without action is but a daydream." Also, this gem, regarding Japanese culture:

"They'd eat a rice ball a day, take public transportation, and save all their money! They're more interested in thinking about why a leaf falls this way or that!"

Really. All right, then. Why did that come up? I couldn't tell you.

11:05 Ratios get broken down. The lesson I learn is that people are dipshits with their money. Granted, I already know this, because I'm a dipshit with my money, but apparently all too often, loan originators say "Screw it! Let's get them the highest loan amount they can afford, and then some! Let's make it so they're fiscally crippled in 36 months. That'll be fun." D. suggests considering the whole transaction with a clean heart, do a service, and don't put people into shit they can't afford. He's the Mother Theresa of lending.

11:07 I make a completely unintelligable note. It actually says "Have>10 bus ref sc / Have > 5 Strat" This is neither funny, nor helpful to me.

11:10 Do you make friends with your Realtors, or do you meet like professionals? Well, last week, he called them all slimebags, essentially, so I'm going to guess the answer is "like professionals." I am wrong. You do both! Hooray! But don't have too much of a social life with these guys. Okay. No problem.

11:12 Math.

11:14 Math ends. Exhortation begins. Get Partnerships. This begs the question: why do these people not have partnerships? I mean, it's hard to get Realtors or builders on board, but come on, you have to have met someone on accident... Your personalities aren't that crippling.

11:15 In 1992, things were different. Though, to hear D. tell it, steam power had just been invented, and we hadn't yet received the number zero from the Arabian Peninsula. I don't know, I was 11. But we might have had AOL, like, 1.0. I'm serious about that.

11:16 Do research? This suggestion is met with audible groans. Wow.

11:18 ANOTHER guy he talked to and wants to hire. Oh, my God, we'll never escape from here. He's really obsessed with the fact that he thought of what these guys are doing before they started doing it. I applaud sarcastically. No I don't, but I wish I did.

11:21 A review of how Google works. No, really, with rankings and whatnot. Plus, we espouse the values of an MLS search engine that captures your search. Which makes me think of some sweaty guy sitting in a basement, sifting through your house searches. Eegh.

11:25 D. used to send Realtors a rate sheet that he would mangle and fold before stuffing it into the envelope. He said it was "pre-crumpled for their convenience." That's funny.

11:26 We had a good Jan/Feb; our pricing was good, our volume needed to be better. If everybody does 50% more volume, everybody ends up happy. Except me - I will still fail to give a shit.

11:29 That's enough of patting ourselves on the back. D. wants us to know that he's back to being sold on CW. Whew, that's a "relief." Mike 3's phone rings, and - get this - HE DOESN'T ANSWER IT! It's a miracle.

11:30 D. wants us to succeed and grow, but we apparently have no mechanism to train people. Mike 1's sarcastic comment ("We want superstars?") is the impetus for a 2-minute digression on grooming people within a company. A story is shared about two people from another company that apparently would assault people. Charming.

11:31 Mike 2's phone rings, he leaves. The digression continues - D. doesn't want to do 24 hours of loans to be freaky-successful, like some guy from Oakbrook who does $1.2 BILLION dollars.

11:32 D. takes this opportunity to make fun of Mike 4's work ethic. He then proceeds to explain his swipe and why it's not only funny but accurate. Oh, and mean.

11:35 "Try to come into the office" speech. Do you really need a speech for that? Should you? Other pearls of wisdom: "Each failure is a tuition payment towards [something]," and "Stay on your toes: if you're on your heels, it's too easy to fall backwards."

11:37 Corporate movie. In order to show his support, D. exits the room. Snarky comments ensue, regarding the quality of the movie. They are not funny, so I didn't write them down. Mike 5's on his blackberry, Mike 3 is text-messaging. This is awesome.

11:40 D.'s back to lean against the door jamb.

11:42 D. leaves again. I begin to wonder how cold Lake Michigan is, and how long it would really be before I went into shock. I hope it would be immediately.

11:45 D. comes back, pulls a chair into the doorway and sits down. As a manager, it's all about body language. Mike 5's phone goes off, it's a text message, so he can respond without leaving.

11:46 I crack my neck. Sadly, I fail to become paralyzed.

11:50 The movie ends. Now we're going to share what we bring personally that makes us unique and sets us apart personally from other people. The first answer, from Mike 1, is "product knowledge." First of all, that had better not make you unique; that ought to be expected. Second of all, LIAR. LIAR LIAR LIAR. WHY DO YOU LIE? Unless you're saying that your astonishing lack of knowledge sets you apart.

11:52 Mike 2 returns. You missed the whole movie. To quote Robert Muldoon, "clever girl..."

11:55 Digression alert!

11:56 Mike 3's phone rings again. He doesn't answer it again. Amazing.

11:57 Wait. I zoned out for 15 seconds, and D.'s pretending to sell a space shuttle. What?

12:00 Yeah, I have no idea where we are. We do get little Sales 101 Comedy Hour, in order to tell us not to use canned stuff, and be yourself when you're talking to your client. I sigh deeply. D. doesn't look at our business as purely sales. He also doesn't look at the People's Republic of China as purely Communist.

12:02 I feel kind of bad about that joke, because the philosophy of "don't be an animal" is good and kind and sound. To wit:

Educate people. Be cool.
Have all the information that you might need.
Provide "411 service" if necessary
Do your homework

Apparently, knowing is more than half the battle, contrary to what G.I. Joe and Josh's Venn Diagrams would have you believe.

12:05 Mike 2 waves his hands fruitily, and quasi-whispers to me that he has to leave. I can't describe how weird this was for me. There's the aspect of it where I don't give a crap whether you stay or go, there's the wild, quasi-apologetic gesticulation, and there's the fact that he whispered it so as not to interrupt, but the whisper was more distracting and distinct than standing on the table and yodeling his message would've been. It's like he lost all fine motor control. It was amazing.

12:07 More awesome things D did when he was a loan consultant. I'm beginning to fade.

12:09 We're back on the script/schedule, which is bor-ring.

12:10 Another damn digression, this time, it's the "don't be perceived as a 'Salesman'" pitch. (P.S. Too late.)

12:15 We have sample exercises to do, of the "what do you do in this situation?" variety. However, we're not waiting for answers, we're just charging through. I'm encouraged, but apparently "too bored to even blog," according to my notes.

12:22 I regain consciousness when D. gets bored and starts skipping pages. He then moves into Q&A. One Q is A'd, everybody lapses back into silence, so D. launches back in, answers all the questions himself. His answers are better anyway.

12:25 He closes the binder... almost there... just a few more seconds...

12:26 "In summary," whee! D. recommends monitoring our activities, because it will be useful. No one will do this.

12:30 No one has questions, we're done!

British Man Renovates Apartment, Likely Fails to Get Laid

2007-03-07T10:21:00.000-06:00

Technically, this was posted on Gizmodo on Tuesday, which means I'm a day late to the party. In blog-time, that means this happened in the Pleistocene Era, but I wanna talk about the guy who turned his apartment into a set from Star Trek: Voyager, anyway.

Click to continue:

My immediate reaction is "Ai yi yi," and I shake my head in embarassment for Mr. Alleyne. No, that's a filthy lie. My immediate reaction is "COOL!" because I am a sucker for this kind of stuff. Then I catch myself, and do the whole "Ai yi yi" thing. Because on the one hand, it is really cool: fancy lighting, voice controls, etc. On the other hand, it's um, Star Trek. He's wearing a uniform from the fictional future. On the other other hand, I may or may not have had Star Trek action figures and a poster of the Enterprise-D, and there may have been a Star Trek "How to Host a Murder" hosted by someone I know and am. On the other other other hand, I have adjusted socially to become a person who others don't run shrieking from. Mostly. On the other^{^4} hand, if I had the time, resources, and talent, I'd probably turn Chez Whipple into a U-Boat that you have to operate the Enigma Machine to get into. Which might irritate The Uncles, but as long as we're fantasizing...

Let's look a little deeper into this, shall we? For starters, the impetus for the project was when, "after his wife left in 1994, Alleyne needed a project to keep his hands and mind busy." No kidding? I get the impression this was quite the free-fall. You're probably going to have romantic liason issues with that whole scenario right there. "Hey, sweetheart, why don't we go back to your place, because mine's a construction mess right now - I haven't finished installing the LCARS system, and the transporter room assembly's in pieces on the kitchen counter. Wait! Where are you going?" Then again, he removed his bed because his sciatica was screwed up, and he has to sleep on the floor anyway. Do me a favor and imagine me throwing my hands up in the air, completely befuddled.

Again, I shouldn't make fun, because the idea of having your radiator and a/c make the "whoom whoom" sounds of a warp drive sounds really appealing to me. Which, is kind of embarassing, but COME ON. That's pretty damn awesome. I don't necessarily want to put on forehead ridges, or learn Elvish, or even engage in Ren Faire jousting and socializing - that's all really creepy - but a swoopy, touch-screeny apartment? Tell me you can't get on board with that. You're lying.

I don't want the outfit, but I do covet the surroundings.

Meanwhile, this project apparently bankrupted the guy as well. That's probably difficult to explain. It happens to a lot of people, and it's a very tragic thing, but rarely does it involve a conversation that goes: "Yes, so I transformed my bathroom into a holodeck, and added transporter controls with sound effects and sliders. No, I can't pay off my credit cards. Is that weird?" The good news is that it seems to have enabled him to parlay this into a business, 24th Century Design. The bad news is that the subsequent requests have given me more things to make fun of. Apparently, a lot of the requests for design assistance were also requesting that his assistance be free.

Mr. Alleyne: let me break something to you gently. I hate to paint with a broad brush (LIES. I love it.), but Internet Nerds rarely want to pay for anything. There's the whole concept of the Open Source Free Range Interwebs that you have to deal with to begin with, where the exchange of ideas is some sort of Wild West Barter System nonsense, and if you have a good idea, the World Deserves This. That's the first problem, it's a good thing sometimes (see: wikipedia), but it's a bad thing if you have goods and services that you don't simply want to give away. The second part of the problem is that SCIENCE FICTION NERDS DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR ANYTHING, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO MONEY. They refuse to sell out to the Man, and get a cube jockey job, because they're more important than that. Eventually, they'll give in and work for IT somewhere and put a Seven of Nine poster up in their cube and have a Wedge Antilles bobblehead, but until that day, they want things for free, because it's their inalienable right as a Denizen of the Internet.

In other bizarre news, he wants to sell the place for $200,000, which is remarkable, inasmuch as you can't get a refrigerator box for $200,000 in Chicago. If you look at the real estate adds, and they say "recent renovations," and/or "new appliances," or something, and it's $200,000, any or all of the following things are probably true:

It was built on the site of a crack house, which was built on the site of an Indian burial ground, where the occupants were murdered by poltergeists, except for the priest who was attempting the exorcism, who was killed in a drive-by shooting, and the gang members who were involved in the drive-by immediately crashed into a light pole and exploded, and now they all haunt the place. This would be a great sitcom.
By "new appliances," they mean "new to the unit," not "recently manufactured." In fact, it may be Fisher-Price appliances.
The unit is not big enough to swing a cat in. It's not big enough to swing a cat fetus in. It's not big enough to take a deep breath without flushing the toilet.
"Recently renovated" means "indiscriminately perforated with a sledgehammer." Not "turned into a swoopy 24th century starship."
"Indoor" plumbing.
[noun]-infested. For [noun], we will accept: rat, vermin, tick, soccer hooligan, typhus, radon, jell-o, or fire. Write-in candidates are always welcome.
There's also Nigerian royalty who needs a secure American bank account to temporarily hold his riches.

So, what have we learned? I have no idea. I'm still split on the coolness vs. socially-crippling nerdosity debate. Clearly, you have to respect the guy's skill and his dedication. And who among us wouldn't want touch-screen everything and voice commands? That's why everyone on Earth likes the Star Trek idea, even if they wouldn't be caught dead watching the show. I fervently believe this. I'm ready to admit that I'd like to live in this kind of place temporarily. However, there's no way I'm going to say that I'd play Dress Like Captain Picard. I think that's why this is so compelling: it slides enough into Weird Creepy Fetish Land where you're comfortable making fun of it, but not so much that you can't still say, "Yeah, but if it wasn't quite so creepy? I'd want that."

Blogger Ate My Post

2007-03-07T10:19:00.000-06:00

Argh. Blogger ate a post, and I'm furious. I'm going to try to recreate it. And then write the AFL post that I've been batting around like a disinterested cat would. Crap.

I'm a "Liveblogger"!

2007-03-01T13:23:00.000-06:00

I get bored out of my mind at our meetings, because really, I couldn't care if most of these people succeed or not. In fact, I would be happier if some of them failed so spectacularly that future scholars use them as an example of Early 21st Century Incompetence. I've left details out so as to not get fired or what-have-you. Also because the actual business is BOR-ing.

