kapgar

'Til one by one they were gone...

I find it funny how Katie and I go out to dinner last night to enjoy each other's company and what do we spend the time doing?

Talking? No.

Sharing details about our day? No.

Staring longingly in each other's eyes? Well, that's half right.

The entire meal, we were fixated by a balloon that had floated over to our table. Enough helium had leaked out that it wasn't drifting toward the ceiling, but enough was left that it was still aloft in the air to some degree. It glided from one couple, who had spent some time transfixed by it as well, along the bench to us. Then it just moved around in circles by Katie. Sometimes it looked as though it was going to leave, only to decide we were worth more of its time and it would stick around. There were a few moments it almost seemed to respond to verbal coaxing from Katie. She offered it a French fry. It didn't accept. But she did name him "Ol' Blue."

Of course I snapped a few pictures with Katie's iPhone. Here area a couple of them...

Yeah, we brought it home. And it subsequently lost all floating power. It has now settled on the floor of our living room.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Frosty the (evil) snowman...

Yeah, I've been playing with the new camera.

Some shots from the rain-turned-sleet-turned-snow storm from the other day...

Some stuff I dug up in my parents' basement yesterday...

And some experiments in sports photography...

Enjoy! The Joker/snowman is my personal favorite, BTW.

When you're all alone...

First off, I want to thank everyone here for all their birthday wishes. I was truly overwhelmed. To be honest, I wasn't sure if anyone would catch on to my image reference. Yep, that is Sweetness himself, Walter Payton, donning #34, the age I turned on Friday.

However, anyone who has friended me on Facebook needn't have bothered with the reference as they were reminded on their own and I received nearly 30 well wishes. After a couple years on Facebook, during which I've received only a couple birthday wishes, seeing approximately 30 this year just blew my mind. I guess I actually should start paying attention to the birthday list and returning these sentiments. So, anyone not on Facebook, please get on there. It's going to be my primary method of keeping track of your birthdays. Lord knows I won't remember on my own. Seriously... I won't. I'm bad like that. So I guess it's nice to have Facebook.

Oh, and for your viewing pleasure, I took some pictures of the Christmas decorations around our house. I would've taken more of the Christmas tree, but we have a bunch of unwrapped presents underneath and I don't want to reveal them. I'll get a new photo of that later on. Enjoy what I have otherwise in this pictobrowser (or over on Flickr)...

Did I forget to make note of the camera used to take these pictures? Yeah, it's my brand new Sony Alpha A350. Got it earlier today. I bought just the body of it, though, at the Sony outlet store. It's a refurbished camera and with nothing additional but the battery, covers, cords, manuals, etc., and with an additional 20% discount this weekend only, it came to $471. I did tack on a memory card and a four-year protection plan so it came out to a bit more total. But still. I love it. It's wonderful.

Thank you Katie!

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I woke up this morning and took my shower then came into the bedroom to wake Katie up. She was buried under the covers. Up over her head, in fact. So I peeled back the covers from her head and said, in a sing-song manner, "Katieeeeeee."

She looked at me with the good ol' Katie stinkeye and said, "There is no Katie, only Zuul.

"Are you the Gate Keeper?"

My wife, the movie geek.

And this is my Thanksgiving...

While I won't be able to say it anywhere near as eloquently as John at Buddha on the Road did (thanks for cluing me in to that song so I had a title for this post, BTW), I would like to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all my U.S.ian friends. And, although a little late, to my Canadian friends as well.

And, if you're either spending time with or hosting family like Katie and I are, I pray you prepared yourself adequately. We did...

When I'm gone...

It's pretty old news by now, but famed author Michael Crichton has died. He succumbed to an extended, and very private, battle with cancer.

Reading through a few articles about him, it amazed me how much he's done in his 66 years. The man was what you could legitimately call "accomplished." Let's see, according to The Wik, he has been published 25 times with #26 on the way, he's a doctor, he was a visiting lecturer in anthropology, he co-created one of the longest running medical dramas in the history of television (ER), he co-wrote some screenplays, he developed a few video games, he saw several of his novels turned into movies, he even directed one of them. There's more.

I was aware of most of these facts in some form over the years. But, as a lot of knowledge tends to do, things slip out of your mind when you have little to no need for it. So reading it all again was a bit overwhelming and made me feel like I had accomplished very little in life. Many people make me feel that way, in fact.

That's when I started trying to think about how I'd want to be remembered if I were to die right now. If my life ended, what do I want everyone to remember?

That is definitely not an easy question to answer.

Perhaps as a loyal and loving husband with a penchant for entertaining on the Web? Can my drivel even be considered "entertaining"? Damn, maybe I should just stick to "loyal and loving husband."

What about you?

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Because sometimes I get cravings. And I'm not even pregnant.

No, not necessarily all at the same time. That would just be weird.

Heads turning as the lights flashing out...

And now Snippet Wednesday is into those awkward post-21 years when nothing good happens. Guess we'll have to wait until he turns 25 and is able to rent a car. Bummer. Happy 22nd... meh.

Housekeeping
There are some magazines you expect to find in certain places. Boy's Life in dentist's offices. Mother's World in a day care. Two-year-old Sports Illustrateds in doctor's offices. But when I find a Good Housekeeping  on the floor of a bathroom stall in the men's locker room of my gym, I'm gonna start to worry.

Camera
I went out during my lunch break yesterday to start looking at some DSLR cameras. And, much as I thought I might, I fell head over heels for the Sony Alpha A350. It's a 14.2 megapixel beauty with in-camera image stabilization, live preview screen that tilts both up and down for those awkward shot angles, and just feels like a solid freakin' camera. Best thing yet is that since Sony bought out Maxxum, all my old Minolta SLR lenses will work on it, saving us a nice chunk of change. I think I mentioned this some time ago when I was drooling over Sony's first entry into the DSLR category, the Alpha A100, but I wasn't in a purchase place at the time. Now I think we really are. This is, barring catastrophe, supposed to be my birthday and Christmas gift from Katie while she scores a new MacBook to use for school. Sounds like a fair trade, right? Actually, she might be making out a bit more, but oh well. She needs a computer she can use in class and she, like me, is a Mac Whore (tm). Do any of you know much about this Sony? Many of you are really gifted photographers, I'd love your input.

Nokia
Don't ever let anyone tell you bitching doesn't work. I griped last week about how I wanted to take part in that trial of the Nokia E71-NAM smartphone but, 1) they never got back to me, and 2) I'd have to pay for the service during the trial period, remember? Well, very soon after that post went up, they mailed me back and corrected themselves. It is an unlocked phone and I can use it on AT&T. This makes me VERY happy. So now I'm going to play. Just a matter of them sending it my way. And this phone has received some pretty rave reviews on both Diggnation and Wired. I just don't want to have to send it back.

Soccer
And speaking of photography and all that good stuff, I'm finally getting around to posting photos and video that I took from the two Illinois Wesleyan women's soccer games Katie and I went to. Not the best sports shots I've ever taken, but, in the past, I always managed to sneak onto the sideline with my SLR. A bit different when you're in the stands with a point and shoot, don't you think? If you can't see the Pictobrowser, check out the entire Flickr album.

