And on the seventh day, we rest.

Yeah, my sweet ass.

We were contentedly sleeping away the morning when the phone rang. It was my mom inviting us to go for a bike ride along the Fox River Trail near where we live.

We said we'd think about it. Typically, this translates to "no, but we just don't want to tell you the truth at this exact moment."

Instead, and since we were now wide awake, we acquiesced, got up, changed clothes, loaded up our bikes, and (tempted though I may be to say "moved to Beverly") headed down to the bike path.

Yeah, okay, it was a good ride. It was a great workout. It was a beautiful day. We had a late breakfast at a bakery along the trail with my parents. We rode through the middle of the Fox Valley Folk Festival. La-di-da. Blah blah. Whatever.

But can we get a break from the workouts already? Sheesh!

And on the seventh day, we rest.

Yes, we went to the gym six days straight. Not the same workout each time. Just trying to get back into the swing of things. Working so far. Let's just hope it keeps going.

Here's a funny one for you all from the wife of friend and commenter Bdub. I've seen some similar jokes in the past, but seeing as this is an election year, it is pretty good and worthy of being shared.

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as "colour", "favour", "labour" and "neighbour." Likewise, you will learn to spell "doughnut" without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up "vocabulary").
3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter "u" and the elimination of -ize.
4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.
6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.
8. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
9. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $13/US gallon. Get used to it.
10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
11. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be ref erred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on e arth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
12. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
13. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.
14. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
15. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
16. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

PS: Go ahead and share this with your friends in the USA (those with a good sense of humour and NOT humor.)

I agree on Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, chips, and Andie MacDowell. But I will never give up American Football and I'll curb the complaining about our gas prices!!!

I make no secret of my hatred of treadmills. I don't really hate running so much, but running in place always struck me as completely pointless. Sure, you get a good workout in very little space. You can control temperature and terrain and all that jazz, but it's just so. damn. boring.

Nothing changes and I hate that. Even running with an iPod set up in front of you to watch something doesn't really help so much. It's just too small a screen to counter the fact that nothing else changes around you. The same view in front, the same view to the sides, and you feel like you're winning nothing because you're "keeping pace" with everyone around you. No matter how fast you go, there they all are. After a while, you almost feel willing to trade a non-vital bodypart to convince one of them to leave so it looks like you've made headway on someone.

Or this could just be how my crazy, mixed-up brain perceives it all. Wouldn't be the first time.

However, yesterday at the gym, I was introduced to something that just might change my view. It was a new LifeFitness treadmill they receieved a couple days ago and finally finished assembling. Actually, they got two of them. And it is tres cool. I wish I knew the model number, but who really cares. Yeah, it's got the shock absorbing running platform, QuickStart, LifePulse, blah, blah.

Most importantly, it has full iPod compatibility! Plug in your iPod and it not only charges, but it starts to play on a 17" (maybe it was 15" - I wasn't carrying a tape measure) flat-panel monitor that is separate from the actual gauge monitor for your workout (mounted above the monitor you see on the treadmill at right). After figuring out how to use the on-screen controls (it takes a little getting used to), I was watching America's Game #2: 1985 Chicago Bears on the TV for the duration of my 45 minute workout. And I didn't even notice how the time flew. Very sweet, indeed!

Now if only I can guarantee that nobody else will ever use MY treadmill, I'd be happy.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Katie's other class started last night and, don't ask me how, they got on the topic of foreign films. Katie's teacher is a big fan and Katie was recommending the movie we saw a few months ago, Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna), to her. And her teacher said she is always willing to accept recommendations for foreign films. So I began to think of some that I've seen and enjoyed. The list includes: City of God (Brazil), Run Lola Run (Germany), The Princess and the Warrior (Germany), Amelie (France), He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not (France), A Very Long Engagement (France), and some others.