A little background: I had to take minutes for the meeting anyway, so I figured I'd do it live blog-style, in case it got interesting. We were required to have these "Growing Your Business" meetings lately, to get the team to, well, "Grow Their Business." This concept was met with revulsion by the team, and they complained about it lustily. Too bad. They're mostly jerks, and their opinion doesn't count.

So, to share in and enjoy the dysfunction that is my job, and to revel in the abject loathing that I feel for some of these subhuman misanthropes, please, click, jump, read my "LIVE"BLOG OF A SALES MEETING.

Dramatis Personae (names have been changed badly to OBSCURE NOTHING, but FOIL GOOGLE)
Dwag -- He's the boss of you.
Rudi -- He's a dink. Homeschools his kids. Have you ever noticed that the people who homeschool are often the least qualified to do so?
CW -- not really a Personae, it's where I work.
Maygan -- She's a girl. She works hard, but it doesn't count, because she's a girl. Apparently.
Castro -- Asshat. Gigantic Asshat.
Dayvid -- Not an asshat. This is not a priority for him. Which is awesome.
Jean -- He's slightly dim, extremely earnest. (Pronounce it like he's French.)

10:30 A.M. For today's rousing start, a representative from Sales Genie is visiting us to convince the gang to use his lead-generating/servicing/sorting/stalking service. I am immediately terrified, as he begins by gleefully informing us that they are the largest compiler of consumer information, and they "know how much people make, where they live, etc."

10:32 They were rated the worst commercial at the Super Bowl. I think this guy comes from Bizarro World, where worst is best and privacy is public.

10:40 Jesus, this is a lot of frightening information. He mentioned birth records, like people are going to market to infants. Here's your mail merge: "Congratulations <>, on vacating the womb! Tell your parents they need to buy a bigger house! And finance it with us!"

10:42 Thank God for the Federal Do Not Call list, and the fact that they legally have to obey it.

10:44 You can sort by hobbies and interests? Really? This sounds like something To Catch a Predator should look into. "John lists his interests as golf, bowling, classic cars, and... 12-year olds?"

10:45 Other information they have: number of credit cards, tax records, lake house, purchasing history... I'm going to either a) accumulate wealth in secret, or b) become a hermit. Or both. I'll buy a secret volcano lair, and my wealth will be invested in cruise missiles that can blow up telemarketers. Because that will be MY Do-Not-Call list. Also, it's ooky if the government compiles this sort of information if it's not for, say, taxation purposes, but if Big Brother is a private company, it's just freaky.

10:46 The hits just keep on coming: you can get the names of other people in the household so "if you call and reach somebody who just hangs up on you, you can try again." Did I mention To Catch A Predator already? I did?

10:50 "I work with 4 girls, and when they get bored, they look up single guys who make a lot of money."

10:51 You can't get cell phone numbers of VoIP numbers. Phew.

10:53 We get how much it costs. You're locked in for a year, and again, with the inappropriate glee: "People I signed up a couple weeks ago are pissed because they signed up for $400/month, and now it's $180/month for the first license, and then $100/month for each additional license." This, of course is followed up with the obligatory "Tom can sign up first," to which I respond, "Oh ha ha," in a tone which implies "You can get bent."

11:00 The stalker-software guy has left, and Dwag tells us that he's going to look into that so we don't get our asses sued if we use it. Boy, this sounds like a great product. I'll take 9.

11:02 We get to watch a video wherein the comedy is wholly unintentional. I know it's the "Wrong Way/Right Way" idea, but wow, it's bad.

11:04 Also, there are high school projects that are greenscreened better than this. They should've just had the one guy wear a green shirt, so it'd look like a floating head surrounded by video artifacts. It'd be great.

11:05 The woman in the video briefly has Reche Caldwell eyes.

11:08 Recap the previous training modules. Has anyone done anything, any progress to report? Success using the strategies? No? Nothing? Nobody's done anything? Are you breathing? It's early in the meeting, so the criticism will be very passive-aggressive.

11:10 And Rudi leaves to take a phone call.

11:12 Dwag actually makes a valid point about why you should be using the provided templates. They've done the legwork on this. The reaction could charitably be described as stoic. Fortunately, we'll get a little flowchart as to why this action plan is good. It seems to be written in cuneiform with arrows that go... places. Something bad happens in May, because there's a frowny-face there. I wish I had taken a picture.

11:14 Consistency! That's important to instill in these yahoos, because otherwise they'll get distracted by something shiny and forget until the lack of delicious MONEY brings them back around.

11:15 Welcome back, Rudi. Did you have a nice chat?

11:17 Dwag just nailed an excellent point about people coming in with nothing to do. This shouldn't happen, because it then causes me to have to do stupid work for them. Come in with a plan, and leave when you're done. Do some damn hell ass work, and don't ask me to do it for you. I don't want to talk to your customers. They're mostly troglodytes. Meanwhile these points are pretty much lost on most of these dead-eyed wankers.

11:20 Now, we're really cooking with gas, talking about how you can only control what you do, and if you're not satisfied with your pay or what-have-you, DO MORE, because you're paid on COMMISSION. It's not always everyone else's fault. I would like to cheer. But I do not.

11:23 "Are the majority of Realtors people we'd want to hang around with? No." Um, sorry, gang, but are the majority of you guys people that well-adjusted adults would like to hang around with? No, because you're mostly sleazebags with a wretched work ethic.

11:26 You don't slam your customer. Innnnteresting...

11:29 And, we have an inadvertent Michael Scott moment:

"I made it, Adrian!"
[Crickets]
"Rocky?" Pause. "Okay."

11:30 The good news is that CW's mandating these meetings, and Dwag actually knows these things. He might never have these conversations with these people if not for this. Not directly, anyway. It'd be this meandering treatise on sales... well, more meandering than it is, anyway.

11:35 How'd we get on to the "Don't cuss out jerks" lesson? It's enjoyable to play the Don't-Burn-Bridges Game, but I'm not sure how it's germane to the conversation. I think Dwag just wanted to tell a story about how some realtor was a jackass and Dwag won anyway. Whatevs.

11:38 In other news, I'm going to brain the peanut gallery with a crowbar. I just wish I could hear what they're saying. The sarcastic chuckles aren't that fun. You want to be sarcastic? Put it on your blog, buddy.

11:41 I remember that I need to do my taxes.

11:42 I give up clicking through the PowerPoint. Dwag's on autopilot and I'm lost.

11:43 I sneeze.

11:43:15 Twice.

11:45 I have no idea what to make of this. "I go into the house with the realtor and the customer," which is a weird procedure anyway... why do you have your mortgage guy with you when you're looking at a house, but apparently the seller has the following:

A tiger chained up
A pool table
A submarine

I think he's implying that the seller's a weirdo and the realtor didn't... do enough research? I have no clue what the point could be. He moves on: "We're the highly-regulated industry there is." Hm. Could that be because it's:

a) sketchier than any other industry AND
b) deals in gigantic sacks of money, the mismanagement of which can ruin people for life AND
c) is populated by people who want the biggest paycheck with the least amount of work (see a)?
d) Maybe?

Wow. Two sets of bullet points. I am a hack.

11:47 "Bob, this is Maygan, I'm going to giggle my way on over there," is used as an example of a call you could make to a realtor. Because, see, Maygan's a girl and often giggles. And marginalizing women is how we roll around here.

11:50 We get a quick digression on to mental games. I don't know what this means, but it's in my notes.

11:51 It sounds like the art gallery that's under construction next door is threatening to break through the wall with explosives. I pray for the sweet release of death.

11:53 Drago breaks out the Richie Daley impersonation to imply that some sales move is lame-o.

11:55 Castro gets up and leaves to, I don't know, kill a puppy? Slap a ho? Douche? He just goes.

11:56 A rule to live by: "Don't make stuff up." Well, I'm down with that. This deserves its own post, as we go into a story about how once Dwag was going to buy a car from a guy who magically was into whatever Dwag liked to do. "You enjoy smack? SO DO I!"

11:58 Castro comes back. He unfortunately was not eaten by wolves. Just raised by them.

11:59 Dwag digresses to harp on taking a good app, a recommendation that will be wholly ignored by the assemblage because it's hard. It takes thought. "Fuck that noise," they say, with their body language.

12:02 Would you like to share your snarky comment with the rest of the class, Rudi? What's that? You take stuff off of an application? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? If they over-qualify, isn't that good? Oh, except you need to physically get more documentation. My heart breaks for you, watching your Sisyphean efforts to do your job correctly.

12:03 "If you're not doing your ratios manually, you're not doing your job." I wish we had more "If you're not doing [x], you're not doing your job," because I think we'd be here all day.

12:06 I take notice of a ton of fuzzies on my shirt. Die, static, die. (I'm just speaking German, don't worry.)

12:07 "...servicing your realtor." Hi-o.

12:10 Dwag's filtering out the cheese. Nice. Rudi takes another call. Less nice. These calls had better be from somebody important, like Jack Bauer. And I hope you get tortured in an hour or two.

12:12 Castro talks some shit to Dayvid sotto voce, Dayvid is not amused, but chuckles politely, because, why not?

12:13 Apparently, wanting to complete a transaction causes a "chemical response," which Dwag knows because he's a neurologist, apparently. Or an endocrinologist.

12:14 Rudi comes back. My hopes are unfulfilled.

12:15 Drago asks questions about the videos. No one answers. I threaten to show the videos again, to refresh their memories. People start answering questions. I'd be a great teacher.

12:18 "A woman comes out with a tiger on her back to sell fireplace rugs," Dwag says, in order to draw a distinction between Eastern European commercials and ours. Dwag's fired up about sales culture or something. It's a really weird digression to prove no point other than that he can do a funny accent ("You want the goat milk with your rug also?"). Plus, we get the Jessica Simpson "I don't know what it is, but I want it," impression. It's ludicrous.

12:22 Ice Mountain came with water, so I left the meeting.

12:25 Castro and Rudi chime in with suggestions for making things better. I ignore their suggestions, because they are dicks.

12:27 Dwag does his nervous "tell," as he explains how some managers resigned from the company recently. This is met with indistinct grumbling. I see.

12:29 We get our first invocation of "Joe's Mortgage and Crab Shack," which usually comes up 35 times by now.

12:30 We get to hear Dwag's #1 hit single "This Has Been Hard For All of Us (But Mostly Me)." Oh, by the way, Bruise walked out for some reason, a few minutes ago, and hasn't returned. (Note: He won't.)

12:33 That speech ~~ends~~ continues with a rousing statement of commitment. We also get the following:

"...that's not real professional" - Dwag
"Yeah" - Castro, chipping in from the rear of the room.

Shut up, Castro. You wouldn't know Professional if it tried you in The Hague.

12:36 In reference to some Profit/Loss woes we've been having, and the direct result to the Dwag: "Wanna know the minimum wage? Ask me."

Not. Funny. Even if we fail miserably, you'll be pushing six digits this year, big guy.

12:37 Shut up, Castro.

12:41 Where'd Rudi go?

12:42 Q&A time. Jean asks a question that makes no sense. He tries another tactic - tell it as a narrative. Still working out poorly. I guess a customer of his applied with him, then subsequently called the 800- number and applied again? And was directed to another consultant? Who was now servicing him (hi-o)? Why does this happen?

I'm going to guess that it's because you take the short bus to work, but that's just my hypothesis.

12:44 Apparently, we're going to get a list of customers from a defunct branch. I hope I get to disseminate it, because then jerks get nothing.

12:45 Whee! Now we're in the nailing-people-to-the-wall section of our meeting, when Dwag basically says "The solution to your problem is to take more applications," to everybody. That's fun. Meanwhile, Castro and Jean are participating in today's Pot/Kettle Theatre production of Death of a Salesman, vis a vis volume and consistency. Let me tell you, it's a scene.

12:47 We're done. Thank God.

Did This Happen on Purpose?

2007-02-27T10:20:00.000-06:00

First of all, I'd like to thank the Department of Installing Potholes for being so clever as to wait until there was the pinnacle of inclement weather to install and hide their deepest, most jagged specimens. Not only was there a pothole placed in just such a fashion that it would be mostly underwater, and indistinguishable from the rest of the slushy mess under a viaduct on South 81st Street, but it was made in a way that punctured the hell out of my tire. So, that was great. Also, nice job wrecking the Michigan Avenue-LSD Entrance Merge Tunnel Thing, because that makes people drive three miles an hour to get on The Drive, because the entirety of that roadway looks like the surface of the Moon. Good news: as soon as one gets past the Battle of the Marne area, everybody and their brother wants to floor it, which is a dicey proposition on a donut. I'm friggin' thrilled.

I don't buy the "salt erodes the street, and then eventually a pothole forms" theory of pothole evolution. I'm a Pothole Creationist. Some malevolent organization comes around and removes sections of the street and replaces it with weirdo rebar and, I don't know, caltrops, and then - if they're really dedicated to their craft - they put a decorative layer of grey slush and un-drainable water to mask it. Because really, cars and trucks gradually create potholes? That's insane. Do cars take parts of the roadway with them? Is it like The Great Escape? Do they hide the asphalt in their wheel wells, and then empty them when they're out in the yard for exercise or gardening? "The Krauts found Charlie Pothole. We're going to have to redouble our efforts on Tango."

