kapgar

Why dance around to the same damn song...

I told you I'd post it today, and I posted it today. Whether my RSS feed updates is outside my control. So for that I'm sorry.

But I welcome you to the 2009 Primetime TV Kappy Awards!

A few notes... these awards relate to shows as they aired in the 2009 calendar year (with one exception detailed below), not the traditional network television season, not the non-traditional cable television season, not nothing like that. Just what's going on. Coolness? 

First, the list of shows we've watched over the last year from which these awards are derived:

Mad Men The Big Bang Theory How I Met Your Mother Castle Life Life on Mars The Closer The Cleaner The Office Criminal Minds Burn Notice Psych The Good Wife NCIS: Los Angeles 24 True Blood

Flashpoint Chuck My Boys Royal Pains Grey's Anatomy NUMB3RS Private Practice White Collar Men of a Certain Age 30 Rock Cougar Town Modern Family Gary Unmarried Dexter Damages The Amazing Race (Fall 2009)

I think that's about it. God, I hope that's about it.

Let's proceed...

Acting Awards:

• Best Dramatic Acting - Jon Hamm, "Don Draper," Mad Men
• Best Comedic Acting - Jim Parsons, "Sheldon Cooper," The Big Bang Theory
• Best Dramatic 1-2 Punch - Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic, "Richard Castle and Kate Beckett," Castle - sure, this is borderline between drama and comedy, but you'll just have to accept that I'm using it as drama
  
• Best Comedic 1-2 Punch - James Roday and Dule Hill, "Shawn Spencer and Burton 'Gus' Guster," Psych (at right) - this one is more comedy than drama despite being a cop show like Castle
  
• Best Dramatic Ensemble - Burn Notice - and, if you're smart, you're tuned in to the Burn Notice marathon on USA as I type this
  
• Best Comedic Ensemble - The Big Bang Theory
• Best Male Comeback - (tie) Nathan Fillion, "Richard Castle," Castle and Ed O'Neill, "Jay Pritchett," Modern Family
• Best Female Comeback - Courtney Cox, "Jules Cobb," Cougar Town
• Best One-Off Guest Role - Wil Wheaton, "Wil Wheaton," The Big Bang Theory
• Dark Alley Award - Jimmy Smits, "Miguel Prado," Dexter - yeah, his run on the show aired in late 2008, but not being a Showtime subscriber, I didn't have it available to me until 2009; and he was just too bad ass to not have earned this designation

Show Awards:

• Best Drama - Castle
• Best Comedy - The Big Bang Theory
• Canceled Too Soon - (tie) Life on Mars and Life
• Most Overstayed Welcome - The Cleaner - it was amazing how quickly this show went from really exciting and a great vehicle for Benjamin Bratt to a lot of the same old, same old... and then cancellation 
• Lost in Left Field - Grey's Anatomy - this show needs to find its way and we keep hoping it will but it just adds too many new characters all the damn time in a pathetic attempt at self resuscitation and it consequently loses us
• Where the Hell'd You Go - Flashpoint - this is simply because we love this show and we want it back
• Most Surprising Show (in a Good Way) - Cougar Town - we started watching this not expecting much at all and darn if it doesn't make us laugh harder than many shows
• Second Chancer - Modern Family - we watched the first two episodes and didn't really care too much for it; then, due to prompting from one of Katie's students, we started again about a month or so later and now we love it

Network Awards:

• Best Network - USA - c'mon! It has Burn Notice, Psych, Royal Pains and White Collar!
• Worst Network - NBC - according to Katie, we have one night of television (Thursday) that we watch and they killed an entire primetime hour every night of the week for a Jay Leno variety show that couldn't possibly be any worse than it is, or could it?

Would you counternominate any actors or shows in these categories? Please share!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I always intend to do one of those year-end wrap-ups that so many other bloggers do so well, but I get so locked up in these awards I do that I forget.

How about we talk about the actual day instead? So how'd you spend it?

Katie and I did the same thing we like to do each year... wine, Chinese food, pajamas, and movies!

Can it be any better?

He's makin' a list...

I know, I know. Christmas is done... STOP USING CHRISTMAS CAROLS AS POST TITLES!!! I will make a concerted effort. I promise.

Not all of you are Twitter users, I would presume, right? For those of you who are, you know that the most recent gauge of cyber-inclusiveness has nothing to do with your ability to avoid being dealt the Facebook deathcard known as unfriending (I'm still in shock as to how this got "Word of the Year" accolades... whatever). It's all about being added to someone's Twitter List these days.

Since I'm still working on my Top TV Shows and Top Movies lists for this year, I thought I'd spend a day discussing another Top measure that happens to come in the form of Lists: all the Twitter Lists I belong to.

Sure, this is completely me tooting my own horn, I admit. But it sounds like fun.

Currently, I've been "Listed" 19 times by various folks. And I want to point out a few of them real quick.

 

While I'd like to be able to say that this is as dirty as it could be perceived by gutter-minded individuals such as myself, it sadly is not. She actually runs a Web-based cupcake company in the Chicago suburbs. Bummer.

I have always thought of myself as delightfully perverted. I'm proud knowing that my efforts were noticed by you, @hismuse! Thanks.
 
