I got your answers right here...

Since DJ did make a valiant effort this afternoon to answer the trivia questions posed last night I feel that it is my duty to provide the answers here as long as whatever helpful pieces of information I have to go along with them. Here we go…

1) What are the names of the two members of the Insane Clown Posse?: As all good juggalos know the answer is Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope. Insane Clown Posse is also the answer to the question “What band got the most mileage out of having their album banned at Wal-Mart?” If it wasn’t for that fact no one would ever have heard of these guys.

2) In what gourmet food shop did the Facts of Life girls work after graduating from Eastland Academy?: Edna’s Edibles. This is the store that Mrs. Garrett opened and the girls went to work at after they reached an age when acting as though they were high school students was so unbelievable that they had to change the entire plot line. Also, did it surprise anyone else that not a single one of the girls went to college? What the hell type of prep school was it?

3) According to the WWE, how many times was “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair world champion? Per the WWE, Ric Flair was a 16 time world champion. What is interesting is that no one has ever figured out exactly how they got to the number 16. Depending on how you want to count it you can get anything up to 22 times. Being a pro wrestling historian is much harder than you would think.

4) What fictional government agency has an annual budget of 348 million pounds sterling, which is less than defense, social security, health, housing and education?: That would of course be The Ministry of Silly Walks. No wonder the British fell behind the Japanese who have a man who can bend his leg back over his head and back again with every single step.

5) What Saturday morning show (Chris’ all-time favorite) featured the characters Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky?: The Banana Splits. Ok, it wasn’t on Saturday mornings when I watched it but it was originally. Best theme song ever. One banana, two banana, three banana, four, four bananas make a bunch and so do many more.

6) What Stephen King mini-series featured a performance by Traci Lords?: The Tommyknockers. Get it, Traci Lords? Knockers? Sigh, I still find that funny.

7) On G.I. Joe, what was the collective name of Zartan’s gang of thugs?: This would of course be the Dreadnoughts and if there is any justice they will be in the G.I. Joe movie. Nothing better than some wide Australian stereotypes wielding chainsaw as part of a wide reaching, well funded but surprisingly inept terrorist organization. I mean, given how much it must cost to operate Cobra on a day to day basis you would think that they would expect a slightly higher success rate.

8) Who is Charlie Brown’s favorite baseball player?: Joe Shlabotnik. My favorite memories of summer involve going to the library and picking up collections of Peanuts cartoons. I was so happy when I learned how to read cursive because it meant that I could understand all the pen pal strips.

9) What was the name of the beer chugging MC on the first season of The Man Show? The Fox, who died at the end of the first season (for real.) Show was never quite as good after that.

10) What is the name of the Edmonton based Canadian Football League team? They are the Edmonton Eskimos. Half credit to those who answered Roughriders as that is the default name for all CFL teams. I’m not kidding. They have one team called the Roughriders and another called the Rough Riders. Is it that tough to come up with a name?

11) What classic television sitcom is considered by many to be an allegory to hell with each character representing one of the seven deadly sins?: The answer is Gilligan’s Island and here is the explanation. Mr. Howell is greed, Mrs. Howell is sloth, Ginger is lust, Mary Anne is envy (because she wants to be Ginger), the Professor is pride and the Skipper is both gluttony and anger. That leaves the red clad Gilligan as the devil whose antics continually damn the other six to an eternity on the island. I have no idea if this is true or not but I want it to be.

12) On The Facts of Life, what is Tootie’s real first name? Dorothy. Save that piece of information as it is an ultimate trivia question.

13) In Peanuts, what is the name of Lucy and Linus’ little brother? Rerun, who is responsible for one of my favorite lines in the last years of the Peanuts strip. “Yes Ma’am I’m writing a story. It’s about this kid in kindergarten and how the stress is slowly destroying him. Every morning he….Ma’am? Well, I have another one here about some purple bunnies.”

Tomorrow, an analysis of the top 20 selling artists of the decade. Should be pretty fascinating and / or scary. Stay tuned.

Wednesday Night Music Club: A Filter song that is better than it ever has any right being.

Filter MTV Music

Test Your Knowledge!

