kapgar

Rockin' around the Christmas tree...

Welcome to Snippet Wednesday: The Christmas Edition! Does this mean all Snippets will be Christmas themed? Well, er, no. Oh well.

Holes
I'm not entirely sure where I came across this article. Knowing me, it likely came from Twitter. But, anyway, Wired's Geekdad wrote about the top 10 movie plot holes you probably never noticed before. Pretty interesting. Although I'm not necessarily sure I would agree with #1. As Yoda points out in The Return of the Jedi, "there is another." So clearly he has thought it through contrary to what the author of this article claims.

Cab
How many of you are fans of the TV game show Cash Cab? So am I when I actually get to watch it. But, ideally, I now have a better chance of actually participating. How? They're starting a Chicago edition! And, thanks to the fine folks at Chicagoist, I now know what I should be looking for if I want to play. For anyone interested, you'll be looking for a Toyota Sienna that is marked as part of the Yellow Cab fleet. The number on the minivan is 4472TX and the license plate is L53 5925. As a note, if you and I happen to converge on the cab at the same time on the streets of Chicago, I will take you down. Happy holidays!

Ryan
A judge has denied former Illinois Governor George Ryan's request to be allowed out of prison to be at the bedside of his ailing wife. And, you know what? I totally agree with the judge. I feel bad that his wife is dying, but he chose to make the mistakes that led to him serving time in prison. I'm sorry, but you have to pay the piper. There are plenty of inmates, past and present, that have ailing spouses and other relatives. Should we just let them all out? No. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, you're my hero. Thank you for not caving to sentimentality and for sticking to the letter of the law.

Films
My boss asked me to bring in some Christmas-related DVDs to work. Being the movie nut I am, I was more than happy to oblige. What films did I bring in? Let's see... National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Elf, Love Actually, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Grumpy Old Men, and, one of the finest Christmas films ever, Die Hard!  My coworkers thought I was nuts to consider Die Hard a Christmas movie, but it so totally is! I was told that it is only tangentially Christmas because it happened to be set in the holiday season. But it's a very festive flick! As some of my Tweeps pointed out, it's got holiday music, it's main setting is a holiday party in the Nakatomi Towers, it's very family oriented in that John McClain is trying to protect his family from terrorists and reporters, and he even places a very holiday-centric Santa hat on the head of a dead terrorist before sending him off in an elevator. How much more festive can you get?

Mix
My blogger/Twitter buddy @amanda234 sent me a copy of her Wintry Mix 2010 CD. Damn, she's got some great taste in music! Katie and I have to work on our mix CDs for a Christmas exchange this weekend, but I'm almost tempted to just steal Amanda's and claim it's mine. Wait... damn! So much for that idea.

Adios peeps. Got the Lillymonster here for a few days and I think she needs to pee.

You're a sweet sweet girl, but it's a cruel cruel world...

I'd like you to meet someone. Her name is Katie.

She's not someone I've ever met and I doubt we ever will and, yet, I feel a strong kinship with her.

Why?

Well, she's a Star Wars fan. She loves those characters and adventures that take place in a galaxy far, far away.

No, that's not the only reason. She's been the target of bullying as a result of her love of Star Wars.

It seems some short-sighted little boys at her school think that Star Wars is the exclusive domain of humans with Y chromosomes. So, when they saw little Katie bring her Star Wars water bottle to school, they let her know their feelings. I'm not sure if any physical bullying occurred. But, in many cases, emotional and verbal bullying is just as, if not worse, than physical bullying. I know firsthand.

Throughout my childhood and early teen years, I was the victim of all three.

I was physically bullied because I was the tallest kid in a K-6 school when I was only in fourth grade. Kids thought that to prove their mettle, they had to beat up on me. And that they did. Until I learned to appropriately defend myself (thank you to my Kenpo senseis and my parents for help with that one).

I was verbally bullied when I would express my love and appreciation of certain musicians or movies or TV shows or toys by having pictures in my locker or wearing T-shirts or talking about them. If these bullies in my school didn't also like them, then I wasn't allowed to. Heck, even if they did like them, they often didn't want to share and I still wasn't allowed.

I was emotionally bullied by being told what I could and could not do, what I could and could not like, who I could and could not be, and being told that I just wasn't good enough.

Katie, you're not alone out there. It happens to just about all of us whether we admit it or not.

But, I'm also here to tell you that you will get through it and you will be a better person as a result of it. Make not of how these bullies are treating you. Listen to what they say and watch what they do. And then make yourself a promise that you will never treat other people the same way that they are treating you. If you can do that, then you have won. You will be a much better and much stronger person.

And, by the way, don't ever let them or anyone tell you what you can't do or can't be or can't like. Us Star Wars fans welcome you to the club with open arms. The idea that there are girls out there that love and know Star Wars and it's universe of diverse characters as much as us boys is just plain awesome.

So keep on being you and don't ever be anyone else.

In honor of you and of anyone else suffering at the hands of bullying, I'm wearing a Star Wars T-shirt to today.

Pride, my friends. Pride.

Wouldn't you like to get away...

Welcome to another edition of Snippet Wednesday... a question edition!

Cheers
This past Saturday, after the 5K, the four of us came back to our house to cool off and change clothes and all that jazz. While flipping through the channels on the TV, we found a pair of episodes of Cheers! And, to boot, both were episodes featuring Coach! As much as I liked Woody, nothing could quite compare to Coach. He was awesome. He made the show. I forgot how much I missed both him and this show. The problem is that I don't really want to bother with the DVDs. Too many sets to purchase. What I would love is a network that airs nothing but Cheers episodes back to back to back. Oh, and another that plays episodes of Quantum Leap! Yeah! My two heaven networks.

So my question to you is, if you could have a network program nothing but episodes of a show of your choosing, what show would it be?

Vacation
In one of the episodes I watched of Cheers, Norm (George Wendt) received news that a medical test he underwent turned out negative, or is it positive? Well, whichever meant he didn't have a problem. After receiving the news, he decided to leave his life behind and set sail to Bora Bora. It was always a dream of his to sail the South Pacific and now, after gaining another lease on life, he decided to just do it. I think I would work the vineyards of Italy. Hmm.

Question #2: If you could drop everything and leave it all behind to start a new life anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Hammer
I was just flipping through headlines on my news homepage and saw something about a new Leonardo DiCaprio film in which his love interest will be played by a guy named Armie Hammer. Really? That's his name? And his parents thought that it would be a good thing to call their child Armie Hammer? I feel like I should pry open his mouth and stuff him in my fridge to keep things fresh.

What's the most unfortunate name you've heard, whether an IRL ("In Real Life") person or someone in the news or a celebrity, etc?

Sports
I'm torn about this new movie The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams. It's about a guy chasing his dream of being a professional boxer. Or, at least, that's what I get from the trailer. I kinda want to see it and I kinda don't. It might wind up being a game time decision if Katie and I see it or not. I never wanted to be a boxer, but I wouldn't have minded being another type of athlete. I think being a speed skater or even a hockey player. Something about cruising along at ridiculously high speeds and the wind blowing past you and the world becoming a blur.

You?

It's alright if you love me, it's alright if you don't...

You know what? I'm not going to call this a Snippet Thursday: The Reckoning. Nope, not this time. I'll just call it a Belated Snippet Wednesday. Does that work for you?

Takeover
There are groups of people out there who fear that the United States is being overrun with immigrants or people of different races, religions, creeds, whatnot. Obviously these people are all kinds of whack in the head. They are fearing the wrong thing entirely. You wanna know what I'm afraid is going to take over our fair country? THE DUGGARS! Damn, the kids are having kids now. Another pregnancy was announced this morning on the Today Show. The growth of the family is going to be exponential from this point forward. It's only a matter of time before EVERYBODY in the USA is a minority to the Duggar clan. I can see it now... The United States of Duggar... I pledge allegiance to the Duggars...

Help.

Uno
Yesterday, my Tweep kimt205 Tweeted about an e-mail she received that asked the following...

I agree, that's a good question. And it's one that can expand to more than just Twitter users. For those of you who are Facebook junkies or blog readers... what if you could only follow one person on those platforms as well? Who would it be?

No, I'm not fishing for you all to say, "You Kevin! Of course it's you!" I'm genuinely curious how all of you would answer. And, yet, it's a question I'm unable to repond to personally. I really don't know if I could do it. You?

Nooooooo
I love my wife. She's so cute. Take last night, for example. We went upstairs to see what recorded on the TiVo. Being Wednesday, she was expecting to find recordings of the latest Modern Family and Cougar Town. Imagine her dismay when there was nothing.

Me: Sorry hon. Nothing new.

Her: Noooooooooooooo!!!!

Me: Obviously they're on a break week.

Her: Noooooooooooooo!!!!

But you have to imagine her whining that word with a little kid's petulence and an oversize frown stretching across her face.