And then I got to thinking, hell, I'd like some recommendations. Many of you are pretty worldly in terms of cinema. Throw some recommendations at me. You can see from the list above what I like (Franka Potente, Audrey Tautou, Tom Tykwer), but I'd never limit myself to just this. Throw me some ideas.

One last note...

don't forget to vote!

I do believe we have now hit lucky number 13 in Snippet Wednesday! Woo hoo!

6669
Katie started her fall classes last night and had to pick up her campus parking permit before class started. I received a call from her on my commute home about it.

Katie: "You'll never guess what my parking permit number is... 6-6-6-9."

Kevin: "Wow! The best of both worlds... Satanism and sex!"

Katie: "Um, yeahhhhhh."

Segel
Avitable and I were having an e-mail conversation about Freaks & Geeks this morning and the fact that it was recently re-released on DVD (at a much lower pricepoint than the $160 set I had to pass on a few years ago). If you haven't seen the show, I highly recommend it. Fantastic cast. Great writing. It's one of Judd Apatow's early forays into entertainment and you could see the promise just oozing out of every episode. Hell, the only negative was that it was so short lived. Thinking about it made me realize how much a fan of Jason Segel I've become. You've got F&G, How I Met Your Mother, Knocked Up, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, among many others. And now I want to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall again. I mean like desperately want to see it. And it won't be out on DVD for another month. DAMMIT! But, when it does come out on September 30, it will be in three-disc set glory! Oh I can't wait.

Microsoft
For years, I've watched as Microsoft has fallen further and further behind the times. First it was their inability to fix bugs and security holes in their programs. Then they sat on their laurels as other companies like Mozilla and Apple developed better Web browsing software than their Internet Explorer. Recently, they finally decided to try to curb the exodus from their Vista OS by hiring Jerry Seinfeld as a commercial pitchman (as detailed quite nicely by Dave). And yesterday, I read an article that describes how IE8 is going to have a feature called "InPrivate Browsing." Microschlock's PR people are making it sound like the second coming. As though Web users have not known browsing until they've tried this simply because it will allow them to not record cookies, files, logins, etc., while surfing. As IE8 program manager Andy Ziegler says in the article, "Users should be in control of their information. That's at the core of privacy." Well duh. And before you strain yourselves patting each others' backs, perhaps you should realize that this has existed on Safari for three years or more. It's called "Private Browsing." Not only are you just now getting caught up on 2005, but you can't even come up with a more original name.

Whoring
Yes, I'm going to keep whoring myself out for votes until the contest ends this Sunday. I am almost in double digits! As Vahid pointed out, I'm beating Perez Hilton! That's big time, baby! Head on over and vote. Only 661 more to go and I can tie the Comics Curmudgeon.

Oh, and for every ten votes I receive, I'll put a piece of clothing back on! Sound like a deal? Haven't we seen enough of Avitable's nakedness lately? Wouldn't you rather see me clothed?

I'm never going to understand the bio-logic of this, but the night before last, I toss and turn the entire night. I get practically no sleep whatsoever. And, yet, during the day, I'm fine.

Last night, I sleep like a baby and today I'm dragging ass.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. WHY??

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): During an e-mail back-and-forth with BlondeBlogger yesterday and today, I find out that li'l ol' me has been nominated as a Hot Blogger Calendar.com Hottest Male Blogger! Holy cow. This is sweet. I've received a couple blogging awards direct from some of you in the past, but never nominated for the sort of thing where you can vote and whatnot.

Well, I know the site says "it's an honor just to be nominated" and I even put that graphic in my sidebar, but I say SCREW IT! Let's turn this mother upside down and give the win to an underdog! Some dude named Comics Curmudgeon seems to be winning. I don't know who he is, but he apparently has quite the following. And, yet, languishing down with very few votes are Karl, Dave, Vahid, Neil, Jester, Marty, and me (I'd mention that Adam and Dawg are doing it too, but, comparatively speaking, they're kicking our asses). There are also several sisters in arms out there in the running like Hilly, Miss Britt, MochaMomma, Sybil Law, and BlondeBlogger. So c'mon! Get out there and vote for us! Let's show them who's got the best readers around!

