It is like they are twins or something

Now I want to state up front that I really don’t care what anyone does with their body. If you have to go through immense surgery just to feel comfortable in your own skin than by all means go ahead as long as I don’t have to end up paying for it with my tax dollars. But I really wish someone would have told Chastity Bono that the Charlie Weis look is not the one to choose. No one: man, woman, Charlie Weis, or member of the Hutt clan should aspire to looking like Charlie Weis. Still, if this makes Chastity happy then by all means congratulations.

(Props to Kim to pointing me to E Online for the photo and the absolutely uncanny resemblance.)

Oh, and Charlie Weis didn’t cost us the Boston College game this year! For the first time since before I was actually a Notre Dame student. Well, he tried really hard to screw it up and I agree with DJ why the BC defenders didn’t jump on the eight yard out route at least once is beyond me but we did finally beat Boston College. It does look like my prediction that Notre Dame should go 9 – 3 will come true. Again, no reason why we shouldn’t go 11 – 1 as USC is the only team we play with more talent but Charlie will typically lead us to two losses that we shouldn’t have (Michigan and Pitt as my prediction.)

The other big news from the weekend is that Obama has declared a national emergency due to a rash of zombie outbreaks. Oh wait, that press release wasn’t meant for the public. I mean swine flu. Just ordinary, everyday swine flu. Ignore any rumors you hear about the living dead feasting on human flesh. No, I don’t know why Congress has decided to all go to the Canadian wilderness. I assume it is for the health care debate. Just carry on, all is well…(checks supplies, rereads the Zombie Survival Manual.)

Actually swine flu is a national emergency right now and you would think that I would be more nervous about it. I mean, I am someone who did at least make some preparations for Y2K (made sure my car was filled with gas, hit the cash station, checked the computer code on my robot butler) and I travel all the time. Yet on this one I am not overly concerned. I did get my regular flu shot and am taking every precaution that I can, which is mainly washing my hands a lot, but otherwise I am not too up in arms about it. That is not to say that it isn’t a serious manner and those most at risk should be vaccinated. However, it is not as though we are living through a retelling of The Stand. Though if you start having dreams about an old woman in a farmhouse in Nebraska you might take it as a bit of a sign.

Best of 120 Minutes: I am going to try to bring back my regular music video postings. 120 Minutes of Sunday, the Wednesday Night Music Club on Wednesdays and your 80’s weekend rewind on the weekends. Mainly because I enjoy searching for music videos online but hopefully others will enjoy them as well. We’ll start off by going Dutch with Bettie Serveert’s Ray Ray Rain.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) Liz Phair “Somebody’s Miracle”
2) Damien Rice “O”
3) Howie Day “The Madrigals EP”
4) Neko Case “Live from Austin Texas”
5) Cowboy Junkies “Open Road”

I shall do exactly 6.02 shots

I want to start off by wishing everyone a happy Mole Day on Friday. 10/23 get it? Damnit, Sheldon would have found that funny.

So I am now being confronted with all types of political advertising as I drive to work in the morning. As this is an off election year we are dealing with all of those local races that no one cares about and you are completely surprised that the candidates can even afford yard signs. Especially for the candidate who is running for Coroner. I’m not making this up. Not only is there an election for the job of coroner but people are also openly campaigning for it.

I am at a loss to think of what a debate between coroner candidates would look like. Would they be quizzed on their favorite Quincy episodes? Would imply that the other will, on occasion, wear a patient’s brains as a coonskin cap? Or state that their opponent simply “Really likes dead bodies if you know what I mean?” What should my criteria be in this election anyway?

On another note, it looks like Lil Wayne will be getting a year’s worth of jail time for a gun charge. Let’s study how this will impact his musical career, shall we? Tupac averages a new record every year despite the slight problem of being, for all technical purposes, dead. And we’re not talking “spending a year deceased for tax purposes like Hotblack Desiato” I’m talking when he rolls over in his grave the Earth has to shift type of deceased. So I’m thinking that a year in prison should equate to a five disc box set for Lil Wayne. Ah hip hop, the musical genre where neither death nor imprisonment nor talent get in the way of new record releases.

Since we are going into the last weekend before Halloween (and since I am obviously grasping for topics tonight) I think it is time to start discussing costumes. Especially with Halloween being on a Saturday this year even if you just want to have a normal Saturday night at the bar, sitting on your stool in the corner, talking to no one, and drinking until you can no longer remember your own name, you will now be forced to deal with people in fancy outfits. My question is: at what age is dressing up in a costume to go to a bar no longer appropriate?

I am not questioning wearing a costume to a costume party. There it is a social norm and often there are prizes involved. Or at least that is what I assume happens at those parties. Certainly I will never question wearing a costume to either a science fiction or comic book convention. I mean, do you know what people would say to me if I went to a Star Wars convention in anything other than my Wedge Antilles costume? I would never be able to show my face in public again. But to a bar? That just seems a different matter.

I think at some point you reach an age where doing something because it is fun and stupid no longer becomes acceptable. Dressing up as a human sperm when you are 23? Perfectly understandable. Wearing face paint when you are 35? Kind of depressing. Any thoughts on this matter? Or should I just break out the penguin costume one last time?

40 Years of Python

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the debut of Monty Python and as someone who goes well beyond being defined as a fan I figured that I would take up a post to describe just how momentous their work is to me. At this moment I have the scripts to all of the episodes sitting on my desk and that was before I decided on this topic. Over the past week I needed to remember a) the details of the Montgoflier Brothers sketch and b) the list of candidates from the Silly Party. Compare that to the fact that there isn’t a single detail from a Friends episode that I can recall (wasn’t one of the characters some guy named Rod?)

As most people can gather much of my sense of humor and my writing style is taken from Monty Python. It was the comedy style that caught my eye and fit with my overall personality. The humor was witty and could vary from being extremely dry (most of the John Cleese bits) to being broad slapstick (such as the fact that every episode seemed to feature Terry Jones in a dress.) Plus, in the entire series there is only one episode with a linear plot. Everything else is randomness with sketches ending midway through and bizarre segues. As anyone who has ever had a conversation with me knows that is pretty much how I live my life.

The interesting point to look at is exactly why myself and a lot of others my age gravitated towards Monty Python. I mean, by the time I started watching they had broken up and I had to search out reruns or old episodes. It was much easier for me to find highlights of the original Saturday Night Live cast but I much more associate myself with Michael Palin than John Belushi. For that we have to dig a little deeper into the nature of the cult classic and fandom.