I do love her.

Ponzi
I've decided that the only way I'm going to survive in this economy and make my millions so I can retire by my desired age of 40 is to start my own Ponzi Scheme. Does anybody know how to initiate an effective Ponzi Scheme? Would you like in at the ground level? I'll share my profits. Just sign your name to all the associated start-up documents and we'll be rich in no time. Deal? Anybody?

Challenge
I'm thinking about starting up another Kapgar Photo Scavenger Hunt (No, this has nothing to do with my Ponzi Scheming). It's actually been a good six months now since the start of the last one and my initial plan was to do it every six. So much for that. But I can still get it close enough for government work.

My question to you, though, is should I run it in December or wait until the new year? On the one hand, we can get some pretty cool holiday photos. But on the flip side of that, you'll be contending with holidays and vacations and may have difficulty posting photos by the given deadlines. So, what say you? December Holiday Edition of the Kapgar Photo Scavenger Hunt or kick it off in 2011? Majority rules on this one.

Oh, and if it helps with the decision process, I plan to allow people to just post links to their photos on Flickr or other photo sharing sites instead of having to write it up as a blog post. So those of you with cameras in your phones can just post on the go, too. Does this affect your decision at all?

Snippets
Do you now see why I love Snippet posts? Absolutely no relation between the items I'm talking about whatsoever. Just completely random thoughts floating through my nogging now shared with the world via the wonder of the World Wide Web.

Sure, it's a train wreck of ideas, but I don't care. Do you?

I wanna be elected, I'm your Yankee Doodle Dandy...

Hey, did you know a World Series happened? Yup. Apparently it started and ended all within the last week. It saw the San Francisco Giants defeat the Texas Rangers in five games.

Did you know? Did you care?

The Onion doesn't think so if this Tweet is any indication...

I didn’t care much either.

I doubt many people gave a shake about it except, maybe, people in the Bay Area and around Arlington, Texas.

No, I take that back. Texas didn't care. It's still high school football season down there. Baseball dies once the pigskin shakes away the dust of the offseason.

So that leaves the Bay Area.

Wait, I think I should even subdivide that a bit. The Bay Area residents that aren't fans of the Oakland Athletics.

Oh, and then there are those former Giants fans that are still jaded by the shadow cast over their team by Barry Bonds and his alleged use of performance enhancing substances. So, they probably don't care much anymore because they don't know who to trust in sports. I can't say I blame them.

Yeah, that should do the trick.

So, to the 742 fans that actually cared, I congratulate you on your team's victory! Kudos!

Speaking of sports oddities, the Minnesota Vikings canned Randy Moss either late yesterday or early today. This was a guy they just picked up from the New England Patriots on October 6. He played in two, maybe three, games (depending on when their bye week fell) before being declared a failure and being cut from the team.

I'm really not sure how to interpret this. On the one hand, I feel like Moss wasn't really given a fair shake. Less than a month with a new team is not nearly enough time to adapt to a new playbook and a "new" 42-year-old quarterback whose play this season has been middling at best. On the other hand, it's reported that it could be disciplinary in nature. But we all know what Moss is like. Hell, the Vikings unloaded him a few years back because of his bad attitude. So they knew what they were getting by bringing him back on the roster. If they thought that had changed, well they were just stupid, weren't they?

I think the only thing that truly surprises me is that Moss hasn't already regifted the Twin Cities with his twin cheeks again.

Today is election day and I still wasn't entirely sure who I was voting for in some races until I walked up to the polling station.

There were two guys I knew for sure that I liked and I did vote for them both without hesitation. But several others I was still in the dark about. No, it wasn't from a lack of knowledge about the candidates and their platforms. Hell, the more you know, the less you like them both in all honesty.

The question now is, did I place my trust in the puppies?

I guess you'll never know.

My name is Kevin Apgar and I approve this blog post.

But that don't change the way I feel about you...

About five years ago, Katie and I finally made the jump to owning a TiVo. Well, two of them actually.

Now, we can't imagine our lives without them. I can't even remember what it was like to constantly set our VCRs for shows we wanted to watch and constantly swapping out tapes and trying to remember what was on each of them when we wanted to go back and watch them.

Life was so primitive.

But the best part of owning a TiVo, or any DVR for that matter? Fast forward!

Sure, we could fast forward through recorded shows on our VCR, but being able to do it during semi-live TV? Ohmigod. It's so fantastic! We will intentionally not watch a show when it airs live for about 15 minutes on a half hour or 30 minutes on an hour show. Why? So we have enough gap on the airing so that we can fast forward through all the commercials.

And during campaign season, it's an absolute sanity saver!

We have a couple of particularly heated battles going on right now in the State of Illinois for the Governor's mansion and one of our U.S. Senate seats. The two running main candidates for Governor are Pat Quinn (incumbent, somewhat) and Bill Brady while the two vying for the Senate seat are Alexi Giannoulias (sp?) and Mark Kirk.

These candidates are fighting tooth and nail and pulling out every stop in the book in their quest to make the other look like a complete assclown by dragging their name through the mud and slop and excrement and any other nasty substance you can think of. You remember how dirty the 2008 Presidential campaign was? Compared to these two races, that was a gentlemen's duel.

Guess what? It's working. I think all four of them are jackasses and I don't want any of the four of them in office.

Sadly I have little choice in the matter. The two-party system that exists in this country makes it impossible for any third-party candidate to be a viable option. Hell, in most cases, we never even hear of their names.

I wish just one of them would come out with a simple, generic ad in which they say, "Hi, my name is Bobby Dunleavey [not a real candidate... I think] and I'm not Bill Brady or Pat Quinn." Honestly, at this point, that might be enough to sway me. I seriously don't want any of the available candidates to take office.

Or maybe I'll just start a write-in campaign for Dave2.

At least I know what to expect from him...

[please don't hate/sue me for using your graphic, Dave]

Katie and I are signing up for our first ever fun run!

It's the TriCity Family Services Second Annual Snowflake Shuffle 5K Run & Walk on December 4, 2010.

Why are we doing it? There are several reasons...

1. It's scheduled for the day before my birthday.
   If I survive, I can really celebrate my birthday feeling like I've done something cool. If I die, I never have to turn 36 years old. Yay!
2. It's a mile from our house.
   I don't really have to worry much about travel or parking or lodging or anything. And it's so close, we can actually practice on the planned route.
3. The route map, oh the route map.
   Speaking of route, if this route map (PDF) doesn't sell you on the race, nothing will. C'mon, is it seriously that difficult to create a Google Map Mashup and make it publically available and link or embed it on the site?

 Wish us luck!

Those were the days...

Since yesterday was our ninth anniversary, I couldn't quite make a Snippet Wednesday work properly. So, to make up for it, I'm bringing you a Snippet Thursday: The Reckoning!

Stool
Katie and I desperately need a new bar stool or two for the table in our kitchen. But, for some reason, we have not been able to find one we like to save our lives.

Huh?
Was that snippet just completely random? Yeah, I agree. It's actually a teaser I've been asked to place on my blog in anticipation of a future product review for a company called CSN. I put the word "bar stool" with that link on there and then they will send me a product of my choosing to review. I just felt the need to try to work "bar stool" into some semblance of context. And we would really like some barstools. But that's not what I'm planning to review. The good thing is that, soon after I do my review, I will be giving away a gift certificate to their online store to some lucky reader. Don't worry, this sort of thing won't become commonplace by any stretch. I just wanted to try doing another product review as it's been quite a while. We'll see how it goes. Plus, I have a pretty cool idea for the product I want to review and how I'm going to do it. But it's kinda time sensitive, so here's hoping I get it in time.

Brittany
But if there is one thing you may see a lot of around here, it's me avowing my love of Brittany on Glee. I did it a couple weeks ago and, after this week's episode, I'm going to do it again. The girl kills me and her scene with the meatball in Breadsticks a la Lady and the Tramp was absolutely adorable and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Museum
Speaking of cool girls, there's one named Kate McGroarty who recently won a Month at the Museum contest through the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Basically this means that she will be living in an exhibit and blog, video, and Tweet her interactions and experiences. How cool is that? She's going to eat there, sleep there, do some other stuff there. I'm hoping she gets a little privacy for the bathroom. Oh yeah, and did I mention she gets $10,000 for the month? Would you do it?

Reiner
For as long as I've been cognizant, my dad has had a full beard on his face. Until this last half year or so, that is. Lately, he's become a little more experimental. First, he shaved it down to a goatee and now it's just a moustache. Yes, of course we've been giving him crap about his "porn star" 'stache - we just couldn't help ourselves. However, this past week, Katie and I were watching 30 Rock with guest star Rob Reiner when she chimed in with, "that's what I miss... having Rob Reiner as my father-in-law." And it finally clicked... ohmigod, Rob Reiner is my dad! My dad is Rob Reiner! Finkel is Einhorn!