In other, vaguely related news1, I'm really disturbed by the Carmax radio commercial that starts with "Kelly, I can't believe you're finally sixteen..." because it's at that point where the announcer (who is decidedly NOT sixteen) pauses just a leeeeeeeeettle too long before saying "and your mother and I are very proud of you." The pause makes you sound like a creepy predator in Indiana, Iowa, or Uruguay (um, "thank you," I guess, Wikipedia). It doesn't help that your harpy daughter then launches into fury over the fact that you didn't buy her "the bluuuuue one! BLUE BLUE BLUE!" and then my ears bleed. So, screw you, Carmax Commercial of Creepiness.

1I was driving in the car when I heard the commercial.

I Finally Saw "The Depaahted"

2007-02-23T16:09:00.000-06:00

Hi. I'm Martin Scorcese.

I made this movie to show you, the general populace, the following things:

Violence
Silly accents (damn, I wish I had made Thirteen Days - those accents were wicked crazy.)
That, since you already think I'm a friggin' genius, I can do whatever I want.

To that end, I have filled this movie with as much weird shit as I can possibly muster. You want a camera angle inside a guy's coat pocket? I'll make you think I used a camera attached to a wood tick. It'll be awesome. I'm going to push in on people as the whim strikes me. You want names? Marky Mark's funky bunch now includes Martin Sheen, and I'll have him make up new clever curse words. How's Jack Nicholson strike you? I won't even direct him. I'm just going to turn the camera on and then I'll let him wander around and say the first shit that pops into his head. Fuck my steadicam operator, I'll give that guy a torn ACL if it kills me. I hate those guys. I'm going to screw with the Foley guys, too. That'll be great. Where was I?

Oh, right. Here's people getting shot for you. Everywhere. If someone's not bleeding from the head, I haven't done my job. This coke-and-hookers scene needs more... opera. That's what it needs, more opera. I'm bored. What's a new way to work in someone being shot in the head?

Damn, I love the Stones.

Isn't this a great movie? I made a friggin' mobius strip, here. Speed up, up the film, slow down the film, dutch angle. It's so tense! SMASH CUT! SMASHCUTSMASHCUTSMASHCUTI'MSOHIGHRIGHTNOW. Iris in.

Wait - where's Alec Baldwin? I haven't seen his Alec Baldwin impersonation in a while. That cracks me up. It's an action movie, it's a thriller, it's a psychodrama, it's everything all in one. And to prove it, I'll use smashed mirrors and picture frames, glass breaking - ooh! Religious imagery, I like that stuff. I wanted President Bartlet to go all kung fu on somebody, but it didn't really work out quite right. That would've been badass, right? Oh, well, I had him drop a bunch of f-bombs instead.

But I digress.

I made a(nother) long-ass movie. Give me an Oscar.

Love,

Martin Scorcese

P.S. You gave that pederast Polanski an Oscar. WHAT DID I DO WRONG? WHAT DO YOU NEED? I'm going to go film someone being shot in the head again.

Update (2/27, 9:15 PST): Thanks. -MS

Ideas I Wish I Had First

2007-02-23T14:35:00.000-06:00

Include this:

http://deadon.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/friday-afternoon-contest-on-trivia-22307/

Lazy post? Yes. I want to share the funny with the "masses," though.

Wikipedia at 12:30 AM

2007-02-22T00:34:00.000-06:00

Okay, so my new plan is to seduce Zara Phillips, just to screw up the British Line of Succession. I guess we'd have to get married, but that's a price I'm willing to pay, to throw a Catholic monkey wrench into the British Monarchy. I have nothing against the British Monarchy, I just like causing trouble. I could go higher (she's 11th in line), but the next oldest lady-royal was born in 1988. That's a little young.

Anyway, I could've been Pope, but I can't be involved with the British Monarchy. Damn. In case you're curious, The first person skipped now is in position #23.

Additionally, Prince Philip is quite bizarre. I mean, I got that inclination from listening to Eddie Izzard, but, really... When Elizabeth shot down the idea of changing the House of Windsor to the House of Mountbatten (for that is his last name), he apparently said that he had "turned into an amoeba." Phil, you're using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means. Also, if he whacks the 465 people in front of him, and then Liz dies, hey! He gets to be King outright. That's kind of cool and recursive.

----------------------------

Revisited: 4:02 PM. So, I wrote all that this morning, after telling Amy over IM that I didn't want to ask Wikipedia about something, because I knew I'd be on there for an eternity. If you're curious, the trail went like this:

Whig party -> something -> something -> assasinated presidents -> Line of succession -> Lines of succession in other countries (boring) -> Modern pretenders to thrones of wherever (cool!) -> Line of succession, British Monarchy -> Zara Phillips -> Prince Philip.

I also tried to figure out how this creepy vampire guy figures into the whole charade, and it apparently has something to do with James II's kid, who was born of James II and some Roman Catholic second wife lady. Oldest son (thanks, primogeniture), two protestant half-sisters (thanks, Church of England). It was really silly. PLUS, this guy's bloodline doesn't even work out correctly, because the family jumps to Henry Benedict Cardinal Stuart's second cousin from Italy, and then my brain breaks.

Brain Dump, Wednesday, 2:45 PM

2007-02-21T14:42:00.000-06:00

Here's ~~four~~ six bullet points, comin' at'cha.

Madame, please endeavor to wear a dress that covers your entire butt when coming into the cathedral. The fact that your coat contends with your dress for length is extremely distracting.
I think I got an entire palm tree smeared on my head. But that's okay.
A thing I noticed that I started doing, and now it makes me giggle: I've started blowing by panhandlers and survey-takers by saying "I'm sorry," and doing this hand wave thing. It's sort of morphed into this Obi-Wan, "These aren't the droids you're looking for," kind of thing. I think I want to focus on that, really workshop it.
Joe (in regard your comment on the previous post): I haven't talked ad nauseum about the College of Cardinals? Dude, Benedict XVI is the coach, clearly. I have a roster on Excel that tells me where everybody is, because of course I import them into Madden and want to keep track of them. Notables: Paul Joseph Cardinal Pham Dinh Tung is a safety for the Ravens, Miloslav Cardinal Vlk won the Groza award and plays for the Bears, and Julius Cardinal Darmaatmadja is a WR/KR who is battling for the Heisman with Tyrell Sutton.
Oh, also, I'm basically live-blogging my blog, as I'm not putting together any sort of coherent thought process today. (Re: Joe's comment a couple posts ago, which I'm pretty sure was just making fun of me.)
You can't use punctuation in post labels.

That's all for now.

To Dust You Will Return

2007-02-21T12:02:00.000-06:00

By the way, Happy Ash Wednesday, everybody.

I'm a little peeved because I wanted to go to Holy Name for the 12:10 Mass with Cardinal George, but my detective work took too long, now it's 12:03, and I have to wait for Schmuckley from Ice Mountain to come back. I would've tried to find time to tell Cardinal George that, according to NCAA Football 2007, he's a monster at middle linebacker, but I'm vaguely afraid that it would've earned me a smiting. I don't know if the actual College of Cardinals would find that amusing or not - I really doubt it, because there's what, 15 American Cardinals who would be likely to get the joke, and I would imagine that most of them take themselves extremely seriously. But I'd like to think that privately, they'd get a little bit of a snicker out of it.

File That Under I for "Ideas, Terrible."

2007-02-21T11:47:00.000-06:00

Well. I'm about 10 minutes into the MI-5 episode I was referring to yesterday, and I've been distracted by actual work about 35 times. Joe was right, this is a lot of work, and the reward is minimal. Nevertheless, I will perservere.

I don't think I'll be doing this regularly, though. It seemed like a fun way to kill time, but it's pretty detail-oriented, if you want to make the show seem like something you'd actually like someone else to watch.

I have to go figure out why we aren't paying our invoices to Ice Mountain now.

Still Fixated on Television - Now With More Accents!

2007-02-20T09:07:00.000-06:00

God bless and keep you, BBC America1, for bringing to your subscribers Coupling (the American version? Total crap. The British version? A near-consistent delight until the last season, which was mostly crap.) and, what we're-a gonna discuss today, MI-5. If you happen to be on the side of the Atlantic where the show's produced, it's called Spooks. But that little colloquialism doesn't translate appropriately on the sinister side of the pond. But now you know what you're looking for if you're off to stalk Lucy Davis or something2.

This post catches you up, then, as an experiment, we're going to try recapping an episode of something that TWoP doesn't recap. Josh wants to make our own recappy site for... reasons passing understanding, so that might happen. If anyone else (like there's more than 3 other people that read this site) want to do that, we could do that. It might be fun until our brains melt.

Click the thinghy to continue.

Here's the deal: perhaps you've heard of England. Land of people who are, on the whole, more articulate than you, have funny names for things (bubble and squeak, anyone?), and whose imperial yoke we threw off a zillion years ago in favor of some stuff that seemed like a really good idea at the time. But we have things in common! Things like English, beer, and that terrorists want to kill us. Our story is about the good guys who sneak around, beat up bad guys, foil plots, and have Issues with their significant others because they have to be sneaky all the time, and tell people that they work for the International Peat Bog Preservation Society on the off chance that someone listening works for Al Qaeda3.

So. Series One found us joining Tom Quinn (Matthew Mcfayeden) and his intrepid team of secret agent men and women. He immediately starts hanging out with a wet-blanket girlfriend who has a cute daughter. She figures out that he doesn't work for an import/export firm when he comes back home lightly perforated with gunfire. They deal with can-they-can't-they know who he actually is, and WBG sadly doesn't get blown up at the end of the first season when terrorists plant a bomb in Tom's laptop. Though, she certainly doesn't survive because she was able to defuse it. Oh, no, she's completely worthless at that, and it's only because that bomb's a decoy that she survives. She would've been able to get out of the house if her stupid kid hadn't put peanut butter in the super-secure-door-lock mechanism that they had to install in Tom's house because Tom wanted to make WBG feel safe. She's crappy, and she breaks up with Tom in the beginning of Series Two, because she makes him choose between her and England, and of course, Tom chooses England, because she sucks and England doesn't.

But the cool part is the foiling of terrorists, which happens thusly: pro-life carbomber foiled by the team when they fuck up her cell phone so she can't detonate her bomb. She's American, they give her to the CIA, she's in deep doo-doo, even though Tom and the Gang tell her she won't be if she gives up her accomplices. Oh well, sorry bomber, sucks to be you. Enjoy Florida and the thumbscrews the CIA'll probably put you to. Race Riot Instigator, who's some sort of muckety-muck in the business world gets the attention of Tom and the Gang, but unfortunately, Helen, posing as Tom's wife for this mission, whiffs on a question from RRI's wife, which is overheard by RRI, who sticks her face in a deep-fryer and kills her. For reals. It's awful, and unexpected, and MI-5/Spooks would like you to know that they will be refraining from pulling any punches, thankyoverymuch. Please don't get comfortable, as the captain will not be turning off the fasten seatbelts sign, and will in fact be diverting into a cyclone. Enjoy. Hugh Laurie joins the cast briefly as the best MI-6 officer since Bond, being kind of a dick to our MI-5 clan whilst enjoying an opera and running super-triple-secret-agents against everybody. Good times. One of the 5's, Tessa, gets caught running phantom operatives and pocketing the money herself. Needless to say, this doesn't go over well, so she's not on the show anymore. Mostly. MI-5 foils a plan to make Air Force One land on top of another plane rather than somewhere conventional like a runway at Gatwick. Stuff like that.

While everybody was worried about Tom's stupid girlfriend maybe blowing up at the end of Series 1, they weren't paying attention to the real bomb that blew up the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Whoops. Stupid girlfriend. On the plus side, they figure out that the bombadier is going to blow up a COBRA meeting (This COBRA, not this), foil the guy, and instead of sending him to The Hague for trial, they fool him and send him to Egypt. And tell Egypt that he's also a pedophile, so he'll get the special pedophile treatment. Good for you, Harry Pearce. (Tom's boss, and basically the only guy who's not dead yet. (SPOILER!)) Let's zip through this some more, eh? The possibility of bombs at a mosque introduce us to Dr. Bashir who grudgingly joins the team in return for... something, immunity or whatever, to stop the imam from using children as suicide bombers. For a while, everyone thinks Doc's double crossed our MI-5 guys, but he's just doing things his own way. Of course, he gets his ass blown up for his trouble, just when it looks like he's talked Li'l Boomy out of taking his exploding vest out clubbing. I mention this at length, because it's a really extraordinary episode that doesn't get preachy about Muslim relations in England, AND you get the fake-out of "Oh, everything's all right, now. He's talking to the little kid on the playground, and they wouldn't let anything happ- OH DEAR CHRIST!" So, yeeeeah. There's that. Oh, meanwhile, we're introduced to Christine Dale, who's going to eventually be Tom's new love interest. She works for the CIA, and is able to not be a simpering wreck much. Which is good. Other good times from Series 2 include: mystery bomb goes off in Parliament Square, which turns out to be VX gas and everyone is super-screwed. EXCEPT, it's totally an exercise, and nobody knows about it, making everybody lose their freaking minds and reach the point where they're going to shoot each other. I recommend it. The season ends with everybody being kidnapped and drugged by some freaky-deaky ex-CIA guy who decides that it's time for a spot of revenge and not only kills the defense minister with a bad-ass sniper rifle, but frames Tom for it. Everybody and their mother believes that Tom's somehow lost it and is playing for the bad guys, so the only thing left to do, of course, is to end up in some house in Dover or whatever, and have Tom shoot Harry in the shoulder with a shotgun to escape. He then re-enacts the end of The Awakening, and we're to assume that he's dead by North Sea poisoning.