On some level a degree of popularity is driven by the fact that something is not popular. As the music business clearly shows talent and popularity are not directly related. Something can be the best in its field and not gain mainstream acceptance. That was the way with Python. You had to work to watch it: stay up late to watch PBS, understand jokes about British currency, try to realize why everyone is in a dress. Being a fan took effort and became a mark of honor. It showed that you were dedicated to the cause. And if you are not going to be one of the popular kids at school you try to get your revenge in other ways; mainly by finding something cool that they don’t know about and becoming an expert in it. Music, books, television it all works the same way. A cult classic is something that attracts the smart outcasts who can use it to bond and annoy the popular kids.

Python was perfect for that. Most of the cast went to Oxford and Cambridge and the episodes are written from that perspective. Yes, at times they can be extremely silly but the amount of history and literature on display is incredible. You have the philosopher’s song and the summarize Proust competition along with the Spanish Inquisition. No episode was the same, no plots carried over, it was just smart comedy time after time.

Plus, sometimes there were boobies. Again, can never question the importance of unexpected nudity in the creation of a cult classic.

I still watch episodes from time to time. This blog is littered with references to long forgotten sketches. There is something about the humor that is groundbreaking and timeless. Think of it this way: forty years from now do you think that anyone is going to remember a joke from a Dane Cook set?

We now care about Jersey?

I hate to say this but I kind of wish that we had a small boy floating away in a balloon right about now. At least that way I would have a ready made topic to write about. I mean, what am I supposed to write about? The runoff election in Afghanastan? The continuing debate on health care? The fact that one of the candidates for New Jersey governor is so fat that it may prevent him from getting elected?

Actually, I’ll at least touch on that last one. First off, while Christie is rather large he is not what we would describe as “Orca Fat” in the wonderful language of Kayser Soze. True, he could definitely spend some time on Wii Fit but I don’t see it as a reason why he cannot hold public office. What I do have an issue with is the fact that I have to watch commercials for New Jersey political races. I thought it was bad in KC where I had to deal with both Kansas and Missouri debates: mainly Kansas residents voting on how much corn to plant and Missouri residents trying to approve casinos and brothels for Branson. Now I have to watch commercials for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware. And I’m not even sure if Delaware technically has a government. For all I know governor is chosen by a game of musical chairs.

(Ages and ages ago I wrote a story about an international musical chairs tournament. Given that the Rock, Paper, Scissors championship has been broadcast on ESPN I think I might need to advance this topic a little more.)

I’ll close up with a My Beloved Lindsay update. One of the gossip websites I read (and yes, there are several) did a before and after picture of Miss Lohan from just three years ago. She goes from looking kind of drunk but still attractive to looking like that forty eight year old woman at the end of the bar smoking unfiltered cigarettes and looking at you way too closely. I mean, the combination of hard partying and botox has taken someone who was naturally very pretty and turned her into something that can’t even be described as a shell of her former self. At least shells are clean and pure. She’s more like the empty hamburger wrapper of her former self. Personally, I like the story that people want her to go to rehab but she won’t because she wouldn’t be allowed to drink there. If you are going to go out you might as well do it in style.

Ten questions

Just some random questions that have been on my mind recently. If anyone has any answers please post them in the comments:

1) If you swung a lightsaber at Superman what would the end result be? Presuming that he doesn’t fly away of course.

2) Why can Superman fly anyway? I understand the whole super strength aspect due to coming from a planet with different gravity but why would that enable flight? At best he should just be able to jump really, really high.

3) Plus, wouldn’t life be an absolute pain in the ass with super strength? I mean, how would you pick up a newspaper without just demolishing the table? Or lean on a wall without collapsing the building?

4) On a non-super hero note do you think that anyone in the major leagues was that kid in little league who they stuck out in right field who could never hit the ball or were they star athletes their entire lives? I’m really curious about this. I cannot recall a single story about someone who went from a complete nothing to a top athlete.

5) Why do baseball managers wear uniforms? Basketball coaches aren’t in shorts, hockey coaches are in suits even though hockey jerseys are the coolest things ever. Did we ever anticipate Tommy Lasorda to come out and pitch a few innings?

6) On my flight yesterday there was a teenage girl wearing a snuggie. Should I take this as a sign that the planet is doomed and I might as well just empty my 401K now?

7) Should I be depressed by the fact that they are publishing new Winnie the Pooh stories? I don’t have a problem with the new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book, which is actually pretty decent, but the fact that they are introducing new characters into the Hundred Acre Wood just seems to be rather crass. Like adding another character to Hamlet to make it a little hipper.

8) Green Lantern weakness is the color Yellow. Is that the dumbest thing you have ever heard? “I’m the most powerful being in the universe. Oh no, a classic Morton Salt umbrella!”

9) What should my Halloween costume be this year? I’m thinking my usual Where’s Waldo costume might be a little too overdone and apparently my Illegal Alien get up has been dubbed offensive.

10) God I hate Wil Wheaton. That is less of a question than a fact but…Wheaton!!!!

Up was apparently not scientifically accurate

Well, it looks like for all intensive purposes that the entire balloon boy incident was a hoax and not a very well thought out one at that. Let me put on both my scientist and con artist hats to explain just where they went wrong.

First off, from a basic science perspective there is no way that balloon would have ever gotten off the ground (much less to 7,000 feet) with a six year old inside. As anyone who watches Mythbusters knows the amount of helium balloons required to lift a small child into the air roughly fills up an airplane hanger. There just isn’t enough displacement to lift that much weight. Now, while watching the highlights on Thursday I did not have a sense of scale until they showed it landing. Given that it was the size of a backyard trampoline and flimsily constructed at that it made even the concept of it being real very doubtful.

I will say the kid being scared and hiding to be a pretty decent story. It makes sense as to what a six year old would do. He’d accidentally untie the balloon, get nervous and hide. Except that they filmed it taking off, which doesn’t tie into an “accident”. Or the fact that the attic in the garage had no apparent ladder in which a kid could reach it. Whatever happened to hiding under the bed or in the closet? That would have worked at least for a few hours.

Then there is the mistake of trying a cry wolf defense when you were already on Wife Swap as well as some viral videos. That immediately calls your motives into question. You can’t try to pull off a con when everyone already assumes that you are an attention whore. There were questions regarding the reality of this from the beginning just because they were on reality tv.

Finally, and the biggest mistake of them all, is that you do not hinge the entire con on a six year old named Falcon. (Seriously, if you are going with that name spell it Falken in honor of War Games.) Do you trust a six year old to stick to a story with hundreds of cameras in front of his face? Or when the morning shows have him talking at four or five in the morning because you are in Denver? Of course the kid forgot what he was supposed to say. That is what kids do. Have you ever seen a grade school play? Plus, isn’t there something ethically wrong about dragging your kids in front of the camera crews less than 12 hours after all this drama unfolded? Wouldn’t you as a parent want to keep them off camera for at least a little while and wait a week to be on Dateline?

