kapgar

Ooh, ooh, I gotta crush on you tonight...

It's here!

That most loved and loathed of days for us bloggers!

That's right... it's Reveal Your Blog Crush Day!

(run away! run away!)

Still here? Well, you should've listened and just run. But, since you are here, I guess I should explain what's going on. Last year, Sizzle and Sandra decided that it was time for all of us to call out those that we crush on in the Blogiverse. Basically, that was it for rules. How many people you crush on is totally up to you, but any more than one or two, in my opinion, requires way more love and affection than I have in my shriveled up and deadened heart. Heh.

Actually, last year, I was more afraid of leaving someone out than anything else. So, in an attempt to make this as painless as possible and not make anyone freak out because I left them out, I opted to only pick a single blogger to crush on despite the fact that I probably crush on a ton of you. I picked Queen Hilly. Oddly enough, using the same rationale, she picked me. That was both thoroughly heartwarming and totally creepy. We both wrote our posts at about the same time and posted independently not knowing that we were crushing on each other nor that we both quoted Highlander in our posts. Yikes.

This year, though, I'm going to be a bit braver. No I'm not going nuts and listing all my crushes, because I'm still certain that I would forget one or two of you, which could lead to diminished perceptions of self worth and, God forbid, eSuicide. I'm not sure what that is, but I don't want to find out.

The way I'm proving my Blog Crush Bravado is by picking not just one girl, but also one guy to crush on. No, I'm not going eBi. I just feel totally secure in my eHetero-ness that I can point out a guy who I think is pretty darn swank as well. And that's just how it's gonna be.

So read on in the extended post to find out on whom I crush.

When the lights go down in the city...

How about some snippets for my first second day in a row of blogging in quite some time?

NBC-Ya-Later
NBC has now officially removed all their TV shows from iTunes. Well, you know what I have to say about that? Screw ya, NBC. I'll watch your shows on TV and if I miss them, I miss them. I will no longer make an effort to watch any of your shows if you're not going to allow me TO PAY YOU so I can put it on my iPod! You're saying no to my money... the one thing, aside from ratings (which should result in money anyway) that you like most. I was about to purchase an episode of Law & Order from last season to watch on my iPod, but since you don't want my money, I won't give it to you. Eat my shorts, NBC.

Protection
I have to thank Yet Another Girl for this one. The township of Manalapan, NJ, is demanding that Google hand over the identity, e-mail address, associated e-mails, blog drafts, and and other information they have regarding a blogger who uses the name "daTruthSquad." Apparently this person has written some critical comments about a township lawsuit and the town thinks it was actually written by the defendant in the case. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is stepping in to defend the First Amendment rights of the blogger and of Google in their protection of this information.

Favre
I know I'm a Chicago Bears fan and our natural adversary is anybody donning the green and yellow of the Green Bay Packers. However, Packer rifleman Brett Favre was just named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year and I am having trouble thinking of a more deserving guy. After a couple seasons of subpar play from him and his team, the man has come back in a big way this season at 38 years old, an age when most NFLers have hung up their spikes. Plus he has consistently been the top scorer on one of my fantasy teams and I drafted him as my backup. He was bumped to starter very early on. Maybe I'm supposed to hate the guy, yet I cannot help but respect him. He's amazing. Damn him for being a Packer.

Frosty
I was given an early birthday present from a friend in the form of a six pack of special winter brew by my buddies over at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, CO. It is the Fat Tire 2° Below winter ale and I am so jacked about trying it. From what I'm told, it can be a very hard beer to find as it sells out rather quickly upon arrival in stores.

Birthday
Nice segue, eh? Yep, tomorrow I turn a pair o' threes... 33 years old. I admit I'm old. But I'm still younger than you, Hilly! Hah! Yeah, that was mean. But she's constantly teasing me or expressing her disbelief that I'm not older than her. So she deserves the poke... um... yeah. I only wish ThinkGeek had a gift registry. Oh the fun I could have! Or maybe they do and I'm just too lazy to look. Oh well.

Power
The area I live in here in the Midwest is expecting one heckuva winter storm today and tonight. If you live in the area, please be safe. Stay home, put on pajamas, find emergency candles, and hunker down with someone you love. Best advice I can think to impart unto you.