Season 3! Tom's been washed away to wherever, and Her Majesty's Government is not amused. Nasty Bastard of the Joint Intelligence committee will be a thorn in Harry and co.'s side for the most of the season, until Harry tells him to cram it. Our Gang has some delightful clandestine meeting scenes while they try to prove Tom's innocence (oh, right, he's not dead. Sorry.). Some raving loon (Adam - not a loon, and soon-to-be New Tom) shows up on a bicycle and lets them know they're being surveilled, and they scatter in a thousand directions as people we don't care about arrive in trench coats, and talk into their sleeves about how pissed they are that Section D got away. So Tom's in good standing, until he has to get Emperor Palpatine to be a spy, and has so much fun with it that he doesn't notice that Palpatine is now electrocuting people with his fingers and is building a Death Star in Shropshire. Or, he just can't handle the strain, and the entire operation goes pretty much pear-shaped, but Adam fixes it in a way that's not as interesting as watching Palpatine and Tom lose their collective mind. Harry tells Tom that they can't hang out together anymore.

Zoe meets a charming photographer (aren't they all), who becomes useful to the plot when his no-good brother outs Zoe as a spy with incriminating spy photos of spy stuff. Or something. Whatever, it's no good, but Zoe's real problem comes when an operation goes wrong and a policeman gets killed, and she's put on trial. Found guilty, she's going to go to jail, but Harry can't just follow the rules like normal, and sends her to Argentina, instead. They can't hang out together anymore. And she and Danny certainly can't pork, like Danny wanted to, and I forgot to mention. Oh, and Mr. Photographer has to think that she's in prison, but he's clever, and Danny decides not to keep that secret, so, Mr. Photographer is all "What's new, Buenos Aires," and they can't hang out together anymore. But Zoe and Mr. P can hang out with ex-Nazis4. Danny's not handling things well. Even though Cute Scottish Agent Sam wanted to be all up on him at some point in the season, that doesn't seem to go anywhere, and he gets all snippy with her, and she writes about it in her journal. I don't know. I just wanted to mention Cute Scottish Agent Sam, and I couldn't think of another reason to do it. She's cute and Scottish. Ruth (who I haven't mentioned, but she massages data) has an episode of her own where she falls for (and ultimately poisons awesomely) some computer guy who wants to send a magic algorythm to... essentially make it not secure to use your credit card on Amazon.com anymore. They're having dinner, she figures out that he's the bad guy, and keeps his algorythm in a suitcase, he gets poisoned awesomely, and she's okay. Danny chucks the suitcase into the Thames, because that's what you do.

Adam's wife was MI-6, but now she's MI-5 so she can work on stuff, mostly doing a shocking amount of blow undercover with some rock star and his wife whose baby is kidnapped. Nasty Bastard wants Harry and Co. to work on the case because it's vital to National Security, even though Harry thinks it's a load of bollocks and the police should handle it. Nasty Bastard disagrees. In any event, things aren't going so well for Mrs. Adam, and subsequently, Adam wants her out, Harry wants her in, Harry wins. In the "the show did WHAT?" category, it turns out that the baby was kidnapped at the request of Mrs. Rock Star, and the kidnappers were so incompetent that they thought it'd be a solid idea to put the baby in a duffel bag and toss the duffel bag over the fence to their confederates. Moral: don't toss babies over fences. Dead babies result, and by extention, stabbed fake kidnappers, stabbed MI-5 agents, really violently stabbed Mrs. Rock Stars, and a Mr. Rock Star who relocates the majority of his brains onto a wall that he painted in a club when he was was Mr. Rock... Guy. Not star, is my point.

We're almost caught up.

Bad guys have figured out where Mr. and Mrs. Adam live, and have bugged the place. They're pissed off at Freedom, and so they're going to set up Mrs. Adam (Fiona). They capture Danny and Fiona while they're bugging some house, and bring them off to the countryside for fresh air and torture. Danny and Fiona engineer a daring (and way-cool) escape, but they, sadly, do not succeed. Adam's on the phone with the bad guys, after being hijacked by some terrorist lady. Terrorist Leader tells him to pick who lives and who dies, because Danny and Fiona committed the faux pas of killing a henchman on their (failed) way out. While Adam looks like he's going to vomit, Danny sacks up and tells Terroist Leader that he's a damn dirty facist and that Danny questions his parentage, and that basically Terrorist Leader can go fuck himself. Shockingly, this doesn't go over very well with Terrorist Leader, who shoots Danny. Nobody can hang out with Danny anymore. Except Helen, and maybe Dr. Bashir. Oh, yeah, everybody hears Danny's (quite bad-ass, to be perfectly honest) speeh, and subsequent shooting, because a nice bit of fieldcraft hooked Adam up with a two-way radio. MEANWHILE, Terror Lady has talked Adam into getting her into some dinner with the Prime Minister. Presumably, if he does this, she'll get Terror Leader to let Fiona go. All she wants to do is talk to the PM, really. She doesn't have a bomb SEWN INTO HER ABDOMEN or anything. Whoops. Good news: she has second thoughts about going from Terror Lady to Tiny Bits Lady, hesitates, and tells Adam. Bad news: Terror Leader has control over Terror Lady's detonation. Good news: Adam calls an audible, and makes sure the PM doesn't enter the building. Bad news: this understandably makes Terror Leader unhappy, so he's going to light Fiona on fire, and then maybe blow up Terror Lady anyway. Good news: the SAS crash through skylights, windows, walls, and the space-time continuum, and shoot the bejeezus out of Terror Leader.

Bad news: Danny's still dead.

SO! Things I wanted to mention:

Harry Pearce = Everybody's Boss. Better get his ass knighted for all the shit he has to put up with.
Tom Quinn's Useless Girlfriend #1 (w/Maisy) = "Hey, Tom, choose between England and me." "Well, you suck, but Maisy's adorable.... Ah, Maisy'll probably grow into a shrew like you. I choose England."
Tom Quinn's Useless Girlfriend #2 = Batshit insane. I didn't even mention her above, but she tried to get revenge on Tom for dumping her by putting up flyers in the women's restroom that essentially said "For a good time, call this SECRET AGENT OF HER MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT". This didn't go over very well, so I think she got shipped to Scotland or something.
Tom Quinn's American CIA Girlfriend = Christine was delightful. Kicked ass, took names, became kind of a sissy when Tom became a sissy. This is right about when they started having Secret Agent Sex. Anyway, when Tom got set up, it was kind of her fault. Neither Uncle Sam nor Aunt... Queen Elizabeth was particularly pleased, so she went back to the United States, never to be heard from again.
Hugh Laurie used to be a Big Deal MI-6 Agent. This was awesome. He then became a crippled doctor on Fox in America, so now infinitely less cool MI-6 agents show up. They will all be known as "Not Nearly as Awesome as Hugh Laurie Agent."
Malcom and Colin are tech guys who are really great, but didn't figure into that recap up there. Sorry. I want to mention them now.
Tom = Canned. Zoe = Chilean. Danny = Corpse.
Adam = New Tom. His wife is Fiona, and they're a Spy Couple, which is, you know, nice.
Sam = Current Hotness. Stupid Danny never got around to making his move because he was too busy wanting to have the hook-ups with Zoe. I disagree with his choice.
Oh, yeah, Danny and Zoe shared a "flat," which is British for "apartment." I hope it's still available to rent, because it was really swanky.

Wow. Them's a lot of words5. I also stopped linking to interesting things - I probably should go back and find some interesting links, if I ever edit this. Eventually, I'll recap Series 4 of MI-5, because I have the DVDs from Netflix, I'm excited about the show, and I hate work. I hope you read this far.

1 Apparently, I'm wrong, as it shows on A&E. Whatever. I Netflix it, anyway.
2 This was originally to be Emma Watson, with a link to one of those creepy "countdown to legal age" clocks, but I was too creeped out after actually finding one. Eew.
3 Hello, NSA! I'm just writing about a television show. Nothing to see here.
4 Apparently, they actually went to Chile. Whatever.
5 A lot = 2,681.

Perhaps We Define "Exciting" in Different Ways

2007-02-16T15:49:00.000-06:00

I said I'd do it, so here it is, the first... 15 things I can think of that are more exciting than the aforementioned "Most Exciting [whatever] Minutes in College Athletics." I've actually decided to limit myself to things in ~~sports~~ college "athletics" that last longer than 2 minutes and fewer than 6.* This, unfortunately removes these favorite things that don't take long enough*:

A safety caused by intentional grounding in the end zone.
A safety caused by holding in the end zone.
A safety caused by snapping the ball over the punter's head. (Extra credit if it's through the goal posts)
Smashing the backboard glass on a dunk. (Though the replacement takes a while...)
Smashing the glass at a hockey game with a puck. (See above)
The second ending to Push On. (Whatever, it's cooler than The Ex-Chief.)
Anything ending in "rooskie."
"It's a fake! It's a funny looking fake."
Flippy Cup

That said, the following things are more exciting than that thing with the touchy-toes and whatnot:

A vast majority of pre-game video montages, most of which lately seem to be scored with the theme from Pirates of the Carribbean.
Any play involving multiple laterals.
Any band marching into any stadium anywhere.
Rushing the field/court.
Whenever they blow up an old stadium.
Successive fast breaks in basketball. (There'd have to be, like, 4, wouldn't there? That'd be more exciting.)
Hockey shootouts. (They have these in college, right?)
Recognizing a college athlete in a college bar, and seeing him/her navigate people. Especially if they have the "C'mon, recognize me!" look going.
A member of the team conducts the band. Ususally something good has just happened, and everybody's giddy. This is very underrated.
On that same note, that one time Willie the Wildcat played drum set during basketball band. That was great.
People performing in capacities they have no business performing in. (Ex.: Punter/Kicker throwing passes, basketball player in a dress, linebackers playing "Chubby Bunny.")
4 minutes of an actual football game.
Any pivotal baseball/softball at-bat.
Coaches going ape-shit on officials.
4 minutes of Joe Paterno falling down.

I was going to say 4 minutes of any sporting event, and then I was going to qualify that, but it turned into this hellish Venn Diagram of scenarios. So, just roll with me on swimming, lacrosse, soccer, basketball, tennis, racquetball, frisbee, squash, field hockey, fencing, and team handball. Diving, shorter track-and-field events, archery, and other things that happen in quick bursts don't fall into this category. Archery, shooting, and the javelin only count if you're being chased by the archers, gunmen, or javelinas^.

Also, I didn't want to go all low-blow and pick other parts of marching band things, but really? Script Ohio isn't more exciting? The imminent death of Double Correct Rights, or the Floating Lion thing PSU does? Anything involving a drum major doing something bizarre? Hell, the Florida State Seminole uses fire! The Ex-Chief just wanders around like a nancy.

Nor did I want to go low-blow on the mascot or tradition thing, because that's pretty subjective, too. Goldy the Gopher spins his head. That'd be bizarre for 4 minutes. A 4-minute mascot fight would be pretty exciting.

Anyway, I'm glad that's over. I thought of a lot of things that were too brief*, which made this more difficult than I expected. Plus, when I started removing things that I thought might be too subjective (maybe people think the Script Ohio is overrated, I don't know) it got pretty hard*.

As always, I accept suggestions on what else is more exciting than the self-proclaimed "most exciting 4 minutes in all of college athletics." I'm positive I missed things.

*Har har.
^Yes, I know what a javelina is. Shut up.

Hi, Grandma!

2007-02-16T11:04:00.000-06:00

Well! I probably should apologize for the occasional blue language now that I know my grandma reads this... Hi, Gram! How's it going? I don't swear in real life, and I also help orphans.

Blind orphans.

I read to them.

Yeah.

An Open Letter to Douchebags

2007-02-16T09:16:00.000-06:00

Fourth in an occasional series

Dear Chief Illiniwek Apologists:

I hear you're retiring the Chief today. It's about damn time. More specifically, it's about damn time you shut your Big Wampum' Cake Hole about your stupid mascot.