I believe in a thing called love...

It's been a few years since they were posted on the Web, but I'm finally starting to get some earlier photos that were on my static site up to Flickr.

And the first to be posted are the pictures from our wedding!

Why? Because today is our seventh anniversary! Happy anniversary, hon. I love you.

[Check out the album on Flickr if you can't see the Pictobrowser in your reader]

Sorry they are so low resolution. They are scans of print photos and I had so many to do at the time (six years ago), that I scanned them quick and dirty. But they still work.

Your own personal Jesus...

Welcome to Snippet Wednesday #17!

Authentic
Katie was driving this morning when she passed by a church with "Authentic Jesus" on its front sign. Can anyone tell us what constitutes an authentic Jesus as opposed to a fake Jesus and what studies have been done to validate these findings? Can I take them on their word on this? If they're lying, who would I file a complaint with?

Domobacca
I'm starting to wonder if these two little beasts were separated at birth. At left is one of the Target Domokun Halloween plushes and at right is the Mighty Mugg Chewbacca. Eerily similar, aren't they? And, yes, that's a candy corn in Chewie's mitt.

Henson
Speaking of little creatures, happy birthday to Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets and so much other great stuff that has entertained me throughout my life. You are a true artist.

Mattingly
My BiL Scott sent this bad boy my way. It's an oversized (5" x 7") 1985 Topps Don Mattingly card. Back in the day, I was a diehard Yankees fan (I was born in New York and raised a bit in Connecticut, so I'm excused) and "Donnie Baseball" was m'man. I collected all kinds of Mattingly baseball cards until I stopped collecting sometime in the very early 90s. Scott, who got back into card collecting recently, has been sending me the occasional Mattingly card for kicks. Two of them are in magnetic frames on our fridge while this one is now displayed on my overhead cabinet at work. Thanks Scott (and Becca).

Dairy
Winter twatted this morning about a report that PETA is asking Ben & Jerry's ice cream company to start using human breast milk as opposed to cow's milk. Seriously? Well, as she said, that would be one dairy I'd like to see.

Dew
When the first thing you do upon entering your place of employment in the morning is to head to the breakroom and buy a Mountain Dew, you know something is wrong.

The old man is snoring...

From what I've read, "remnants" of Hurricane Ike hit us here in Geneva yesterday. I'm having trouble believing it was from Ike. Seems far too soon since the 'cane only made landfall early Saturday morning (like 1 a.m., wasn't it?). But, if they say it, I guess it's true. Anyway, got some photos and video of all that happened in our neighborhood. We actually had to cancel plans because all the routes out of our neighborhood were flooded beyond driveability. But it certainly made for good camera stuffs.

Here are some photos...

And here are a few different videos for your viewing enjoyment...

Ike in Geneva, part 1 from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Ike in Geneva, part 2 from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Ike in Geneva, part 3 from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Congratulations to Kristy Brown for correctly guessing the order slip challenge from yesterday. The pizzas we ordered were a medium stuffed with cheese and spinach and a medium thin crust with sausage and pepperoni.

The sausage and pepperoni was pretty obvious. But the other... "POPY"... was not poppy seeds or poopie or anything like it. According to the guy at Giordano's, they were going to use SP for spinach but they already used that abbreviation for their special pizza. So they came up with "POPY" meaning Popeye who eats spinach. And it has stuck. Cool.

Open up your mouth and feed it...

Just had to share our little culinary experiment with all of you...

It's a white pizza (yes, MochaMomma, we're starting kitchen race wars again), meaning nothing but crust, garlic olive oil, and cheese. Our definition is, of course, open to interpretation. The cheese we used is a four-cheese blend of asiago, parmesan, fontina, and mild provolone. One half also has goat cheese (that would be my half).

Oh, tres yummy!

Ready or not...

Güten Snippet Wednesday, meine Freunden (ick, so how bad was my German?).

Twittedog
Lilly's surgery is tomorrow and we're all worried, as you might expect. I want to thank you all again for the well wishes you were sending. All of us appreciate it. Katie, Brian, and Jen were all a bit weepy about the outpouring of love (I wasn't weepy because I already am well versed in how fantastic all of you in the blogosphere are). And yet, despite the impending surgery, you'd swear nothing was wrong with Lilly as she still leaps around with nary a care in the world. Nothing's holding her back. She was even at our softball game last night as my brother and I and our team got bumped in the first round of the playoffs (hey, we were the wildcard playing the team that hasn't lost a game in two years and we held them to only five runs). Okay, back on topic... if anybody is interested in hearing how things go with Lilly tomorrow, I set up a Twitter page for her. Jen (the SiL) is supposed to update it regularly via her cellphone. So go follow a dog's twats. Wow, that sounded a bit, erm, off.

Rights
I would just like to say that San Francisco would likely be my favorite city in the world if it weren't for my illicit love affair with Chicago. Not only is it a fantastic city with a ton to do and gorgeous as well, but the steps that this city has taken towards universal gay rights is amazing. As Jester said in his radio show last week, SFCA is the moral compass of the world, or something akin to that. And I love how they just recently ruled that doctors cannot deny care to homosexuals because their religious beliefs don't gel with the "lifestyle." Thank you, San Francisco legal system! Suffice it to say, if I found out that my doctor felt this way, I'd leave his practice out of principle. I don't think it's right to impose your beliefs on somebody and especially not where medical care is concerned. Sure, the case in question was fertility related and not a life threatening medical scenario, but still. It's called the Hippocratic Oath, people.

Boom
I'm kinda stoked that a Sonic Drive-In is opening near us. Not only is it near us, it's on my commute route to and from work. I've never been to a Sonic before, but I've always heard cool things about them. Combine that with the fact that I've seen commercials for them on TV for a couple years now and you got yourself some yearnin' goin' on. Any recommendations from you Sonic lovers out there? Oh, and I dug how their exterior signboard read "Sonic Boom Coming Soon!"

Fished
Laurence Fishburne of The Matrix fame is joining the cast of C.S.I. in the ninth episode of this season as a replacement for William Petersen's Gil Grissom character. Okay, I have nothing against Fishburne. He's done some fine acting. But isn't C.S.I. dry enough as it is without adding Mr. No Nonsense-No Emotion? Not that Petersen was the most emotive actor out there, but the quirkiness he gave to his character made it acceptable. I haven't seen "quirk" from Fishburne since his Cowboy Curtis days.

I'm torn...

After a long, hard week at work, you hope that the weekend will allow you nothing but mindless relaxation and enjoyment.

And, yet, this is hardly ever the case.

Instead, Katie and I decided to tear apart the garden in the backyard that we designed a couple years ago. Because we had bricked off a garden and, thus, cut off a waterflow area, we would get pooling of stormwater against the garden that would saturate the lawn, cause the grass to die from over watering, and result in moss growth.