Ugh. I had planned on writing something nice and creative and hopefully funny tonight except that circumstances beyond my control (as in the unplanned installation of a waterfall in my bathroom) has resulted in my spending several hours away from my task at hand. As a result I am going to cheat tonight and post some old trivia questions I wrote for a category entitled “More Stuff That I Am Embarrassed I Know.” Test yourself with these legendary questions (no fair using Wikipedia.) I’ll post the answers tomorrow.

1) What are the names of the two members of the Insane Clown Posse?

2) In what gourmet food shop did the Facts of Life girls work after graduating from Eastland Academy?

3) According to the WWE, how many times was “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair world champion?

4) What fictional government agency has an annual budget of 348 million pounds sterling, which is less than defense, social security, health, housing and education?

5) What Saturday morning show (Chris’ all-time favorite) featured the characters Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky?

6) What Stephen King mini-series featured a performance by Traci Lords?

7) On G.I. Joe, what was the collective name of Zartan’s gang of thugs?

8) Who is Charlie Brown’s favorite baseball player?

9) What was the name of the beer chugging MC on the first season of The Man Show?

10) What is the name of the Edmonton based Canadian Football League team?

11) What classic television sitcom is considered by many to be an allegory to hell with each character representing one of the seven deadly sins?

12) On The Facts of Life, what is Tootie’s real first name?

13) In Peanuts, what is the name of Lucy and Linus’ little brother?

Help me J-Dog. You're my only hope.

Ok, I have a lot of small topics to talk about tonight so I am just going to go through them in order.

1) Yes, I am aware that I missed the season premiere of the second season of The Pick Up Artist on Sunday. However, have no fear as I have recorded the episode and will be providing my play by play analysis on this and all future episodes. Because if there is one thing I have learned in my life it is that the only way to learn how to talk to women is by taking advice from a guy in a top hat with a pair of lips tattooed to his neck. Hell, I own his instruction manual. I wish I was lying but I actually do own The Mystery Method in hardcover no less.

2) Oh, I would like to thank Comcast for allowing me to miss the premiere episode by showing for the past two weeks that all channels have “To Be Announced” as their scheduled broadcast on the online program guide. Seriously, I was nearly forced to buy a newspaper on Sunday just so I could get a damn TV listing. What type of world do we live in where I might be forced to buy something in order to read?

3) Has anyone noticed that on the Yahoo front page they list the Obama-McCain poll numbers and are constantly updating them? Several times a day they show them going up or down 0.2%. I’m not sure where the hell they are getting their data from as the last time I checked it wasn’t as though there is a real time polling market equivalent to the stock market. Plus, I’m not sure if I need a moment by moment update of something that is by definition within the margin of error. Of course, most people will simply ask why am I using Yahoo but that can easily be explained by the fact that I am an idiot.

4) For the first time since moving out here I played trivia tonight. I wish I continued my streak of winning money the first time I play in a new venue but I missed a few questions and came in sixth. Still, not bad for a team of one and I should have won a free round of drinks but I was really, really dumb on a question. The game is done in a pub quiz style and that really doesn’t suit my temperament. You are asked ten questions, write down your answers, and then wait around for ten or fifteen minutes as the host collects the sheets, marks the correct answers, tallies up the scores, and jokes with the teams. Do this for multiple rounds and there is an awful lot of dead time especially when you are by yourself. Sigh. I miss my Badgers. We at least would have gotten the Wisconsin question right.

5) Best category though: All you get is someone’s name and have to determine whether they are a Nobel Prize winner or a Porn Star. Surprisingly challenging.

6) I’m still behind in watching How I Met Your Mother but after finally seeing last week’s episode it is clear that they are dealing with too much plot. We have Robin’s career and her possibly moving to Japan. Then there is Barney being in love with Robin and therefore not being Barney. Marshall has gone from a fun loving student to a kind of whiny, unmotivated goof. And Ted is engaged to someone that the viewer has no attachment to at all. I don’t care about Stella. I care about Sarah Chalke because she is an awesome actress based on her roles in Roseanne and Scrubs but the character is absolutely meaningless. Compare that to Victoria from the first season. Ted and Victoria are possibly my favorite couple ever, the “thank God” moment at the end of their first episode together is the highlight of the entire series, and even three years after the fact I say this about someone who was only in four episode. Meanwhile, we have Ted getting married to someone whose daughter might not actually have a name yet much less shown how Ted is adjusting to be a potential step dad. Just poor writing.