Here's the thing: I can understand tradition, and I can understand how it's fun to have the student section do that thing where they cross their arms like I Dream of Jeannie, and then rotate 90 degrees so that they're, what, offering up football (fine, or basketball) to the heavens? To the happy gridiron in the sky? What are you doing when you do that? Random quasi-Native American imagery is weird if it's that purposeless - you do realize that, right? It just makes everybody that isn't drunk* uncomfortable if some white guy from Bloomington, Pekin, Effingham, or (God forbid) Lake Forest is hopping around your fieldturf with no shoes on, especially if you refer to the dance in reverential tones. WHICH YOU DO - I'VE HEARD YOU DO IT, SO SHUT UP.

You exchanged the eagle feathers (classy!) on the headdress with painted turkey feathers (less classy!).

You also claim that the bit where ~~Chief~~ Mr. Illiniwek prances about doing his toe-touchy thing is part of "the most exciting X minutes in college athletics." This is a lie. The most exciting period of time in college athletics is when something goes horribly awry.^

As a visiting fan and rival, I started out giggling about Mr. Illiniwek and The Chief Dance and may have mocked it a little, with dancing and eye-rolls, and whatnot. But the more I saw, the more I became aware of The Awkward. The icon became divisive and more and more people became aware that it was okay to feel offended by it. Just give up the dance. Keep the logo - that's cool. The guy hasn't even been a mascot-mascot for... how long? He doesn't get in boxing matches with Willy or Herky or Brutus Buckeye. He doesn't get into head-spinning contest with Goldy the Gopher. He struts out for 5 minutes at halftime, makes everybody feel weird, and then goes away. You won't miss him. I swear.

Just shut up about him. It's tiresome.

Oh, and on the flip side? A school that I really like has a mascot that's a diminutive red-haired Irishman who jumps up and down like a monkey on the sidelines. Am I offended? No. But they also don't stop halftime so he can go out there and dance, while everybody acts like it's some sort of solemn ceremony. I don't know, maybe there's a double standard, but I'm tired of hearing your excuses for Mr. Illiniwek, you dumb yokels.

Send The Chief into retirement, give him his gold watch and rock-strewn areas of Arizona and the Dakotas.

But you get to keep the syphilis and the small-pox ridden blankets.

You have died of dysentery,

C-Dog

P.S. Incidentally, your current Mr. Illiniweks are really named Dan Maloney (Galesburg) and Logan Ponce (St. Charles). I have nothing specifically against Messrs. Maloney and Ponce, really. It was -I'm sure- a great honor to be chosen as the symbol of their university. Whatever. Not entirely their fault.

P.P.S. Wait, no, I take that back. In doing a little further research, it turns out they sued the NCAA and the U of I Board of Trustees to keep them from ditching the dance and turkey hat. I was going to try to avoid singling out douchebags, but you clowns, and your Matoon-based lawyer are douchebags nonpareil.

P.P.P.S. Thanks, as usual to Deadspin for the info, and for at least one joke that I stole from the commenters there.

*Here, I'm including drunk on non-traditional intoxicants like "school pride," "sub-par education," or "the Holy Spirit."

^I had so many examples of things going horribly awry that I like more than the Marching Illini + Mr. Illiniwek that it's going to have to be a new post.

Studio 60 (or: A Slave to Duty)

2007-02-15T16:45:00.000-06:00

Now, I know I touched on this before, in the letter to Mr. Sorkin, but I feel it bears repeating. Studio 60 is a... show with a lot of wasted potential. This week's previouslies reminded us of the following things:

Reality shows are for dumb people. Didn't you hear? If you like reality shows, you're functionally retarded. Isn't that cute? (Subtext: "Hi, I'm Aaron Sorkin, and I hate reality shows because I blame them for people not liking my shows. For some reason.")
Danny and Jordan entered a relationship that made me uncomfortable a few times, but then got together, and I genuinely hope that's not going to be a terrible thing. (Subtext: "Hi, I'm Aaron Sorkin. I seem to have written these characters into a corner by making one of them a pretentious douchebag, and the other a terrifying, unstoppable cruise missile of 'love.' Or maybe 'unholy obsession.' Oh, fuck it, let's get together and hope people go with it.")
Matt and Harriet broke up, because they're both irritating, sanctimonious bastards when they're together. (Subtext: "Hi, I'm Aaron Sorkin. Have you met Kristin Chenoweth?")

The lesson? "Hi, I'm Aaron Sorkin. I hate."

Oh, my, do I have more to say after the jump.

Let's ignore, for a moment, the bizarre vendetta that Mr. S has against reality television and against people that "don't get" his show. That's pathological and weird, and he's creepy in that sense. What's weirder and creepier and pathologicallier is the bizarre-ass allegory that Johnny Cokefiend has constructed. Matthew Perry is acting his ASS off in this show. I know! Who could've predicted that? But Perry is going to be senza ass, because he acted it clean off in pursuit of... what? Aaron Sorkin's crazyface? It's cheating if you get to write the words for both the character who's ostensibly "you," AND the character who you've pitted yourself against. But you're not even doing it right - you get to make Ma(aaron)tt Alb(sorkin)ie this witty genius and a platform for your ire, and you write him all petty and bitchy. And we have no idea why HarriettotalynotKristen Chenowethayes gave this dickbag the time of day, because he's a baby, and she's... got no redeeming qualities. But your show claims that she's a genius comedienne. Who can't tell a joke. No wonder nobody cares about your show - your main "romantic" storyline doesn't make any fucking sense.

What's even more infuriating is that not only is Perry doing a genius job with this mish-mash of a Sorkin Therapy Session, between great silent reactions, really good chemistry with everybody (specifically Bradley Whitford, Timothy Busfield, and the girl who plays Suzanne the PA), but so is everyone else!

Bradley Whitford, when not saddled with the weirdness of Jordan obsession is funny, per usual, and a delightful producer of shows. He and Perry are best of friends, and you can tell. He pedconferences with the best of them, and gives - at worst - interesting line readings.

Timothy Busfield is my favorite, if for no reason other than the time I took the Warner Bros. studio tour, and we went past the West Wing set. Allison Janney was talking to some production person and studiously ignoring the tram. Timothy Busfield takes the opportunity to wander out of the "White House," and shout "Allison Janney, ladies and gentlemen!" at the tour, and starts applauding. It was terribly funny. ANYway, I could watch Cal operate a TV show for an hour. That'd be good times. They nailed that part of the show last Monday, with the zooming all over the studio during the dress rehearsal. Which was then ruined by Weirdo Jordan being bizarrely insecure about the boobs on the guest artist. I don't get it.

They stopped showing us the sketches that aren't funny, and just started showing us the funny that surrounds the sketches that may or may not be funny. The pitch for "Dolphin Girl," two weeks ago was very funny. Nathan Corddry and Sarah Paulson wander in and pitch it to Matt, and it's spot on. This week, Nathan and Nate Torrence really want a sketch called "Metric Conversion" to be in the show. A sketch called "Metric Conversion" does not strike me as having a ton of hilarity potential, but we don't have to see it. We do, however, see Tom and Dylan be tremendous in their attempts to get it on the show. ("BIG SKETCH," yells Dylan, awkwardly, and I watch that over and over, because it's FUNNY!)

Ed Asner as Yoda of NBS - great times. Steven Weber talking to the Chinese parents of a viola prodigy that wants to get into Tom Jeters pantaloons - exceptional times, all the way around, if a bit repetitive. It was the same story ("What will happen if I'm just honest with Mr. Zhang Tao this time? The same as the last time? Hopefully the Harsh Truth will cause him to respect me again."), but it was well-played. Also the viola prodigy wanting all up on Tom was well-played.

But Amanda Peet has this thankless job of being this bizarro network executive with no sense of propriety. She's handling it admirably, and looks like she's having fun with it, but it's absurd. Even leaving out the weird giving-in to the stalkeration of Bradley Whitford's Danny Tripp, and the insane arguments that she had against dating him (not: "I'm your boss," or "You're stalking me," or anything, it was "I'm scared of feeling," or something. Briefly, "You're a recovering cocaine addict," I think. I don't recall. I passed out from irritation.), she's a loon. And Aaron Sorkin, well, Aaron, it's pretty clear you're just writing based on things you've heard about pregnant women. "I hear the're hungry all the time! And for weird foods! Oh, and their hormones are doing things! WHERE'S MY TYPEWRITER? I have a PREGNANT LADY to write! Genius!"

GOD.

So much potential. Sorkin's a good writer. But there's so much that's weird with it. Just stop being weird. STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP.

Watch it. It's good. It'll probably be canned, and that's a shame, because maybe Aaron'll stop using it as a canvas for weirdo allegory. Because it's way too much insight into the terrifying world of Aaron Sorkin, and eventually, we the audience get tired of saying "OKAY. We get it, you did all this stuff. Isn't it funny that a lot of this happened in real life. If you keep winking at us, we're gonna think you're some sort of predator. Knock it off."

And I like the show. Yeesh.

...Wherein I Am Incapable of Concentrating Long Enough to Write A Recap

2007-02-15T16:25:00.000-06:00

I've aborted two attempts to write recaps of shows I've decided I really like. I like television, and quality writing/acting/fun is part of why I try to stay in the "business." As it were. Gosh, that was pretentious. I wanted to share why I was enjoying myself with Friday Night Lights (Which Airs On Wednesdays, So Please Don't Be Confused) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip Is a Very Long Title Even When I Don't Add Words to the End, but I'm not nearly as good at writing recaps as TWoP, and besides, who'd read them? What would be the point? Plus, it takes a load of concentration, and I started to get bored and go on tangents. So, I decided to take all my witticisms and dump them here. In a Wit Dump.

First of all, I was going to call the series CDVRs, for C-Dog teleVision Recaps. That's precious, isn't it? Looking at it now, I'm glad I'm a crashing failure at recapping television, because that's just offensive.

Second of all, I realized I didn't want to talk about the episodes, per se, but rather about the shows as a whole.

So, on and ever upward.

Studio 60 will be the next post, and Friday Night Lights will follow. I don't want these posts to be super-long, and this one was just sort of explaining myself. And now I'm explaining why I explain myself.

Fine. I Used the Wrong Word. I Admit It.

2007-02-14T15:58:00.000-06:00

I did want "Lexi-" something, for my last post. Josh (in the comments) was at least half right. Another definition for lexicography is "the principles and procedures involved in writing, editing, or compiling dictionaries." Which, with a little bit of fudging, could count, because I want to compile a dictionary full of weird stuff. What I wanted was ... lexicality, perhaps? Well, this post went directly to hell in a handbasket. Thanks, Josh.

I'm Bringing Lexi(cography) Back...

2007-02-13T15:32:00.000-06:00

I'm going to work on peppering my speech with even more bizarre phrases, so I can be completely incomprehensible to the casual observer. My 48-hour obsession with "in all of Christendom" can best be described as... quirky. I shall bring it back into my lexicon for no reason other than no one else does it. However, claiming that, for example, "The Office is currently the greatest show in all of Christendom, and it was disGRACEfully erased from my TiVo before I had a chance to watch it," raises some questions, especially if you think about it too much.

I want it to replace "on the planet," or "in the observable universe," or "ever," but unfortunately, Christendom doesn't really cover that much distance anymore. Does the U.S.A. even fit into the realm of "Christendom," as a secular republic? Where there happens to be a preponderance of Christians? Or am I limited to countries like... the Vatican City and... countries I'm not confident are actually primarily Christian. Well, the CIA Factbook is of no help, because it really doesn't notate "official religions," consistently or not too many countries have state religions anymore. But apparently, any statement I make wouldn't be valid in Nepal, as it's the only offically Hindu country in all of... well, you know. I could feel confident about my statement applying in Monaco, though. Probably not The Gambia. But I digress.

I don't know what sort of idiomatic excavations I can use beyond that, but I'll work on it.

Also, is the "bringing ___ back" construction even humorous anymore?

Very Funny, iPod

2007-02-06T10:34:00.000-06:00

Yes, it's hilarious that it's 7,000 degrees below zero, and your shuffle feature has just cued up "Too Darn Hot." Cole Porter, you wily sonofabitch, you orchestrated this scenario from beyond the grave, haven't you? You and Ella both, and I'm sure it's a real thigh-slapper for you. My sneezes freeze as they exit my orifices, forming deadly jet-powered lances of grossness to slice through pedestrians on Michigan Avenue, but jazzily, in my ears, it is proclaimed that it's "too darn hot." Over. And over. Again. Because there are no other lyrics to that song.

Okay, mathematically, it's only 23% of the song that involves those words. I've done the math. But it seems like more.

Whatever. I'm cuing up "It Certainly Sucks to Die of Exposure" next.

In Other News...

