There’s something to be said for a change of pace. While work has been fairly busy lately, it’s been busy in spurts, and not so busy that I can’t work at a leisurely pace and still get things done early. Lately, it’s been busy. Busy enough that I don’t notice when Groove Salad has to re-buffer and I’m left without music for a minute or two. I don’t notice that it’s 11:30 on the dot and time for lunch. It’s fun to be so busy that the days fly by. I’m working on important and top secret projects that make coming to work more fun. I’m looking forward to my new job and the freedom I’ll have to affect change and make our products cooler and keep up with new standards and technology. Yeah, baby, I’m a geek. I have the carpal tunnel to prove it. Stand back, it’s a GEEK OUT!
Category: entertainment
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I watched 9/11 last night.
I watched 9/11 last night. Thanks to TiVo, I didn’t have to watch it Sunday night after driving all day, but could wait until I was ready for it. I wasn’t, but I watched anyway. It was unbelievable. I cried like a child several times. The best/worst moment was the brothers reunion at the firehouse. The raw relief in their embrace was magical and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. I appreciate CBS’s choice to air it, and as much as I normally despise network television, they did an excellent job conveying the tragedy of the day without showing us the gore that we all knew existed. The sound of the impact of falling bodies was enough. The mad dash to get out of the collapsed trade center only made the fate of those trapped on higher floors that much more real and painful.
I hope that, in the years to come, they show this documentary in schools when they talk about this time. I think it captured the moment for not only the firefighters in New York (how would I know, but the unions say they’re happy with it), but for me. The impotent anger of Tony, stuck at the firehouse with nothing to do but watch the news: that was me, stuck in my living room watching CNN, with no way of knowing what was going to happen next, powerless to do anything but watch.
I’m sure that maybe he’s embarrassed my some of the things he said in the days and weeks following, as am I. But, I decided a couple months ago that I was going to leave my posts from September up as a reminder. I say stupid things, and most of them unrelated to tragedy. I’m especially stupid in the process of figuring things out. I said some stupid and embarrassing things on this site right after it happened, and well, I’m ok with that. People all over the world said stupid things, and that’s just part of the process of coming to grips with the world changing with no warning. I think keeping a site like this is to give a picture of ourselves, and my posts from then were a picture of me at the time, as 9/11 is a picture of the guys in the firehouse. The picture may be embarrassing at times, but that’s life. I want desparately to go back and edit those old posts and take out the things I know I shouldn’t have said, or the assumptions I had that don’t make sense now. But, that would be dishonest to the time and to myself. I felt the need at the time to post them, so they must have felt important at the time, and for that reason, I’m leaving them as is.
Let’s hope we never have to go through this again, and if we do, at least I’ll keep my mouth shut until we know what’s going on, and have had time to process and come to terms with what’s happened.
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Ok, Britney, you’re at the
Ok, Britney, you’re at the top of your game. You’ve got endorsements, rabid pre-teen fans, and hit songs. There’s one thing you’re missing though, in your rise to the top of the media heap. You need a restaurant. Not a Planet Hollywood or Hard Rock over-priced event place, but a real down-home, like your mama used to make restaurant. You could invent a new cuisine, “Nouvelle Cracker” and serve fried balogna in new and fascinating ways. You could call it Britney Spears’ Oops I Fried It Again. It would be a huge hit with those little girls and homosexual men who want to be just like you. Pickled pigs feet on the counter, grilled peanut butter and jelly sam’miches, cheez whiz on crackers, Pepsi products in mason jars. Think of it as a cross between Cracker Barrel and Kenny Rogers’ Roasters (only without the whole bankrupcy thing). It could be huge, baby, huge!
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I need me some Vietnamese
I need me some Vietnamese food. I need it bad. Guys, lunch, tomorrow? Saigon Cafe? Come on, you know you want some fried spring rolls. You neeeeed them almost as much as I do.
You need the pork with funny noodles. The perfectly barbecued pork slices on top of thin rice noodles, covered in chopped peanuts. The crunchy carrot strings and bean sprouts. You want that little splorch of hot sauce in the corner of the bowl to dip the pork into and for a nice bite at the bottom of the bowl when you go to finish up your noodles. It’s like crack, I tell you.
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Do you know who Bela
Do you know who Bela Fleck is? Should you? Laws, yes you should! He and the Flecktones have been creating amazing music for about ten years now, and show no signs of slowing down. They’ve broken all the laws of their instruments and man, you should just go out right now and buy Flight of the Cosmic Hippo, Live Art, Tales From the Acoustic Planet and Live at the Quick right now and melt into music bliss.