7) Big Bang Theory was spot on last week though. I’d comment about losing someone to the world of multiplayer gaming but that is a bit of a sore subject for me right now. Find me at the end of a bar one night and ask me about Everquest and I’ll explain. It won’t make any sense but I’ll explain.

8) Seriously, a hobbit? I don’t match up favorably to a hobbit?

9) Tomorrow night, one last debate live blog. Candidates! Canned positions! Bob Schieffer asking questions that will in no way be answered! I’ll try to make it interesting.

Oh, and did you see Divorce Court?

You know you have spent too much time being unemployed when you find yourself glued to your couch watching a high speed car chase. CNN’s coverage of this guy in Houston kept me in my apartment for much of the afternoon. It is strangely mesmerizing. Much like Nascar, you are constantly waiting for the huge crash. In this case, the guy hit a set of spike strips, lost control, ran into a another car, jumped out of his car and then promptly went over the hood of a cop car that ran into him. Always interesting when you can hear the entire CNN newsroom go “ooh.” The guy didn’t seem to be hurt though, which is just amazing.

I also want to congratulate this great country of ours as our little girls proved superior at jumping up and down than other countries little girls. I’ll admit it, the reason that I am posting late is because I was watching the gymnastics final. Despite some really flaky judging at times the end result was correct. It’s been a pretty impressive run for the Americans so far. We are constantly medaling in the pool, doing well in gymnastics but not reaching our potential in badmitton or Team Handball. We’ll just have to work on that for 2012.

Here is my fun trivia story for the night. Going into the final question we were middle of the pack. We decided to bet it all as we had no other chance at winning. The question was this. As everyone knows, Isaac Hayes had a number one single with the Theme to Shaft. He only had one other number one hit and it was on the British charts. Name it?

After a quick consultation with my team we realized that we knew no other Isaac Hayes songs other than the theme to Shaft. In fact, the only one I could name was “Chocolate Salty Balls” from South Park. Since we had no other ideas, and since it seemed to be kind of funny, I put that down as the answer and handed it in.

That is, in fact, the correct answer. I kid you not. Chocolate Salty Balls hit number one on the British pop charts. Don’t ask me why or how that happened. I didn’t even know that it did happen. This might be a first in all of my games of trivia. We win by providing an answer that we thought was completely wrong. Sometimes luck just happens to be on your side.

Mustard: Always the Best Choice

At some point I am going to have to determine whether it is really worth winning twenty bucks at trivia by knowing that the sequel to the game Maniac Mansion was called Day of the Tentacle. It doesn’t show a bar full of people that I am the smartest person around. It just convinces them that I never got out much as a child. Now I’ve embraced my inner geekdom to the point that the casting agents at Beauty and the Geek have decided that I wouldn’t work on the show because I already get the joke. Still, I wonder what pride one can take for remembering every game that was ever produced for the Commodore 64.

(That said, the best news that I heard today was that they have given the go-ahead to make a Thundercats movie. Finally. If they are going to bring back every franchise, hell if they are going to make a Ghost Rider movie, how can you not make a Thundercats movie. I’ll already place The Rock in the role of Panthro though I’m not sure who should play Cheetara. The entire movie will rest on that casting. That and making sure that Mumm-Ra kicks all kinds of ass.)

Ok, so I was out on Sunday night and I saw something that I’ll just have to try to explain. Two women were walking towards me and one had ketchup on her shirt. Not the condiment but the actual word “Ketchup” printed across her chest in red letters. Those of you who are familiar with Kansas City will know that this is a t-shirt given out at select Royals games in honor of the hot dog race, where you cheer the hot dog with the condiment of your choice. The hot dog race is typically the highlight of a Royals game and also goes to prove that only morons pick relish.

That said, while it is cool in a post-modern ironic way to get a shirt that says “Ketchup” on it, I’m not sure if it falls into the category of funny on a Sunday afternoon. At that point you are showing the world just how proud you are of tomato paste. It also didn’t help that this woman was, how can I put it lightly, well she wasn’t putting it lightly. It made it seem much less of an ironic statement and more of a firmly held belief.