 
I'd really hate to see his wish-dead list. I'm afraid to look and see if there actually is one.

Well, we'll just have to work on that one, won't we?

@neilochka, I would definitely sit there and hold your hand through this ordeal... from the other side of the bars. Feel free to call me. Just don't expect bail money.

While I love being on his cool-mfers list, I think he and I should both create a list called cool-bald-mfers and be the charter members!

This is the ultimate sign of cyber acceptance, IMHO. @avitable is looking pretty damn hot these days and with his increased fitness level, I would assume comes an increased capability level in the sack, right big guy?

Can you tell I'm really reaching for blog fodder right now? I'd make a New Year's Resolution that I will come up with higher quality posts and maybe post more often, but I can't guarantee that the Angel of Inspiration will bind herself to that resolution.

So how was your Christmas this year? Big haul? Small haul?

I'm happy with how it turned out. Several books, some giftcards and cash to buy some new appliances in the kitchen, a copy of Rock Band: Beatles for the Wii (no drumkit, sorry), and, from Katie, a Blackhawks jersey (to be worn at the Blackhawks game for which the two BiLs and the FSiL got us tickets) and a copy of the Monty Python's Flying Circus 16-disc box set, among other things. That's pretty sweet! I can't wait to start watching it. I got Katie a few things including a really pretty garnet necklace. She seemed happy. I guess that's all that counts.

And, in case you're interested, here are some photos from the various Christmas celebrations we attended this year (Facebookers, click through).

But one of my favorite photos of the evening was just a little experimental picture I snapped. Not that it's a true mystery photo like the ones I used to post. Heck it should be easily identifiable. But it's just a different point of view on it. Let me know if you figure out what it is.

The gift you gave is gonna last forever...

I know that there are some of you who actually look forward to Snippet Wednesday. And I've kinda left you hangin' the last coupla weeks. Last week it was an unfinished Snippet Wednesday due to Katie's crash. Yesterday, I just plain ran out of time.

So I'm gonna make it up to you with a special edition Snippet Thursday: The Reckoning!

Still love me?

Katie
Tomorrow marks Katie's official final day of student teaching. However, she got her grade for student teaching as well as her portfolio yesterday. As on both! That means she is graduating with a 4.0! I'm ridiculously proud of her! Mah baybee gotz intelluhjints!

Taste
My IT Director at work was in my office for a meeting yesterday when he looked on my cubicle cabinet and saw a promo card for the release of The Flaming Lips new album. This led to a discussion about music. Turns out:

• My IT Director loves The Flaming Lips.
• My IT Director loves Pete Yorn.
• My IT Director loves Bob Mould and Hüsker Dü.
• My IT Director loves The Replacements.
• My IT Director loves Tom Petty.

Clearly, my IT Director rawks.

Digital
I went to Best Buy yesterday to look into how much copies of The Hangover and Inglourious Basterds were on DVD. I also was curious if they came with digital copies. Both do. But, thanks to Ren's recent warning, I began to read the small print. Expirys were not a concern, thankfully. But compatibility was. Basterds is fine, but Hangover is neither Macintosh nor iPod/iTunes/iPhone compatible. Why in the name of Christ would a distribution company not want their product to work on the top-selling digital player of all time? Sure, I can probably rip and convert it without a problem (I do have Handbrake and iSquint and all those other cool little apps), but just loading the digital copy is so much easier. 

Inglourious Basterds digital copy? WIN!

The Hangover digital copy? EPIC FAIL!

Oh, and I alerted some customers and employees to this fact as well. They were dumbfounded by the stupidity of it all.

Blu-Ray
I actually have a Blu-Ray disc. My very first Blu-Ray disc. I don't own a Blu-Ray player, but I have a disc for when that day does come. I don't know how many of you subscribe to e-newsletters from restaurants and whatnot. Well, I do. And I get all kinds of free birthday shit as a result. Usually they amount to free desserts or, if I'm lucky, free entrees.

I got über lucky this year thanks to Disney who offered me a free Blu-Ray disc for my birthday. Say whaaaa? Of course I could only choose from a list of five movies. But it's free. So who cares? I chose Enchanted. Hey, Katie and I enjoyed that movie. And it's got Amy Adams. Can't go wrong with Amy Adams. Both my wife and Sizzle know of my obsession with her very well.

Gift
I think I've finally figured out what I'm going to get for Katie for Christmas. I usually have her gift done by now. This, I believe, is the latest I've waited to buy something. I just want to do a little research first before I actually buy it. There's no way in the name of all that's holy that she'll be expecting this. Not one iota of a chance.

Fox
I had a plan last week to write up a big glowing review of a movie Katie and I went to see, Fantastic Mr. Fox. I had it all pre-written in my head and was sitting down to type when I decided, instead, to read through my subscriptions in Google Reader. This was when I noticed Avitable had done the same thing and pretty much had the exact same opinion of the movie as Katie and I. So, if you'd like to read about a fantastic film, sure to be one of my tops of the year, head over to Av's digs and read up. 

Medley
This is simply too cool.

Well, adios for now.

What do we have in common...

Tony Esposito

 
Rickey Henderson

Frank Thomas

Zackary Bowman

Hmmm...

What do you get if you gobble down sweets...