Oh well, the parents are looking at jail time and no hope for their reality show. See, this is what happens when you try desperately for your own show. They should have just gone for the tried and true method: attempt to date Flavor Flav and be interesting enough to warrant your own show.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Richard Thompson “Live from Austin, TX”
2) Fionn Regan “The End of History”
3) Beausoleil “La Danse de la Vie”
4) Tori Amos “To Venus and Back”
5) Cowboy Junkies “At the End of Paths Taken”

Up, up and away

I have reached the point in my career where I am sent on business trips. Not overnight trips mind you, I yet have reached hotel room status, but still a trip there and back is now part of my job criteria. Outside of allowing me to see things that I might otherwise not see (mainly Sbarros at various airports) it does create a very strange disconnect from what is going on in the rest of the world.

I’ll explain with today’s big news story. When I made it to the airport for my flight home this afternoon I saw a television turned to CNN with a Breaking News logo and something that looked very similar to a UFO. I was thrilled that a UFO invasion would be considered breaking news but rather surprised that CNN didn’t already have graphics premade with “Aliens Attack!” I look at it and quickly find out the a six year old has floated away in a helium balloon and am a combination of surprised, amused and concerned about the little guy’s well being.

So I fly out and as I make my way out of the terminal after landing I make sure to try to find a television. The image of something falling from the balloon took most of the humor out of the situation. The story was now somber and dire. It is not the way you wanted that story to end.

I drove home dealing with crappy traffic due to the rain and when I get to my apartment I flip on CNN to get the update only to find that the kid was never in the balloon. He had been hiding in the garage because he was scared that he would get in trouble for releasing the balloon from the parents’ backyard. This was a great relief because no one wants to see a six year old hurt and it raises fun questions like what did this cost law enforcement and who builds a flying saucer balloon and keeps in the backyard in plain reach of small children anyway?

Thanks to the internet I was able to find out just who. Apparently the family had appeared on Wife Swap: the reality show that isn’t nearly as dirty as it sounds. It also mainly exists to highlight the most unstable families in America as we get to see the worst parenting techniques imaginable. So the next time you see a madcap character on a reality show remember that they might be building their own spaceship in their backyard.

For the record though, I still feel sorry for the little guy who is going to get yelled at for starting all of this. I remember when I was his age and my robot got loose in the neighborhood and destroyed several garages and scared more than a few dogs before it was stopped. Sure, it probably wasn’t wise to allow a six year old to equip flamethrowers to a machine that had a high probability of becoming sentinent but how is a kid every supposed to learn unless he makes mistakes? It wasn’t my fault that I got the sign backwards in the source code.

Enjoy the weekend everybody. Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.

Cohesive topics are not my specialty

First off, I have to say that I quite disagree with the argument that Leonard dating Penny is even more unlikely than Raj not being able to talk to women based on one simple point: I am dating the woman of my dreams. How can we consider that to be an unlikely occurrence that a science obsessed guy could be with a pretty girl? I got the girl so why can’t others?

(Clarifications: In the previous sentence “got” in no way implies a sense of ownership in the way guys in Ed Hardy t-shirts will talk about “my girl” in roughly the same tone of voice as they refer to “my car” or “my Ed Hardy t-shirt.” Also, “girl” is used as a colloquialism here as Kim is an intelligent and sophisticated woman, which in many ways makes the Penny analogy slightly suspect. “The” is rather self-explanatory and “I” refers to me. Hope that helps.)

(Also, just for those wondering, Kim and I are celebrating our eight month anniversary; yes, our first date was on Valentine’s Day. As Kim eloquently put it, this marks my longest relationship by, oh, roughly seven months. And you know what, for eight months I have been completely unable to get the smile off of my face.)

Switching gears so fast that I probably just blew out a transmission I must officially offer my condolences to the wrestling world on the passing of the legendary Captain Lou Albano. Best known for his penchant for rubber bands (around his beard, pierced through his cheek), presence in Cyndi Lauper videos and starring role as Mario on the Super Mario Brothers cartoon show the Captain passed away today at the age of 76. The manager of champions will be well remembered for all of the tag teams that he led to glory; the majority of which were Samoans as for some reason the WWF tag champs in the seventies were always Samoan. The mystery as to who officially anointed him with the title “Captain” has never been answered. I always assumed that it was nautical in nature.

Other news of the day was the Dow breaking 10,000. This was met with cheers by those of us on the Trade Floor. I’m not making that up; you actually heard a round of applause when we saw five digits for the first time in a year. Now as most people know financially speaking the fact that the Dow broke 10K is meaningless but from a psychological perspective it is very important. Given that at time psychology is more important than economics in understanding the stock market it is something to pay attention to. Basically, it is a sign that the market believes that it has some strength and that there is hope for the future.

The problem is I really have an issue with it. This just does not feel like a 10,000 Dow market to me. We have no job growth and while they say tech and banking is leading the way back I’m just not entirely sold on the fact that the growth is really there. With a jobless recovery I’d feel more confident in the 9,000 range. What I really think is happening is that the dollar is so weak (1.49 to the Euro) that the markets are higher due to the devalued currency. That worries me even more. Still, I was on the record for saying that we wouldn’t see 10,000 until next year at the earliest so take it as a good sign. I hope.

The curse of being good at math

I saw some interesting comments online about last night’s Big Bang Theory episode. They were on the topic of Raj and how unrealistic it is that he is unable to speak around women. Given that he has a doctorate and works at a university they tried to argue that there is no way that he could function without speaking to women. To which I (and a few others) replied: you obviously haven’t spent much time in a science department. Now I never reached that high level astrophysics section of the world that Raj is in but even on the lower levels of science and engineering two things are guaranteed. First off, we do everything possible not to actually speak to another human being. Second, while it would be wrong to describe a woman in a science department as a unicorn given that they do exist let’s use the analogy of a giant panda: you know they exist even if you have never seen one in the wild and while they look cute and cuddly they are most likely going to tear your head off.

And people wonder why I spent a little time in marketing as a change of pace.

Now the interesting thing is the chicken and egg question regarding the first point. (And yes, women are more than able to be scientists and engineers and typically make up the best that I have met in my life. Why there aren’t more of them in the field is a question for another night.) Are engineers anti-social because we are engineers or do we become engineers because we are anti-social? What type of person chooses a life of numbers and equations and discussions of appropriate gauge wire for use in a circuit?