His skin is green, but his mood is blue...

You would think that being an American male I would have an innate love of all things Thanksgiving. Heck, if there's one character trait hammered home by popular culture, it's that any holiday involving food is a favorite of men.

Sorry, not so much for me. Never cared much for it. Thanksgiving always seemed like a misnomer of a holiday to me. Kinda like Columbus Day, which is meant to celebrate the man who *cough* discovered North America and became a *cough* friend of the native peoples. We all know that, despite our grade school education, this entire image of Christopher Columbus is a load of crap. He wasn't even close to being the first one to discover North America and he was anything but kind to the natives.

That's how I view Thanksgiving. The image of Pilgrims and Native Americans sitting down side by side and enjoying a meal together always struck me as being too much of a stretch of how I perceive the reality of the situation to be. Maybe there isn't historical evidence to support my alternate theory, but it all still feels, well, wonky to me.

When you combine this historical skepticism with my continued quest to lose weight, you'll understand why I'm no friend of Thanksgiving.

But there is one good thing to come of the holiday this year... for the first time in a long time, Katie's not cooking the feast and we're not hosting the get together! Oh, it feels so good. We're actually going to spend the holiday with her family. We usually host it for my family, but we wanted a change this year. I think Katie is feeling a combination of relief and anguish. It's a relief to not have to worry about it, but then we watch shows on the Food Network and they're all about Thanksgiving right now, so she starts to feel like she's missing out to some degree. It's a painful mix for her.

What are your plans?

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): When I can find well-done schlock films, I tend to love them. Great stuff like John Waters' Cry-Baby make me feel like all's right with the world.

This is why I've been loving the short film Zombie Prom. It's schlock, pure and simple, mixed with comic art and a lot of singing.

Basically, it's the story of an idyllic little American town in the 50s whose world is changed by the arrival of an outsider, Jonny ("without the customary H"), who doesn't buy into the societal norms. At Enrico Fermi High School, he falls for a girl named Toffee but she dumps him because her parents do not condone of their relationship. So, in a fit of atomic adolescent angst, Jonny hurls himself into the cooling tower of the nearby Francis Gary Powers nuclear power plant and he returns as a zombie... a zombie who still wants to take Toffee to the prom, no less.

It's best to think of this film as what would happen if Cry-Baby, Pleasantville, The Mask, Grease, and Creepshow were all thrown in a blender and the puree button was left on for way too long.

Oh c'mon! This is great stuff! And it was free on iTunes when I downloaded it. While it's no longer free, it's still only $1.99. How can it get any better? Oh yeah, here's how... the line "This isn't about civil rights. This is about protecting the traditional values that made this country great" being uttered by none other than RuPaul. Yeah, that's right. Ru-friggin'-Paul ranting about traditional values.

Schlockity, schlock, schlock, and schlockers! Come to daddy!

[production image courtesy of ZombiePromtheMovie.com]

I walk the line...

We all know that each of us tends to stray away from the really personal topics on their blogs, even if they are so-called "personal blogs." My question to you is, what do you avoid talking about? Where is your proverbial "line in the sand"?

For me, I won't write about the stuff I think would legitimately embarrass someone I know and love. Sometimes, it's hard to know how someone might react to what I would say on here, so I will, on occasion, ask them if they're okay with me talking about it. But if it's something that is painfully obvious it will hurt their feelings or make them want to hide with shame, then I will avoid it.

I won't write directly about topics relating to work such as where I work, anything related to coworkers, or industrial secrets, etc. The only time work comes into play on this blog is when I write about a indirectly related topic like a lack of regular coffee or how I was unwittingly hired as an assassin. Better safe than Dooce'd, right?

However, I will write nearly anything about myself. When it comes to self-flagellation on a blog, I don't seem to have found my boundaries. I'm sure there are some topics I haven't written about, mostly because they seem wholly uninteresting (even moreso than what I already write about), I suppose. I'm sure there have been a few items I've omitted for the sake of preserving some shred of dignity although I cannot figure out at the moment what they could've possibly been because, so far as I can recall, I've embarrassed myself every which way to Tuesday.