*Oink* Remember to eat turkey this Thanksgiving, not ham! *Oink*

This Public Service Announcement brought to you by He1n1e the Wonder Pig

Oh yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe we're actually going to do this, but, for the first time in four or five years, Katie and I are going to take part in some Black Friday sales. Oh shoot me now. Here's where and what we're shooting for:

Old Navy - Free copy of Rock Band: Lego with purchase of $20 or more. And you get a free guitar with a purchase of Rock Band 2. I've played a few tracks worth of that game and I enjoy it. So why the hell not? And they do have it for the Wii. Old Navy opens at 3 a.m. Really, shoot me now. I was serious.

Target - Psych, season 3, on DVD for $12.99. This can be done anytime before noon, I believe. And, if Target holds to their style from last season, they'll offer rainchecks if it's sold out.

OfficeMax - Vivitar ViviCam DVR 810 HD Camcorder. This would definitely make video posting easier. And it's only $69.99. I'm kinda tired of using the video functionality on my point-and-shoot camera. I want higher quality video.

We'll see what happens.

Black cat, nine lives, short days, long nights...

Welcome to a vacation-borne Snippet Wednesday. Of course, it's only a vacation day for me, not Katie. How's that work? In Illinois, kids get freakin' Casimir Pulaski Day off, but not Veteran's Day? And I actually do get a real holiday like Veteran's Day off but not some weird, never-heard-of-outside-Illinois-borders holiday? WTF?

I guess I should just shut up and not complain, eh?

McAdams
Rumors are swirling that Rachel McAdams may be cast in the next Spider-Man film as Felicia Hardy/Black Cat. Rock on! This might actually help make up for that travesty of a third film that has officially ruined the series for me. But I think they'll have to recast Peter Parker/Spider-Man as well now. Rachel is too much woman for Tobey Maguire. Sorry, dude, but it's the truth.

CaptureMyChicago
Well, I finally got semi-firm (heh heh) word on when the CaptureMyChicago book will be out and winners announced... December 9! When I first placed the order for the book, it said it would likely ship in mid-November. Aye aye aye! I gotta wait another month? And they won't announce who is in the book until the launch party on the 9th. This is brutal! I wanna know! Stupid launch party.

Titans
Okay, sure the teaser trailer for Clash of the Titans looks a little overwrought with CG and more than just a bit fakey. But, damn I think this is gonna be one good ol', popcorn-munching fun fest of a film. BRING ON THE TITANS!!

Sorry it got recentered a little funny. I had to resize to fit the width of my central content column. Well, it was supposed to resize, instead it was cropped. Never had that happen before. If you wanna see it in all its glory, go check out either Geeks of Doom or Cinematical.

Veterans
On a more serious note, do take a moment to remember those who have served in the Armed Forces. A really great tribute came last year from my buddy LeSombre. Quite moving.

Never forget.

Love you every day, girl...

2008-2009

2007-2008

2006-2007

2005-2006

2004-2005

2003-2004

2002-2003

2001-2002

Eight fantastic years of memories.

Happy anniversary, hon.

I love you.

Somebody else's body, someone else's head...

I swear I must be the only person in the history of the working world who doesn't pay attention to when federal holidays are happening.

This past Monday at work, everyone was discussing their plans for the upcoming long weekend.

How did I respond? "Long weekend? Huh?"

Hey dumbass, Labor Day is this coming Monday, we have a three-day weekend.

I'm really bad like this. It must be a disease. If people didn't tell me, I'd probably show up at work anyway. Labor Day, Memorial Day, Veterans' Day, and a few others, I'm sure. Heck I'd likely even show up on Thanksgiving despite the sweet smell of food cooking in our kitchen. That's how dense I am to these things.

Aren't we all supposed to be programmed to think of nothing but holidays? What's wrong with me?

I just got final word that I've been accepted into a local citizen's fire academy. No, I'm not becoming a firefighter despite my lifelong obsession with being one. I'm just going through an eight-week academy where residents get to learn about the stuff that firefighters do.

Oh, but we do go through variations of the actual training and situations that firefighters face and we get to wear the gear and go running into a live-fire drill. How sweet is that?

I'm hoping I can get some pictures if the circumstances allow (not while in the fire, obviously... Kapgar Flambé... bad form).

Easy as 1-2-3...

Hey everyone. Hope you're having a very happy 7/8/9 Snippet Wednesday. Don't forget to make it an über-celebration by going hog wild for a whole second at 12:34:56 p.m., too!

Obsessed?
I was driving behind a little PoS car this morning when I noticed an odd license plate. It said "TWI HARD." I wasn't quite sure how to take it until I read the license plate frame that declared "My heart belongs to Edward" and was accompanied with a litany of bumper stickers in the rear window including "I like my men cold, dead and sparkly" and "My other car is a shiny, silver Volvo" (Edward's car), among others. Yeah... obsessed much? I've got one thing to say to that and I'm going to let the Count from Sesame Street do it for me...

Rollin'
Also on the way to work, I was driving up a hill when I saw a can in the road up ahead of me rolling uphill. Yes, uphill. That had to be some strong wind. Not that Illinois is full of mighty hills by any stretch of the imagination. Heck, I live in an area where "mountainous" is used to describe any natural formation that is greater than 100 feet above sea level. Ah, scenic northeastern Illinois!