There is something to say that there is a connection between the two. There are a group of people (myself included at times) who simply like dealing with numbers more than people. Mainly because numbers follow very specific rules and there is no ambiguity to them. Well, except when you are dealing with infinity where everything is ambiguous but for the most part there are laws that must be followed. People don’t work that way. There is no equation to predict human action the way you can predict the flight of a cannonball. To a certain group of people that makes for a very attractive career path.

What makes it worse is that the work itself promotes that type of bunker mentality. Even in my current job, which is way more social than some of my previous roles, I still find myself spending days mired in data crunching. On those days it is just spreadsheets and headphones and literally millions of data points being sifted until I come out with an equation on the other side. This isn’t work that you do by discussing topics at a Starbucks. It is just brute analysis. To do it well you really need to know how to put up blinders to the outside world.

I guess that is one of the reasons that I like the Big Bang Theory so much. Sheldon is someone who is so antisocial by nature that there is no other field that he could possibly be in than theoretical physics. He is happiest when he is alone with his equations in a structured environment. Leonard, on the other hand, loves his work and numbers but wants more out of life. He wants that social aspect but his career path has given him none of the skills to make it work. I’m more of a Leonard. I’d like to think that I have more skills but I’m still a work in progress. Maybe there is hope for me yet.

Man on the Moon (if you believe)

When I was a little kid and just starting to understand football I would watch The Neil Armstrong show every Sunday morning on channel 2 in Chicago. I recall being extremely confused as to why the first man on the moon would go on to be the head coach of the Chicago Bears. As a seven year old I could not quite understand how one went from astronaut to football coach but I found it to be rather cool. As an adult I realize that they were two different people but having lived through both the Dave Wandstadt and the Dick Jauron eras sometimes I feel that I would prefer an astronaut.

My point, and I do have one, is that Neil Armstrong may be the most forgotten historical figure in history and he is still alive. Think about it; he is the first man to walk on the moon and I have no image of him in my mind other than a few pictures of him from the Apollo project. That might just be because I am a NASA geek. Most people probably cannot pull up a mental image of him at all.

Isn’t that bizarre? Today is Columbus Day when a portion of the country gets a three day weekend to commemorate the discovery of the New World, which came as a great surprise to the people who had been living there for thousands of years. But every single person knows who Columbus is and can recall the pictures from the textbooks and name his three ships. Even the pioneers of flight are well remembered. The Wright Brothers, Lindbergh, Earhart, all of them comprise our historic landscape and are still held up as excellent, barrier breaking figures. Heck, I can even discuss the Montgolfier Brothers who were the first to fly in a hot air balloon (partly because they are the answer to a trivia question but mainly because they appear in a Monty Python sketch (Episode 40: The Golden Age of Ballooning)).

Neil Armstrong may be one of the greatest enigmas of history. Here is someone who did something that no one else in human history had ever done. He stood on the moon and looked down at the Earth. It is an accomplishment that will be mentioned in history books for as long as there are history books. But with all of that fame, all of that acclaim, what does he do? He goes on to become a college professor and spends some time working on his farm. He has remained the perfect, clean cut Eagle Scout that led him to be chosen by the space program. No ego, no desire for fame, just a humble worker. It seems stunning in a world where being on a season of the Real World can provide you with a media career.

Fame is a strange thing. What most people don’t acknowledge is that it is so fleeting that it is rather meaningless. In three years you will mention Jon and Kate and go “who” in the same way that we mention that girl who was stuck in the well. You can be the center of attention and still be forgotten. But some fame, even unwanted fame, will last forever. You’ll always hear about Lindbergh and Armstrong. I just find it fascinating that the one person among us who will be known for the rest of time could walk past me and I wouldn’t recognize him whereas Paris Hilton would be mobbed by onlookers. Kind of sad, I think.

The peace prize should not be a participant ribbon

Since I received two comments on it I felt that I should talk about the Nobel Prizes that were awarded last week. I can’t believe that Bell Labs picked up yet another win in physics. Talk about one of the most underrated places for scientific advancement in the world. Most of your day to day life is influenced by the work of Bell Labs. And, I was completely screwed out of the prize in literature. I was in complete understanding that my reviews of The Pick Up Artist 2 was the epoch of the English language.

Oh, wait, the comments were about the other award. My mistake.

You know it is not a good sign when the announcement of the peace prize is met with gasps of astonishment from journalists. This is not an award that is well known for its shocks. It’s not like the Best Supporting Actress Oscar though in this case it is very similar to a win by Marisa Tomei. I’ve spent all weekend thinking about how in the world Obama winning the Peace Prize makes sense and I have made zero progress.

Let’s start with the technicalities. Nominations were made on Feb. 1 at which point Obama’s accomplishments were a) being elected president and b) making some nice speeches. The five man panel who chose the award in Norway did so this month during which Obama accomplished a) being president, b) giving some nice speeches and c) uh, not allowing an asteroid to slam into the earth? Really tough to think of a third accomplishment of his first year in office. Certainly nothing worthy of a peace prize. The journalists captured in North Korea were freed by Bill Clinton, we aren’t any closer to peace in the Mideast and he is leading a nation involved in two wars one of which we are looking at escalating.

So clearly this award wasn’t about what he had accomplished and even Obama admitted as such. I know that much of the talk has been that he was given the award because of the promise of his presidency. That hope of change and a step forward and just a vague sense of progress. Except that all of those platitudes are really, really intangible. The better way of saying this is that he is given the Peace Prize because he isn’t George Bush. This isn’t an indication of how positively the rest of the world views Obama; it is a sign of just how negatively they viewed Bush.

It was interesting that on Friday I saw a lot of pundits recommending that he politely decline the award and to be honest, I was kind of hoping that he would. It is a great honor to be sure and I can feel pride in that it was given to an American in much of the same way that I feel pride when the US wins a bronze medal in Team Handball but it was a truly undeserved award at this time. It was given for future promise, for the possibility of what might happen, for a beautiful future that for all purposes might be imaginary. Given the people who are doing concrete work to make the planet a better place and to help the oppressed I wish that they would get the attention. In past years Doctors without Borders and the Society Against Landmines were given well-deserved focus for the amazing work that they do and this time I think that the committee missed the point. That said, they also have given one to Kissinger and many people consider him to be a war criminal so who knows what the committee is actually thinking.

(Also, has Obama said what he is going to do with the prize money? Please, please give it to charity.)