So, I guess it's safe to say that I have yet to reach my personal line in the sand, but I know where to stop with those I love and with work. But that still leaves you.

Yeah, yeah Dave, I know I'm pandering for responses here, but it seems like a legitimate question to me.

Love will keep us together...

I started reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road the day before yesterday on my lunch breaks at work. By the end of yesterday I was 2/3 of the way through the book and beginning to formulate ideas for a review of the book for Fun With Dead Trees. That's when it struck me that I have four book reviews to write still.

Gah!! How did I get so behind??

And I'm about to have a fifth to add to the list. That's not right on so many levels. And, yet, I just don't want to write them. Still. Even after publicly embarrassing myself just now over my slackerdom.

To get over this hump and to give myself further excuse to not write these reviews, yet again, I'm going to throw a meme at you in the extended post.

Don't leave me high...

This is an excerpt of a conversation I had yesterday with my office mate (MyOM)...

Me: So I discovered why the break room has three different coffee pots. One decaf is for full strength and one is for half strength. The regular pot is for full strength caffeinated. They use one and a half packets of grounds for full strength and one packet for half strength although that doesn't necessarily add up mathematically.

MyOM: Sounds a bit too complicated for me.

Me: I agree. I think they should all be the way I like it... black, regular, and strong.

[awkward silence]

Me: Umm...

MyOM: Yeah, I'm not going to touch that one.

Me: It really didn't sound quite so bad in my head.

MyOM: It never does.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): It was announced a few weeks back that Radiohead was going to ditch iTunes when they release their new album, In Rainbows. Their complaint was that, on iTunes, people could buy just a song or two and not the entire album. They feel their album is one complete narrative and that it should be purchased as an all-or-nothing deal.

Artistically, I can understand where they're coming from. But, as a fan, I think they're being selfish and bullheaded. That's the beauty of iTunes and other online music stores, you can buy what you want when you want it. And you'll own the music legally.

Then Radiohead made another announcement... In Rainbows is being offered up on their Web site in either discbox or download format and you pay what you think it's worth to you. Whether the amount is $0, the normal $10-15 for an album, or even more, you pay what you feel the album should be valued at. It's an interesting concept and one I'm willing to try. I'm especially willing since I'm not as big a fan of Radiohead's newer tunes. I much prefer their old stuff like The Bends and OK Computer. But, with that offer in place, I'll definitely give this new album a shot.

Upon further examination, you are subject to a transaction fee if you order the download as opposed to the discbox version. Not sure how much that is yet, but we shall see. Plus, if you order the discbox, you get it a week ahead of those who buy the downloadable format.

So what is Radiohead worth to you?

Call me...

More snippety goodness...

Caffeinated
There was regular coffee in the breakroom today! Yay me!

Cub-boom
Here's a quick note to anyone who knows that I am a Cubs fan and would like to tease me over the fact that the Cubbies are now down by two games to the D-Backs... yep, I realize it. And no, it doesn't phase nor upset me in the slightest. I am so desensitized by disappointment that any Cubs failure really does nothing to me. My expectation for success is about as high as my expectation that a Will Ferrell movie won't annoy me. Yeah, pretty low.

Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle.

Freebies
I love how the Apple iTunes Store gives stuff away for free. Most of the time, it's a B-side to a new album, or a music video, or some song by an artist or new TV show you've never heard of in a hope to give them a popularity boost. Whatever. The key is that it's free.

However, when the freebie is something that I know and love, it's all the better. Take, for instance, the free episode of American Dad that is currently being offered. It was this past Sunday's "Vacation Goo" episode which I thought was brilliant and left me in stitches. And to make it free? Score!

Overlay
I know it's common for areas to be "redistricted," for lack of a better way to word it, in terms of area codes for phone service. Heck, since I've lived in Illinois, I have had four area codes. The reason for this is because the proliferation of new technologies like fax machines and cell phones over the past couple decades has necessitated more numbers within an area code and, thus, the coverage area must shrink and new area codes must be added.