Redesignland
Did I mention that Tales From Redesignland has returned? Oh happy day!

1901
A couple weeks back, my Pitchfork buddy Eric introduced me to a French alt/electronic band called Phoenix by way of the video for their song "1901." I was hooked. So I purchased the "1901" single... only to receive a copy of it free the next day as part of a Facebook indie rock sampler. Go fig, eh? There's something to be said for patience.

Deck'd
Tweetdeck supports multiple accounts simultaneously now??? Oh, this is dangerous. Seriously dangerous.

Rochambeau
And in pure LeSombre tradition, I will save the final Snippet for myself in anticipation of the day when the apocalypse will be determined by a game of Rock-Scissors-Paper (and I hope the other guy picks "paper").

Gave proof through the night...

Katie and I hope you all had a great Fourth of July (whether you observe the U.S. Independence Day or not). We had fun with Katie's brother and his girlfriend at the fireworks in St. Charles, IL. We were going to head up to the Wisconsin Dells, but the weather kinda battered down that plan. So we stuck around here and just did our normal thing. And we loved every second of it.

If you weren't able to see any fireworks of your own, here are a couple videos I captured on my Blackberry for you to enjoy. Surprisingly good quality for a phone-based video camera. I was impressed.

Pyrotechnic Uber Fun from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Pyrotechnic Uber Fun, Finale from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Oh say can you see...

I'm having a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that not only is tomorrow the U.S. Independence Day, but that we're already halfway through 2009. Just another half to go before we're making contact with the alien races according to bad Roy Scheider sci-fi films.

But the problem is that since the Fourth of July falls on a Saturday, a lot of employers are not sure just how to deal with giving days off to employees. I am off work today, the day before the holiday, since I'm an 8-5, Monday thru Friday office rat. Katie, who for now only works Monday thru Friday, but for an employer who is open seven days a week, won't see a day off. Her day off would be tomorrow, but since she doesn't work Saturdays, she gets nada. That sucks. So I'm here at home typing to all of you while she toils away at work.

What to do... what to do...

Wake-up? Check.

Check e-mail? Check.

Catch up on Google Reader? Three-quarters of a check.

Shower? (sniff) Nowhere near a check. Yet. I promise I'll get to work on this one, not just for your sake but my own as well.

I think I might also check out my neighbor's garage sale that started up this morning. I saw him out placing signs last night and, as much as I used to love garage saling (can that actually be a verb?) with my mom as a kid, I haven't been to one in years. And I'm told, with the economy in the shithole state it's in, garage sales are totally en vogue. Maybe I should join the hipness and go a salin'.

Do you all garage sale at all? Any cool finds? My curiosity is piqued.

But first, I will shower, and I will download my free Star Spangled Banner from Amazon's MP3 store. Yep, you read right. In honor of the holiday, the Amazon MP3 store is giving away one free copy of any version of "The Star Spangled Banner" that they have in stock. Just click on the link above and follow the instructions. There are a ton to choose from. Once I hit number 400 in my browsing, I gave up looking. I had no idea that song had been recorded so many times.

And, shockingly, as much as I thought I'd go for, say, Jimi Hendrix's classic rendition or one from KISS's Alive performances (Ace was on fi-yah playing that one), I instead nabbed one by Branford Marsalis and Bruce Hornsby that was recorded for Ken Burns' Baseball documentary series. This recording really takes me back to my documentary filmmaking days (well, not that I made one on my own, but I was part of a team that made one in grad school). Not to say I'm a huge Ken Burns fan, but the use of music in Baseball was so fantastic and so memorable that it's pretty akin to how Quentin Tarantino chooses music in his movies. Anytime you hear the song afterward, all you can think of is the scene from the movie where it was featured. Just try to tell me you can listen to "Stuck in the Middle with You" by Stealers Wheel and resist the urge to lean over and nibble on your neighbor's ear.

Yeah, okay, anyway. So head over there and nab your favorite version now. Offer ends July 6.

Nuh uh. No way. Not a chance in Heaven or Hell.

Well, maybe I would. But I would have to do some severe steeling up of my gut first. Holy Christ a mighty! Welcome to the new Sky Deck on the outside of Chicago's Sears Tower (fuck Willis Group Holdings).

Stupid SkyDeckChicago Flickr group didn't enable the Flickr photo sharing option, so I did it myself! But I still followed all their linkback rules. So ha!

Update: I did find some cool swag at the garage sale! Checky check!

The price of gas keeps on rising...

It's weird, but you would think that a snippet or bullet post would be easier than a regular post. But these last two weeks have been difficult finding stuff to fill in the holes for Snippet Wednesdays. To think I'd have to take a break to recharge from what should be a gimme day of blogging is kinda unnerving. I shall power forward.

Lost
No, not the TV show. Actually, it's a reference to the fact that I'm pretty certain I've lost some weight! Why just "pretty certain"? Because I don't weigh myself, too arbitrary a means of measuring success when getting in shape, IMHO. I prefer to measure based on how my clothes fit and how much of a workout I can continuously do and not die. I'm pretty certain I've lost weight, though, because I was able to tighten my belt one more notch without sucking in my gut. I've never been on this belt notch before. I'm finally giving the nearly worn-out hole a bit of a break (wow, that really sounds bad if you have no context). Oh and I'm up to one mile of running consecutively. May not sound like much, but it's a big deal for me. And I've kept it up for the last two times I've gone running. Woo hoo!