As always, this is just an award decided by five Norwegians so it shouldn’t be considered to be the be all and end all of the world. And I certainly don’t want it to seem like I am blaming Obama for receiving the award: he didn’t nominate himself or campaign for the award and seemed to be legitimately shocked at receiving it. And it is a major honor so I congratulate him on it. I just wished that it was awarded on results instead of promises. Because right now I have seen a lot of promises out of Washington and very little in the way of results.

Best of 120 Minutes: Frente! I’m not excited about that but they do use the exclamation point as part of their name. It would be like my officially changing my name to Chris is Super Awesome! Actually, I should get started on the paperwork for that…




Your five random CDs for the week:
1) The New Pornographers “Mass Romantic”
2) Various Artists “Down to the Promised Land”
3) Pearl Jam “No Code”
4) Mindy Smith “Long Island Shores”
5) Mary Chapin Carpenter “Come On Come On”

Get fit and have "fun" doing it

Time for part two in my epic quest to get fit and make a fool out of myself in the process. Here are the remaining Wii Fit Plus games that will continued to be scored on exercise time, calories burned and what someone would say to you if they walked into the room while you were working out.

Obstacle Course: This is probably the most disappointing of all of the mini-games. It promises to be a real life, first person Super Mario Brothers. Run! Dodge swinging medicine balls like in the original American Gladiators! Jump! Well, try to jump because you can’t actually jump on the balance board without breaking it and the squat to jump action doesn’t work for me at all. I might jump, I might not, there is no rhyme or reason to it. Makes for a horrible experience and leaves me hoping for an American Gladiators video game. And the one with Nitro not that damn Wolf version. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 10, “Ooh, watch out for Bowser!”

Tilt City: Probably my favorite game of the whole bunch even though it really has no exercise component to it. Well, maybe that is the reason but hear me out. You hold the Wiimote in your hands while on the balance board and have to shift your hands and your balance to help guide colored balls into the correct buckets. Think of it as a giant game of Plinko with you controlling the plinks. For someone like me who has no coordination this is actually a fun, challenging exercise that helps me get my upper body, lower body and brain all working in sync. It probably looks silly but it is beneficial. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 5, “Shake that moneymaker.”

Rhythm Parade: Finally, an activity for those of us who feel that Advanced Step is not embarrassing enough. Now you get to be your very own drum major leading a parade. My fist problem is that I have to march in time with the rhythm, which requires that I, well, have rhythm. Also, the outfit your character is wearing is less than appealing. As you march you have to lift your arms in the air at the proper times to build a larger band. So all you do is march and fling your hands around wildly for a few minutes. You don’t even get to do that cool Penn State standing flip at the end. Well, I try to pull it off but it isn’t really recommended. Exercise Time: 3 minutes, Calories Burned: 17, “So how was that time at Band Camp?”

Big Top Juggling: I have made it clear in the past that one of my goals in life is to learn how to juggle. Well now I can learn how to juggle without having to actually juggle and I get to do it while standing on top of a ball! Or at least that is what my Mii is doing in this game that works on balance and hand eye coordination. This is another one that is more entertaining than it should be as I am really striving to improve my technique. That is what the Wii is best at, every once in a while you come across a game that you just want to conquer. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 7, “This would be so much cooler if it involved chainsaws.”

Skateboard Arena: Thankfully the typical synthetic pop is replaced in this game by Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8ter Boi”. Pretty basic as your goal is to skate around an arena, hitting objects for points and performing tricks. Steering is by leaning forward and back or, in my case, running into walls and hoping it points you in the right direction. Not too bad but nothing too memorable. Put this one in the category of “at least you aren’t embarrassed by it.” Still can’t touch the best skating game ever: “Skate or Die” on the Commodore 64. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 7 calories, “Where’s Poochie?”

Table Tilt Plus: A remake of a game from the original Wii Fit, which was a remake of Marble Madness to begin with. Using the balance board you move your marbles (and no, that is not meant to be a sexual innuendo) from one side of the board to the other avoiding the obstacles in the way. Another good game and one that teaches fine body control. Again, you aren’t going to become an athlete by doing this game but you might get a better sense of balance and given the challenges that I have staying upright that is a good thing. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 5, “This would be much cooler as pinball.”

Balance Bubble Plus: Another remake of a game with this one being the boy in the bubble without the whole John Travolta movie connections. In a game that never quite made much sense from a plot perspective you are in a bubble that must go through this winding river without touching the sides causing the bubble to burst. No, I do not understand how a bubble could withstand my weight but brushing up against a twig would break it. Enjoyable up to the point where you finish the course and then you never feel like playing it again. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 5, “I am concerned about any video games where bees are your mortal enemy.”

Basic Run Plus: The last game is yet another remake from the original version, which shows that they are completely lying about having new material. Here you run in place while your Mii runs outside on a path following a cat. I am not making this up; your guide is a kitty cat. Now I have known a few cats in my time and the last thing I would consider any of them to be is good jogging partners. Also, I was chided at for running too fast to start and then told I did not work hard enough when I finished. Seriously, if you want me to work out let me work out. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 10, “I still don’t understand why you don’t go outside and run.”

Final Tally: 17 minutes and 66 calories. Nothing close to a workout but more enjoyable than the first batch of games. The basic way to look at the Wii Fit franchise is that it will not make you an athlete but can probably help you keep your shape. Things like the yoga and strength training exercises are very good and will get you working. It is a really fun game though and I’ve been using it for two months now and anything that can hold my interest for that long has to be entertaining.

Exercise for the virtual age

As many people know I am in the process of trying to lose some weight and get down to a more healthy level of chubbiness. In my attempt to try any and all paths to reach this goal I have enlisted my Nintendo Wii in my battle against the bulge. Specifically, I am a “proud” user of Wii Fit. Well, on Sunday I picked up Wii Fit Plus and I thought that it would be good to review the new mini-games that are included in the package. Each game will be scored based on number of minutes per exercise, calories my fat ass burns doing the exercise and what a random person would say if they walked into the room while you were doing it.

Advanced Step: This isn’t a new exercise but I start off all of my workouts with it so I thought that I would include it. This is essentially step aerobics using a rather small step. Hence, it is mainly step up, step down, step to the side, kick your leg in the air, clap and generally look like an idiot. This is all done to the most annoying computerized song that will haunt you for the rest of your life. Honestly, I will be in the middle of a meeting at work and the song will enter my brain. Despite all of this (and the fact that I have no rhythm and trip constantly under normal circumstances) I have worked my butt off to be an expert at this one. Exercise Time: 5 minutes, Calories Burned: 28, “Dude, how is Richard Simmons doing nowadays?”