 

Well, yanno, minus the directing and acting credits, of course. And the huge bank accounts. And the Hollywood contacts. And... *sigh*

Hit me baby one more time...

Welcome to Snippet Wednesday. Just barely making the cut (again), but I'm here!

ALDI
Katie was out trying to use our bank card to buy something today when it was declined. We theorized that it was just a communication error with the scanner, but then it happened at a second place. She called the bank and found out that both of our bank cards had been canceled and new ones issued due to a data compromise on the part of a vendor. While at work, Katie had two customers come in paying by check because their bank cards had also been canceled by their respective banks. They told Katie it was due to ALDI Grocery Stores.

We had seen something on a news teaser last week, but never saw the actual story, so I Googled it and wound up with a bunch of stories about a debit card/PIN number swiping scam that had been occuring at several Chicagoland ALDIs (ours in St. Charles included) as well as some in Indianapolis. Oh yay! As a preventative measure, most banks canceled the cards of customers that had been used at potentially effected stores. Nothing had happened to our account, but it did make us wonder if this was how my bank card got spoofed last year. Hmmm...

So a tip to all you ALDI shoppers, USE CASH!

Brittany
Recently, Katie and I started watching Glee. We're pretty much all caught up on season 1 (missed a couple episodes, unfortunately) and we're up to date on season 2. It's an interesting show. Very well done and the actors are pretty good (even though I want to bitchslap Rachel Barry nearly every episode). I can understand why people are Gleeks over it.

But if there's any one aspect of the show that Katie and I love more than anything, it's Brittany. For those of you who haven't watched, she's one of the Cheerios (the school's cheerleaders) that is actually part of the New Directions (the glee club) and she is to this show what Ralphie Wiggum is to The Simpsons. Both are minor characters that usually meld into the background save for an occasional one liner that is typically more memorable than anything else in the show. She's got some true gems like...

"Sometimes I forget my middle name."

"I was pretty sure Dr. Pepper was a dentist."

"Does he mean like a burglar alarm?" (when told to use protection during sex)

"This room looks like that room on that spaceship when I got probed."

"It's a male duck." (when asked what a ballad is)

This week's episode, though, was Brittany's time to shine as it was all about Britney Spears. When all done up in terms of costume, hair, and makeup, I often couldn't tell the difference between Brittany and Britney. Eerily uncanny. But, dayamn! Brittany was rockin' the episode. The actress who plays her, Heather Morris, is a former dancer for Beyonce and it shows. She's got serious moves. I've seen her dance in previous episodes, but this was an entirely different ball of wax. All Brittany, all the time. I liked it.

Kevin
I got an e-mail the other day from a guy who shares my last name. I opened and read it and he detailed for me a family vacation they had taken, how his family was doing, that his dog had died and how he was feeling as a result.

Then he wished me a happy 62nd birthday.

Woah. Hold the phone. My birthday's not until December. And, while I know I'm getting up there in age, I'm certainly no 62.

Turns out he was trying to contact a different Kevin Apgar. One whose name I've seen many times when I've Googled myself and he even used to return higher results than me. Not anymore. I've kinda become cooler than him.

I explained this all in a reply e-mail to my mystery sender.

And I offered condolences on the loss of Gus. Sounded like a good dog.

WWF
Now that Katie and I both have iPhones, we've taken to playing a few games here and there. Our latest addiction is Words With Friends, which is basically a spin on Scrabble. Just a little looser in terms of useable words.

If you're a WWF fiend, look us up and challenge us. I'm "kapgar" and Katie is "ktkat216."

Okay, I'm outta here. Talk to you soon. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

I've never seen you shine so bright...

I'll be darned if I'm not on time with Snippet Wednesday this week!

Red
I still stand behind the whole red-light camera program, in theory. However, in recent weeks, as I've driven near some intersections with these cameras in place, I have noticed issues. I saw one the other day that snapped a picture of a guy who was 100% still at a red light that he was going straight ahead through. These cameras are supposed to catch violators of the right-on-red turns. So, I guess it's a lot like my view of the death penalty - I support it, but it needs to be re-evaluated before it's implemented. Even my hometown of Naperville is re-evaluating.

Red
I am sooooo looking forward to the new movie Red (based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis) about retired CIA black-ops agents coming back to help their leader when his identity is compromised. It stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren as the retired team. It also stars Mary Louise Parker, Julian McMahon, Ernest Borgnine, Richard Dreyfuss, Brian Cox, and Karl Urban. That's one helluva cast! But the key for me is seeing Mirren and Freeman kicking ass and taking names! That would be wicked cool!

Red
I just read an article that some of those RedBox DVD rental units may start popping up in front of public libraries. Check that, for now it will just be popping up in front of a single library for a six-month trial period, but still. Interesting. I can see this being good for libraries that charge a minimal amount for rentals. Some of them do. And having a RedBox to distribute the latest movies at a similar price is good for those people trying to find the latest and greatest as well as libraries attempting to cut back on what they spend on materials. However, if you're talking my library, which charges zero for rentals, then I might have a problem. Well, maybe not. I don't want to see my library dip into the red with overspending on some materials. Oh hell, let's just say it's a pretty cool collaboration and leave it at that, eh?

Red
Speaking of RedBox, it seems they're going to experiment with an online distribution model in addition to their kiosk machines. No one is quite sure if this just means online video streaming or online sign up with mailbox delivery. Only time will tell. But it could mean viable competition for Netflix. Lord knows Blockbuster wasn't a viable competitor. Heh.

Red
I'll bet after being on this flight, the passengers are seeing red indeed. Holy cow! People sitting in their seats being tossed in the air, hitting the ceiling of the plane and then winding up in other seats??? I'm thankful every day that Katie isn't on a flight that is nearly that bad. She's nervous enough about flying. Experiencing this would push her over the edge and she'd never fly again. I can guarantee that. Me? I'd recover, but suddenly be a bit timid about flying, I'm sure. Otherwise, I love it too much.

That's enough red for now.

You gotta take if off, baby, for me...

I actually wasn't going to do any snippets this week. I had nothing yesterday. And I was pretty sure I'd come up with zilch today. However, Katie, in an attempt to make her brother feel like he actually has something worthwhile to live for during his day, helped me come up with enough crap to populate a Snippet Thursday entry. Day late, but not a dollar short!

Pitchfork
Yes, tomorrow is my live music day to end all days! The Pitchfork Music Festival is here and I will be there all day long boiling in what is predicted to be high 80s/low 90s temperatures with about 80% humidity. Oh joy. I love music, but that's brutal. The final day of Pitchfork last year found me wearing jeans, and doing so quite comfortably. Help. Me.

But for anyone interested, I will take some photos and upload them over the weekend to my Flickr account and I'm sure I'll be Tweeting throughout the event so long as there is a reliable AT&T connection at Union Park. It was, at best, spotty last year.

Strippers
My brother-in-law and future sister-in-law are going to a sports card show this weekend at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Chicago. Pretty much the same one I went to with them earlier this year. However, this one got pretty interesting in that the Stephens Center will also be hosting an adult entertainment show called Exxxtacy 2010. So, basically what we're talking about here is a bunch of strippers in their red-light best walking around amongst families with children. And I thought Hooters was family friendly.

I'm trying to talk Scott (the BiL) into writing a guest post about this experience complete with photos from Becca (the FSiL). Anybody else want to see him do it? Votes?

Steinbrenner
No, I'm not wearing a black armband in memory of George Steinbrenner. Sure I was a huge Yankees fan back in the day. I worshipped them during the 80s and early 90s, an era that his iron hand ruled over unquestioningly. And he was responsible for bringing in my favorite baseball player of all time, Don Mattingly. And I do respect the hell out of him for many reasons. And, well, considering all that, maybe I should've been wearing a black armband. R.I.P. George.

TV
This has been a great week for TV. Psych is back. White Collar is back. The new Covert Affairs debuted. The Closer is back. Rizzoli & Isles premiered. Geez. Who needs the regular television season when you've got quality fare like this?

Geneva

Katie and I bummed around our hometown of Geneva this past weekend. It was great just doing our own thing the entire day and we discovered a few new things that made it even more fun. Like Steak Sliders at Wildwood. Yummy! And a bike race that is new to our town but, hopefully, will be back next year when I have my good camera on me (I didn't want to carry it that day only to discover this race was going on after it was too late to do anything about it). So I got a couple photos with my Blackberry. Oh well.

I think I'm going to skip the final snippet we came up with. This should be more than enough for you all, right?

Time to head to Predators!

On an island in the sun...

Happy Snippet Wednesday. It's a late one. Sorry about that. Just been a little busy lately, but I didn't forget ya!