So we finally decided to do something about it. We got rid of one pooling area by putting in plants that can soak up the moisture, rebuilt the other garden, transplanted some stuff, and now we're just waiting for the moss patches to die (yay systemic plant killer!) so we can put in some peat moss, sand, soil, and new grass seed. As you can tell, this is still a project in progress so the pictures below are hardly a complete photo album.

Oh, and in case you don't do yard work of your own, this sort of thing is so body/brain killing and soul crushing that we wound up spending the rest of the evening watching Comedy Central's Roast of Bob Saget. How sad is that? At least Cloris Leachman was freakin' hilarious. The rest? Not so much.

The waiting is the hardest part...

Some of you may have read the stories about Lilly on this site or seen a photo or two of her on my Flickr site. Well, if you have, and even if you haven't, I'm hoping you can throw a little good juju her way.

A little over a week ago, the vet found a growth on her gums near her teeth. At first they thought it was simply an abscess, but they decided to have it tested anyway. Yesterday, my brother and SiL got the news that it was a tumor. This coming Thursday, it will be removed and tested to see if it's cancerous or benign (I think I got the terminology right). And then we wait.

I know that in the grand scheme of things, this isn't a huge deal. Some of you may think I'm being completely stupid and immature right now. Some of you may be rolling your eyes as you read this. After all, we deal with our human loved ones who have cancer all the time. Some fight valiantly and survive. Others do not. My uncle is battling it, Katie lost an uncle to it but had an aunt survive it, Lisa's fighting it. So how does an animal measure up when we have human beings dealing with it, too?

Well, in our minds, she measures up pretty strongly. And I do not say that to discredit the value of human life in any way, shape, or form. I simply mean that in the short time that Lilly has been with us, she has become an inextricable part of our lives. She just came leaping in, literally, with boundless energy and love and it's just hard to imagine her not being around. And we don't want that. We don't even want to consider it.

Lilly's had a tough life so far. She's about 7-years-old and spent a majority of that time bounced from shelter to shelter and I believe she even lived some time as a stray. Shortly before she wound up with my brother and SiL, she was in a kill shelter. Society had given up on her entirely. At the 11th hour, someone saved her and put her in a rescue shelter. A coworker of my brother's adopted her. However, Lilly had trouble dealing with the other dog they owned even though she was an angel to their newborn baby. So this coworker gave her to my brother. Bear in mind my chronology of events might be a bit off.

To be honest, I never saw my brother owning a dog. He's even more anal retentive than I am, with a dash of obsessive-compulsiveness thrown into the mix for good measure. But my bro has taken to her like gangbusters. And Lilly to him, and to Jen (the SiL), and to Katie and I, and to our parents, and to practically everybody she meets so long as they don't have a dog of their own. She just has this incredibly infectious personality.

And we don't want to lose her.

So all I'm asking for are some good thoughts to be sent her way.

I got a devil's haircut...

Katie and I are up watching the Olympics last night, it's about 10:30 p.m. and I'm dying. Simply nodding in and out of sleep for the next 15 minutes until we decide to go upstairs. We turn on the Olympics up there and I decide I'm going to sleep regardless. I nod off and then Katie turns out the light. I wake up long enough to kiss her goodnight and see her fall dead to the world.

And, of course, I wind up awake until sometime after 1 a.m. How the hell is this fair?

So, um, yeah, my creativity is kinda shot and I had this really cool idea for a post I was going to write that would serve as a review of this razor that was sent to me as a freebie. You probably saw it over on Karl's site. Apparently we were both hit up at the same time. Combine my tiredness factor with the fact that Karl already did the cutesy review and I'm sorry, but you're not going to wind up with a bunch of photos of people with curious shavings in their heads and facial hair with parts of my own face Photoshopped over them. Just ain't happenin', folks. Shame because I was really looking forward to my face with Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn's zigzag hair from Major League.

[I realize not all of you appreciate product placement, but if you stay tuned, I've got a couple video snippets from the TDFN: Pizza episode in the extended post. No, really!]

Instead, you're going to get a straightforward review of the new Schick Quattro Titanium Trimmer (to be referred to henceforth as the "SQTT").

In the simplest terms, the SQTT is an all-in-one razor and trimmer. One end is your standard razor with four blades, a moisturizing strip, and a single edging blade on the reverse face of the blade. I always like having an edging blade. Pretty handy when you've got cutoff sideburns and a goatee like me. However, on the opposite end of this device is a battery-powered trimmer with a three-setting protective head cover. While I haven't looked for it in stores, I was told by the guy that contacted me that this thing goes for about $14 retail. Not bad considering I spend about $7-8 for a razor and $15 for a trimmer.

The razor works just as well as you'd expect. Nice, clean shave. Didn't nick myself at all and the moisturizing strip makes the blades just glide over my face. One strange thing is getting used to how big this thing is. Most of my razor handles are about half the width of this thing, if not less. Plus the battery and motor used for the trimmer adds quite a bit of heft to the thing. It may sound odd, but once you've been shaving with a certain type of razor, this additional weight can take some getting used to in order to make sure you don't overapply pressure and cut yourself. Thankfully, it really took me no time to get used to it.

The trimmer is a nice little toy to have on this thing. It's a small trimmer head, but it's perfect if you travel a lot and don't want to carry a large trimmer in your luggage. However, the size means it is best used on small areas (no jokes, people!) like sideburns. I used it on my goatee and it took a little longer than I'm used to in order to finish trimming. But the results were quite nice. If you plan on trimming a full beard, you'd better have the patience of a saint, though.

The entire unit is waterproof, which is great. I almost always shave in the shower and knowing that I can use this thing without worrying about frying it or myself is a plus.

My only true concern now is with how much replacement blades cost. The housing used to connect the blade to the base unit is unlike any I've seen before (maybe this is the standard Schick Quattro and I just haven't used one yet), and the high cost of replacement blades is something that has irked me for years.

I would've also liked to see it come with a little bottle of oil that could be used to lube up the trimmer, though, and possibly a cleaning brush. Most trimmers I've owned come with both these things.

Would you like to see the final result? Here you go...

Ain't I sexy? Okay, so my creativity was only mostly shot. This was a quick grab and slap, though.
But, c'mon! Tom Selleck in Mickey ears is quality comedy gold!

Overall, I'd give it a B+ bordering on an A-. If you hurry over to TrimFlixx.com and make yourself a free gag movie (akin to those viral dancing elves videos around Christmas time), you can score yourself a free razor. Or at least I think you still can. It might end this week, though, so HURRY!

Get down tonight...

Sadly, another Davecago has come and gone. I say "sadly" simply because it feels like it will be another eternity spent waiting for Davecago the Fourth to happen next year. I really do enjoy meeting up with fellow bloggers even if I am a bit of a social outcast.

Jeez, there were a ton of cool people there. When Katie and I were heading downtown, I didn't really know who to expect to see since it seemed like a lot of people were unable to make it this year like Kim and diane. I did figure on Tori being there if she could find parking (ha!) as well as Jenny, RW, Mrs. RW, and Gary. But, other than them, I really didn't know.