Perfect 10: Finally, a video game that combines my two favorite things: basic math and thrusting my hips in various directions. Here is the point of the game: your avatar is surrounded by numbers and you must thrust your hips in the appropriate directions to light up the numbers so that they add up to ten. Given that I have blogged my life for five years I obviously have no shame but even being alone and doing this is embarrassing as hell. Plus, it would be cooler if it involved calculus. Exercise Time: 1 minute, Calories Burned: 4, “Oh yeah! Duffman thrusting in the general direction!”

Island Cycling: This one wasn’t actually that bad. To bike you walk in place on the balance board and steer using the Wiimote. You ride around the island (same one from Wii Sports Resort) and go through checkpoints. Not entirely the most exciting game in existence but it does actually get your heart rate up. Plus, for part of the ride you are joined by your Virtual Dog and I am just a sucker for virtual pets. Exercise Time: 4 minutes, Calories Burned: 14, “So let me get this straight. You are pretending to bicycle in paradise by walking in place in your apartment?”

Rhythm Kung Fu: I had such high hopes for this one. Rhythm Boxing was my favorite part of the original Wii Fit and the only one that made me feel like I was actually working out. This one just sucks big time. Technically you are supposed to punch and kick in time with your character. Problem is exactly what you are supposed to do isn’t clear, the timing is even less obvious and throwing one punch every twenty seconds isn’t much of a workout. When the first words that come to your mind in describing an exercise are “boring and confusing” something is horribly wrong. Plus, the whole thing has this David Carradine vibe and I just don’t need to be thinking about embarrassing bondage deaths while I work out. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 12, “At what point do you get to beat up ninjas?”

Driving Range: I am still working on my opinion on this one. Here, the Wiimote and Balance Board allow you to take some swings on a virtual driving range. This could actually prove quite useful as it tracks your center of balance and your swing and could conceivably help your golf game. There are some problems though. One is that I’ve been chastised for swinging the Wiimote to hard, which makes it tough to accurately replicate my normal swing. More importantly is that it is impossible to hold the Wiimote with two hands like a golf club. I finally went back to the way my dad first taught me to swing a club and that was by just using my left hand. That seemed to work out much better. It might not be perfect but it is an interesting way to spend your time. Exercise Time: 5 minutes, Calories Burned: 25, “Wow, even the computer version of you slices every single shot.”

Segway Circuit: So, in this instance you exercise by imagining that you are on a machine that requires you to use no muscle groups whatsoever. The fact that I do this instead of working out on the treadmill that is in my own building or, you know, run outside is beyond me. Anyway, you lean forward and back to drive, steer with the Wiimote and try to hit beach balls before they are destroyed by a giant mechanical gopher. Yeah, I don’t get it either. Exercise Time: 3 minutes, Calories Burned: 8, “At what point did leaning forward officially become labeled as exercise?”

Bird’s Eye Bulls Eye: This game is fun, challenging and horribly embarrassing starting from the moment you see that your Mii is in a bird costume. The idea here is that you flap your arms up and down to fly (on the screen, not in real life, though I probably didn’t need to explain that), lean to steer and try to land on targets as opposed to, I don’t know, doing other bird associated activities. Like fly into windows or congregate on statues. You will feel this in your arms but there is no way that flapping your arms in the middle of a room does not make you look like an idiot. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 7, “You really laid an egg with that score. Get it? Laid an egg?”

Snowball Fight: So one of the things about the Wii is that each person creates a Mii to represent themselves. This is cool that these other Miis appear in the game with you. Thus, in this game I get to hit Virtual Kim with a snowball. This is the only time I expect to ever experience that event as a) she wisely lives in Florida and b) I would much prefer it if Real Kim remained my Real Girlfriend. The entirety of this game consists of leaning to the side and pointing the remote at the screen. Seriously, it has the same level of difficulty as standing up to change the channel. Exercise Time: 2 minutes, Calories Burned: 5, “You probably didn’t need to put on all your workout gear if you were just going to stand up.”

Total: 24 minutes and 103 calories. That said, I can in no way call that a real workout. On a treadmill in that same time I would be well over 200 calories and even running to nowhere is more fulfilling than some of these. Still, they are kind of fun at times and part of the point is that they are stupid.

Tomorrrow, the remaining eight games. Including the wonder that is Rhythm Parade.

Return to the Blue Lagoon

Thought I would share some stories about my visit with Kim to the Blue Lagoon.

Iceland’s primary tourist attraction is the Blue Lagoon, which is rather interesting given that thirty years ago the place didn’t even exist. This obviously requires some explanation and not surprisingly power plants are involved. Iceland gets most of its electricity through geothermal plants and typically they use the water involved for hot water for houses. Well, the water from this one plant was too salty for domestic use so they just made a lagoon out of this volcanic region and just pumped the water in there. In doing so they created this wonderful, one hundred degree lake filled with blue mineral water. After a few people started swimming in it they realized what they had done and built a spa around it. So now it is the one place in Iceland that everyone visits.

There are a few interesting experiences before you even get to the lagoon. When you check in you get a wristband that acts as the key to your locker and a virtual wallet for when you are inside the spa. Very useful and much appreciated. Then you are asked if you need to rent a towel (which I did as I neglected to take the words of Douglas Adams to heart.) Also, if necessary you can rent a swimsuit. Now, on the list of things that I wish to rent in my life a swimsuit has to be at the absolute bottom of the list. I don’t care what type of laundry service you provide that just seems rather nasty. Plus, given the number of speedos I saw on display I really don’t want to know what you would get.

Once you go inside the locker room to change you are informed that you must shower before entering the pool. This doesn’t sound too interesting until you see the signs that highlight in great detail what particular body parts must specifically be washed. I mean, you see a picture of a body and arrows and everything. Add to that you are in a communal shower with a significant number of large Germans with various bits flopping around and it makes for a rather interesting experience. (For the record, they may not have been German but I have decided that every foreign language is German for the sake of convenience.)

It is now time to enter the lagoon itself. For this you go outside into the 45 degree air with a good 20 mile per hour breeze whipping across this barren volcanic landscape. It is like you are on the surface of the moon except that the rocks are darker. The cold just sucks the air right out of you as you drop off your towel and flip flops and walk stiff-legged as the cold has frozen your joints solid. You somehow make it to the pool itself and step in and….

Release the biggest sigh of your life. Nothing has ever felt as good as getting out of the cold air and into what is just the nicest, warmest bath of your life. The water is so salty that you just naturally float in it. You don’t even swim; you just kind of hover around in a search for a spot that is just the right level of warmth for you (they move about so it is a thrill when you stumble upon one.) There are waterfalls to experience and mud masks to wear but just the joy of being in the water was amazing. Plus, since we were at the end of tourist season it wasn’t too crowded so at times Kim and I seemed to have the entire place to ourselves, which made it seem ultra-romantic.