(Though I can’t talk as I put on a shirt I wore in b-school this evening and my first reaction was “I don’t remember this being so tight in the waist before.” Time for yet another diet.)

Anyway, what is your reaction supposed to be in a situation like this? Should you be an asshole and go “Hey look, you’ve got ketchup on your shirt.” Do you nod knowingly? Do you avoid eye contact as if they have the plague? I mean when I wear my Speed Racer t-shirt I expect people to bow to me in awe of my awesomeness. But what respect do you show someone who really, really appreciates the Heinz family of products?

(Yes, I own a Speed Racer t-shirt. And a Cobra Kai shirt. And one with the Cobra logo from G.I. Joe. And another that simply states “Nobody Reads My Blog”. Irony is essentially my main emotion. That might not be a good thing.)

Defining intelligence

On a night where our lack of knowledge regarding The Office and animals in children’s literature was well on display, we somehow came away with a trivia victory. Honestly, of all the games that we have won this was simultaneously our best and worst game. It was our worst as there were entire categories where we couldn’t even hazard a guess on the questions. It was our best in that we answered multiple questions that no one else knew, including one that I want to use as an example as to how my brain works.

The category was historical blunders and the toughest question was “Where was Amelia Earhart trying to land on her ill-fated journey?” Now, for some bizarre reason Nova had a special on Amelia Earhart on Monday night. I’m not quite sure why I watched it over watching pro wrestling. I had flipped it on, saw that they had Gore Vidal giving commentary and was just too lazy to change the channel. Still, forty eight hours later I was able to immediately recall that she was heading towards Howland Island. I’m not sure why that stuck in my brain. I can’t remember the details of the conference call that I was on for work yesterday but random pieces of historical geography are etched in my mind.

It might not interest anyone else but this has always fascinated me. It’s tied to the argument that I have had regarding whether or not I am actually smart. For some reason, I’m the one who is constantly arguing that I’m not smart. This is probably due to the fact that I see myself on a regular basis and can detail every dumb ass thing that I’ve ever done. Just look at my closet, what’s hanging up there are not the decisions of an intelligent man. (That and the collection of Voltron DVD’s, though that just makes me a victim of the Peter Pan syndrome.) But what I can do is recall pieces of information from way back in my memory banks and most people view that as intelligence.

I don’t because that’s just a trick of genetics. I have neurons that interconnect in a way that lets me remember the names of the four Banana Splits even though that knowledge is completely worthless. To me, intelligence is equal to creativity and insight. While I’m creative I don’t know if I have ever been able to have one of those “a ha!” moments of genius. Basically what I am best at is taking a whole bunch of data, analyze it, find the interconnections and report on it. But I always need the data to begin with. Is there a degree of intelligence there? Probably but I’ll still consider it mainly being good at math.

Still, if people want to view me as smart more power to them. As I’ve always said, I’ve collected a lot of pieces of paper over the years that claim that I am intelligent. To me, I’ll look at a writer or an artist, someone who takes nothing and turns it into something and always go “Wow, I have no idea how you do that.” And that’s smart in my book.

And I'm back...

A quick post tonight as I am fighting a number of things, mainly a vicious case of jet lag. Yes, I’ve been out of town the past few nights (the main reason for the lack of posts) and dealing with issues of passports, lost luggage, the most beautiful front desk clerk in the world and other stories that I will discuss in full when I feel that I can accurately type a sentence. Right now, I have to deal with the fact that I haven’t slept in a bed in twenty four hours.

For those wondering, jet lag is a lot like having a hangover. Except without all of the enjoyable moments beforehand. This may explain why I was playing trivia at the bar tonight. If I’m going to suffer, I might as well have some fun in the meantime. We even won, which shows that I am apparently more intelligent when I can’t technically think and can only react.

Anyway, here is the story that I want to tell. It is from the trivia game on Friday night where once again there was a question where I was the only one in the building who knew the answer. It was a rather simple question, “What city proclaims itself to be the Spam capital of the world?” And I immediately answered, “Austin, Minnesota.” And, as is almost always the case, I was correct.