Ke$ha
It has been 19 hours and I still have Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" stuck in my head. It's been there since my iPod Shuffle came across it yesterday morning during my workout. The worst part is that I don't know the song that well so all I've got going back and forth in my skull is her signing the words "Tik Tok" and then the "oh-e-oh-e-oh-oh" part. Painful, I tells ya.

Shutter
Katie and I finally got around to watching Shutter Island last night. I had read the book by Dennis Lehane several years ago and remember liking it, although I don't remember much of what it was about. The movie was interesting. Not Scorsese's or DiCaprio's best by far. It comes off as very convoluted and overwrought. However, I will say that Michelle Williams was fantastic in it. If you need a reason to see it, then do so for her. I'm not a big fan of hers, but this was a career maker for her.

Jaws
Speaking of movies, the library got in a copy of Jaws that I've gotta pick up for Katie and I to watch. This past weekend, I saw a Bio Channel feature on the making of Jaws and it was way cool. Katie didn't watch it as she's never even seen the movie. Oh, she must be introduced to the greatness that is Jaws and STAT!

Capture
Guess what! Capture My Chicago is back and I'm all signed up and have submitted something like 70 photos for potential inclusion in the book. As you know, my photos didn't garner enough votes last year to be included in the printed coffee table book, although they were part of the DVD that came packaged with it. This year, though, I'm planning to submit a ton to increase my chances. The 70 I've already submitted constitute about four or five times my total submissions from last year. So I'm off to what I hope is a good start. Ideally, by sending in more, my name becomes more visible on the site and people click through to see the rest of what I've offered up. If you're willing and able, please check it out and sign up to vote. You don't have to be Chicago residents to vote so far as I know.

Shame
There are times when I naively think that our society cannot possibly be one in which hate groups such as the KKK can ever survive. Then I read stories like this, about a guy who thinks that the Blackhawks and Cubs are giving off the wrong idea by taking part in the Chicago Gay Pride Parade, and realize that some elements of our world truly are still living in the Dark Ages. Just. So. Wrong.

Tat
I now know what my next tattoo will be. Well, Norman anyway, not Boba. No offense, Boba, but I'm a Stormtrooper kinda guy. Yes, I know your father was responsible for their ultimate creation, but still. Do you think Katie would fly with this one?

Okay, now I've gotta go and take care of some stuff around the house. w00t!

Lightning crashes...

I was *this* close!

[imagine me holding out my thumb and index finger reallllyyyy close together]

Yes, that's how close I'm pretty sure I came to seeing a funnel cloud last night.

But did I?

No. Of course not. 23 years living in Tornado Alley and nary a funnel cloud have I seen.

But if ever there was a storm during which I should have seen one, last night's was it.

It was nasty.

By 4:30 p.m., it looked like 10 p.m. Dark clouds came rolling in and snuffed out the sun and all clear skies entirely.

By 5:30, I could hear the rain sheeting down on the flat roof of the Target where I was shopping.

By 5:45, tornado sirens were sounding and Target security was ushering people to the back. I, like the moron I am, went outside to check it all out. Swirling clouds, thunder, lightning, you name it.

By 6:00, I had received a call from my mom asking if I'd gotten home alright. I wasn't there yet, but I said I was on my way. She told me that she and my dad had seen about two or three funnel clouds. They were only about 10 miles from where I had been. That blows.

By 6:45, I was home and watching the skies erupt a bit more.

By 8:00, it had cleared up and an orange-hued, post-apocalyptic-looking sky replaced the darkness.

Mother Nature astounds me sometimes. Check them out...

A storm of sorts is bearing down upon Chicago hockey.

Now that the season is done, trades and releases and reassignments are happening.

The first came thundering down last night with the reported trade of Dustin Byfuglien, Ben Eager, and Brent Sopel along with a prospect I've never heard of to the Atlanta Thrashers for Jeremy Morin, Marty Reasoner, a first-round draft pick, and a second-round draft pick.

I love all three of those guys and don't want to see them go. Yes, I understand that it frees up $5.3M from our salary cap and gives us four draft picks in the first two rounds of the draft. And I have heard great things about both Morin and Reasoner. But it still sucks. I like Big Buff (and I cannot lie - ha!).

It's a sad day for Blackhawks fans. *sniffle*

Yours in a simple rhyme...

I needed to give myself a little challenge today, so I’m presenting you with Haiku Snippet Wednesday! Buckle up, y’all.

Stanley 

Lord Stanley’s Cup moves
To Chitowns’ Gay Pride Parade.
Rock on, Brent Sopel.

Norman

Is it wrong to like
blogging more as Norman than
blogging as myself?

Unwanted

Cheap Trick’s “I Want You…”
is too overplayed these days.
They have other songs.

Bricks

A tech blog asked me,
“Can we use your Brickworld pics?”
Of course I said yes.

Pitchfork

Less than a month till
the Pitchfork Fest hits Chitown.
I’m far too happy.

Adios, peeps!

And did you know you could make me scream...

Holy crap! Wait, is it? Can it be? It is! Kapgar is getting Snippet Wednesday posted early in the day for our reading (dis)pleasure!

Blogiversary
I was scanning down my page yesterday and happened to notice that little widget reminding me that I was one day away from my blogiversary. Wow! I almost missed it again. Five years this time. It's a biggie! Yay me!

Oil
The estimates on oil spillage into the Gulf of Mexico has been increased dramatically. Honestly, I don't even want to know how much is spilling. It's just too depressing. The only thing more depressing is the belief I have that it will never truly end or, at the very least, never be completely cleaned up.

Fallon
Speaking of Mexico, Jimmy Fallon did a segment on his late night show last night called "Pro/Con: Watching the World Cup." One of them that made me laugh out loud was, "Pro - several players from Team Mexico have already received yellow cards and red cards; Con - they were hoping for green cards." Sorry, but it made me laugh.

Bells
If you want a pretty good album to check out, give a listen to Treats by Sleigh Bells (iTunes | Amazon). It's really a unique album compiled by two artists, Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss, that blends several genres of music styles with Krauss' fantastic vocals. Their album was distributed and is being highly championed by M.I.A. and her label so that should tell you something about how eclectic it is. 

Shatner
William Shatner is creating a documentary based on his life. One of the things you learn in media school is that documentaries are, by their very nature, skewed to the creator's beliefs. God only knows how skewed an autobiographical documentary will be. Think it will be sponsored by Priceline?

Well, I'm off to the gym. Have a good one.

More than words...

We did it!

I can't believe we did it!

The Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup!

And, to Jeremy Roenick, you may never have won it with us, but we still love you!

Norman's happy, too. And seems to have scored himself some hardware.

Roads go ever ever on...

Happy Snippet Wednesday, y'all!

Rain
Or maybe I should call it Wicked Morning Weather Wednesday. Man, we got some storms last night into this morning. It was pretty wicked. Usually an indication of pretty heavy rain is when your driveway and sidewalk are covered with earthworms. What the hell's it a sign of when you have frogs? Little guy was sitting in my driveway right in the way of the path of my truck tires. I had to shoo him out of the way or risk frog gut skidmarks. Oh, and go figure that we get all this rain immediately after I go on a lawn-watering binge. Just like a car wash, isn't it?

Hobbit
Kudos to Director Guillermo del Toro for bowing out of directing The Hobbit. For quite some time now, del Toro, who directed Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, was tied to this prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Considering how much I loved Pan's Labyrinth (if you haven't seen it, get it, now), I was really kinda stoked about him directing The Hobbit. I always kinda preferred the story of Bilbo Baggins to the group exploits of Frodo, et al, anyway. But the studio started to put pressure on him to film it in 3D. He said no. And he stuck to his guns. Good. 3D needs to stop.

Recalls
One of the cars we've been looking at possibly buying was the Toyota Prius... and then the Toyota recalls happen. This trip to Florida, we rented and fell for our Ford Fusion... and now it's succumbing to an investigation for the same acceleration problems as the Prius. Should I mention the other two cars we're interested in or not press our luck?

Hunt
I really enjoyed setting up the Kapgar Photo Scavenger Hunt last month. It was a blast to do and to see what everyone came up with. However, you may have noticed one little catch... I never posted pictures for the final week for myself. Yep, despite my extended week, I still didn't take any pictures. Whoops. Not for lack of trying. I knew exactly what I was going to take pictures of, I just never got off my ass and did it. Hell, I barely took enough pictures to fulfill my Photo365 commitment. Yeah, I was not photomotivated last week.

Hawks
But I did submit my jersey/beard photo to ChicagoNow for a Chicago Blackhawks fan gallery and they used it. Go me! And Go Hawks!

Time to go root on my hockey team!

Walk on...

Well, it's been a few weeks, but I now present you with the triumphant return of Snippet Wednesday!