Making things even better was the fact that they served beer. There were two small problems with this though. 1) You had to go inside for the beer, which meant getting out of the pool and walking into the cold. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. You know how you feel so heavy when you get out of a normal pool? Double that and give yourself hypothermia in the process. If anyplace needed a floating bar it is this one. 2) They impose a three drink maximum per person. This seemed tragically small as we probably would have stayed there drinking until we were forced out. I assume that they have a good reason for it (you do dehydrate like mad and it does keep people from, uh, puking) but it cost us a bit of enjoyment.

This was easily one of the highlights of the trip. We stayed in the water for hours, just floating around and laughing and enjoying the fact that it was windy and rainy and just horrible outside to the point that the lifeguards were wearing heavy winter jackets. We didn’t care about anything else in the world. We just enjoyed the moment. If there is anything more you can ask of from a vacation I don’t know what it is.

I'm sure they meant well

From the category “Well meaning endeavors that can really be misinterpreted” I would like to give props to the NFL for honoring Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Or, as Chris Berman said on ESPN on Sunday “Breast Awareness Month.” Also, while it is in some ways touching that the players are wearing pink sweatbands and gloves along with baseball caps tinged with pink it should be noted that no NFL team uniform colors were chosen under the idea that they would go very well with pink. Finally, while I again support the Vikings cheerleaders in their choice to wear hot pink tops the fact that we are raising breast cancer awareness by focusing on body parts that are ninety percent plastic is a little concerning.

(Basically what I am saying here is I am very happy that the NFL is raising money for cancer research but this seems a little heavy handed and misplaced.)

Saw a commercial for what has to be one of the most disturbing products ever over the weekend. It was a cupcake mold. We’re not talking your typical cupcake mold here. We are talking one that appeared to be the size of my Castle Greyskull playset that I had as a kid. For all I know the cupcake mold comes with a drawbridge, elevator and trap door. This thing is massive. The announcer talked about how sweet it would be to make cupcakes for all of your friends without mentioning that besides giving them a delectable treat you would probably be giving them diabetes as well. It is one of those times where you turn away from the TV and go “and I wonder why half the country is obese.”

Also, is it strange for me to think that the coolest aspect of the new Wii Fit Plus is that you can weigh your dog and thus have your dog as a character in the game? I don’t even have a dog but I am going to make one up just so that I can have a virtual pet. I mean, it is not like I would ever be trusted with an actual living creature. I wouldn’t even trust me with a plant.

Not much else to write about tonight. I seem to be spending much of my life in airports and it only appears to be getting worse over the next month or so. Not that I don’t mind getting out of Delaware; it is a treat to get out especially to see the woman of my dreams. Just that airports and planes always seem to suck the life out of me and I always end up feeling like I have some sort of cold. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will do the trick.

Corruption with a spicy twist

As I predicted, Rio won the rights to the 2016 Olympics. The people of Rio celebrated like it was…well…a typical Friday in Rio. I just assume that city is just like Disney World where there are parades every evening except that the magical light parade is replaced by one with half naked people. Oh, and there is just slightly more rampant crime and poverty than there is in Orlando. Not by much, though.

There are a lot of people looking to point blame in the fact that Chicago lost and lost big in their bid. They were eliminated in the first round after most people viewed them as the favorites. In essence, I’ll say that the Chicago bid showed a lack of cohesion with events being held in Wisconsin, a need for too many sites to be constructed and the fact that half of the city wasn’t behind the games probably killed the bid. Interestingly though, I think there was a bigger reason why Rio got the games.

I think that the Olympic committee really wanted to have a latin flavored games. Madrid and Rio were the top vote getters in every round. There hasn’t been an Olympics in a Spanish speaking country since Barcelona in 1992 and Mexico City in 1968 before that. Given the huge portion of the world that is Spanish speaking and how they have not been a focus of the Olympic marketing effort in the past I think that is one of the reasons that they were selected. Add in the fact that Rio is the same time zone as New York and you understand some other benefits.

Or maybe it was just the way that she dances on the sand.

Anyway, it is late as my flight got in early but traffic killed me in trying to get home. I’ll have some comments on football tomorrow as we all have to endure Favre-a-palooza.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Ryan Adams “Demolition”
2) Cowboy Mouth “Are You With Me?”
3) Aimee Mann “The Forgotten Arm”
4) Liz Phair “Whitechocolatespaceegg”
5) The Freddy Jones Band “Waiting for the Night”

Judging the olympic bids

They announce the host of the 2016 Olympics tomorrow and that is obviously a subject of interest given the strong possibility that Chicago might win the rights. I’m kind of torn as to how I feel about it so I might as well write up my thoughts and then tomorrow we can figure out if I am right or wrong.

(For those wondering, the 2010 games are in Vancouver, 2012 is in London and 2014 is in some two bit Russian town whose name I can’t recall offhand.)

As a sports fan and Olympics buff I would of course be thrilled to have the Olympics in my hometown. It would truly be a once in a lifetime moment and something absolutely spectacular. To have the eyes of the world on our skyline would be absolutely amazing. I know that I would make my way back to the city for at least part of the games and just soak up the amazing atmosphere. It would give the city some additional prestige and maybe cement the city as one of the greatest places in the world.

However, I have a hard time buying the idea just based on the fact that it would be really cool to have them. For one thing, the Olympics don’t mean nearly as much as they used to. Given infinite cable channels and year round sports seasons and the end of the cold war the Olympics just don’t carry as much weight as they used to. Before they were the only time every four years you would even be able to watch something like gymnastics. Now the meets are shown every other week. Plus, the thrill of the US versus the Soviets are gone and now the focus is on pro athletes who may or may not be on drugs. That innocent thrill of the Jim McKay era is gone.

I also don’t know if the Olympics really bring that much in terms of long term benefit to a city. True, tourism spikes during the games and maybe a little afterwards but are you planning a trip to Beijing or Torino at the moment? Yes, Barcelona made a name for itself but Atlanta pretty much ruined its rep. The best Olympics in recent memory was the Sydney games, which made me want to visit a city that I already wanted to visit. So there is that to consider.

Finally, there is the financial aspect. Basically, cities always lose money on the Olympics. You have to build aquatic centers and cycling tracks and a place for fencing competitions that will never be used again. It is really the curse of the games. Remember that awesome stadium in Beijing that was used for the ceremonies and track and field? It is sitting empty right now and costing the country a ton of money in the process. No matter what they say the games will go over budget and lose money, especially factoring in the typical Chicago corruption. I’m no longer a taxpayer there so I guess this shouldn’t worry me as much but on the whole it is still a big issue.