Why do I know this? One very simple reason. My first girlfriend grew up in Austin, Minnesota. As part of my birthday present one year she sent me a Spam bank. These are the sorts of facts that you never forget. Even though Austin is known for other things (more like other thing, that being the Gear Daddies) in my mind that city is tied to the first girl I ever fell for and Spam. I’m not sure if anyone else in the world could ever make that connection. Definitely not a group of people sitting in a bar in KC on a Friday night.

So Meg, wherever you are, thanks for making me look intelligent once again. And yes, I’m going to write the novel I promised you. It’ll be done in November. Sure it’s, uh, seventeen years late but things happened. There were a lot of good television shows on at the time.

Next Friday is Funny Hat Day

Lost on the very last question in trivia tonight to the millionaire, all because I couldn’t remember what you give someone on your third anniversary. Probably because I have never gotten to the point where I have had a third anniversary. Or a second even. Wow, I thought my inability to have a lasting relationship was my strength in trivia and not my eventual downfall. That and missing a Boulevard beer question, which is really, really embarrassing and has caused my liver to attempt to disown me.

I know that I usually keep a rule of not talking about work but I have been dealing with something over the past couple of weeks that I just need to write about. Now like most offices we have an official dress code that is vaguely enforced. It’s not like when I worked in downtown Chicago where I wore a suit and tie every day even though all I did was walk into my cube and work on a computer all day. All I have to do now is throw on a shirt with a collar and be sure that I am wearing pants. Well, for the past few weeks we have been getting emails touting how we are having a special jeans day and we all get to feel special by wearing jeans to the office.

All of which makes me feel like I’m back in high school. Seriously, throughout my twelve years of catholic schooling having a jeans day was a really big deal because you finally didn’t have to wear a uniform. But I’m not a kid anymore (at least chronologically, my desire to own G.I. Joe figures not withstanding) and wearing jeans really doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s not like anyone would complain if I started wearing jeans to begin with. Hell, I wrote in here a year ago my plan to start dressing up to see what the reaction would be. Wearing a tie would worry people more than wearing jeans. A suit would make people stop me in the hall. A top hat and tails, complete with gloves and a walking cane, would probably result in the security guards chasing me around campus on their Segways.

I have one other reason I really don’t want to wear jeans to the office. Back when I was at the good ole neighborhood nuclear power plant I wore jeans to work. It made sense then but to be honest I really don’t want to be reminded of that time. I’ve moved on in my career to the point where I no longer have to wear radiation detectors at all times or work in a room where the safety instructions were, and I quote here, “If the alarm sounds you have a minute to get out of the room before the Cardox goes off and you’ll die.” I’m happy that I now have to wear a dress shirt and look like a professional. Otherwise I might as well just work from home.

One other dress code story from my old job. When I started there they really didn’t have a written policy. My boss once joked that he never inforced the rules because he could never find them, though he did remind us at times what might be best for our career. Well, after a while they actually printed the rules so we, being detail oriented engineers, went through them with a fine-toothed comb. One stated that “skorts of appropriate length” were allowed, which caused five of us to yell in unison

“What the hell is a skort? How can I know if it’s the appropriate length if I don’t even know what it is?”

That’s what you get when you have an engineering department that honestly consisted entirely of guys with glasses. And probably why you really should avoid having such a department.

Or I'll try out for Win, Lose or Draw

(Yes, that was the best Barneyism last night. I’m still trying to figure out who is the best definition of a twelve, where you are required to hit it but scared to death that you are going to lose a lot of money in the process.)

Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time (besides deserving a medal or at least a free CD) has heard about my penchant for entering trivia contests around town. What started off as a lark and an extension of my quest to have the name “Dr. Wang” immortalized on bar trivia machines across the country has since turned into something bordering between second job and obsession. In the process, I somehow became embroiled in a huge rivalry at the Flea Market where my team’s early dominance caused another team to bring in reinforcements to beat us. As someone who really does play to cover my bar tab I was extremely proud of that fact.

That may have changed this weekend. See, during a commercial break on The Amazing Race (will Charla and Mirna just go away already) I for some reason decided to see what was on the Game Show Network. Not a channel I usually check on but that night they had on “Secrets of game Show Millionaires.” And obviously that is a show that is going to gain my attention.