Walk
My buddy from across the pond, Dan of All That Comes With It, is involved in a pretty ambitious fundraiser called Hadrian's Walk. Basically it's a group of 60 people from around the world who will be walking the 60 mile span of the Hadrian's Wall Footpath in July in honor of Joseph Salmon who died in 2005 at the age of three. The money raised goes to help provide financial assistance to those who have lost a child. Right now, the crew behind this fundraiser have gotten nearly halfway to their goal and they need your help. Generously donated items such as buffs and t-shirts are available for purchase with proceeds going to the Joseph Salmon Trust and a raffle is also being held. If you have the opportunity and are interested in a very worthy cause, check it out.

Nest
One of the big deals right now in the area where I live is the discovery of a Bald Eagle's nest at a place called Mooseheart two towns south of me. I had to see this for myself, so I stopped off on Monday night on the way home from work to check it out. It's pretty cool. Sadly, due to the distance, I couldn't really get quite as close a shot as I would've liked and, because it was so far away, the focus is a little soft. But check it out anyway.

Willie
Can you believe that Willie Nelson cut his hair? Yikes! I never thought I'd see the day.

Guide
You may or may not have seen the Tweet last week, but the DuPage Convention and Visitors Bureau some weeks back asked if they could use some of the photos I've taken of the area and posted on my Flickr account. I have no problem with it, so I zipped up some high-res copies and sent them over. Last week, they e-mailed me to say that they used one of my shots in their Visitors Guide. My shot is the speed limit sign on page 41. I received a pair of guides in the mail today and, on those, you can see where they gave me credit for the image. And the card included in the mailing said that more opportunities may be available in the future. I'm stoked. It's really flattering to have your photography recognized like this so, yes, any chance I get, I'll submit photos.

Toons
On the way home from work today, I was listening to a local college radio station, WONC FM 89.1 out of North Central College, when they played a sound bite from Ren & Stimpy meant to intro their 5 p.m. happy hour programming. Hearing Stimpy's voice made me reminisce about the heyday of great cartoons that were introduced when I was in high school. My freshman year marked the start of The Simpsons, sophomore year was Ren & Stimpy, and my senior year was Beavis & Butt-head. Oh man, those were some great years in cartoon programming. *Le sigh*

It felt really good to write up a Snippet Wednesday again. Sorry it took so long.

The one behind the wheel...

Welcome to another Snippet Wednesday!

Scheduled
I really dig on this interactive NFL schedule, especially the schedule toughness meter and the star ratings for each game. I wonder if those will both update as the season progresses to reflect any teams initially thought to be tough that instead suck, or vice versa. Whatever the case, the Bears get to play the Bills in Toronto! I so want tickets to that game.

Mad
Yay, the next season of Mad Men has been announced and will air beginning on July 25. The last season finale was so freakin' awesome that I cannot wait for this one to start up. Holy cow puckies!

Mother
I tweeted this to @hismuse yesterday, but I wanted a little more input on it. On this past Monday night's episode of How I Met Your Mother, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) drives Ted's mom to the airport in a flashback dated to 2006. Ummm... when was it that they were teaching Barney to drive for the very first time in Marshall's late Fiero? I think well after 2006. A little hole in the continuity, eh?

Volcano
This photo is one of the many reasons I love photography. This is that volcano that's been wrecking havoc in Iceland.

This is now the wallpaper on my work computer, BTW

I know it's not something I captured, but I labor under the hope that someday I will snap an image of something even remotely as gorgeous as this picture. And here is what the photographer, Lucas Jackson of Reuters, had to do to capture it.

When you see things like this, how can you not believe in a higher power, whatever you choose to call him/her? Something that is equal parts horrifically destructive and fantastically stunning.

Oh, and thanks to @cath68 for bringing both this photo and the description to my attention.

Beard
Yes, the beard is going strong. Let's see how it continues. This, of course, is dependent upon the success of the Chicago Blackhawks in the playoffs in combination with my personal comfort level and Katie's ability to tolerate the "floating beard."

Stay tuned.

Static in my attic from channel Z...

It took four months of dicking around with Comcast, but we finally have two active tuners on our bedroom TV for multiple simultaneous recording capability. Well, sort of...

Back in December, we got our new TV and TiVo up in the bedroom. This, of course, necessitated getting cable cards from Comcast so we could get the proper channels piped into our TiVo for recording and get all our HD channels to maximize the picture quality on our TV. I called Comcast and that following Saturday, they sent out a guy with a couple of multi-stream cable cards (a multi-stream card allows two channel capability while a single-stream card allows only one channel at a time) to install in the TiVo.

As it turned out, one of the cards was completely shot and the other one was actually only a single-stream card despite the fact that the supplier and Comcast rep (who was looking only at a computer and not the actual card) insisted it was a multi-stream. They griped back and forth and finally the installer hung up and installed the card so we at least had one stream from which to watch and record. Better than nothing, right?

I don't know why, but I kinda took my time about calling Comcast. I just didn't want to deal with them again that soon. Finally, in February, I called back up and scheduled an appointment for them to come and install an MS card. I waited there on Saturday night from 1-5 p.m. and the douche never showed up. I called to complain and ask why I never received a call. They said that since it was "only a card install," they don't call. It's not like it was an important service call like an actual cable box installation. I'm just a card-using peon. They clearly don't make enough money off me for it to be worth their while.

I was pissed and took a little to debug from the experience and called again in late March. We set an appointment for that Saturday and, a mere couple hours before the appointment was to happen, they called to say they were out of stock on MS cable cards and do I want them to just install a second SS card or wait until the MS cards were back in stock. I rescheduled. For yesterday.

The dude came out, and right on time, with two MS cards. He tried both and neither worked. He complained about how cable cards are a joke and they really need to find a better solution for people like me who despise Comcast's cable box and DVR (this same complaint was offered up by the very first installer as well). But, he had three SS cards with him. So he installed one. I now have multi-channel capability like I would have with an MS card. But I didn't want to have to pay extra for having that second card in my TiVo (they charge a monthly rental on the cards).

I called Comcast and they assured me I would not be paying for the rental of the additional card considering all the hell I'd gone through for this. Plus I scored a free installation visit and a $25 credit on my account because they were unable to remedy my problem with a single visit.

Why don't I leave Comcast? Well, Comcast is the only cable provider in my area. AT&T's U-verse is supposed to roll out here eventually, but I'm not banking on that anytime soon. And I don't like Dish or DirecTV options because when a heavy freight train rumbles through the backyard, everything shakes and I just know I'll be realigning that damn dish every time it happens. I don't think a single neighbor on my side of the street has a dish of any sort. So that tells me that my fears are not too far off. Besides, they all seem to now have a two-year commitment and, if I don't like it, I don't want to be stuck paying for a crap service.

In all honesty, despite the shit I went through here, Comcast's service has been great. The only time in nine years that it has gone out was because I screwed up some wiring. I've never had a service blackout that wasn't the result of an electrical blackout, so I'm generally happy with it. It's just when I have to call to have them come out and do something that I start to sweat.

Grrr...

Geez, my Yahoo homepage this morning is so overloaded with who-gives-a-shit headlines, it's ridiculous.

Mel Gibson to donate movie set to Mexican museum - Whatever.

Tiger looks better than ever in return at Masters - I could give a rat's ass about Tiger Woods anymore.

Corey Haim's Mom Nixes Public Memorial Idea - What?? No giant bronze Corey Haim statue for me to weep at!? The humanity!!

Are Brad and Jen Really Hooking Up In Secret? - If she is, any respect I have for her is gone.

They walk among us: 1 in 5 believe in aliens - And how many of them report being probed?

Workers strike over ban on drinking at work - Umm, really? If a union gets involved in this dispute, there's something seriously wrong here.

What will future cultures think of us when they look in historical documents and read shit like this?

I weep.

Who's gonna drive you home...

Geez, with the furor going around about red light cameras, you'd swear the U.S. Supreme Court just legalized both gay marriage and abortion with one fell swoop of the pen.

I really don't know if this extends beyond Illinois at all, but red light cameras have been cropping up in many of Chicago's suburbs over the course of the last couple of years to a mixed lot of praise and condemnation. Some love it because they are supposed to result in increases to driver and pedestrian safety while others hate it because they claim it's both a money grab and can result in sudden stopping at intersections that could cause rear-end collisions.

Let me recap what is going on real quickly...

Cameras have been installed by many municipalities at some of their busier or more accident-prone intersections.

These cameras will catch people who make illegal right turns out of the intersection. Yes, just right turns. Well, I think it's only right turns. The ones that I've seen have been right-turn only, but I suppose usage is dictated by each municipal government.

• If you do not stop at an intersection before turning right on red, you WILL get busted.
• If you stop past the line into a crosswalk thus forcing a pedestrian who is crossing the street to have to move out of the crosswalk, you WILL get busted.
• If you come to a complete stop behind the line and then inch out to see what traffic is like before proceeding, you WILL NOT get busted.
• If you stop a little into the crosswalk, but no pedestrians are present, you WILL NOT get busted.
• If you run a yellow light, you WILL NOT get busted.