But, seriously, I am honored that several of you thought about me for nomination. That's pretty sweet.

Oh, and to that one person who offered up a vote for Ann Coulter... burn in hell.

Hey, better late than never, right?

The Damn Fool Network: New Logo from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

*BZZZT*

*BZZZT*

From: 62262
Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee.
Watch the first Obama-Biden rally live at 3pm ET on www.BarackObama.com.
Spread the word!
2:43am 8/23/08

2:43?? Seriously, Barack? You couldn't have told us this at a HUMAN hour??

I signed up to receive updates via text message so I could know "first." In my mind, "first" shouldn't have to be at 2:43 a.m.

*DELETE*

[For the record, this does not mean I'm voting for Obama. I just want to keep up on the news... even at ungodly fuckin' hours.]

Hey all, just remember that you can check out updates on Lilly's condition throughout the day on her Twitter account. And you don't have to be a Twitter user to just read the posts. So head on over if you'd like some news.

Otherwise...

Hello, you have reached the answering service for kapgar.
We're sorry, but he is unavailable at the moment;
He is busy taking part in the official blogjacking at The Dutch Files.

If you'd like to leave a message, you may do so after the beep.

*BEEP*

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.

To be filed under "How the hell did that get there?" Despite earlier protestations that I couldn't get Breathe Right Strips to stick, I have managed to make them work and they work well.

When they stay in place, anyway.

I woke up yesterday morning and went into the bathroom to get ready for my shower. As I'm wont to do in the morning, I began scratching at my chest at some imaginary itch. Dunno why. That's when I felt it. My Breathe Right Strip was stuck to my chest. I have no freakin' clue how, but it was there. Pretty firmly stuck, too.

I sure hope my pec slept well.

Got a meme for you in the extended post.

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.

I feel bad leading into the weekend on such a somber note, so I'd like to leave you with something a bit more lighthearted. But I didn't feel right putting these on the Lilly post. So you're getting them on Saturday.

These are about the funniest damn teasers for the fall return of television shows that I've ever seen...

Here's a second one that doesn't have embed code available just yet. Maybe soon. I don't want to know what "Hide the Hamster" is, but I'd totally rule "Pizza Making."

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.

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!

I swear to God, every time I now think the words "Snippet Wednesday" in my head, I wind up singing a strangely bastardized version of The Bangles' "Manic Monday." That can't be right, can it?

Anyway, we're on to Snippet Wednesday #11! And there was much rejoicing!

Begging
While in Chicago for Davecago, Katie and I saw our fair share of beggars asking for money. I don't know why I thought this, but for some reason, the concept of these guys as actually having a lot of money hit me. What if they'd had such fantastic luck panhandling that they had tons of money and continued to play the role of poor just because it was so lucrative? Is this really such a stretch? We only see a little bit in their buckets, guitar cases, hats, etc., at any one time, but this doesn't mean that they hadn't removed big chunks of cash and put it in a pocket to make it look like they had nothing. What if they do return home at night to really nice houses and families and the like? Do you think this could be possible? Remember Orlando Jones in Office Space? He said he made more selling magazine subscriptions than he did in his software design job. Why not for panhandlers, too?

Van
On the way home from Chicago, we were driving near one of those big Ford conversion vans with all the windows blacked out and heavy duty, aftermarket locks welded on the back and side doors. Katie's response, "yeah, somebody is tied up and drugged in the back of that van." I think I agree. But I also think we may be watching too much CSI and Criminal Minds.

Homero
I think I'm going to find a quarter and etch Homer on it then return it to general circulation kinda like what happened here. How cool!