Fridge
Dammit, why won't our fridge close anymore? It used to be that anytime the door was open, it would automatically swing itself shut. Now it swings to within an inch of being shut but won't finish the job. And there's nothing in the way obstructing it at all. Stupid fridge. Yeah, I just got up after that last snippet to close it... again.

Gas
Y'know? I've always been kinda curious. Now I know. Plus, it's a cool T-shirt. I want one. Just for the reaction.

Effects
While I was at the gym last night, I saw the strangest commercial regarding a lawsuit against the company that makes a drug called Requip. The drug is meant to abate tremors caused by Parkinson's Disease and Restless Leg Syndrome. However, the side effects of the drug are what is at issue in this suit. I thought I'd heard about nearly every potential side effect out there... constipation, dry mouth, difficulty sleeping, irritability, et al. But the one at issue here takes the cake... compulsive gambling. Apparently there is a big problem with people who take Requip becoming compulsive gamblers. I think I just solved the world's economic woes. The government just needs to spike water supplies with Requip and what little remains of our hard-earned cash will be cycled back into the economy via excessive gambling! It's brilliant! Move over, Tim Geithner! There's a new treasury secretary in town! And he's got a plan that will work!

Fools
Happy April Fool's Day. Yeah, I got nothin' this year. Sorry to disappoint. Actually I did think of something last October I was going to do for April Fool's Day, but I have since forgotten it. I knew I should've typed it up as a draft post. Dammit.

Every silver lining's got...

And you may be noticing that "touch of grey" here. Yeah, I redesigned the blog... again. It's been a little while and I was getting kinda sick of the M&Ms as much as I love the picture. But, in the spirit of spring cleaning, why not?

I've tried to simplify everything in the world that I possibly could.

• External links are standardized using something I forced Illustrator to make to my specifications (Illustrator and I are not good friends, but we worked through it this time). So now I can add and delete links easily.
• Typepad introduced navigation bars... finally. So I have one with links specific to the blog or me.
• I eliminated much of the kitschy crap in the sidebar that I've been clinging on to for so long. Save for my Hear Me list, which will always be there.
• I created a graphic for the TUAs so I can stop typing the damn thing in all the time.
• And I now have a Google search box. The free one because I'm cheap. So you all will have to deal with ads on the results page. Sorry.

But most importantly, I've created a relatively neutral looking site using black and white images in the banner that can easily be swapped as I see fit. Changing color photos was a pain because it requires changing the rest of the color scheme of the blog to fit with the photo. This is going to be so much easier and more fun.

Oh and before you all go running off to Kim screaming, "Ohmigod! Kapgar thiefed your ideas and design elements!" I already showed her. I will admit to you all that I love Kim's design on her blog and a lot of my ideas and thought process was derived from the simplicity and beauty of her site. So, yeah, I was inspired by her design. But it wasn't until I finished my design that I realized just how inspired I must have been. I was feeling like said thief so I e-mailed her with a link to the design to either garner her blessing or face her wrath.

She gave her blessing and said she really liked it. Honestly, she did. I'm not making this up. And I thank her for it because I really got worried that I was either going to have to change it after all that work or stick with it and alienate her as a friend. And I really like this design so you see where this is going. ;-)

I hope you all like it, too. And for any new readers who were just getting accustomed to the M&M header, sorry.

This past weekend, the BiL, Scott, and his lady faire, Becca, hung out with Katie and I. We had dinner and then went to Best Buy to find either a movie or video game to play. We found both but stuck with the latter in the form of Trivial Pursuit on the Wii.

This game is serious fun! I haven't had this much fun playing Trivial Pursuit, well, ever. Some nice animation to the movement of the gamepieces around the board, the controls are smooth, it has a cool little stat tracker that runs along the bottom of the screen like a CNN newscast, and you can now have visual questions unlike the standard board game.

My only complaints are that it doesn't use your Miis as characters and it seems to have a fixation on modern Chinese cinema. Severe fixation.

But, otherwise, it is a great game and was totally worth the $40 we spent on it.

Oh yeah, and Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all. I will be hanging out tonight at Claddagh in Geneva. So if you're in the vicinity, stop in for a pint and say hello!

It's hip to be square...

Happy Square Root Day, everyone!

No, I'm not making veiled references to my own social awkwardness using vintage 50s expressions. It's actually an unofficial math geek holiday and, while I don't consider myself a math geek by any stretch of the imagination, I gotta admit that hearing today was Square Root Day and then reading the explanation did make me smile a little bit.

I only hope it brings a little of your own geekiness to the forefront and makes you grin a bit as well.

And, in 11 days, let your inner geek out again with Pi Day! And then we party again on July 22 for Pi Approximation Day. Oh let the geeky flow.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): AHHHHH!!! Huey Lewis and the News are coming to Naperville for Ribfest this summer! Last summer it was my boys Big Head Todd and the Monsters. This year, it's a chance to relive the second concert I ever attended in my life (first was Kenny Rogers and Crystal Gayle, but my parents picked that one and took me; Huey was one I wanted to go to).