(source: City of Geneva, IL)

I really don't see the problem here. Basically, what these towns are saying is that if you drive legally and follow the rules of the road as established by the Secretary of State's office that we were taught in driver's education and tested on prior to obtaining a driver's license, you're fine.

Drive legal, drive safe... what the fuck is the problem here?

Is it a safety measure? Yes. Has it helped? Arguably. Some cities have noted a downturn in accidents, while others have claimed an increase in accidents or just haven't released any data yet.

But the big question on many people's minds... is it a money grab for communities?

YES.

And why shouldn't it be?

If you're going to drive illegally, why shouldn't a town benefit from your ignorance? Towns, counties, and states already do when you speed or park illegally or run red lights going straight ahead. Are you going to fight against speed limits and stop lights and stop signs next?

If you don't like that they can make money off you, wanna know what you can do about it? DRIVE LEGALLY! STOP AT INTERSECTIONS BEFORE PROCEEDING! DON'T DRIVE LIKE A DOUCHE!

Think about it like this... if you can ask "would a douche do this?" and the answer is "yes," then don't do it!

I need to make bracelets that say WWADD (What Would A Douche Do) just to remind people to do the opposite.

Follow that simple credo, Timmy, and you'll be fine! You won't owe any money. You definitely won't have caused any accidents. And you can say you "stuck it to tha man!" by not giving them any more of your hard-earned cash.

Yes, in case you couldn't figure it out, I fully support red light cameras.

So what did we do this weekend?

If you didn't see it on Facebook or Twitter, Katie was Hobnobbing With the Stars. Well, actually she only got a picture with them, not really hobnobbing, per se. But it's still pretty cool all the same.

Yes, this is Katie with 2010 Winter Olympic Men's Figure Skating gold medalist Evan Lysacek and his Dancing With the Stars partner Anna Trebunskya.

It's the wallpaper on her iPhone now. I've been trumped.

*sniffle*

Here are a couple more of my favorite shots from the event...

Four to the floor, I was sure...

Happy Snippet Wednesday, y'all. Giddy up!

Shaving
While I love having a shaved head, the process is the biggest pain. I don't want to shave every day as that's just a big ol' PITA, so I only shave a couple times a week. The rest of the time, my head is basically 100-grit sandpaper meaning that anything gets stuck to it. I've got one sweatshirt that loves to shed and Katie will wind up picking yellow fuzzies off my head the rest of the day. It's pretty bad. Is there some trick I'm missing to keep myself from being semi-velcroish?

Signatures
One of the things I meant to mention in my post about the memorabilia show was that, while I initially went to get Andre Dawson's signature, I never actually got it. A couple weeks prior to actually going, I found out that he (or his handlers, I'm not sure) was charging $60 per signature. That's just ridiculous, IMHO. Actually, everyone there was charging for signatures, but some cost less or they allowed more than just a single signed item. Whatever. Personally, I am very ethically against paying for signatures. I don't have anything against buying a pre-signed item if you're a fan of somebody and have no other way to obtain a signed piece from them. But to be there in someone's presence and have to pay for them to take a few second to whip out a pen and sign it just strikes me as nuts. Not even someone like Dawson who I loved so much as a player will get one red cent from me for his signature. And especially not after I was told by another guy there that Dawson was in Schaumburg the night before signing for free. However, I'll trade him my signature for his. Deal?

Blackhawks
I was listening to the radio this morning and hearing news of how great a game Chicago Blackhawks goalie Antti Niemi had last night. They also mentioned that after a bit of a post-Olympics skid, the team seems to finally be getting its act back together. And it dawned on me... I really want the Blackhawks to go all the way and win the Stanley Cup. I want them to be good for a long time to come. I don't mean they have to win the Stanley Cup all the time, but just play well and provide good competition for other teams and just not suck like they did for that time period between the loss of Jeremy Roenick and the start of the Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews era. And I would trade the Chicago Cubs ever winning a World Series again for a consistently successful Blackhawks team. That's how important hockey has become to me. I'll trade the success of a World Series-starved team for our hockey team. And Katie agrees. This coming from a lifelong Cubs fan.

Four
Wow. The Illinois House has approved an option for a four-day school week for public schools in Illinois. That's insane, if you ask me. Their reasoning is that it saves operating costs and in this cash-strapped state, it's needed. But, while I agree that it's a cost savings, how is this ever going to benefit Illinois students? To clarify, students would likely attend for longer hours on the four days they are in school. But still. This just reeks of a bad idea. I could see this being used against college applicants from Illinois as it is unproven how a four-day school week affects their learning ability. Maybe I'm just being cynical...

Issues
Marie invited me to take part in a special day of posting called "Women's Writes" on Monday, April 5, 2010. This is something she's coordinating with a friend in response to Utah's recently passed Criminal Homicide and Abortion Amendments Bill. I really like the idea of this posting extravaganza, but I feel weird being a man writing about women's rights. It's just like how I feel uneasy when asked for my stance on abortion. I have a stance that I feel very strongly about. But, being a man, I sometimes feel it's not my place to get involved in the debate. Am I wrong for thinking this way? And that's just how I feel about this Women's Writes day. Does the fact that I'm a man diminish what I could potentially have to say? Do I worry too much?

Well, I'm off to bang my head against a wall.

Losin' touch with all that's real...

Yep, another late one, but a Snippet Wednesday all the same.

Kin
I guess one of the great things about listening to the radio is the occasional reintroduction to an old favorite song that you haven't heard in a long time. That happened to me earlier this evening when the station I was listening to chimed in with Aerosmith's "Mama Kin." God I loved that song.

Soundtrack
However, for every good song, there comes a crappy one. For me, this morning, it was Death Cab for Cutie's "Meet Me On the Equinox" from the New Moon soundtrack. I love Death Cab, but I hate this song. I can't really explain why, but it sucks. And I mentioned it to Katie a little later on. She also doesn't like the song, but went so far as to say she hates the entire New Moon soundtrack. I thought about it and realized that I agreed with her. It was a shitty soundtrack despite having a bunch of big-name artists on it that you would otherwise think would be great together. Before you accuse us of being vamp-haters, we both loved the Twilight soundtrack. I just think this album suffered from the Sophomore Soundtrack Jinx, as I'm now dubbing it. It happens a lot. For example, I loved the Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure soundtrack and hated the one from Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. Same goes for the soundtracks from The Crow and The Crow: City of Angels (in all fairness, TC:CoA wasn't terrible, but just wasn't nearly as good as its predecessor, save for Hole's cool take on "Gold Dust Woman"). I think what happens is that the first soundtrack is released and shocks everyone by doing fantastically well in terms of sales. So, when the second one is planned, every artist in the world wants in on the action and all the cool little relatively no-name acts that made the original soundtracks so cool get bumped in favor of bigger names and the albums wind up sucking as a result. Sure, not all the artists on the first albums are no names, per se, but compared to the level of notoriety of the sophomore artists, they're nobodies. Well, this is my theory anyway.

Human/e
Have you ever had a word that, for whatever reason, you just can't type correctly no matter how hard you try? That word for me of late has been "humane" as in "Humane Society." I keep typing it without the "e." Then I see that I've typed "Human Society" and all I can think of is that it's a support group for survivors of Soylent Green. And I chuckle to myself. How sick am I?

Haim
Most of you probably know by now that actor Corey Haim was found dead this morning (or was it last night?) after an overdose. I have nothing against the guy. I enjoyed several of his movies in the 80s including Lucas, The Lost Boys (although I maintain his role was written with an 8-year-old in mind), and License to Drive. But, considering what he'd become in the last couple of decades, you had to see this sort of end coming a mile away. Hence why I tweeted this...

 

I maintain it was not in bad taste and cannot wait for Avitable to interview him.

Legacy
Please live up to the trailer. Please live up to the trailer. Please live up to the trailer.

Just acting like we're animals...

I think the world as we know it is coming to an end.

You think I'm joking? Check this shit out...

Earlier this week, Tillikum, an Orca at Sea World Orlando, rose up, snatched its trainer, and drowned her.

Komodo Dragons in Indonesia attack a park ranger.

A shark-filled tank at a shopping mall in Dubai springs a leak.

A glacier measuring two times the size of Los Angeles has broken off Antarctica and is floating around the ocean threatening to wreak havoc with ocean currents and other weather phenomena.

Earthquakes are running rampant lately, some in areas you wouldn't normally associate with earthquake-like tendencies, and are causing all kinds of damage from both the initial shockwaves, the aftershocks, and tsunamis if they're ocean-based. Another tsunami is now threatening Hawaii.

You wanna know who's to blame? The animals of the world. They're rising up against humans. They're taking back their planet. They're delivering a collective "FUCK YOU" to humans the world over.