The idea behind the show was to give you the hints that you need to become a successful game show contestant and was hosted by the legendary Chuck Woolery. Who, I’m sad to say, did not tell me how to make a better Love Connection or that he’d be back in two and two. They had the usual hints like “Know the game” and “Be yourself, but bigger” with comments from previous top players. Like Ken Jennings the Jeopardy king. The military guy who won a ton of money on Tic Tac Dough, my favorite show as a kid as it involved a dragon and Wink Martindale. They also had someone who won $32K on Who Want’s To Be a Millionaire. I wouldn’t particularly consider that to be a successful performance. I think I could do that in my sleep without any lifelines. Still, it was a fun little television break…until…until…

I saw the guy I play trivia against every week being interviewed. And a graphic underneath him that mentioned that he won $1.4M on Twenty One.

Son of a bitch.

(To the rest of the Kai Badgers. I’m not making this up. It’s the dude who wears the sweatshirt that says “Who Wouldn’t Want To Be a Millionaire” all the time. Did anyone know this and just not tell me?)

I’m not quite sure how I am supposed to react to this. Now as much as I don’t really care about money I really do care about people being more successful than me, which is a problem as at the present moment pretty much anyone with a pulse is more successful than I am. But to know that I have spent a year fighting this guy, week in and week out, and winning more than my fair share of the time when he was a freaking millionaire just ticks me off. One, because why the hell is this guy stealing my beer money and two, why the hell am I not getting rich on television right now?

(Yes, and I know that I am saying I when it is a team game. But let’s just say that if my team was the 90’s Bulls I wouldn’t be playing the role of Luc Longley. I’d be that guy with the statue.)

What gets me is that this guy did bring in reinforcements to deal with the fact that I was killing him in categories like “Family Guy” and “Pro Wrestling”. I don’t know if I could take him one on one in trivia but I could probably hold my own. It’s just knowing that what is meant to be a friendly game has just become a hell of a lot more competitive for me. Because if there is one thing that gets my adrenaline going is having the opportunity to show up someone who is supposedly better than me. I’ve been doing that all my life.

Oh, Inverted World

In the end, I decided to play trivia tonight. Sadly, no one else did as it was the smallest crowd of people I’ve seen at the game since the snowstorm game. I’m not sure if that made things more or less depressing. Still, my two man team (which suffered defections of our own) came in second, which meant that the payout was the same as it usually is. Amazingly, this was on a night when the categories were things that we were not expecting much out of. Flags, Geography and 2006 song lyrics were all bad news. Luckily, there was a NASA category and that allowed me to pay my bar tab. Oh well, still an interesting way to spend an evening.

Hey, I’ve been meaning to mention this and now is as good of time as any. If anyone is interested in being a guest blogger sometime over the next month and a half please let me know. Starting March 1 and going through April 15 I am going to be working on, well, I’m not sure what I’m going to call it other than “Quo Vadimus”. Consider it a memoir/essay collection for simplicity’s sake. Basically, I am going to go through the 27 months of blog postings, take the best pieces, and rewrite them so that they are a much better read. I’m also going to be adding new material (hopefully around 20,000 words worth including stories on being the guy at the end of the bar, an ultrasound picture that changed my view of the world, and my journal of watching every Star Wars film back to back to back to back to back to back.) Since this means that I’m going to be spending time every evening writing and rewriting I wouldn’t mind taking a night off from my blog duties once in a while. So, if you ever wanted to post your innermost thoughts to the world, or at least to the dozens of people who read this site, here is your chance. Just drop me a line and we will work something out.

(Oh, and what amazes me is how I am preparing for this project. I have built a spreadsheet and I am going through all of my old posts and cataloging them. I have to be the only writer who, when he decides to write a book, makes sure that the first thing he does is build a spreadsheet. Probably explains my writing style. The good thing about this though is that it is identifying some old stories that will show up again in my novel or television series. One of my earliest posts is my jury duty story and that would probably be the second script I would write (which I might be doing this summer.) I know some people will say that I am reusing old material, I consider it to be taking all of these random thoughts I’ve had over the years and placing them in a cohesive package.)