But what I hate is when overlay area codes are applied. This occurs when a single geographic area has two area codes working in it rather than redividing the area. This has already happened in other parts of the Chicago suburbs and now it will affect my area as well. We will soon see the 331 area code work in our 630 zone and all phones, faxes, cells, etc., must be reprogrammed because we must now dial the full 10 (or 11, if you need to use the 1, but cellphones don't need them) digit number to make a local call.

GRRRRRRR!!!

Redesign
I'm pretty sure I mentioned this on here somewhere recently, but I am going to make the jump to WordPress pretty soon. My hope was to have all this done by the middle of this month, but it doesn't seem to be happening. I've got so much crap going on that doing anything to my blog other than posting is just an impossibility. Heck, I haven't even transferred my domain over to a new host yet and that's really the first thing I need to do to make it a reality.

But I do think I finally have a photo in mind for my banner. That's one baby step in the right direction.

Speaking of redesign, I have two sites that I worked on in the past for friends and family to which I need to make some stylistic tweaks. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered that all the source files for these sites are nowhere to be found. Original raw images? Nothing. Layered Photoshop images? Nada.

This ticks me off. Now I have to recreate the images from scratch. So not fun.

It's hip to be square...

Snip, snip...

Cube
For the first time in, I believe, five years, my Rubik's Cube is finally solved! Yay me!

Do you find the timing odd considering Dave's post a couple days ago? Well, yeah, I do have him to thank as the solution he linked to is what ultimately helped me solve it.

I had tried just about everything short of peeling the stickers off and putting them back on (the way I did it when I was a kid). Heck, I even tried to pry it apart (see below), but to no avail. I also tried online solutions and none of them, until Dave's link, worked worth a lick.

But it's done. And now that I know it's possible to solve it and how to do it, I may shuffle it back up and try it again. But not yet. I'd like some time to revel in my accomplishment.

WMPy WMPy WMPy
On that rare occasion that I listen to a CD at work instead of my iPod, I have to use Windows Media Player and, sorry kilax and Diane, but it sucks. I have the worst time trying to figure out the functionality of this piece of software. Everything is so scatterbrained that you can tell a committee worked to set it up.

However, I did get a little laugh from it yesterday. I put in a compilation CD that was not registered with the CDDb and, as expected, none of the CD's information registered in the player. But I still got this in the identifier box...

I love it! They don't know who it is, what album it is, or what genre it is... but I can still buy it!

Stupid Microsoft.

Daisies
I owe Dave an apology. I challenged him a bit on the new show Pushing Daisies which premiered last night. He said it was great and that we would all love it. I left a comment saying it better be as good as he keeps hyping it to be.

Well, he was right (yeah, yeah, stroke his ego some more, right?). It was quirky and fun and it had heart and it was beautifully rendered and wonderfully cast and... I just hope they can keep it up. Think the good ol' days of Tim Burton (Edward Scissorhands era) meets Dr. Seuss and you'll have some idea of the feel for the show. Then realize it's about a guy who can touch dead things and bring them back to life. But if he touches them again, they die forever and if he doesn't re-kill them within a minute, there will be drastic consequences on another living being around him.

Very cool.

C'mon and be my little good luck charm...

I suddenly felt old yesterday.

Very old.

Katie and I went to see the new Dane Cook starrer Good Luck Chuck. I know, I know, why didn't I read the Good Doctor's review first, right? I seriously should have known better when IMDb's keywords for the movie are listed as "Breasts / Topless / Temptation / Curse / Sexual Wiles." Normally, this wouldn't phase a guy, right? Well, I guess I still tend to look for some of the more traditional movie genre descriptors when selecting a film to watch in the theater. Descriptors like "Drama" or "Mystery" or "Thriller." Heck, it should've served as a warning that "Comedy" doesn't even come up as one of the first IMDb keywords. Even in the expanded list of keywords, the closest you get is "Sex Comedy."

Not that it was entirely horrible. I have seen worse. And this film did have a few (emphasis on "few") redeeming qualities. Alba was somewhat better than normal, which isn't saying too much, and I dug the guy that played her stoner brother, Lonny Ross, apparently of 30 Rock fame.

Yeah, okay, that was about it.

What made me feel old, though, were two scenes in the movie. One scene in which they do a video screen montage of Chuck (Dane Cook) having sex with a ton of women and the other being the final scene of the film.