2007-02-05T15:28:00.000-06:00

Apparently, there's something that makes the core of the Hancock Building a total wind-tunnel. You can't feel it in the standard elevators, but it's like they're testing the aerodynamics of the service elevator. And the drop in pressure is so precipitous in the emergency stairwells, that one can't actually close the doors, if one were to open the door to see what the sound of rushing wind is coming from.

So that's interesting.

Also interesting is that, since I was bundled up like Tenzig Norgay this morning, it now looks like I stole Barry Melrose's hair. Let me tell you, this is not a good look for me. Barry can get away with it, but I don't believe that I can. Clearly, I need a haircut.

So, That Happened

2007-02-05T09:22:00.000-06:00

It has come to my attention that teams I like have done astonishingly poorly in games ending in "Bowl" since I can remember. To wit:

1985 Super Bowl: Bears win 46-10. I can apparently read the newspaper at this point in my life, but I remember nothing about this game, other than the vague reollection of people being excited, but I think that's a memory constructed from stories. That doesn't count. The last Bowl-related bright spot, and I'm 4, won't remember, and don't care. But boy, did we whup 'em.

11 years pass, while no team makes it to any bowl of any sort. Huh. At least the White Sox... oh, right. The Blackhawks went to the Stanley Cup Finals. And got waxed. And I don't think it was really on TV, but I just checked, and you can watch the whole thing on Google Video. Weird. Good news: the Bulls won three championships.

The disasters now begin post-jump.

1996 Rose Bowl: Wildcats lose, 41-32. I got a t-shirt at Christmas, and didn't even know I wanted to go there, yet. We're including it in the list, but I might as well include the 1949 Rose Bowl. And the 1963 NFL Championship... Bowl... Okay, that's not what it's called, but I didn't really care about the outcome, yet.

1997 Citrus Bowl: Wildcats lose, 48-28. Again, haven't started to care yet, but this is notable in that Peyton Manning picked Northwestern apart. Thanks, Alison, for bringing that to my attention last night. Yahoo.

2000 Alamo Bowl: Wildcats lose, 66-17. Now I care. The Mighty Zak Kustok leads Northwestern to the Big Ten title, and that's really exciting, because, as I may have mentioned, I went to high school with him. Whee. Everybody has a really good time, Northwestern "storms" out to a 10-7 lead, and then gets stomped, because Nebraska apparently is ANGRY. Also, they are good at football. Our disappointment is meted by the fact that we decide to mosey back to the hotel playing "Tarzan Boy" and whatnot in the streets of San Antonio.

2003 Motor City Bowl: Wildcats lose, 28-24. Now begins the series of games that Just Make Me Angry. The Bowling Green State University Fighting Terrible Fight Songs came back to win after being down 10, with the assistance of NU's decision to stop playing offense. I also recall being backed up into our own end zone and getting off a punt of, like, net 12 yards in the 4th quarter. You're down by 4 - snap the ball over the punter's head out of the end zone, and kick the free kick from the 30! You run no time off the clock, and you have a better chance for decent field position, if you can get the ball back. Which they did (as I recall), but with a) not enough time and b) too much field for the comeback. Gah. Meanwhile, you're in Detroit on the day after Christmas, and somebody gets knifed in your hotel. At least I took a few good photos.

2005 Sun Bowl: Wildcats lose, 50-38. Aaagghh... I thought the Motor City Bowl pissed me off. Northwestern led 22-0. 22-0! This happened while clanking two extra points, incidentally. And then missing a field goal, and replacing Joel Howells and his peg leg with Armand Villareal (okay, I had to look that part up.) Basanez helps claw them back in it, (Yay! Only down 5!) but somehow, UCLA runs an onside kick back for a touchdown (Boo! Down 13. Also - what? How does that happen?). Basanez rockets back down the field and scores! Breazell runs ANOTHER onside kick in to the end zone! WHAT? HUH? HOW? D4adfgafga$#%2sldbh AGHGGH...

By the way, I'm posting this posthumously, because I've just hung myself. I'm really glad I decided to rehash those games. WOO! Oh, wait! There's last night.

2007 Super Bowl: Bears lose, 29-17. Dammit.

By the way, we have a lot of beer left over. Also cake.

My Dad Owns Mike Singletary's Glasses

2007-01-27T21:16:00.000-06:00

I needed some place to put this picture, so, here we go.

Dad's backup spectacles:

Mike Singletary, circa 1985/6:

If someone can provide me with a better picture of Samurai Mike, I'd certainly appreciate it. Otherwise, just pause your copy of The Super Bowl Shuffle at roughly 1:20.

And... another hiatus

2007-01-17T21:50:00.000-06:00

I'm really good at posting, aren't I? There will be more hilarity to come, just you wait. I have thoughts on many things...

Like, for example, I'm writing this in Safari now, and friggin' Blogger doesn't really like Safari, do you blogger? No, you don't. I can't format a ding-danged thing in Safari. It's all standard text and boring boringness.

Also, I'm pretty sure that at the end of last night's 24, Karen Hayes and Wayne Palmer were looking at different marks when the thing did the thing that those things do at the end of the episode, and they were watching it on the TV in the Oval Office. It looked like a pan from one person to the other, and unless that was a big-ass screen, their eyes were in way different directions. I think.

Although it could have been dumbass Wayne looking off into the distance.

I should go back and look at it on TiVo again, but I'm lazy.

This is my blog. Blog blog blog. I will write stuff. It's stream of consciousness. I'm bored at work all the time. Maybe more blogging will occur there. That's it. I wasted time. Mine and yours. This isn't going to win me the pulitzer. If that's ever a danger, I'll delete this post. How's that sound, Pulitzer Committee?

It's the Most Wonderful... WHERE'S MY MUSIC?!?

2006-12-07T14:00:00.000-06:00

I don't ask for much, just that somebody strike me with a cattle prod when I forget that it's WELL past Dec. 1, and I haven't decorated AT ALL.

I decorating for the holidays*, I like Christmas music, but I have been so attendant to all the other hoo-ha (Trunk and Sin, if you're curious), that I haven't put up the tree, or fixed the lights, or anything.

I also have not put the appropriate Christmas music all over the place, including my computer and/or iPod. Really, I just need to grab the Manheim Steamroller stuff, because I'm wildly unhip, but what of it? What of it? Do I just buy it off of iTunes? That seems wasteful. I should go to the OP and get it, but when?

Aaaaagh...

*Christmas holidays. You can take your other "holidays" and their "decorations," and shove them. I do not decorate for them, except when forced to.

My Life Has a Musical Score

2006-11-30T11:08:00.000-06:00

The most delightful thing in the history of delightful things happened yesterday.

I was pfutzing with my iPod in the elevator, unsatisfied with anything that came up on shuffle, until immediately before the doors opened. I looked up as the elevator slowed down, and hit skip song. As the doors opened, Take Five was cued up, completely by accident. I strode off through the Christmas-ified lobby, and out into the rainy Chicago night. Opening my umbrella and wandering to my car in the Quigley lot became quite the cinematic epxerience.

So, thank you, Mr. Nano, for paying attention to how I would like my life to be scored. I now want to be involved in a heist film/television show.

Uncrate Information

2006-11-09T12:39:00.000-06:00

So. That Uncrate list below actually updates dynamically! Cool! The problem is, it's not in any order, and I can't sort it.

Maybe because I broke that post by forcing Blogger to accept my bad html?

Also, I can't permalink that post, because I broke Blogger with it, so you have to know that my Uncrate wish list is about three posts down.

With a lot of bullet points.

Hooray for The Internet!

2006-11-04T16:38:00.000-06:00

I am "published." Sort of. Not really. Yay Football+Internet!

Dear Aaron Sorkin:

2006-11-03T11:07:00.000-06:00

Please get over yourself, and start writing witty, non-preachy... everything for your otherwise delightful Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Guy in a lobster outfit for no readily apparent reason? Good times. Brad Whitford and Matthew Perry? Also good times. Amanda Peet? Less good times, but redeemable. How the fake Studio 60 is smarter than the rest of television and the world? Bad times.

What you are actually saying is this: "I, Aaron Sorkin, am the best thing to happen to TV since Philo Farnsworth. I am smarter, cooler, and braver than the rest of you. Watch how I wield my Microsoft Word of JUSTICE and RIGHTEOUSNESS! Observe my characters! Try to discover when they're saying things I WANT TO SAY! They'll usually be saying these things to straw persons, so there isn't any compelling counterargument! Fake Studio 60 is smarter than everything else on Fake Broadcasting System; by extention REAL Studio 60 has more intrinsic value than anything else on television, movies, or God forbid, the Internets!" and then you cackle slef-righteously in your volcano lair. At least, that's how I see it.

Just write. Perhaps it's because you're too close to the medium, and these things stand out. I don't know. I just know I like a lot of what you do, and I don't consistently like this. I'm not giving up on you, Mr. Sorkin; don't give up on me.

You can still be smarter than us, you don't need to tell us.

Ars sine humilitas nihil est,

C-Dog

A Selfish Post of Selfishness! Part II!

2006-11-01T22:09:00.000-06:00

Why that last post worked, I do not know. It is cool, in any event. Now: my Amazon list, for those interested parties. There is some overlap, I think. Battlestar Galactica is a good show, no matter what other people (Ryan) think.

A Selfish Post of Selfishness! Part I!

2006-11-01T21:51:00.000-06:00

Okay. So, I haven't posted in a while, but I feel like it's imperative that everyone know what I've linked to on Uncrate. Because they're things I want.

No jump, because I can't figure out what makes this work. Just a long post. Sorry.

Maybe. Well, this might go poorly. We'll see.

I Am Rarely Left Speechless

2006-10-01T10:37:00.000-05:00

In the annals of ideas... I don't even know what to make of this. I just have to describe it, and then... I don't know. I just. Don't. Know. How. To. Feel.

The Bears pre-game show begins with a "man law" parody - "Fan Laws," with "fans of the tiny square table."

Okay. So we're taking a tenuously humorous concept on the surface that mostly depends on the execution to be decent. And making a parody of it. The Man Law commercials are hit or miss, and they're painstakingly constructed with... something.

This was a couple weeks ago, and I forgot to post it. I just saved it as a draft. The IMPORTANT part was that the scribe was the Empire Carpet Man. Which was awesome.

Josh Held's Reminder Service

2006-09-19T13:50:00.000-05:00

It Is That Kind of Reminder Service

This message is primarily for Josh, as he's one of a maximum of 4 people who might come across this blog.

Add a Rarely Asked Questions page to your lab's webpage. Everybody has a FAQ, there are very few who have a RAQ. Though I may steal it for myself. Except I thought of it, so it's not really stealing.

Taxi Game, Part III.V

2006-09-19T13:45:00.000-05:00

Oh, other cabs of note:

1000 - Wolley, 9/5
1492 - Wolley Van, 9/5
3000 - Flash
4321 - Yellow, 8/28
4994 - Checker, 9/6
6000 - Yellow, 9/6

Highest cab number seen is 6950, a Yellow Van on Northbound LSD, 9/11.

Taxi Game, Part III

2006-09-19T12:51:00.000-05:00

Holy crap, it's been a long time since I updated this...

1 - Yellow Cab (8/26 Sheridan/Irving Park)
3 - Yellow Cab (9/8 Huron/Michigan)
4 - Yellow (? Kedzie/Foster)
6 - Yellow Cab (9/8 Broadway/Irving Park)
7 - Yellow Cab (9/6 Fairbanks/Superior)
9 - Yellow Cab (9/18 Chicago/Fairbanks)
16 - Top Cabs (9/15 Chicago/Michigan)
18 - Yellow Cab (9/18 Michigan/Chicago)
22 - Yellow (? State/Rush)
26 - Royal CCC (9/7 Delaware/Michigan)
29 - Yellow Cab (9/6 Northbound Michigan Ave., north of Ontario)
32 - Globe (? Southbound I-94... somewhere)
34 - Wolley (? BK Parking Lot @ Irving Park/Southport)
38 - Yellow Cab (9/3 Fullerton/Clark)
42 - Checker Cab (9/6 Northbound Michigan Ave., north of Ontario)
46 - Sun Cab (8/25 Michigan/Huron)
50 - Yellow Cab (8/25 Lake Shore Drive Southbound near Fullerton) - Van
52 - Yellow Cab (9/6 Fairbanks/Ontario)
55 - Top Cabs (9/7 Chestnut/Michigan) - Van
67 -Blue Something (? State/Division or Diversey)
70 - ? (I just scribbled a note down, and didn't note the specific information)
74 - Yellow Cab (8/25 Lake Shore Drive Southbound near Belmont)
77 - Globe Taxi (?)
78 - Chicago Carriage (9/6 Fairbanks/Superior)
81 - American United (? Broadway/Irving Park)
92 - Yellow Cab (8/26 Southport/Irving Park)
87 - City Service (9/11 Grace/Inner Lake Shore Drive)
91 - Globe Taxi (9/5 Chestnut/Michigan)
92 - Yellow Cab (9/16 Michigan/Chestnut)
95 - Wolley Cab (9/3 3000 N. Sheffield)
96 - Yellow Cab (9/6 Northbound Michigan Ave., north of Ontario)
99 - Wolley Cab (9/6 Northbound Michigan Ave., north of Ontario)

Damn You, Indecision!