The Tillikum and Komodo Dragon stories needs no further explanation. They're just pissed.

The tank leak is because them sharks be hungry and are ramming seams in the glass. They just didn't quite time it right. The leak was discovered before they could break free and make a smorgasbord of the shopping public.

I believe that the glacier broke off because the penguins are sick of being stuck either in zoos or aquariums pretending to be cute on an ice floe that we're responsible for melting.

You can't tell me he isn't one angry flightless bird

The earthquakes are clearly the animals who are capable striking fault lines to prove how pissed off they are.

The reign of humans on Earth is over! Give it up!

I hereby declare my allegiance to the non-human animal kingdom. ALL HAIL MY NEW OVERLORDS!!

Are any of you watching Caprica? I've been giving it a shot after finishing the entire Battlestar Galactica series recently, but have been on the fence.

**SPOILER FOR LAST NIGHT'S EPISODE**

It's not a bad series, I suppose, but it has been really slow and I can't say I've been entirely impressed with some of the casting. I was about to give it up until last night's episode with Daniel's introduction of the Cylon to his company's Board of Directors as well as Tamara and her new, shall we say, antics. These two bits at least added some excitement.

What's your take on the show?

Desi-i-i-i-ire...

My favorite U2 song ever.

Well, last week was "under." This week is "over." Kinda weird that I take a themed blogging day and break it into subthemes, isn't it?

Over-

-expectant
A friend e-mailed me with the information on the new HTC Android phone that AT&T will be carrying is the HTC Desire. It's supposed to be a slightly upgraded version of the Google Nexus One and without the Google branding. It's such a pretty phone. It seemingly does everything I hope it would do. I just am unsure if it has a physical keyboard or if a touch screen is the only option. We will have to see. But, for now at least, I'm drooling.

-exposed
I'm still freaked out about this. In Pennsylvania, a school district that gives all their students a MacBook, activated the built-in iSight cameras and observed a 15-year-old student doing something deemed "improper." He got in trouble as a result. But, when confronted by school officials, they showed him the photo of him doing whatever he did and he recognized it as being taken while he was at home. Now a class-action lawsuit is being started up because what the school did may violate federal and state wiretap and computer intrusion laws. This is nuts. I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. God only knows what I might have been caught doing in high school. Yikes!

-reaching
And then there's the kid that got a five-day suspension for his "I hate my teacher" page on Facebook. Some people are claiming that the kid was at home and was entitled to do whatever he wanted on his own time. I'm on the fence about this one. The ACLU or some other group claims that this is no different than talking to friends outside school or on a phone or whatnot. But, in my estimation, it's exactly the same as if the kid wrote a note on his own time and sent it to his teacher. If s/he felt threatened by the note, even written on the student's personal time, the school has every right to act and remove the student for the teacher's safety. Add to that the fact that a couple dozen fellow students became fans of the page and that would potentially add to the perceived threat level. At least that's what I think. You?

-stretched
Last week, I was introduced to a killer yoga pose called the Pigeon Pose. I was actually able to go full stretch on that one and hold it for a few minutes. It was a great stretch. But, of course, my legs were killing me for the next couple days until I did the stretch again and all returned to normal. But this is the closest my body has ever come to doing the splits. Bear in mind, although I did do the forward fold, I didn't go full One-Legged King Pigeon or anything. I'd like my body to not hate me entirely, thank you very much.

-dunn
This whole "under/over" subtheming reminds me of the crew introduction sequence in Airplane!

"Unger, Ober... Ober, Dunn."

Where they hit the rocky shore out by the lighthouse...

On Saturday, I went with my mom and her photography club up to southeast Wisconsin to take pictures of lighthouses along Lake Michigan.

Despite being a dreadfully dreary day, it was a lot of fun. Got some pretty cool photos that you can see below.

I also was given the opportunity to make Norman relive his days assigned to the Imperial Hoth attack force. He didn't much like it. Can't say I blame him. For the record, the red thing in his hand is a Lego coffee mug. Hey, gotta keep warm when the environs don't naturally allow for it, right?

He also got to play outside the Lego Store in the Streets of Woodfield in Schaumburg, though. So that was cool.

Yeah, he may be an Imperial, but he's a rebel at heart.

But we did come up with the idea to create a squad of Norman clones. The purpose of this clone force is to spread his reach around the world. So, should any of you out there who are going on a vacation in the future be interested in having a Norman clone to feature in some photos, let me know well enough in advance so I can get one sent your way. Then, if you already have a Flickr account, you can share the photo with the group I'm going to create. If you do not have a Flickr account, send the photo(s) my way and I'll upload to my own account with credit given to you for taking it, of course.

Seriously, let me know.

Yanno, it just figures that an earthquake centered 20 miles from where I live would wake me up.

However, when the hanging cable and mounting bracket of a 20-pound wood poster frame on the staircase all of 10 feet outside our bedroom tears out and the frame falls into a trinket shelf sending several wooden blocks flying onto the tiles below and the frame scrapes along the wall until wedging itself into our railing, do I wake up? Hell no.

I slept right through it and didn't discover it until the next morning.

Go fig, eh?

Tell me the tales of war...

For a little while now, I had been tentatively looking forward to Neil Gaiman coming to my old hometown of Naperville as part of the Naperville READS program that they host annually. I say "tentatively" because, while I've read a couple of his books and enjoyed them as well as his Sandman graphic novels, I've had the worst time getting through Good Omens (tried to read it twice now) and I wasn't a fan of the movie adaptation of his fairy tale Coraline.

But, with the signing and reading happening next Tuesday, I was getting a little hyped up.

I went out today and spent a while anguishing over which of his many graphic novels I wanted to buy to have signed (I only own his novels, but had always borrowed his graphic novels from friends or the library). With helpful advice from some of my cool Tweeps including @lesombre, @lynneNaranek, and @MightyHunter, I chose a hardcover copy of Sandman: The Dream Hunters.

Then I went to pick up the ticket for entry to the event.

As the woman handed it to me, she informed me that things had changed and that Gaiman was only going to do a reading and discussion... no signing.

WTF? Seriously? I know this program is all about promoting reading and whatnot, but the cool thing was that they always got great authors to come in and SIGN BOOKS in addition to the reading and discussion.

C'mon Neil! Be my friend! Stick around and sign! Don't just sell pre-signed books!

Besides, Norm wants to take a picture with you. Don't make me Photoshop it.

Katie LOVES her iPod.

I got her the project RED iPod Nano, in case you wanted to know.

When I gave it to her, I already had it charged up and loaded with music and videos, including South Park, The Simpsons Movie, and Star Trek. Oh, and the UNO game I bought last year.

I gotta admit, it's one cool little device.

The fact that it has that Nike/iPod exercise tracker available plus the built-in radio with song tagging and live pause as well as the pedometer, video camera, built-in speaker, and shake shuffle makes it pretty damn rockin'. I almost want one, but still love the uber-capacity of my 160GB Classic iPod, which is actually about half full.

I haven't legitimately drooled over an iPod in a while.

This is totally drool-worthy!

Sh-sh-sh-shakin'...

I was all set to write up a quick post about this train that woke both of us up at 4 a.m. Just this huge crashing sound that I swore could have been nothing short of a train derailing in our backyard. Our house shook.

We live with train tracks in our backyard and the trains themselves rarely, if ever, wake us up anymore.

This one did. And we were a bit freaked out. We did get out of bed and look out the front and back windows.

We saw nothing. So we went back to bed.

This morning, I began the mental process of formulating the post about the impossibly loud train when I checked my e-mail and saw a news alert from the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Earthquake strikes Illinois."

No way.

I clicked through and it turns out there was a 4.3-mag earthquake with its epicenter in Sycamore, Illinois.

In case you'd like a little context...

The yellow pin is us. The red pin is Sycamore, about 20-25 miles west.

That certainly explains a lot.

What did Katie say after I told her what happened? "Maybe we shouldn't have pictures hanging above our bed."

Heh heh.

The saddest thing is that I'm actually a little excited about this. I've always wanted to be in an earthquake. Every time we visit California, I hope for one. This is the first earthquake I remember being in although my mom will say that I was in a small temblor while living in Lexington, KY, in the early 80s. Don't really remember it, though.

[morbid] Coolness.

Colder than the coldest winter was cold...

We started this new year with bitter cold.

In the last couple weeks, we've been teetering between mid-20s and a balmy high-30s. High enough that, over the weekend, pretty much all the snow melted away and the river outside my office crested its banks.

Today and for the next couple days, though, we're back down to bitter cold and we've been getting a little bit of snowflaking around us. Nothing more than a dusting, really. A teaser of sorts.

I just wish freakin' Mother Nature would shit or get off the damn pot! If you're gonna snow, make it good! If you're not, stop teasing, you bitch!