Mocha made the trip, which always makes me happy because I totally PPH her! And I met a bunch of other people I'd never met in real life before like *lynne*, Leah, and Robin. Plus somebody who was introduced to me as Suzanne, one of Dave's blog stalkers. That's pretty cool in a very creepy, cloak-and-daggerish way.

I have some pictures here for you from the event, and from walking around Chicago beforehand with Katie and Dave. They're in a pictobrowser, so you may need to click through from your reader or you can just surf on over to Flickr to see them.

But one of my favorite things about the whole event was commiserating with my fellow bloggers on things that bug us about the medium. From people squatting on blog names (ever wonder why RW's site is misspelled without a "y"?) to not having the amount of time you'd like to read each and every site to the give and take of commenting to coming up with ideas to keep things fresh.

Do you have any idea how good it feels to know that I'm not the only one who feels bad that I sometimes have nothing more to say in a comment than "I totally agree with you"? That's one of the many things I struggle with in blogging... finding something meaningful to say to show support for all of you that I read. I don't want to be that guy who simply says "I agree" but I also know that for some of you, myself included, that's all you want to hear. That's why we write what we write, to get it out and get feedback to either confirm what we are saying or to let us know that we are nutso beyond compare. And sometimes that seemingly meaningless "throwaway" comment is the easiest way to show that support.

But because there are so many blogs we read and so many posts we agree with and so little time to complete it all, we just don't. It's completely understandable.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, just because I don't comment or because someone else you think is a reader of your site doesn't comment all the time does not mean we are not reading or we do not agree or we do not value what you are pouring out of your heart of hearts. We are and we do. Just know that. 'Tay?

Oh, and I got a killer brownie recipe from Tori that will definitely be a future Damn Fool Network episode. Stay tuned. ;-)

Are you diggin' on me...

Are you ready for Snippet Wednesday #10??

Yeah, I'm not either. Just thought I'd ask in case. But, yanno, I have now broken into the double digits. That's a big accomplishment considering we bloggers usually have the attention span of gnats and give up on regular things like this way too quickly.

Oh well.

Tube-Tied
As you all know from my paltry post yesterday, YouTube decided not to play nice. Well, I can't really fault them as it is their policy to not accept videos longer than 10 minutes in length and I was openly defying that. But it sucks no less. However, thanks to Marie and Hilly, I've now discovered Vimeo and am in the process of uploading videos there. Much nicer user interface and so far it's playing well with what I'm giving it. One video done and processed and another one in the works. I'll try posting the new video tomorrow. Wish me luck... I'm cooking yet again!

Wal-phone
Katie and I have pretty much ruled out getting iPhones again. Even though they've dropped in price and whatnot, they're still comparatively expensive and we just don't have that kind of a budget for a phone and don't plan to anytime soon. However, I'd still like a smart phone and have discovered the Palm Centro. What I like about it is that it works just like the Palm Pilots that I've been using for years now, just with a phone in it, so I know it will work on Mac and PC and sync with my Outlook account at work. Plus it has threaded SMS messaging so you can maintain a conversation with someone kinda like using Gmail and not have to search all over God's green acres for past messages. That's pretty sweet. The biggest bonus, though, is that they're currently available at Wal-Mart of all places for a mere $18.88 each. And that's taking into consideration that we're not new AT&T users. The free Centro deal at Best Buy this week is for rookies only. I hate that. I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the idea that we're thinking about buying cell phones from Wal-Mart. That's just strange.

Knighted
The Dark Knight has broken $400 million... in a mere three weekends. That's just insanely cool. We all know it's repeat business that is driving this one and Katie and I have seen it twice. How many times have you seen it?

Homely
I take issue with this headline... Joss Stone playing homely wife in "Tudors." Sure, the character she will be portraying was not known for being good looking. But this is Joss Stone. You do not make her play "homely." No no. Never.

Scooter
In celebration of Marty's birthday, I am going to celebrate Scooter Wednesday (yes, all this happened this past Saturday, not today, deal with it). More photos are available at Flickr.

I want some hot stuff...

Well, let's see... we have Avitable complaining about everyone on the Web being "either crabby, bitchy, stubborn, depressed, pathetic, upset, crying, or some combination thereof," SJ hoping to "avoid the drama shitstorm polluting the blogiverse lately," and me with absolutely no clue what the hell is going on... yet again. Or maybe I do and I just don't recall. Am I not reading the right blogs?

Sometimes I really feel out of it with what is happening out here. It makes me sad because I cannot relate to what everyone else is involved with. And, yet, part of me feels happy to not know because then I'm not forced to take sides. So I suppose there's an upside.

In an effort to forget about all this drama I know nothing about, I decided to go get lost in a recently opened Whole Foods. A couple of my coworkers swear by the place so I had to see it for myself.

45 minutes of aimless wandering later and my head is swimming no less than it was before. Just with thoughts of food. My God, that place is scary inside! I haven't felt this overwhelmed by a grocery store since I set foot in Woodman's. And that place is scary!

But I did walk out with some good stuff...

The question now is, what am I planning to do with all this spicy goodness? And, no, "giving himself salmonella poisoning" is not a viable answer... or, at least, I hope it's not.

The answer, should technology work in my favor for once, will be coming soon!

You've been thunderstruck...

Well, it's been three weeks since I returned my iPod to the store, they lost it, they found it, and, finally, they lemon'd it out. I now have my new iPod Classic, as it's been dubbed. But there's an interesting little twist to the story...

I got to the store and they went through my massive collection of receipts and service orders on my old iPod to determine how much was paid for the last one so I knew what trade-in value I would have. Turns out I spent just about $300 on the old one. The new Classics are $250 for the 80GB and $350 for the 160GB. I asked if I could get the 80GB and use the residual value toward the cost of a service plan or some accessories. They said no, if I opted for the 80, they would price up the value of it to match the $300 I previously spent. However, if I wanted the 160, I would have to pay the difference. Basically, either way, they would gain money off me.

Well, it didn't strike me as fair to lose money, so, with Katie's blessing via text message (she was in class), I opted for the 160 figuring I'd rather pay out a little more than lose out entirely. As I'm waiting in line and prepping another text to Katie, I look up and there she is! Her class was canceled because her teacher is stuck in Colorado due to weather.

We continue our wait in line and are prepping ourselves to spend about $110 ($50 difference in cost plus the $59.99 for a new service plan). The guy rings it all up and announces our total of $60.04 and asks how we'd like to pay. Katie, very nonchalantly, replies that we'll pay by card and we do and we leave.

Outside, Katie and I look at each other and I ask, "how did that just happen?"

Katie's reply? "I have a v-neck shirt and big boobs."

Hey, sex sells. What can you say?

Note 1: Upon looking at the receipt, we discovered that instead of trying to calculate the difference, the register jockey decided to apply a discount to the cost of the new one. All we paid for was the service plan.