In the first, I just sat stoically as the various sexual positions were thrown at us on screen. Honestly, it just didn't phase me in the slightest. This could have something to do with the occasional porn party that was held on my dorm floor as an undergrad. Even porn directors have more regard and cinematographic respect for the act of sex than the makers of this film. But the teenagers around Katie and me, who constituted 90% of the theater's audience, seemed to be in awe. It was one of the few times they shut up entirely. If I were the movie screen, I'd feel like I was burning from the intense stares cast upon it.

The final scene of the film, which I won't even describe, was one of those that was just completely unnecessary in the film. For me, it was akin to seeing Ben Stiller's zipper-impaled sack in There's Something About Mary... a movie I loathe. Both didn't help further the film in any way and just served as a means to get some yuks from the crowd. And they both did just that. The kiddies were cackling like hyenas. Not Katie and me, though. We just sat there wondering why we couldn't get up and walk out. We were transfixed, and possibly even slightly horrified. Perhaps we stuck around out of sympathy at what was being done to that poor... well, I'll leave it at that.

And I'll also end this "review" now and leave you with these little bits to help you decide if Good Luck Chuck is one you want to dish out your hard-earned cash for or not.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Katie and I had fun with Kim and Stephen and Diane and Evan this past Friday. We went out to Yu's Mandarin in Schaumburg to enjoy some good Chinese food and drinks and conversation (well, the conversation wasn't Chinese, thankfully). So a big "thank you" to all involved for making it a great evening!

What would Jay-Z do...

Well, the majority, or so it seemed, voted for 3:10 to Yuma with Shoot 'em Up in a close second. So my dad and I went to see the winner.

It was good, no question. It was very well acted and the cinematography was great. Of course, like you might expect of a western, it had a pretty slow build and some moments of boredom. But I've always found this to be a good thing in westerns as it helps convey the mood of life during that era in that part of the world. Would I recommend it? Sure. Enjoy it.

But movies like this always get me thinking... if I was alive during this era and this film was actually depicting life during that time accurately, who would I have been? What I mean is, knowing what I know about myself, what role would I be living out?

Of course, there are two sides to this coin. The first being what role I would like to see myself in, the romanticized vision of how I would like to see my life. Then, on the other side, there's the reality of who I think I legitimately would have been.

Take 3:10 to Yuma. Would I have been the destitute rancher trying desperately to make ends meet who takes on the epic challenge to earn money and, ideally, respect from his family like Dan Evans (Christian Bale)? Or am I the bad ass criminal mastermind who would just as soon shoot his fellow human being than talk to it like Ben Wade (Russell Crowe)?

There are several other characters that warrant consideration in this question as well... bounty hunter and loner Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda), the willing but not necessarily well suited to the task Doc Potter (Alan Tudyk), Wade's loyal second in charge Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), and many others.

I'm not sure which character I idealize myself as being. Each has his promises and flaws. But, in reality, I'm likely either Dan Evans or Doc Potter. Both are kinda in the wrong place at the right time to make good on their lives and turn it into something memorable even if they shouldn't be doing so.

Another movie that makes me think like this is Brian DePalma's classic The Untouchables. Would I be the lawman (Kevin Costner), the criminal mastermind (Robert DeNiro), the unwilling hero (Charles Martin Smith), the aging cop itching to make a difference regardless of the steps taken (Sean Connery), the gunslinger (Andy Garcia), the second in command (Billy Drago), or just some sideliner? While this may sound rather similar to the options in 3:10 to Yuma, you must consider the setting difference and question whether that would have an effect on your decision. In one, you are in the very lawless rural west where anything goes and you have few options regarding how to make a living. In the other, while it's equally lawless, you have options for employment that could keep you on the straight and narrow.

Oh so many questions.

I may just be overthinking the moviegoing experience.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Woo hoo! Tonight is dinner with some bloggers! A triple date with diane and her man, Evan, as well as Kim and her new hubby, Stephen. I do feel bad for Katie, Stephen, and Evan, though, as none of them are bloggers. But at least they can sit there are all roll their eyes at us together. Heh.