My mom and I saw Huey and the guys rock it at the now-defunct Poplar Creek Music Theater back in like 1987 or '88 and they were one of my favorite bands for the longest time. And now, a chance to see them again?

Yeah, I'm busting out my orange puffy vest and acid-wash jeans, baby!

Okay, not so much the acid-wash, but I'm totally gonna rock the life preserver.

Heh, I think this is the first time my title has tied into both my main post and my TUA. Odd how that worked out.

I'm sorry boys, but you're just too darn loud.

Candy, candy, candy, I can't let you go...

Just another Snippet Wednesday, oh-ee-oh-oh...

Retire
Considering the state of the stock market and investments, I'm happy as hell that I'm not planning to retire anytime soon. But on that topic, I did receive a rather funny mailing from one of my retirement benefits providers. On the outside of the envelope, it read, "Take a deep breath. It's still a great time to contribute to your retirement." I liked the "Take a deep breath" touch. Made me laugh.

Isaak
For the first time in seven years, my one and only true male crush is releasing a new album! Chris Isaak has an 18-track album (if you buy the extended version from iTunes; otherwise it's 14 tracks) called Mr. Lucky and it's pretty damn good. I have always liked Chris Isaak. Like many, my first exposure to him was getting all wet and twisty with the sheer hotness known as Helena Christensen in the "Wicked Game" video and his voice has had me snared ever since. Yeah, I'm secure enough in my manhood to admit to this crush.

Logs
Has anybody read about this push by some Republican Senators to force all ISPs, colleges, etc. to maintain usage logs for up to two years? This so-called "Internet Safety Act" applies to anyone that offers a Wi-Fi access point to computer users... even if it's password protected... and a home Wi-Fi network. What a load of crap. So you mean if I'm hosting a fantasy football draft at my house and I have friends over logging in, I need to keep all their personal records on file for two years should one of them be busted for illicit goings-on on the Web down the line? Two words... "horse" and "shit." Now, mind you, it hasn't passed yet and if the failure of it to pass the first go-round is any indication, it might never pass. But the prospect of it just completely sucks.

Paczkis
 I don't know if the damn things are pronounced PAHTCH-key, POOCH-key, POONCH-key, PAHZ-key, or whatnot, but they're damn good and I bought a dozen of them yesterday for my coworkers and Katie and you'd swear that I'm the most popular guy in the world. Some people brought in ones made at grocery store bakeries. I bought the real deal from one of the few independent bakeries still around this area. And they went over like gangbusters. And it's a good thing I did this yesterday, because...

Ash
...today's Ash Wednesday and Katie and I are gonna try to give up sugar for Lent. Not all sugars as it's nearly impossible to truly give them up without going broke buying special varieties of all food in existence. But just in the more common items like soda, candy, ice cream, pastries, etc. We're also going to do the whole no-meat-on-Friday thing that those wacky Catholics do. This does put a snag in our Pizza Friday routine. Guess we'll be sticking to cheese and spinach. But, the way we figure it, why not use Lent as an excuse to give this stuff up and see if we actually lose some weight in the ensuing 40 days, right? My only problem with it?

I'M NOT CATHOLIC.

*sobs*

And I will try to fix you...

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Katie! Woo hoo! I love you, hon.

And now the revelation that she's at home sick for it. In fact, she's been sick all weekend. I swear it's a bit of a curse for us lately, those blasted holidays. I was sick last Easter, she and I traded off over Christmas, and now she's sick for Valentine's Day and her birthday. I think I'm next in the queue and it appears as though Easter is the next viable holiday that can be illness ridden. Oh yay! Can't wait.

So, um, yeah, it was a pretty uneventful weekend. Katie was too tired and sore to go anywhere so we stayed in. But she slept a lot of the weekend so I watched some TV and movies, cleaned within reason (nothing noisy that would wake her up), and I fixed a few things online.

For one, I weeded through my Twitter following list and eliminated about 20 people I was following. There were several groups and whatnot that I had followed that I feel just weren't worth following because I never really paid much attention to their Tweets. So what's the purpose, right?

I also ditched my MyBlogLog profile and services box as I discovered that FriendFeed offers many more services in their repertoire to which I can link including three that I had to list outside the MBL box because, despite my suggestions, they never added them as services (Plurk, Vimeo and Goodreads). And I can eliminate the profile information to make it just a box of service links. So I've got that going.

Lastly, I finally fixed up my blogroll. It's a static page on my blog now instead of being the pop-out box with the Blogrolling list. It's been nearly half a year since Blogrolling went down and I'm sick of waiting. I found a half dozen broken links and another half dozen links to dead blogs. Plus there were several I wanted to add that are newer finds. So I played and now I think it's all good. If you happen to notice any screwed-up links in there, let me know. Typepad did some funky things to my HTML so some may still not be good or some may have gone kablooie. The two caveats I have are that if you have announced you are leaving the blogosphere (or you already have) or you have not posted in calendar year 2009 yet, I did not post a link.

Love letters in the sand...

I know today is Self-Love Day, but before I detail why I love myself, I want to make quick mention of the other holiday that shares this date...

Happy Valentine's Day!