Note 2: I filled this thing up with all the music on my computer plus three full-length movies and I've still only got a whopping 25GB taken up. Time to work on that, eh? Might have to pull some stuff off my archive DVDs.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): On the way home from the store, I looked in the direction of our house and saw some of the wickedest storm clouds I'd ever seen in my life. And, thankfully, I had my camera handy. Here's a gallery...

You will need to click through from your feed reader (at least from Google Reader, anyway) to check this thing out. Sorry, I cannot control the fact that readers don't work with this and I love this applet too much to not use it. Or you can just go straight over to Flickr.

Buy me some peanuts...

While I love the fact that Snippet Wednesdays allow me to cover a lot of little items that I wouldn't normally cover in a full-blown post, I gotta admit that they leave me pretty creatively drained. This would be my attempt at coming up with an excuse for the drivel you're about to subject yourself to.

It's a photographic retrospective of me opening the first box of Cracker Jack I've had in years. Like since I was 12. There may have been some here or there, but I certainly don't remember it. So, for the sake of argument, let's just agree that this is my first time with the Jack in 21 years. Yikes.

Ah Cracker Jack! How I've missed thee!

The rest of this photographic retrospective, due to sheer length of the overall post, is in the extended post. Y'all with feed readers should see it all just fine.

Countin' dogs, funky dogs, nasty dogs, atomic dog...

Today's Snippet Wednesday (#6, I do believe) is brought to you by special guest blogger, Lilly Monster. No she doesn't have her own blog. She's the dog that Katie and I are dogsitting for the next week for my brother and SiL. This is our first dogsitting episode and actually one of the few times we've even had an animal in this house... aside from me, of course.

So take it away, Lilly...

*woof*

That's right, you're all pads. How about I type?

Conflict
As I was heading into downtown Chicago on the train to meet up with Kim and Beth for CBSC, I was sitting and waiting for the train and happened to look at my ankle. Seeing how much branding was down there in that short amount of space made me wonder if I'm a walking, talking conflict of interest. Check this out...

We have Nike vs. New Balance for athletic wear dominance. Plus we also have a religious conflict going with Nike, Greek God of Victory, vs. Horus, Egyptian God of the Sky.

Whose hell will I burn in?

Jacobson
Almost a year ago to the day, I talked about how NBC 5 Chicago reporter Amy Jacobson was fired when she was caught on camera at the home of Craig Stebic who was a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Lisa. The kicker was that she was there in her bikini. Yeah, nothing going on there, right?

Well, to celebrate the one year anniversary of her sacking and her subsequent inability to land a job, she's now suing CBS 2, the channel that aired the footage of her at Stebic's house. Oh yeah, also named in the suit are the owners of the house from which the footage was shot amongst a few others. Jacobson claims that anytime her son hears the word "unemployed," he cries uncontrollably. Well, move away and get a job in some other field if it's that bad for the kid. Jeebus.

Oh, better be careful or she'll add me to the list of defendants.

Lotto
Lottery aficionados in Florida are now being given a new option, well, for a little while anyway. They can either walk away with the $250,000 prize in the Summer Cash promotion or win gasoline for life. It's actually not unlimited, though. They get a $100 gas card 26 times a year for life. That's $50 in gas a week, which, for many, might barely fuel a single car for that span of time. Of course, you cannot take a lump-sum payment like with the cash and, say you live for the next 44 years, you'll only wind up making $114,400. And lord only knows how they'd go about taxing this one for ya. Plus, if you keep taking payments each year until you die, what's to stop the Lotto Mafia from sending out hitmen after you? I always wondered what would stop a lotto commission from trying to have you offed so they could stop payments because your next of kin cannot inherit lottery payout schedules.

I think I'll take the cash. Thanks.

Solar
Speaking of cars and gas, looks like Toyota is at it again. There is talk about a launch next year of a new solar-powered Prius. The article is very brief and very vague. All they say the solar will help with is the A/C system. I can't see that being the case. That's a lot of potential additional money to run a fan. But it's still kind of a cool idea.

CBSC
Last night was fun with the inaugural class of the Chicago Blogger Social Club. Nilsa, unfortunately, could not make it. But we had a blast at Hard Rock Cafe anyway. Here's a picture of us all...

From left to right: Steven, Kim, Ansleigh (in a Monkey Peace hat), Kate, Beth,
and me (in my Bad Monkey shirt)!

Oh yeah, and Beth? I've added you back into my blogroll. Sorry about that. My bad.

Peace and love and who's number one...

Welcome to Snippet Wednesday #5! 5 is my lucky number. Always has been. So why does it feel like it's luckier for you this time around than it is for me? Oh, that's right, because today is the day I announce the winner of the Wii Fit Sock contest and I have to pay for shipping. That's why! Well, anyway, that's at the end of this post. If nothing else, I'll make you read this whole thing before you find out who won. NO SCROLLING TO THE END, YOU CHEATERS!

Byzantine
I love this like nothing else. An internal Microsoft memo was leaked written by Bill Gates to his former minions regarding the insanity he experienced trying to download some software from the MIcrosoft Web site. It's funny as hell to read. But what's strange is that, even though I'm a Certified Mac Whore (tm), I must admit that I've never experienced this level of Hell on the MS site. Of course, I've never really downloaded much more than copies of IE and a multitude of security patches and upgrades for their software, but still and all the same. I do hope this is legit and not some joke post.

Tipping
Just to avoid any confusion regarding yesterday's post, Katie and I are good tippers and we've never not tipped a waiter. Typically we tip about 20% and have been known to give more (especially when Dave2 follows up with table dancing). But, if they give crappy service, they will receive a crappy tip. That's the truth.

Scranton
First it was The Office Convention last October, now it's The Office Games this month to launch the new video and board games that are associated with the funniest show on TV. And the whole shebang will be presided over by Mindy (Kelly Kapoor) Kaling. Man, Scranton gets all the cool stuff (I keed, I keed). But, at least the games will eventually be released to the rest of us non-Scranton residing folk.

Helmethead
I went to my parents' house yesterday during my lunch break to go through some boxes of stuff I had in their crawl space. I got rid of a box, condensed a few others, and brought some stuff home, much to Katie's chagrin. The loot included a collection of sports and non-sports cards, my autographed David Mack Kabuki comics and trade paperbacks, my collection of KISS stuff from my friend Mike, and this gem...

It's a kids batting helmet for the Pittsburgh Pirates that my grandfather (Pop Pop) gave me probably when I was about two years old. I never got rid of it and I'm glad I didn't. It's pretty sweet, although it only barely fits my huge head. I kinda had to slam the top of it to get it that far down my skull and it left welts. Go fig, eh?

I think I'm going to start a Flickr album with all the cool crawl space swag I find. Eve may be interested in the KISS stuff I dug up. Some seriously cool shit in there.

Five
I guess five is lucky for more than just me, though. It's SJ's five-year blogiversary (spread out over 13 different blogs, apparently) this week. I know we're already like halfway through the celebration, but go give her some love!