Jeebus, I'm sick of this crap.

I guess if there's one good thing happening, it's that I left work today shortly after 5 p.m. and there was still some semblance of light around. No, not the sun, which I feel like I haven't seen in weeks, but a hazy, cloudy, brackish white sky. Hey, it's something.

I'm kinda bummed.

[imagine that]

I was trying to take advantage of the Goodreads book swap feature to take a box set of The Chronicles of Narnia books off the hands of someone who was supposedly willing to part with it. Basically this new feature permits you to browse books that other users want to get rid of and then purchase them for nothing more than the cost of shipping.

So I placed the order, submitted my credit card information, received confirmation of the order, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nearly two months now since I placed the order and I've received nothing. Thankfully Goodreads doesn't charge your credit card until the seller prints the shipping label so I was able to cancel out of it easily enough, but it still sucks. I was looking forward to this because it was a killer price for this set.

I'm trying to purchase it from another person. Here's hoping this one goes better.

If you change your way, baby...

Howsabout some Snippety Goodness this fine Snippet Wednesday?

Heart
Before about three weeks ago, I can honestly say I'd never even heard of the movie Crazy Heart. Now it's blown up all over due to the Golden Globe award winning performance by Jeff Bridges. Hey, JB is cool and I'll see just about anything that he's in. He was the Dude, after all. The Dude abides. So do his fans. So I'm all about going to see this movie. And now, after listening to snippets from the soundtrack on Amazon, I really want to pick that up as well. Some good country tracks, and there's even a really decent song by Colin Farrell called "Gone, Gone, Gone" that I'm digging on.

Trooper
After sharing this photo with a coworker, he suggested the following, "you have to take him with you on trips and take photos like the gnome!" Of course, he was referring to the fantastic movie Amelie and how the main character, played by Audrey Tautou, kidnapped ("gnomenapped"?) her father's garden gnome and posed him in pictures around the world. Very cool and I think I really like this idea. Katie and I were going to do a whole Flat Stanley album, but, after a mere couple photos, we have no idea where we put our poor Stans. Likely at the bottom of a big pile of stuff never to be seen again. "Troopy" here can fit in my camera bag without a problem. And I could get a nice mix of wide shots with him playing Where's Waldo as well as some cool macro shots like the one you see with the rubberband ball. Oh the fun we could have.

Laughless
I gotta thank @lesombre for this little gem off Huffington Post. It's a scene from The Big Bang Theory without the laugh track. And, to be honest with you, it suffers not at all from not having one. I love it!

I wonder if they could do alternate versions of the episodes on DVD without the laugh track? I think it would be great.

Obsession
In an attempt to mimic my own luck with meeting Lance Guest, Sybil Law is attempting to score a meet-and-greet with her own idol and, apparently, wannabe sex muffin, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters. I want to help this become a reality. So I'm going to mirror her request and hope that it results in a meet-and-greet. Sybil, don't say I never did anything for ya, hon. And I'd better get at least an autograph out of it if it actually happens.

Emilio
How bad is it that I looked at the headline and the accompanying photo on this news article and thought, "wow, Charlie Sheen's brother looks like shit these days." Yeah, I finally figured it out. Estefan... Estevez... whatever.

Whenever this world is cruel to me...

I just finished watching The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

First off... amazing movie. I love stories about World War II told not from the standard soldiers-at-war sort of point of view. Know what I mean? If you haven't seen it, see it.

In the simplest terms, an eight-year-old boy named Bruno moves with his family to the countryside outside Berlin during World War II when his father is promoted within the Nazi army. While there, Bruno gets bored and decides to explore the forest near his house and comes across an electrified fence. On the other side is an eight-year-old boy in "striped pajamas" and the two develop an unlikely friendship.

Truly heartbreaking considering that we, with the knowledge we have of history, know exactly what's bound to happen and, yet, we watch the story unroll before our eyes. Despite this knowledge, the movie still gripped me tightly and kept me enthralled.

This film is based on a book that the author claims is a work of fiction but is steeped in potential reality. I guess you could almost think of it as a sort of revisionist history. Not in the traditional definition of the term, but still.

However, watching a film like this gets you thinking. Did stories like this actually happen? How would we know? IMHO, it easily could have considering the naivete and feeling of personal indestructibility inherent in youth.

Another thing I wonder about is how a person, regardless of how well trained they are, can just sit back and let this sort of thing happen. How brainwashed and/or fucked in the head do you have to be to just accept that you are taking people to a gas chamber and killing them even though you know that they personally did nothing to you. It's sick. Also, if some people realized that what they were doing was wrong, did they jump ship and desert? You never really hear many stories of Nazi deserters. At least not that I've heard.

Lastly, should this war we're currently involved in ever actually end (and I somehow don't see that happening anytime soon, if ever completely), what parts of it will we look back on in the future as having truly been a mistake? And how will history books document this war? This is the first war the U.S. has been involved in during the age of the World Wide Web when we're able to see more than just our point of view of what's happening. I would argue that there's even more popular outcry against this war than there was against Vietnam, but we're just not blaming the troops (for the most part, that is) as happened in the 60s and 70s. Whose propaganda will win out?

I really need to shut off my brain during movies.

I'm not a Conan O'Brien fan. I never have been, in all honesty. His show just never appealed to me.

But I respect the hell out of him for the stand he's taking against NBC and their plan to move Leno back to late night and bump both Conan and Jimmy Fallon back later in the evening (actually the next morning in the eastern time zone).

Conan's statement about NBC's plan and his refusal to accept it is very elegant, well-written, and humorous. And he pulls no punches.

If NBC doesn't listen, they're only hurting themselves more. This letter is going to garner a lot of pro-Conan sympathy. Don't they understand that moving Jay Leno back to late night is not a good idea? Sure, anything is better than his primetime slot and he may gain back a little more viewership as a talk show instead of a variety show. But, for the most part, people are done with Leno.

Call that my humble opinion on the matter.

No matter how I rant at you, you never let me be...

A couple of quick rants to chime in the weekend. Bear with me. Oh, and there might be some swearing so, if you're easily offended, go to some happy place on the Web instead.

Netflix and Warner Brothers
Word has come down the pipe that Netflix and Warner Brothers have come to an agreement in which Netflix will delay release of new Warner Brothers movies on DVD to their customers by up to 28 days. The purpose of this agreement is so that Warner Brothers can maximize sales of their movies as opposed to losing money to rentals.

Asshats! What the bloody, fucking hell is this all about? Wasn't that supposed to be what was so great about DVD and Blu-Ray? That you could rent a movie as soon as is was available for sale? This happened with some VHS releases, where you had to wait a bit to get the tape for rental but could buy right away. Yet, because of the lack of a World Wide Web on which we could all bitch about it, er, view the legitimate release dates, we rarely realized it. Now, Netflix, a company I always thought was one of those that was "in our corner," turns its back on us.

Why did they agree to WB's demands? Supposedly they are getting a larger backlog of WB movies and at cheaper prices. Fuck that. I've never had a problem finding a movie on Netflix. And will we, as customers, see a cut in the price of our memberships? Not freakin' likely. Please, prove me wrong, Netflix. Sent us an e-mail letting us know that our monthly rate is going down a dollar or two and I will apologize right here on my blog. So far, I have seen no such e-mail nor do I ever expect to. Netflix has claimed that fast-turnaround renters and their relatively-low-by-comparison rental cost on Blu-Ray (and HD-DVD when it was around) have killed their profit margins. Hence, I fully expect them to pocket this money savings.

Guess what?

To Warner Brothers, I can wait. And I will wait. I'm not giving you any more money than I otherwise would for your films. That's not to say I won't buy anything from you, but I won't go out and purchase a movie just because I can't rent it. Take your plan and shove it up your ass.

To Netflix, I'm going to do everything in my power to become a fast-turnaround renter and blow your profits to maximize my monthly rental charge. No, one person is not going to kill you, but if a bunch of us do it...

To all of you, I hope you try to do the same.

Garbagemen
Katie gave me a call telling me that the trash crews that collect our garbage refused to pick up our stuff.

Our garbage tag shows what is and is not acceptable via a diagram of a can with a whole other bag sitting on top of it. We did not do that. We did not even come close. And yet, Katie found a note on our can saying it could not be picked up and because our it was too overloaded.

Admittedly, I did pack a bunch of stuff in there, but it was only three inches above the top of the can rim. Hell, the lid could still have fit over it as it's domed. I just opted to not leave the lid with it because I was afraid the garbagemen wouldn't securely fasten it and it might blow away in this winter storm we were supposed to have been experiencing today.

Seriously, guys? Three damned inches above the brim and you can't take it? You lazy bastards. Considering I only make you work a grand total of about five times a year (yeah, Katie and I very rarely put trash out; this was the first time in nearly three months), you think you could throw me a bone here.

Jackasses.