To all of you, to your friends, to your families, to all my friends and family members. But, most importantly, to Katie. I love you, hon.

And I guess the reason why I started this way was because it does work itself in nicely with Self-Love Day. For me, a lot of the things I love about myself revolve around Katie. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true.

I love my life. It's not perfect in any way, shape or form, but I love it because Katie is in it with me and she loves me as much as I love her. I'm not an easy person to live with. Hell, there are times I've wanted to break up with myself. But Katie has shown an infinite amount of patience with me, which has, in turn, helped me improve my own ability to be patient with others.

Before you laugh or cry foul in my comments because, like you, I have also read some of my ranting posts expressing hatred with others and their stupidity, do take note of one thing... just because I feel I have patience doesn't mean that everyone out there deserves to be a recipient of said patience. I will select those I feel deserve my being patient with them.

I also love my willingness to try new things. There are very few things that I am completely unwilling to try at least once. Life is too short to be closed minded about new experiences. I want to live life as much as I can and so much as our bank account will allow us to (okay, so there is one restricting factor).

And, finally, I love that I'm a sap. I love being romantic when I can. I love public displays of affection, within reason. I love that I watch romantic comedies and enjoy them and that two of my favorite movies of all time are Sleepless in Seattle and Notting Hill. Does this make me less of a man? I'd argue no.

I'd better stop now or I'm going to have nothing left for the Fourth Annual Self-Love Day.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): As you know, this day now also has a bit of a somber side to it for me being a graduate of Northern Illinois University and this being the first anniversary of the campus shootings that took the lives of five innocent students.

The university is holding some memorial services today as well as an art exhibit and wreath presentations. Katie and I were going to attend, but she's pretty sick right now and we're going to stay in.

So I'd just like to take a moment to remember those five students who lost their lives one year ago today... Catalina Garcia, 20, of Cicero; Julianna Gehant, 32, of Mendota; Ryanne Mace, 19, of Carpentersville; Gayle Dubowski, 20, of Carol Stream; and Daniel Parmenter, 20, of Westchester.

[Taken by me one year ago. Hey, Chicagoist picked up on this photo today.]

Don't let this go too far, don't let it get to you...

It's really a love-hate sort of Snippet Wednesday from what I can tell. Dig in.

Self-Love
A day or two ago, our fair Hilly announced that she is again sponsoring her annual Self-Love Day, this one scheduled for this coming Saturday (Valentine's Day, just so you don't forget). If you want an idea what it's all about, you can read my contribution from 2008 or my post from 2007 (I was doubting that this was actually the "third annual" day, but I guess it is. Wow!).

Movies
I know this coming weekend is supposed to be a romantic one what with it not only being Valentine's Day on Friday, but Katie's birthday on Monday (yeah, not technically the weekend, but close enough for government work), and I should be spending just about all the weekend with her, but I won't be. This Friday is also the release of the relaunched Friday the 13th and I really want to see it and Katie knows it. However, I told her that I'm more than willing to forego seeing it opening night simply because I want to spend time with her. She said not to worry about it and that she and the sister-in-law will go see He's Just Not That Into You while I go get me some bloodsplattered Jason Voorhees goodness and we'll all meet up for dinner afterwards.

That, my friends, is love. 'Nuff said.

Shielded
I'm getting really tired of this. It is now officially been five months since I've added The Shield, season 1, to my Netflix queue and it still has not budged from the "Very Long Wait" list meaning I keep getting bumped for it in favor of someone else. You would think after being in such high demand for so long that Netflix would get off their ass and either purchase more copies or make it available for online viewing, neither of which they have done. I actually convinced my library to purchase it and it was approved, ordered, received, and processed in far less time than Netflix has taken (it's waiting for me at the library now after only a couple weeks). In light of this responsiveness, I asked over the weekend that they order season 1 of Damages, which has been in my Netflix queue for two months, and they approved it yesterday. I love you Netflix, but you seriously need to get your heads out of your asses and figure out what's what.

Take a walk on the wild side...

Sorry, but I have no clever intro right now. I'm kinda pissed right now. So let's just say it's Snippet Wednesday and be on with it.

Hampshire'd
Yes, New Hampshire is a really beautiful state from what I've seen so far. However, I think Nashua could benefit from both better public transportation and SIDEWALKS!! I was going to attend a men's and women's basketball game at Daniel Webster College tonight. DWC is only 1.8 miles away from the hotel according to Google Maps. However, as the crow flies, it's probably only a mile. Of course, I cannot take advantage of the crow's route because it would require me wading through a creek and illegally traversing the runway of a small local airport. I tried to book the hotel shuttle to go out there, all of five minutes. The front desk said no problem. However, when I found the driver, he told me he had to make a run to the airport and couldn't take me for at least an hour. So I decided, against all logic, to walk figuring I'd find one of the busses that supposedly run through town.

An hour and a quarter and only about halfway there, I gave up. No busses. No sidewalks. Little streetlighting. And snow piles on the side of the road up to my waist in some parts. God only knows how many times I nearly died either due to reckless drivers or ice patches on the road. I couldn't even really walk through parking lots as they were all divided by three-foot-high snow piles. By the time I got back to the hotel, the driver was gone on another hotel run.