Socks
Okay, now let's figure out who won the free pairs of Wii Fit Socks. I promise you that I have not worn them... yet. We had entries from Sheila (Charm School Reject), BA, Odie, Scott, Beth, and MadIrishMan (I think).

As much as I'd like to see those socks come back to me as the wrapping paper around a copy of Donnie Brasco, I'm going to have to DQ MIM since I don't think his was a legitimate entry. And BA made me jealous by taunting me with the fact that he now has a copy of Wii Fit. Grrrrr... And, Scott, sorry, while it was quite celebratory in nature, that was a brain-numbing amount of exclamation points. Gah.

So our winners are:

• With her creative English contractions - Sheila
• With her promise of green polka dots contrasting with purple skin - Odie
• With her desire to not share toe jam amongst family members - Beth

Congrats! E-mail me your mailing addresses and I'll send them out as soon as possible.

No bone movies...

Welcome to the Kapgar Cineplex 6 where we try to actually make your moviegoing experience fun again! Tickets are relatively inexpensive as are the food and drinks. And if you follow these simple rules, I guarantee you will enjoy the experience. I do not, however, guarantee the movie will be good, but I will provide direct phone numbers to PR departments of the major studios so you can call and bitch if you so desire...

1. Get here early. The doors to each theater close one minute before the trailers begin and you will not be granted entrance after this time. This is not to inconvenience you, but so you do not bother the patrons that were here on time by stumbling around in the dark, stepping on feet, trying to find a few open seats.

2. Seats are assigned. The earlier you purchase your tickets, the better seats you will have. Plus, our online ticket purchasing system will allow you to select your seats ahead of time just like when you buy tickets for a jet. Gone are the days of Southwest Airlines "cattle call boarding" in the movie theater. We want to reward you for purchasing online or being here enough in advance to get good seats. Plus, it also helps us to know if there will be enough empty seats in clusters for couples and other groups coming in closer to the start time.

3. Don't just shut off the ringer on your phone, turn the whole thing off. It's great that some theaters are cracking down on people making or accepting calls during a show, but that's not enough. Just as bad is when people open their phones for texting and the screen lights up and temporarily stuns the eyes of people sitting behind them. Annoying! Violators will have their phones confiscated and then be "stoned" publicly with our collection of phones.

4. We have audio/video security systems built into seats. So be careful what you say or do. We reserve the right to post stupid things on YouTube. That includes you, Mr. I Moan Every Time Angelina Jolie Does Something Sexy During Wanted (that seriously happened to me last night).

5. Ratings are not just unenforced suggestions. We actually go above and beyond what the MPAA suggests with their ratings system. There is no caveat that allows for parental supervision. "G" means that everyone can enter, "PG" allows for anyone over the age of 7 to view the film, "PG-13" means you must be 13 to enter, "R" means you must be 16, and "NC-17" means nobody under 17. IDs must be presented. If there is any question, we will err on the side of caution and deny entrance. Sure, this might seem Stalinist, but considering I saw an infant in a screening of The Omen, I feel extreme measures must be taken.

What other suggestions would you have to make your moviegoing experience more pleasurable and worthwhile at Kapgar Cineplex 6?

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I think I mentioned, at some point in the past, that Katie and I were planning on using a photo I took several years ago of the Golden Gate Bridge as a massive wall hanging in our vaulted-ceiling living room. Well, we did do it and I just completely forgot to post pictures of it. My bad. Here you go...

Here is the finished product. No, we did not cut away negative space to account for the "missing area" in between the frames to make it look more like a window view. We just sliced the picture into pieces and framed it. The reason is because, until we started hanging them, we had no idea how far apart we'd space the frames. This is why the line of headlights looks staggered. Oh well. We like it.

This is so you can gain a little perspective. That's a 42-inch plasma on the credenza below the hanging.

Well I walk into the room passin' out hundred dollar bills...

I have a new favorite photo of Katie and me from a wedding we were at yesterday. I only wish the camera that was used to take this was set at higher resolution. The original image is not much larger than this. Sadly.

Oh, and the deejay was playing Big & Rich's "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy." Hence Katie's reaction.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): For anybody questioning whether or not they're going to see WALL*E in theaters. Go now. Fan-friggin'-tastic. Pixar has made one of the best romantic-action-scifi-comedies I've seen in a while. Human actors can't seem to pull off the romantic chemistry that these writers and animators did with cartoon robots with limited dialogue. How?

How does Pixar keep improving on itself?

Fly to the angels...

Before I start, I need to send some love to the family of comedian George Carlin who died last night at the age of 71. I'm not going to say too much about this other than I was a fan of his stand-up routines as well as his many movie appearances. In a world rife with stale comedy, he was a God. And now he's up there cracking up his God as well. There is a really cool tribute to the man over at Shiny's Takeout.

[Just as a warning, I have a meme coming up next. If you're not a fan, skip through to the end as I have photos and a contest down there.]

This is a new meme that was started by Avitable (with bait taken by Brandon) based on an article he read in EW listing the top 100 movies of the last 25 years. Apparently it isn't enough that AFI puts out a Top 100 list and revised it just recently, now EW has to get in on the action. C'est la vie, eh?

According to the rules set by Adam, you must bold the titles of the movies you've seen and asterisk the ones you liked. For me, because a movie isn't asterisked doesn't necessarily mean I didn't like it. It could just mean that my forgetful ass doesn't even remember what it was all about other than to say I do remember seeing it. Such is life at the advanced age of 33.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994) **
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03) **
3. Titanic (1997) **
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995) **
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998) **
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) **
9. Die Hard (1988) **
10. Moulin Rouge (2001) **
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984) **
12. The Matrix (1999) **
13. GoodFellas (1990) **
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990) **
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996) **
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006) **
20. The Lion King (1994) **
21. Schindler's List (1993) **
22. Rushmore (1998) **
23. Memento (2001) **
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001) **
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986) **
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004) **
30. When Harry Met Sally... (1989) **
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005) **
32. Fight Club (1999) **
33. The Breakfast Club (1985) **
34. Fargo (1996)
35. The Incredibles (2004) **
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004) **
37. Pretty Woman (1990) **
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) **
39. The Sixth Sense (1999) **
40. Speed (1994) **
41. Dazed and Confused (1993) **
42. Clueless (1995) **
43. Gladiator (2000) **
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988) **
46. Children of Men (2006) **
47. Men in Black (1997) **
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) **
50. The Piano (1993)
51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988) **
53. The Truman Show (1998) **
54. Fatal Attraction (1987) **
55. Risky Business (1983) **
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984) **
59. L.A. Confidential (1997) **
60. Scream (1996) **
61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988) **
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994) **
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985) **
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)
71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999) **
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006) **
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)
81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003) **
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987) **
84. Sideways (2004) **
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) **
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996) **
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) **
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004) **
91. Back to the Future (1985) **
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994) **
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987) **
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002) **
97. Glory (1989) **
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) **
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

83? Not too shabby. I did think I was going to do better as I had only missed out on four films up through #50. But then I hit that mark and it seemed to all be downhill from there. Oh well.