2006-08-26T12:06:00.000-05:00

Yesterday evening, I managed to completely blow it by not bringing my Molskine with me on my various excursions. Of course not only would this be a decent night to have written down hilarity, but I also saw at least 4 cabs, none of which I can remember now. Boo to that.

Boo to that, indeed. Boo also to the fact that I can't seem to write a blog post that is more than one disjointed paragraph long. That makes me a half-assed blogger.

I am thrilled that the rest of the planet might enjoy my "Boo [whatever]," game, now that Red Stripe does it. I just fear that people will think that I am stealing from them. Oh well. I still have "Hip hip... boo." Which I did steal. So... I still don't have a point, despite my best efforts.

Tri-Park on YouTube

2006-08-24T18:20:00.000-05:00

Well, my .mac account's going to run out, and I can't really justify paying $100/year for it, because most of what I kept it for, you can do for free. I have gmail to thank for my e-mail, and YouTube to thank for my video hosting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmbRn8zHa_0

Taxi Game, Part II

2006-08-23T18:34:00.000-05:00

Looks like we might have a G-Spreadsheet for this at some point. I still like the blog.

#8 - Yellow - 8/23 - Michigan & Chestnut

Taxi Game, Part I

2006-08-22T09:13:00.000-05:00

There are a number of people who play the "Locate the Chicago Taxis, numbered 1-100" game. I have decided to log my search here. To date:

#61 - Wolley Cab, Orleans and Huron, 7/29

#62 - Yellow Cab, Orleans and Huron, 7/29 (Directly behind #61 - cool!)

#35 - Globe (?), Emerson and Dodge in Evanston, 8/16 (Nighttime - hard to tell cab co., but the license plate was 35 TX, which implies that it was Chicago, not suburban)

#15 - Royal Taxi Svc., Ontario and State, 8/18

#33 - Yellow Cab, Grand and State, 8/18

#37 - American United, Irving Park and Sheridan, 8/21

Bill Lambeer's Combat Bus Egress

2006-08-22T08:59:00.000-05:00

It's a new record! I have completed the following sequence: elbowed a person in the skull, whacked a person with my paper, stepped on someone's shopping bag, and stiff-armed a young lady in order to get off of the bus. All of this was accidental, but it's kind of an enjoyable thought that I have to do this in order to get to the curb.

Plus I like to reference Bill Lambeer's Combat Basketball.

Yes, That Is My Legal Name

2006-08-15T16:28:00.000-05:00

According to offical, legal, BINDING documents in my workplace, I am T. Charles McGrath. I know there are those of you who have caroused with T. Charles, and the only way this situation could be more amusing would be if I was able to complete loan documentation for borrowers, notarized by Hon. D. McSwervecrash.

Seriously. It says, right at the top of the page "Prepared by: T. Charles McGrath."

Hilarious.

An Open Letter to Douchebags

2006-08-03T15:09:00.000-05:00

Third in an occasional series

Dear King of All Odors:

I've been meaning to write you for the past couple of days, but I had to take break from thinking, as I was crippled by a combination of the heat and your outrageous stench.

It is hot here in Chicago. Damn hot. If your personal hygine regimen is not up to the grueling standards of this weather, please stay indoors. And then blow up your house. The stink cloud I walked through borders on the dangerous. Get into a fight to the death with a bum - they also have a tendency to be odoriforus. Whoever wins, gets your home. Which will then be buried under potpourri. And then encased in a protective Bath and Body Works.

Just stop smelling bad. We all do, to a certain extent, in this weather. But I can see you smelling, and that is unacceptable.

Take a shower*,

C-Dog

*and drown

A Pean to the Jumble

2006-08-03T15:04:00.000-05:00

O, Jumble in the Tribune;
Thank you for making your cutesy clues so much easier than the actual words you have scrambled!
I cannot be the only one who reverse-engineers your puzzle, can I?
"The ball players on safari were interested in GETTING to the GAME!"
That is an easier pun to suss out than to figure out that EGOISM comes from EMSIOG.
I am sure of it.

The Names Have Not Been Changed, In Order to Ensure Hilarity*

2006-07-26T09:51:00.000-05:00

Dear Rex and Angel Doom:You currently have an adjustable rate mortgage on your Single Family Volcano Lair at 67 E. Goering St. The rate is determined by adding your margin (fixed for life) and your index (changes monthly). Your margin is currently [redacted] The index for the month of July is 4.4317%. Your fully indexed interest rate on your July statement is [redacted].

[boring financial information redacted]

Currently, real estate prices are increasing on Skull Island, and in addition to being able to reduce your monthly payments, we may be able to free up equity in your volcano lair to allow you to expand your empire with greater ease. Perhaps you have been looking for money to install an undersea lair, or looking to purchase a vacation stronghold? We can discuss equity lines of credit, if you would like to call.

Other families in your area that I have assisted financially include: Colonel and Mrs. Chaos, Dr. Roboto, and "Elaine" and "Gene" Notnaziwarcriminals.

Remember, you can't spell "The Death Laser" without "real estate."

Well, you can, if you drop "The." And it doesn't make a lot of sense anyway, but go with it.

Yours in eeeeevil,

[signature]

*everything else has been changed, however. Rex and Angel Doom are actual people. People whose names make life worth living.

In other news...

2006-07-13T08:44:00.000-05:00

I'm determining the interest in another Tri-Park Miniature Golf Invitational. I don't want to go the summer without it. I like making the movies. It's enjoyable. I don't know. These are total flyaway thoughts. I just want to get something back on this blog.

Hey, Zinedine:

2006-07-13T08:43:00.000-05:00

I was headbutting people before headbutting was cool.

Crap. Crap, Crap, Crap.

2006-06-20T09:22:00.000-05:00

Countrywide has blocked WhatifSports, and I am pissed. Where will it all end?! How did they find my only source of joy? Arrgh.

An Open Letter to Douchebags

2006-06-07T09:03:00.000-05:00

Second in an occasional series

Dear Smarmy Smarmerson:

I could not help but notice your artfully and precisely rolled cuffs - yes, it is warm in Chicago these days. Also, someone had better call Ravi Vindaloo to tame those pythons you've unleashed! Ass. Additionally, you must tell me how you managed to have both sassily mussed hair and yet have the petroleum output of Venezuela on your head. That's remarkable.

I also want to commend you on the way that you're chatting up attractive women on the El. It doesn't make you look like a scuzzball at all! I'm being sarcastic! I think she's really interested in the fact that you work at Washington and Dearborn and that you're a Financial Wanker! I'm being sarcastic again!

In conclusion, fall in a hole and die.

With vitriol,

C-Dog

An Ode to Public Transportation

2006-06-07T08:41:00.000-05:00

I wrote a song this morning in a bit of a responsorial psalm sort of style. It goes like this:

O, Irving Park Express/
Please feel free to dine/
On my testicles...

I don't have any verses yet, but they probably would involve having three buses arrive at once, and then none for the next 35 minutes. And then there'd be a verse like:

When your foot engages the brake pedal/Please refrain from slamming it through the floor/It makes your smellier passengers lurch forward and crush me...

Or:

On your way to school, jerkwad teenager/You do not have to stand near your dumb friends/Please move to the back so more people can get on and we can get going...

P.S. April what? I need to write more.

Horrors!

2006-04-12T15:02:00.000-05:00

I thought that House and Veronica Mars were going to be on back-to-back last night, which I found delightful. I could make Tuesday my veg night, and no one would be allowed to bother me from 7:00 until I went to bed. Sadly, this was not the case. Both of the shows I wanted to watch were actually showing at the same time, which is extremely displeasing. HEADS WILL ROLL, I tell you.

Drago Says:

2006-04-07T11:16:00.000-05:00

First in a series of Drago Quotes!

Drago> "Where's the goddamned camaraderie in this motherfucker?"

Me> "Can we get that stitched onto a sampler? Or on one of those posters, you know, with the picture of the crew team rowing?"

Hi, Mom!

2006-04-07T07:12:00.000-05:00

Two things:

1) I told my mom about my blog. So, hopefully, I'll think twice before dropping the f-bomb* or something.

2) I haven't posted in a while, I know, because what have I to post about? I think about things that irritate me, like, when people don't recognize the sound of rolling wheels behind them on the street and veer off into stores directly in my path, making me abort my skating into the nearest wall, planter, or oncoming traffic. That wasn't well thought out. I'll fix that later. It's 7:15, and I'm in the office. I'm an hour early. I'm going to nap under my desk, Costanza-style.

*As we all know, the fydrogen bomb has the destructive force of a thousand inches of rain onto your car upholstery because you forgot to close the window all the way. And the humorous force of a thousand puppies in a satchel shaped like Kofi Annan.

Tony Soprano's In a Coma, I Know it's Serious

2006-03-24T10:27:00.000-06:00

A moleskine was purchased for me by The Katie on my sojourn to the left coast. So I'm trying to regularly note the flyaway thoughts in my head. Hah. What has happened of note since we've been apart? We, being you, the largely mythical readers, and myself, I guess. I don't know. I'm babbling.

Here's what I thought about (besides the headline to this post. Thank you for your kind attention.):

Breakfast the other day was an antihistimine mimosa.
-Which I kept trying to call an antihistimine mojito. Which isn't as breakfasty, but an equally enjoyable name. Say it to yourself. Mojito. Out loud. Do it!
-My head feels weird and phlegmy. Thank you phlegm for being such a pleasant word to look at and an unpleasant thing to... uh, look at... Gross.

If there were any comedic justice in the world, David Robinson would've been forced to serve on a submarine.
-These are the things I think of in the shower. What the hell did I write that down for? Where am I going with these thoughts?

I wish to name my fantasy team the British Interregnum.
-Or Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnums. That'd be a good band name. Watch for that as a recurring feature. Or Fantasy team names as a recurring feature.

I can't really get into The Sopranos, because it seems like such an investment. But I could Netflix the old stuff, and watch it at work, and I think that would be okay.
-But the "coma" thing's been rattling around my brain like a colorful metaphor I can't think of right now, so there it is.

There. The end. I don't have anything else to write right now.

Uh huh, uh huh, I like it, etc.

2006-02-23T16:47:00.000-06:00

Hee hee! CBS Sportsline likes Baz better than Vince Young. I'm going to giggle about this for the rest of... my life. Hee hee hee...

The assist here, of course, goes to Deadspin.com.

Conversations I Wish Happened, III

2006-02-17T10:05:00.000-06:00

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Only if you do it with a cigarette-holder and a pince-nez. And polio."

More Random-Ass Observations

2006-02-17T09:38:00.000-06:00

First (officially) in a series of things I noticed, but don't have a specific point about. Yet.

Yesterday, on the El, I saw a Garbage Pail Kid sticker stuck to the - what do you call it on the train, bulkhead? Wall? Poisson? Anyway, It was stuck there, in sort of a niche. I thought to myself, first, how long has it been there, since 1990? And no one dealt with it? This this sticker was weathered, but something gets that indistinct weathering on public transportation in about 47 seconds on a train, possibly instantly in the winter or inclement weather (objects have been known to appear weathered and grungy by the suggestion that they might at some point in the future be taken onboard the Western bus). That thought process made me realize that someone could've procured a Garbage Pail Kid sticker recently, which is more bothersome than the idea that someone stuck a sticker to the interior of a train and that had the staying power of, say, 15 years. Because I hated those things when I was in kindergarten, and they haven't left? Or, God forbid, they're coming back? I suppose I could do a little research, but I'd rather not find out. I'd just like to use the Internet for what it was invented for: complaining.

I Was Then Free to Move About the Country

2006-02-12T23:50:00.000-06:00

This was brought to you by Gamblor, the god of Southwest’s “try your luck” seating arrangements.

I, in my infinite wisdom, managed to have the most delightful airport experience, in an overall sense this weekend. The trick to flying Southwest is apparently to check in at your home as soon as you can, and then wander up to the print your own boarding pass kiosk at the airport and have it spit out a boarding pass, with an A on it, if you’re doing well for yourself. The bestest way to fly these croupiers of the sky is to have a connecting flight, soon the second leg of your journey, you get an A pass immediately. Then you grab some food and/or your Sudoku and camp out in the A lane. Good times all around.

Then Gamblor intervenes.

Blah blah blah, jumpnesss:

You’ve found a seat you like – I, for example, got to do my “exit row dance” twice on the way back to Chicago – and you have to hope that somebody who’s well-adjusted sits next to you. Somebody who isn’t actively drooling is a plus. I prefer people whose eyes both point in the same direction, as well. One can make their own determination of seat-mate viability. But you don’t know who’s going to grab 13D and E, and short of looking slightly unhinged, yourself, there’s nothing you can do about it. I have to find some way to be massively uninteresting, because FAA regulations prohibit me from carrying on a scary-looking hatchet, and I haven’t the time to take up ventriloquy and introduce the rest of the passengers to my “friend” “Achmed,” who is prone to shouting “WHAT?! Are you prejudiced? Just because I’ve been fashioned with a turban doesn’t mean I host a children's show on Al Ja-cedar!”