Gymnastics
I have always loved Olympic gymnastics. I really have no idea why. It's not something I ever wanted to try, it's nothing I'd ever be capable of doing, and the kids are so freakishly young and small that I actually said about one Chinese gymnast last night, "She's so tiny I could fold her up and put her in my pocket," so it's certainly not sex appeal (well, except Alicia Sacramone who I think is the first gymnast I've ever seen who actually has a body and doesn't look 12 years old and, yes, I feel horrible for her after what happened last night). I think I may have finally figured out the real reason, though, while listening to a commentator during the women's gymnastics routines last night. I think it might be because it's the one time you can say something akin to "she's got great spread in her legs!" and not be arrested for indecent public behavior.

Pryor-itized
Thank you, Cinematical!

Scraps
Are any of you scrapbookers or stampers? If so, and if you live in the Chicago area or are willing to pay for shipping, my mom is having a big scrapbook and stamping supply sale this weekend. Here are some of the details...

Rubber Stamp/Scrapbook Supplies Closeout Sale

Many Thousands of New Items

Everything Must Go!!!

Rubber stamps, card stock, envelopes, ribbons, embellishments, punches, stamp pads/re-inkers, storage units, handmade cards, embossing powders, adhesives, markers, specialty papers, handmade cards and much, much more!

Friday - Saturday, August 15-16, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

I know my mom said it's okay to post her address and phone number, but I still feel weird about it. You never know what kinds of freaky people are crawling for that information. So, if you're seriously interested, e-mail me at [email protected] and I'll give you her information. Sound good?

I think I have officially found the strangest word ever included in a spell check dictionary. Or it could be a sign that the world truly is ruled by J.K. Rowling. Take your pick.

In an homage to an episode of Ace of Cakes when Mary Alice calls Duff "Dumbledork," I called a friend by the same name in an e-mail. The spell checker flagged the word and offered "Dumbledore," the character in the Harry Potter books and movies from which Mary Alice's comment was taken, as a viable alternative.

Now, unless "Dumbledore" has some other valid reason to be included in a Microsoft dictionary (I was using Outlook for the e-mail), I think I can say I've seen it all.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Mark David Chapman, the man who shot John Lennon four times in the back outside the latter's NYC apartment in 1980, has been denied parole for a fifth time. The question remains whether it was for the safety of society or for his own safety.

I say let him out and see what happens. It can be a Running Man of sorts to see who gets to him first. Muahahahahahahahahahahahaha. ha.

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. ;-)

It's time I take a stand, dammit. I've been sitting back way too long and just watching the world go to pot and I've had it! As the late, great Peter Finch said in his role as Howard Beale in Network, "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" So sit back, folks! I'm goin' political on yo' asses!

Yeah! Here's how it's goin' down... I'm going to lobby Congress for legislation to protect us against Marketing Blasphemy and I need your support and assistance.

What? You thought I was announcing who I was going to support in the Presidential election? Ha!

The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that marketing and advertising firms are no longer allowed to use popular music or television/movie imagery in the ads they create for their clients.

I'm sick and tired of having media-related things that I love in life raped and pillaged for the sake of advertising. For example, there's this piece of crap from J.C. Penney.

Don't get me wrong, it's a semi-well done commercial from a production standpoint. They captured the feel of The Breakfast Club decently enough. But they are still killing the memory of one of the best John Hughes films ever. A movie I grew up loving. And now I not only never want to see it again because I'll be stuck thinking about this piece of tripe, but I also never want to set foot in a J.C. Penney because of what they've done by accepting this from their ad firm as part of their new campaign. It would seem to me that the best way to bring in customers is by not pissing them off. Maybe I'm in the minority here and am the only one who feels this way. I dunno.

Nirvana? Really? I'm guessing the Ally Sheedy wannabe was about two years old when Kurt off'd himself (or was off'd by Courtney if you buy into the conspiracy theory). And, lastly, that kid is their stand-in for Bender? You gotta be kidding me. Judd Nelson would eat him for lunch and still have room for a Pixie stick sandwich.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): This was sent to me by a friend. I had to share...