Fuck it. And I was really looking forward to these games and taking some pictures. Guess you'll have to settle for just some scenery. As per usual, if you can't see the Pictobrowser in your feed reader, click through to the Flickr album.

Password
I maintain a Web site for a friend of mine. It's for an academic journal of which he serves as Editor-in-Chief. It really takes little to no time, so I do it in exchange for a free subscription to the journal (it's all about popular music, so I'm cool with that). However, the previous host of the Web site has declined to continue hosting and he went out in search of a new host. Things were going swimmingly until, for some unknown reason, the password stopped working. I kept trying over the course of a few days thinking it may have been a server glitch and that it would miraculously begin working again. It didn't. So my friend contacted the host and had the password reset and sent me the information so I could log back in.

Like any temporary password, I had to change it upon login and the system in place to determine if the password was good was ridiculous! When I would type in a password, there would be this meter on the side determining if my password was secure enough. Usually, this is just a guideline to nudge you towards trying something different, but it would never hold you to it. Woah no, not this one. If it wasn't at least "weak," the system wouldn't approve it. At one point, I used "TSOH-675-668-1," which has a sufficient amount of alpha and numeric plus punctuation and case sensitivity and the system rejected it. Do you want me to be able to remember it or not? Fucking thing.

Bowl
First I missed Nipplegate (only on the initial viewing; I saw it many times in replay afterward, of course), and now I miss Porngate. I swear I'm never in the right place at the right time.

King
I get a kick out of the fact that Stephen King is trashing Twilight writer Stephenie Meyer as, effectively, a hack. This considering I don't think King has been able to keep a full-on book going through to the end in about 20 years. His short stories and novellas are second to none, but his novels never hold the course in my opinion. They're pretty terrible. But that's just me.

Well, I'm off to drown my sorrow over no basketball in VitaminWater XXX and baklava from Cedar's Cafe. Interesting mix, I know. But it's making me happy and the dude had some great music pumping including the title of this post. Good stuff.

Update: Just saw a video of Porngate... it was only male nudity. Meh. Whatever.

Into the great wide open...

Today is my travel day. I get to fly into Manchester, N.H., and then grab a shuttle into Nashua.

But I feel the need to clarify one thing. After re-reading some of my earlier posts about this trip, I realize it may come off that I'm feeling a bit negative about traveling to New Hampshire. That I think it's not going to be fun or beautiful or whatnot.

This is simply not the case. I'm actually very much looking forward to seeing New Hampshire. It is one of only two states east of the Mississippi River I've never visited (the other being Maine). And, having lived in New England (a few years in Connecticut), I know how beautiful it is out there.

My only regret regarding this trip is that I'm not going out there in the fall when all the leaves are changing and the true beauty of New England shines. Instead, the weather report for that area is predicting 4-8" of snow. I hope this doesn't delay my arrival or my subsequent return home this Friday.

Okay, two regrets... that Katie's not going with me. She's too busy with work and school, so she has to stay behind and this bums me out. I hate traveling without her. Especially since she's never been to New England at all.

But I'm going and I know I'm going to enjoy it and I'm going to eat some fresh seafood and take lots of pictures and that I'm likely going to make it a point to return, but this time with Katie.

So, bring it on, New Hampshire! Let's rock.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I'm a bit rusty here, but does this e-mail mean that Tibor accepted my friend request or did he tell me to bugger off?

Any creative translations from all of you?

What's your name (what's your name)...

In the last month, I've had four different cell phones and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can never rely on SIM cards to hold all the information you want to transfer from one phone to the next. They help, but they're far from perfect. Or maybe it's that the phones don't make use of the SIM cards to their fullest extent. Whatever the case may be...

As of this past Tuesday, I'm on a BlackBerry Bold and I'm trying to get all my contact information up to date. However, I didn't realize until after I blanked out my old BlackBerry that I lost several of the secondary phone numbers I had attributed to names in my directory (I haven't found BB software that works on my Mac yet so I didn't get around to backing it all up to my computer; not that I've really looked as I'm still new to this whole thing and am still just trying to make the phone work, period) so I lost some phone numbers for people.

The problem arises when you receive what seem like random calls and texts and you no longer have names attributed to them.

Yesterday, I received a text message from a number that looked familiar but I couldn't quite pin down. It simply said "Happy New Year!" Katie and I sat there trying to figure out who it was. We couldn't. So I called the number and went straight to voicemail. Unfortunately, as many people are wont to do anymore, the outgoing message simply said, "I'm not here, leave a message." Oh yeah, that really helps.

Katie: So was the voice male or female?

Me: Female.

Katie: Reeeeeallllly? So some strange woman is leaving my husband random text messages on his phone?

Me: It would seem that way.

Katie: Now I really want to know who it is.

So, um, while I know Katie was ultimately joking and all, if you happened to text me yesterday from a west suburban Chicago area code with a prefix of 415, please let me know and tell me how innocent your message was intended to be.

Please.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Katie and I went to my parents for dinner last night and we somehow got on the topic of dogs and microchip tracking systems. As you know, Katie and I are dogsitting Lilly again. My mom decided we should have a little fun and so we texted the following message to my brother...

"Out of curiosity, does Lilly have a microchip in her at all?"

Cruel?