Some quick thoughts on The Shins show, since I promised to write about it last night. Viva Voce opened and they were a pretty good act. I’ll give the woman who played guitar credit as she was the first woman I have ever seen not named Bonnie Raitt play a guitar solo that didn’t suck. Before anyone calls me a sexist pig for that statement, this is based on Juliana Hatfield’s great comment that it is physically impossible for a woman to play a guitar solo. You can call me a sexist pig for a lot of other reasons, this just isn’t one of them.

The Shins are a great band and they played a good mix of their old and new material. It is a slightly strange show to watch though as I’m not quite sure what the crowd’s reaction should be. It’s not music you dance to or sing along with. You kind of just stand there, nod your head, and go, “Man, that is so awesome.” It’s also cool that the band looks like a bunch of regular guys. The lead singer is a tan Kevin Spacey, one guy looks like SNLs Chris Parnell, another looks like he’s a mechanic in his spare time, and the drummer looks like he might possibly spontaneously combust on stage. Plus, I love the fact that the band doesn’t have a regular bass player. Two of the guys hand off the bass on every song. Like they’re going “Crap, I don’t want to play bass. Here, you do it.” It’s so random that I love it.

The other interesting thing is that even though these guys are being called the next big thing by every music magazine they are still playing small venues in college towns. A few years ago they were just some guys from Albuquerque. Then they were the guys from Garden State (or The O.C. or The Gilmore Girls). Now, they might become the next band that can actually play music to break into the mainstream and I really hope they are. It would be nice to see videos from real bands once more.

Destressing through consumerism

Does it bother anyone else that the year is already one-twelfth over? Seriously, did I miss the entire month of January? Even though I’ve documented every single thing that I have done during the month I still have no idea what happened. I’m pretty sure that New Year’s was last Monday. It really does bother me that time accelerates as you age. I’m very confident that the summer when I was ten years old lasted approximately three years. And one whole year of that is accounted for by sitting on my couch and watching Sale of the Century.

Things are going much nicer for me tonight so hopefully I won’t be suffering from undue stress. We won at trivia tonight, making two in a row and it could have been three if I hadn’t blown a tiebreaker question a few weeks back. (My weakness for Dorothy Parker, or more accurately, my weakness for Jennifer Jason Leigh portraying Dorothy Parker, came back to haunt me.) I swept a Super Bowl trivia category, even knowing who is calling the coin toss on Sunday. For the record, I will once again be placing money on the coin toss. I figure it’s the safest bet on the board. I mean, tails never fails.

Plus, my Amazon order came in and this will provide me with much enjoyment. This is continuing my effort to cash in all of my loose change for Amazon gift certificates and thus fund my media collection. Picked up a bunch of CDs, to the point where I think I’m losing ground in the random CD project. Filled in some gaps in my Aimee Mann collection and picked up some Rilo Kiley, who were on Austin City Limits over the weekend and Jenny Lewis impressed me to the point that I wanted to pick up a couple of discs. Grabbed a couple of books: one on improving your personal productivity (which should just be titled “Stop being a lazy piece of crap”) and one on crowdsourcing and the wisdom of the masses. Maybe not the first choice of reading materials for most people but it’s a field I’m getting more and more involved in. But the biggest thing is I finally picked up my White Sox World Series DVD collection so I can spend all weekend watching every game in preparation for my next championship celebration.

Switching gears, I would like to make a request of the people of Kansas City. Maybe the Funkster could add this to his campaign pledges, given that he is bombarding me with emails and not once has he promised to reunite Sly and the Family Stone. We had an inch of snow tonight and it pretty much caused the city to stop. Seriously, my commute nearly doubled even though you could actually still see the concrete. I’d just like to make the following suggestions to the people who live here just so an inch of snow doesn’t cause the schools to close. First, it’s not a bad idea to have a scraper in your car and to use it when it snows. An inch of fluffy snow takes upwards of one minute to remove from your car and when you do so it means you can actually see out your windows. Thus, you don’t have to go five miles an hour while going “I can’t see the road.” You don’t know how much this bothers me. Do that and simply pay attention to what is going on around you and everything will be fine. You need a little more stopping distance and a slight bit more patience. Maybe some more intelligence, which admittedly is lacking at times in this town, but I’ll settle for distance and patience.