Oh hey, got some photos that I took from Swedish Days in Geneva this past weekend. You will have to click through to see the presentation applet. Sorry about that. I have no idea why it won't show in most readers (well, maybe it works in some readers, but certainly not in Google Reader).

They had a pretty sweet 20-odd kiosk set up of Wii Fit that we were all able to try out. My mom and I are hooked. Plus they were handing out some nifty Wii Fit ankle socks with the rubber nubbies on them. We managed to snag about nine pairs and are going to give away three pairs of them to the people (one pair to each person) who can come up with what we deem to be the most creative description of why they need them in 25 words or less. Katie and I will both be judging. This contest is open until my post goes live on Monday, June 30 and the winner will be announced during Snippet Wednesday on July 2. All replies should be left in the comments. No e-mails, please.

Have fun. Lie through your teeth if you feel the need. But, make it good, okay?

Fox on the run...

Snippet Wednesday #3 is now in the books! On the books? In/on... it's one of those two. Oh whatever.

Luke
'nuff said (see picture at right, courtesy of Wong/Getty).

Clarity
Oh man, Honda has announced the release of the FCX Clarity (although I do remember reading about this previously) and it had a ceremony in Japan with several celebrities being given the car. So my question is, how the heck do I get on this list of people who receive a freebie car? Any chance Honda is looking for bloggers who will whore their sites in exchange for one of these cars? If so, sign me up! I'll promo it and write about it! I'll even make it a new special event-based blogging day. I'll call it Honda Monday! So, um, Honda execs... how about it?

Pulp
Yep, it's time to nix Fun With Dead Trees. It never quite became the book review blog I had hoped it would be and it's my fault. Hell, when even I can't keep up with regular reviews (simply because my desire to read is nil), you know there's something wrong. I can't expect my guest reviewers to do all the work for me. So I'm killing it... check that, let's call it "recycling." Fun With Dead Trees will soon be no more and I'll be moving all my personal reviews to my GoodReads page where about half of them are now anyway. If you have reviews on FWDT and you'd like to keep copies, I'd suggest a quick copy/paste as they'll be gone in a week or so. Hurry on over!

Fox
So how many copies of Firefox did all of you download yesterday? I got three. One for my Mac, one for a loaner laptop, and one for my work computer. Needed to be done. Quite pretty.

Rage
You know, the discovery that road rage and bumper stickers are very closely correlated (no, not that they elicit road rage, but that people who have bumper stickers are more prone to it) shouldn't surprise me. And yet it does.

Hulk
Got this from Marty and Karl. Kev likey...

Find out Which Marvel Superhero Are You at  LiquidGeneration.com!

He ain't heavy, he's my brother...

Johnny Dangerously: I don't need no lawyer to handle my kid brutha.
Reporter: Wait a minute!?!? You... and he...
Johnny: That's right, we's bruthas.
Tommy Kelly: We were brothers.
Reporters: BROTHERS!?!?

That was the sort of reaction I had recently from one of my softball teammates. I had been e-mailing him about some team related stuff and explaining where Katie and I had gone on vacation a few weeks ago and that my brother and his wife had been there and he comes back with, "wow, you two are really good friends, aren't you? You go on vacation together and your wives get along. That's pretty cool."

Admittedly, I was scratching my head a bit. I thought everyone knew we were brothers. Sure, we don't exactly look alike. But enough people have told us they see similarities and can easily tell that we are, so I've given up any hope of denying his existence (I keed, I keed).

(Note: the photo is from our Vegas trip last year; you can click through to see the full-size copy on Flickr)

I typed back, "No. I hate the little bastard. He's my brother."

I can imagine he scratched his head to the point of bloodletting after this considering his shocked response.

"You're brothers?!?! Like same-parents brothers? Who's older???" I couldn't help but laugh.

So the next week, we're at our sponsor's bar after the game and I ask a few others on the team if they knew. Thankfully, they all did. But what they said next surprised me...

"Yeah, and he's [pointing at my brother] got you by a few years."

What???

"Um, how old do you think we are?"

[pointing at me] "About 30 and," [pointing at Brian] "about 32 or 33, right?"

"Nope," I said. "He's 29 and I'm 33, but I thank you wholeheartedly!"

That shit seriously blew my mind.

Jocko Dundee: I'm standin' here with my dork in my hand!

Sorry, that has absolutely nothing to do with this post. I just love that line. Oh hell, I love that entire damn movie.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I was checking out one of the cities where I used to live (Lexington, KY) via Google Map's Street View feature and found my old home. It seriously looks nothing like I remember it or like how I've seen it in photos my parents have. Amazing what 23 years can do to a place, eh? Oh, and that's not my actual address. Right street, wrong number.

Man, if I had the time, I could play with Google Maps for hours on end.

Picture pages, picture pages...

I'm really too busy dealing with trying to dress nice for work today to be mentally creative. Besides, yesterday's inaugural Wednesday Snippets was pretty damn long... epically long. So I'm going to let Adena, Brandon, and Karl be creative for me. Thanks y'all!

The concept:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name?

Here we have my results...

1. Classic KG: Kevin Garnett, 2. Creamy Three Cheese Macaroni, 3. Warrior (ironically, it's me!), 4. When I'm sleeping, I slow down my breathing...Living in dreams, dreams that come true...thinking of the color blue... ZZZzzzzzz..., 5. Joss Stone, 6. Anyone for Guinness?, 7. Kisumu - Lake Victoria, 8. 14th August 2007 / Day 226, 9. Retired homeless fisherman, 10. Katie in the sky with diamonds, 11. {wayward}, 12. October anniversary

Remember, tomorrow is my smallish celebratory contest. If you want to be able to play, you need to have left a comment sometime in my three years of blogging. So have at it!

You come from out of nowhere...

I'm feeling snippety today...

Iowa
You read stories like this and you just want to huddle in a corner and will time to rewind so that you can stop it from ever happening. Britt, I have no idea what to say other than I'm so, so sorry. Please know that we're there for you.

Sorry to hit you all so hard right in the beginning. But Britt is a friend and we here in the Blogosphere try to care about our friends as best we can. Even if just in a virtual sense.

I will try to be a bit more lighthearted from here on out. 'Tay?

Glasses
Anybody who says glasses aren't hot haven't seen this picture yet. Total hotness!

Florida
Here are the pictures from Florida that I promised. Apparently I took a lot more than I remember. I thought it was maybe 50 photos and it turned out to be 148 not including what I'm not uploading to Flickr (maybe another 10). So enjoy. And, yeah, you have to click through from your reader to see the photo applet or you can just view the album directly on Flickr.

Baby
Suze and Nat, aren't you proud of your countrymen?

Derailed
And this might be one of the reasons I'm glad I don't take public transit. Can you imagine if that y-split in the rail wasn't there to catch them?

Somebody put me together...