Other than that, I have nothing to say today that I haven’t said already. Work is really busy and it’s sapping all my creativity.
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For whoever it was that
For whoever it was that searched for “amon tobin bmw”, the name of the song from that commercial was Get Your Snack On from Supermodified, which is an amazing album. The same song was also used in a Coke commercial. And, if you watched the latest Clairol commercial with Heather Locklear, the song they used was Boss on the Boat by Tosca (can’t remember which album it’s on).
There, I’ve done my part to make the world a more informed place. Now, I’m going back to my TiVo and decongestants.
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I know there are things
I know there are things you say and do that you can never take back. But, if you could see it in your heart, could you please make it a cheeseburger? – Lyle Lovett
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He’s a Convert!!
My son is being brainwashed. He’s a member of the pint-sized Blue Army, and there isn’t much I can do about it. I am weak before its power. I have surrendered him to power greater than my own. He wears his almighty “Teve-schurt” all the time, and waits impatiently when it needs to be washed. He constantly chants his eternal question, “Boo? Boo?” until I relent and let him gaze upon the indoctrination of the sacred “clues” and mystical “paw prints”.
Is Blue’s Clues a gateway drug into the world of harder television? Will he come in some day twitching his remote finger and asking for just another hit of the Fonz? I am powerless to stop it. Not because I can’t, but because I lack the will power to curb my own TV addiction (now powered by TiVo).
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Hellish Shellfish
I’m feeling better. No more nausea, and just a little sleepy from staying up too late last night. This weekend was pretty good in spite of my bout with the shrimp. We rented movies for the first time in several months and had pretty good luck with all of them. If you’ve been visiting this site for a while, you’ll remember that I used to do my weekend movie wrapup, but since we got DirecTV and TiVo, we don’t rent movies very often. This weekend, no one was feeling well, so we broke down and made the trip to the video store. Here’s the wrap-up in chronological order:
- Rockstar: I couldn’t sit through this movie. Marky Mark’s character was too much like Dirk Diggler from Boogie Nights. Earnest, naive and well, dim. The downfall was completely apparent and the only difference between his character in Boogie Nights and this movie was the cheesy ending (I came back in time to see the ending… stupid me). Jason Flemyng did have a nice little part as the closeted frontman though. It was a small part, but he really pulled it off.
- Evolution: I wasn’t expecting this movie to be as funny as it was. If you liked the Sci-Fi comedies of the 80’s (Spaceballs, Darkstar, Ice Pirates), you’ll love this movie. The sci-fi element of the movie is actually kind of interesting, and well, that’s a shock. I figured it would be a vehicle for a bunch of booger jokes. The cast pulls off the comedy well without making it the focus of the movie. They balanced the “Hey, we’re people fighting aliens” with the “Look at me, I’m that guy from the 7-Up commercials being funny!”. Fun movie – and get the DVD. The deleted scenes are actually worth watching.
- American Pie 2: I was surprised. I thought this one was funnier than the original. It’s no great film, but it is funny. Allyson Hannigan was especially good in a much larger part than in the previous flick. Speaking of, Jen’s been watching Buffy almost non-stop for the past few months (thank you, TiVo), and I’ve been impressed with Allyson’s chops. She’s got great comedy instincts while still keeping that innocent redhead vibe. And remember, you’re a special boy. The DVD is great. The outtakes and deleted scenes are worth watching, and the original casting tapes are funny just to see the casts initial impressions of the characters and compare it to the final product.
I guess I should say something about the Super Bowl. We turned on the pre-game stuff at 6, because we thought kick-off was at 6:20. Oh no! We had to watch a bunch of old football players read the Declaration of Independance and then watch a bunch of other non-football patriotic shmaltz for 35 minutes. I can’t imagine anyone sitting through ALL of the pre-game. I was sick of it after five minutes. I’m patriotic, but I don’t need the Declaration of Independance read to me by guys who were probably reading it for the first time. I don’t need everything Hallmark-ized for me. It’s a football game. Once the game started, it was great. The Patriots shut down the Rams like no one has all year. It was amazing to watch. And what happened to the Rams defense? They turned into the crew from last year. It’s like they thought they already had the game won before they stepped on the field and by the time they really started trying in the fourth quarter, they had too far to go and not enough time to get there. Kurt Warner was hurt, and that’s excusable, but it looked like they just weren’t trying very hard. Great game though. Too bad it’s the last real game until next fall.
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The sushi from lunch is
The sushi from lunch is not agreeing with me. I bet I’ll have some colorful dreams tonight. Here’s a tip for the uninitiated: sashimi is raw.