Hmmm... maybe this isn't who I should be lobbying for anti-Marketing Blasphemy legislation after all.

Yay for Vimeo!

The Damn Fool Network: Pizza from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): Let's try a little social experiment, shall we?

I'm going to tell you -- nay, I'm going to insist emphatically -- that you not look at Avitable's post for today as it will burn your retinas beyond the point of recovery. How many of you will listen and how many of you will click through out of sheer morbid curiosity?

Last chance.

Av, can you check your stats on this one for me? My eyes still hurt. Thanks.

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 had a great post. A follow up to The Damn Fool Network post from last week, in fact. I had it all edited. All output to the proper format. All of it uploading to YouTube.

All that was left was for it to be processed by YouTube's servers.

And they reject it for being two and a half minutes too long.

And I've got nothing else ready to go.

YouTube... you bitch.

Hey all, I have three things to help you ring in this new week and I hope they're as good for you as they are for me.

First, I'm guest posting today for the second time in nearly as many weeks for another good friend Penelope. This time, I won't be writing about how scared I am to guest post, I swear. Nothing cheesy like that. Nope, no cheese... just w(h)ine. So click on through and check it out.

Second, I'm prepping for Davecago 2 (it's 3... sorry) this weekend! That should be great. Okay, correction... I don't think "should" is the proper thing to say as it's Dave coming to town. More like "will." It's always fun when Dave comes to town. And I do believe Katie and I will both be there. Anybody else planning to be in attendance?

Third, I've got a fun little joke for you courtesy of my wife. It's a long one, so to keep my homepage a bit uncluttered, I'm putting it in the extended post.

For the first time since tearing up my shin last year, I finally got out and played some disc golf. No, I wasn't scared to play. I wasn't fearing further injury. I was, plain and simple, just too damned lazy to get out there and play. So what do I do? I wait until one of the hottest damn days so far this summer to get my butt out there. I'm such a freakin' moron.

Speaking of working out, I was at the gym the other day and I flipped through the channels on the TV and found some network I'd never heard of before called ION (their logo slugs show it like TELEVISION). Cute, whatever. But they were airing an episode of Quantum Leap and, honestly, I can never say no to Sam and Al. I love that show. Always have. Always will. So, yeah, I left it on.

I've discussed time travel on here before. The whole would you/wouldn't you question. How you think it might affect your current life. That sort of thing.

But, what if you were like Sam and you were traveling around taking over someone else's life for a brief period of time instead of time traveling around as yourself? It would probably mess with your head a bit but we all know that Sam became relatively well adjusted to the concept. In fact, anybody who watched the whole run of the series will remember that instead of going home in the final episode, Sam opts to continue leaping. It became that much a part of him.

What about the poor saps whose lives he jumps into, though? How fucked in the head do you think they are? One second they're living their life (I think I correctly used "they're" and "their" there, didn't I? Heh) and BAM they find themselves stuck in some holding chamber at a science lab in New Mexico in a bad white jumpsuit watching as some schmuck takes credit for what is rightfully your claim.

One guy is about to make the winning basket in the state championship game... BAM... Sam makes the shot instead.

Another dude is gonna ask the love of his life to marry him... BAM... Sam's got another wife. Not you.

Some guy is about to make love to his wife... BAM... Sam swoops in and scores the notch on the bedpost. And for all you know, that could be Sam's kid, not yours.

Yeah, it's great for that guy who, in this episode anyway, was being hooked up to an electric chair. But still.

So what moments in your life would you rather have Sam leap in and take the blame for?

Totally Unrelated Aside (TUA): I was talking to a friend recently and he relayed to me how, at his job, he was "voluntold" to do something. "Volun-what," I asked.

"Voluntold" as in you're told to volunteer or someone else volunteers you for an assignment, he explained.

That has to be one of the greatest contractions of two words I hate that I have ever heard before in my life. It's brilliant in its simplicity, isn't it?