I thought I'd leave you with one quickie pre-written post of snippets to say good bye before Katie and I head out to sunny F-L-A (it is sunny right now, isn't it?).

1000
First, I just realized, much to my dismay, that my 1,000th post is coming up very soon! Would you like to know how soon? Next week. When I'm gone. When I have a guest blogger posting in my absence. And the lucky stiff? Ajooja. Yep, my 1,000th post hits on Wednesday. No pressure, ajooja. None at all. Actually, I think you'd probably do better than I would. No, this was not a set up. I didn't find out until I started writing up this post. Sorry.

Twitter
I'd also like to let you know that I'm going to have some connectivity thanks in part to Brandon twittering ("twotting" as Hilly would call it) me a reminder to actually update my Twitter page. Yeah, as shitty as my cell phone is, I can still Twitter from it! So I'm going to post some Twitterfied updates from Florida. I won't know how to read replies as, the last time I checked, you cannot receive text alerts just for messages that are replies (it's either all or nothing, I believe, and I subscribe to enough Twitter users that I'd hate to have thousands of texts coming through on my phone).

So, if you wanna see what's going on during our trip, click the Twitter link in the sidebar and you'll find out. Oooh... maybe I'll tack in one of those Twitter applets in the sidebar too. That could work. Check that, not a maybe, it's already added. That was easy.

Bumper
I also wanted to take this opportunity to share with you that I've now found my new car. Check it out!

Ain't she a beaut? There are some details about what I discovered on the car built into notes on the actual photo in Flickr so click on it to read them. Kinda funny. The owner has a pretty decent sense of humor.

Pictures of you, pictures of me...

Hey all. Not much to say as Katie and I are on the run to a baby shower in a few minutes. But I thought I'd share a few old photos of me that my mom recently found. Just got off my butt and scanned them yesterday. Should be fun for you all to pick me apart a bit...

My brother the Cub Scout and me the Life Scout on his way to Eagle.

Me, the Professor, and Figment at Epcot Studios.

In preparation for my senior year of riding the bench in high school football. Not sure what the red streaks are in the background. Wear and tear on the photos perhaps?

Talk to y'all soon.

This is a call to all my past resignations...

Oh hell, this can't be good...

Yep, that's from the United States District Court in Chicago and it had lots of questions about my eligibility and availability for... *GASP*... jury duty.

As Dr. Sam Beckett would say, "oh boy."

I'll tell ya right now, (S)HE'S GUILTY! FRY HIM/HER! (yes, your honor, I can be impartial and objective)

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): A simple math equation for you.

clean sheets
+ clean pajamas
       + clean mattress pad
            + open bedroom window
         + white noise from fan
two fantastic nights of sleep from which waking up is not particularly easy.

Ah, restful bliss!

And I'm hungry like the wolf...

Update: Please note that there are photos on this post that do not play nicely with feed readers.

Last night, Katie and I went to our first Chicago Wolves hockey game. They are a semipro team renowned for doing much better than our local pro team, the Chicago Blackhawks. And for a fraction of the pay. Considering their level of success, how much fun it is, how much cheaper it is, and my old love of hockey, you'd have thought we'd go to these regularly. We really should.

Oh, and I got to play with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel that night. That was fun, too.

So the Wolves lost to the Peoria Rivermen. It was still fun. And the best part was the Kiss Cam when it showed a guy who refused to kiss the girl next to him. Then she turned and kissed the girl next to her. That's hot. Didn't get a picture of that, though.

She's a lady...

122 photos, titles, and captions later and I'm finally done. It's the titling and captioning that kills me, by the way. Takes way too much time.

Anyway, enjoy! If you can't get the PictoBrowser below to work properly, just head on over to Flickr to view the album. Oh, and I gotta thank Alyssa for the tip on PictoBrowser. Cool little app.

Won't you be my neighbor...

Some snippets for you...

Photos
I promise, the pictures from Florida will be up and ready to go tomorrow. They're mostly loaded... only mostly loaded. I'll have an album up tomorrow.

Robo
I've been wondering when I would start reading gripes about that incessant political robocalling that happens around election time. That's when you receive a call from a political candidate only it's not really the candidate but a recorded message either from them or some random lackey. They just keep getting worse and they're driving me nuts. And I totally agree with this newspaper blogger who theorizes that some people probably vote against candidates that use it excessively simply because they're pissed. Probably not the best way to elect someone to office, but I totally understand it.

Sweaters
Hey, they have Towel Day for Douglas Adams, so why not this?
In celebration of what would have been his 80th birthday, March 20 is now being declared "Sweater Day" in honor of Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

I grew up loving Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. It was a fantastic show. Well, at least insofar as I remember it. Along with Electric Company, The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and reruns of The Brady Bunch, this show was the pinnacle of entertainment for me.

I think my favorite bit about the whole thing was the trolley and how it was the means by which we were transported between two different worlds... our reality and then the world of Make-Believe. I don't know why that simple transition did it for me, but it did.

So, yes, I will be wearing my sweater on March 20. Will you?

Bonus points if it's a zip-up cardigan and you actually sing the theme song to a coworker.

Hour
Hey, come join me in Earth Hour on Saturday, March 29 (8 p.m. CDT). It's a movement that started last year in Sydney, Australia, where people shut off all electronic equipment, cars, and other mechanized stuff and just, well, do what they would do if none of that stuff existed. Use your imagination. Not you, though, Avitable. Your imagination scares me.

Don't let the sun go down on me...

I'm really getting sick of this crap.

Just as things were starting to thaw out around here and I could start to see grass poking through our frozen wasteland, we get nailed... yet again. This is about the fifth or sixth serious snowstorm we've had this year. This does not include all the little snowfalls we've had as well. The land around here has been nothing but white for 10-12 weeks now.

Here are a couple pics to show how bad it was last night...

    

I had to go driving around 9 last night and just looked out at the farmland and areas that are being prepped for development and I swear, when you combine the snow, murky white clouds, and odd late-night natural and artificial lighting, I'd have sworn I was scouting locations for a remake of Doctor Zhivago.

And, as much as I normally like snow, I'm done. I can't take anymore.

Looks like Guth agrees.

I'm thankful Katie and I are going to Florida this weekend considering we're supposed to get more snow. I only hope we make it out in time. God knows how willing O'Hare Airport is to nix flights from its schedule.

I'm also going to do my part to try to usher out the snowy season... that's right, I'm ditching the snow theme from the blog. It's time to go! Nah nah hey hey goodbye and all that jazz. Let's hope the new theme (that Katie helped design) engenders some goodwill with Mother Nature.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): When I posted the testosterone and finger measurement info, I was taken aback at the fact that nearly everyone who replied said their pointer finger was shorter. There had to be somebody, I thought.

Then I realized I f'd up the graphic. I had the lines in the right place, but the words in the bubble were off. It was supposed to read "ring finger" and not "middle finger." So, if your ring finger is longer than your index finger, you have higher levels of testosterone than if they were the other way around.

Does this affect anybody differently who replied before?