But I digress.

I had the good fortune to sit next to a pair of retirees who were content to let me read my book and chat good-naturedly about the weather and such things on the way from Harlingen to Houston. On the way from Houston to Chicago, Gamblor smote me. I am eminently approachable, I guess, and people like to talk to me. Which is usually fine, because I don’t mind talking. This nice lady and I started talking about what we did, and I made the fatal mistake of admitting that I was an actor. Now, often, I will lie, and say that I make bombs for the U.S. Government, or am a teacher, or I’m in banking, or retail, or studying at the University of Saskatoon. I’ll avoid saying I’m an actor, because the responses are sort of odd, sometimes. This time, I failed to see any warning signs, and said, “she seems interesting and non-judgmental, I’ll just tell her.” Sure enough, this middle-aged engineering recruiter was fascinated by my admission. She was a team-builder and a speaker and a teacher of sorts, and how does one remain “present,” and “in the moment,” and crap like that? Get me talking about acting, and say that I carry myself well, so obviously I must be good at blah blah blah, and I’ll talk forever.

This was a mistake of epic proportions. It turns out that her “teaching” and “public speaking” were euphemisms for “leading a “give me all of your money” seminar. And for only $1100, a friend and I could be part of this team-building exercise that would show us how to value ourselves and make money to accomplish our dreams. Crap. I said that I was thinking about starting a theatre. Please don’t remember that, please don’t…

“So, what about this theater/school that you’re starting?”

Dammit.

I had half a mind to pull the emergency exit and jump out of the plane and hope for the best. Another 2 hours, of thrust-and-parry, and intervention-style, “get the mark to say yes,” “I’m not going to say yes, dammit, not even to, ‘did you like my dried fruit?’” Which, in retrospect, was a total salesman ploy and I’m a total, total dimwit. So, I was more non-committal than Congress in early 1944. Which was hard to keep up for 2 hours, I’ll tell you. But she was very nice, and I don’t want to burn any bridges, because she seems like she knows people, including, possibly, actor-directory types, and those contacts I don’t want to spoil. So, this would seem as good a time as any to post my “I can’t turn away a solicitor,” treatise, which will appear on this site soon.

The only good thing was when she said “So. Would you be willing to help out with my dream?” and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I managed to return with, “Well, that depends, will you throw in a set of steak knives?” But Gamblor and I broke even on the way back to Chicago this time. I anticipate our next battle with… anticipation. Or something.

If you’re wondering, the “exit row dance” apparently isn’t something that the flight attendants see very often.

Ahh... That's more like it...

2006-01-25T09:41:00.000-06:00

This marks the first post in, what, three? Four? That I didn't punctuate with exclamation points in the title. What can I say? I'm excited about things! Or whatever! Perhaps I'm just insane.

You can read about my West Wing fanwanking on the following page, now that I've learned how to do that:

My point, though is not about the ebullience of my posting style, but rather about the fact that I got the 5th season of The West Wing for Christmas, and just got around to watching it now. I was a little gunshy due to the fact that I recall it being massively disappointing in the wake of seasons 1-4, and the bailing of Crazy Aaron Sorkin. Watching it with the last half-dozen episodes from the Senator Alda/Congressman Smits Extravaganza (with special guest Incompetent Josh!) in mind, it occurs to me that you could give these guys the tax code to read, and John Spencer and co. could be affecting. But maybe I'm giving things too much credit - this first episode is really good. I'll just have to wait until I get to the clunkers later in the season to decide.

ANYWAY. I really like the first episode of the season, and wish they had done more with the John Goodman character, because the interactions between him and Leo and Josh and CJ and everybody are great. Really delightfully awkward and weighty and whatnot. I don't really know how I feel about this current season, because it seems like everything's all over the place. Plus, I guess the news that the series is officially canned came on Monday, which puts me in a pensive mood, vis a vis my Favorite Show On Television Possibly Ever.

There are really only a few salient points to make here. One is that the late John Spencer is my favorite, I want to grow up to be him, and now every time he comes on screen, well, there's a distinct possibility that my "allergies" might start to "act up." Second is that it's nice to know you can successfully graduate from being the bad guy in an Adam Sandler movie. Third is that I want to be Josh Malina when I grow up less than when I grow up to be John Spencer. Fourth is that Allison Janney is on The List. You know what The List is. I'm not going to enumerate what's great about Richard Schiff(!), Janel Moloney, Dule Hill, Stockard Channing (check that - I hate Grease, so I'll comment on that, obliquely and parenthetically), Martin Sheen, oh! Lily Tomlin! The guys who play Fitzwallace and Nancy McNally! NiCole Robinson is reeeeeally underrated. Kristin Chenoweth has been good this year. And the poor dead Ms. Landingham! That was a good episode! Yeah, all right, Rob Lowe was good times. A shame about that chick who played Mandy in the first season. Agh. It's all good. I don't dislike anybody. Except for the chick who plays Zoey. Okay. I went overboard a little there. Sorry. I'll make another paragraph for my last point, which is what prompted this post in the first place. So, here it is.

Fifth is that, sorry Martin, but Glenallen Walken is my president.

Distilled Destruction!

2006-01-24T18:01:00.000-06:00

I want to let everyone know that the wrecking o' Kinnick Stadium is joyous, but not as fulfilling as seeing the whole damn place sink into the ground on accident.

I'm sorry about two things: one is the size of the video, and the other is that I wasn't around to salt the earth after this incident. Screw that place.

Comedy! Or not!

2006-01-24T10:11:00.000-06:00

Funny:

Conductor on the train hitting awkwardly on 30-something lady in funky boots, pink gym bag, and crazy red coat. As she shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, the doors to the car that I was exiting try bonk off of my shoulders.

Creepy-ass botoxed, eyebrow-tatooed, electrocution-style hair woman on the bus. Yeah. That's about it.

Not Funny:

I already got sidetracked. I don't know what I was going to say here.

Watch This Space!

2006-01-20T14:25:00.000-06:00

As soon as I can find a way to get my iBook connected to the InterWebulator today or tomorrow, look for a link to only the best parts of the partial destruction of that hellhole, Kinnick Stadium. (Josh suggested I name it Josh Eats Stadia, but that doesn't make much sense in this context. Link to me with that as your own headline, Mr. Eats [Noun].)

You'll get yours, Kinnick, oh, yes. Thanks for being the host to one of the more depressing days of my entire life.

Someday, The Work Will Be Complete

2006-01-15T22:23:00.000-06:00

I have nothing but hatred in my heart for Kinnick Stadium, so I could watch this for days.

If anyone can figure out a way for me to just get the .wmv file of this, I would be most appreciative.

Shut Up, Tom.

2006-01-13T11:00:00.000-06:00

So, it occurred to me that the noun is "court," and "martial" would be the adjective in court-martial. Therefore, court-pastry is not only more correct, gramatically than pie-martial, it also sounds funnier. And, since I can't leave well enough alone, I changed it.

AND, since I can't do anything without over-explaining myself until people want to throttle me, you get this little slice of sound and fury. Signifying nothing. Yes.

Also, the original title of this post was "I'm just full of flyaway thoughts today," but I feel like the current title is more apropos.

My Low Tolerance for Perceived Incompetence

2006-01-13T10:42:00.000-06:00

I noticed something recently. Perhaps you've noticed something similar. When somebody does something mind-numbingly dumb and/or irrirating, everything they say or do will seem like rampant idiocy. It can even be a legitimate query, one that, coming from someone who can find their ass with two hands, a map, a compass and the ghost of Tenzig Norgay, would be thought of as even a good question. Perhaps it's something that nobody was told about. Perhaps it's something that they wouldn't legitimately know without asking.

But when coming from Dimwit von Oaf, it's drivel. One finds themself responding to questions like "Should I shave tomorrow for the show?" or, "Do you suppose I should change the way I exit, because I seem to be in your way?" or "What's Planck's Constant?" with maximum snarkitude.

"What?" Heavy sigh. "I guess you should probably ask the director about that." Eye roll.

"Yeah. Probably. Or I could go the other way." Lengthy, uncomfortable pause. "I suppose. I guess we could discuss it for everybody's convenience."

"h." Blink. "6.626068 × 10^-34 Joule seconds." Dirty look. "JESUS."

Promise/Deliver

2006-01-13T10:32:00.000-06:00

Perhaps you've heard of the saying, "under-promise, over-deliver"? Well, it's a good idea, especially when you're monkeying with people's money. Saying, "Well, it's possible we could knock another [amount] off of this rate, and I'll look into that,"
is okay. Calling up later and saying, "Guess what! I found a way to take another [amount] off your rate!" is better. Saying "Oh, yeah, no problem, we'll knock this down [amount], because you're in [category]," when you're not positive they are, is piss-poor. And you wonder why customers call and harangue you - or worse, me - when they get figures that are a zillion times larger than they were expecting. Dipshit.

It was like that in other places of business, too. Just so no one thinks I'm picking on anyone in particular. Computer stores "oh, yeah, that'll be configured in an hour." An hour and a half later... "Er, could you give us another 20 minutes?" Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Conversations I Wish Happened, Part II

2006-01-11T09:04:00.000-06:00

What are they going to do, court-pastry you? Send you to Baker's Square Leavensworth? On Passover, is it Baker's Square Unleavenedsworth? Is it a prison made out of delicious merengue? What? What are you afraid of?

Conversations I Wish Actually Happened

2006-01-10T09:41:00.000-06:00

"So... she's not, erm, 'Great with child,' then?"

"No, she's just..."

"Great?"

"Yeah. Great."

Murderous Rage!

2005-12-07T18:23:00.000-06:00

I don't know if I'm the only one who's ever heard the Beringer wine commercials on the radio, and I certainly hope that no one I care about has been subjected to them.

I want to find the voice "talent" for these commercials and tell them that the quickest way to Napa Valley is to go straight to hell. And then I'll key their cars.

I will then go to the ad agency that wrote this dreck and fill their desk drawers with spoiled meat. Then, I'll flood their break room with grape juice and cage all of their pets with skunks. If they do not have a pet, I will buy them a pet, and cage it with a skunk.

I will then go to the owners of the building of the ad agency, and hit them in the shins with a hockey stick.

I will then go to the architect of the building of the ad agency and slap them with the front of my hand. When they turn towards me with a surprised expression, I will slap them with the back of my hand. They won't know what they've done, but their concience must have been gnawing at them, from some unknown offense. This is that offense.

Finally, I will go to Napa Valley. Not the farmer's market down the street where you can get Salmon, scallops, and three live eels. Napa Valley for reals. I will open a bottle of Beringer, and drink it. I will then open another bottle of Beringer, and pour it on the ground as a salute to everyone creative and interesting who isn't working. These two empty bottles I will fill with kerosene and a rag. I will light the rag on fire, and throw one bottle into the winery and one into whatever main building Beringer inhabits.

Then I will go all Sherman on the vinyard.

That's how irritating these commercials are.

An Open Letter to Douchebags

2005-12-04T10:53:00.000-06:00

First in a series

Dear Prius Guy With California Plates:

I see you're brushing your windshield with a broom. Oh! Your side windows, too! Just so you're aware, you look like a dink.

Oh, this part should be great. I'll wait.

...

Yes! That pebbling on your windshield is ice! No, the broom from your kitchen will not remove that. Your fingernail will take a long-ass time and give you frostbite. Well done.

Winter in Chicago will last until March, so I'd get to work on aquiring a scraper.

Welcome to the Big Ten,
C-Dog

Go Straight To Hell

2005-12-04T10:50:00.000-06:00

Why use a $10 word when a 50¢ word will do?

Because I can, you sanctimonious bastard. Because. I. Can.

Actual statements!

2005-11-23T19:47:00.000-06:00

Ryan: "Let's get a zamboni on eBay..."

Tom: "Okay."

Ryan: "The next words out of my mouth were going to be 'so we don't have to put up with this shit.'"

[Pause]

"What shit do we put up with that would require a zamboni?"

Genius!

2005-11-17T16:58:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to share this experience from this morning.

I was driving along behind a dump-y kind of truck. I mean, it was a truck in the manner of a dump truck, but not quite. The kind that carries things. Junk. Detrius. Whatever. And I thought to myself, "Gee, I feel like I should move from behind this truck into the left lane."

No sooner had I executed this plan, than the truck did decide to let loose a hailstorm of dirt and clumpy business directly into the path of some other poor sot. I think it was all crumbly bits, but neverthless, I was elated.

Also, I got cast at the audition as Adam in Neil Labute's The Shape of Things. So, that's good too. It's in Glen Ellyn, so that's less than ideal, but whatevs, right?