In the end that is what we are weighing. It would be super cool to have them but it really wouldn’t mean that much and we’d lose money on the deal. If Chicago doesn’t get them Rio will. I don’t know why but I really have a feeling that Rio will get the games just so they can finally be held in South America. Maybe it would be a blessing in disguise for the city if that happened.

Reality with a funny accent

I have two reality shows to talk about tonight and both are from the BBC. It is interesting to note that I am now so burned out on American reality shows that I have to turn to other countries to get my fix. This is especially true for the Next Top Model series where I am a huge fan of the Australian version for two reasons: 1) no Tyra Banks and 2) beautiful women with cool accents. Anyway, here are two shows that give the British take on things.

The first is one that I haven’t actually seen but read about today. Now we have all seen the shows where they take a normal family and act as if they transported them back in time to colonial days or Victorian England. The typical “take away all their luxuries and make them live life the way people used to.” Well, this show follows that exact same concept except they send them back to 1970. Yep, back to life forty years ago.

Apparently this makes for absolutely amazing television. The family has to learn how to cook now that they have no prepared meals or microwaves and a rather low end stove. Because it is Britain they have no central heating as apparently only a quarter of the homes did back in that time. No computer or cell phones so one of the kids had to leave a note for his parents by using a typewriter. And best of all, they are forced to wear seventies fashions. Every day or so they advance a year and gain new technologies such as Pong.

I so want to see this show because it really hits a point that I have tried to make here so many times: I have no idea what it would be like growing up in today’s world. It was life without the internet, no cable to start and then only in the living room, black and white set in the bedroom, one phone line for the house (awesome when there are seven people in the house) and hair metal was all the rage. It must seem quaint compared to things today. The thing is I am not that old. There shouldn’t be that much of a leap but there certainly is. I went to college with a typewriter and left with a computer. It really was a changing of eras.

The other show is one that Kim and I watched in Iceland. We didn’t watch much TV when we were over there because a) the entire point of the trip was to get out and do things and b) we only had like five channels and one was in Icelandic. Anyway, the BBC had a show called World’s Strictest Parents and this show was rather stunning. The concept again is simple. Take two teenagers who are performing badly at school and acting rudely at home and send them to another home for a week and have the “adoptive” parents treat them as their own and show them life under more strict conditions. Kind of like Wife Swap for Kids with a bit of SuperNanny added in.

Again, doesn’t sound like much on the surface until you realize where they sent them. These kids were sent from England to Jamaica. And we are not talking resort Jamaica here; this is the horrible poverty side of Jamaica. In the next week’s episode the kids were going to Ghana. It is just the ultimate in culture shock. These kids from rather privileged first world backgrounds are sent to the third world to interact with adults who are hard on them because that is the only way they can survive. You learn respect when you literally have to kill the chicken that will be your dinner that night. Usually on these shows the kids say that they are changed but you don’t think they really believe it but here they are just awestruck by what they have seen and how blessed their lives really are. It was really fascinating.

Oh well, off to watch my tape of Real Chance of Love Season 2.

I "like as a friend" New York

More vacation stories…

It probably seems extremely odd that I had been to Iceland before I ever visited New York. True, I flew out of New York to get there but time spent at JFK really doesn’t count as visiting the city. I just never had a reason or much of a desire to visit the city. I always claim that it is part of my Chicago bias. I grew up in a big city that is the best place in the world so I never saw any reason to go to New York, which from my understanding was just a more crowded and less polite version of Chicago.

But it was time for me to go to the big city and I have to say that I was rather impressed especially given what it took for us to get there. We decided to take an airport shuttle van to our hotel, which was a major mistake as a) it took us an hour and a half to actually get to the hotel and b) we were packed in like sardines to the point that we had to breathe in unison. You really don’t want to have your first impression of the city be mainly “get me out of this freaking van.”

We did make it to our hotel in Times Square and I have to admit that it was quite a sight. Outside of a few parts of London I don’t think that I had ever seen anything quite like it. The sheer mass of humanity was stunning. My years in KC and Delaware have really hidden me from the density of a true big city. New York just has people everywhere. Chicago has an unbelievable amount of wide open spaces in comparison. Also, things just move fast. There is that natural sense of everyone needing to go somewhere quickly. None of this meandering stuff.

We only had one day in the city so we mainly did some touristy stuff. Had breakfast at a deli so I could have a real New York bagel, which tasted surprisingly like every other bagel I have ever had. Toured the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was awesome though I have to admit that I am not a big fan of the Dutch Masters. I just prefer the Impressionists; it is just more my style. We did a lot of shopping at places like the M&M store (yes, they have their own store) and the largest Swatch store in the US. We even saw a play because that is what you do when you are in New York.

I will have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by my time there. I would have no problem going back and exploring the city some more and let’s face it; it’s not like I even scratched the surface on things to do there. I don’t think that I could actually live there because I like my wide open spaces. It’s not that I have to live out in the middle of Montana but I like having at least a modicum of personal space. True, there is everything that you could ever want to experience in that city except for the possibility of peace and quiet. Good food though and really smart cabbies. Got to hand it to any town with good cab drivers.

I think I had this date before...

Some random thoughts based on comments and other moments of my life.

1) One of the wonders of having Wii Fit is that you tend to weigh yourself on a daily basis. This really does make you want to do anything and everything possible to lose weight just so you won’t have the computerized voice say “You’re overweight” every single day. Well, on Saturday I weighed myself and discovered that I had lost two pounds, which was a bit of a surprise given that I really didn’t exercise or do much of anything from when I weighed myself the day before. In fact, I realized that the only thing that I did do was get a haircut. As a result I have now decided that the foundation of my weight loss program is going to be full body waxing.

2) It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I was well aware that I could get a Ric Flair branded scratch off lottery ticket. Remember, I am the guy who was working on getting a mortgage through Ric Flair Finance. I mean, he had the patented Figure Four process! What could possibly go wrong, other than a complete meltdown of the financial system due to the fact that people were getting home loans from a pro wrestler who felt that feathered boas were a great addition to his ring gear. Sigh. It is sad that his sixteen world title reigns are matched by a nearly equal number of divorces leaving him unable to keep up with his limo riding, jet plane flying lifestyle.

3) Also, I’m not sure if I can consider the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff as my least favorite tag team of all time. Sure, we all hated the Sheik but Volkoff was hated only because he was vaguely Russian though you always had the feeling that he was really from Detroit. Personally, I hated Ivan and Nikita Koloff more even though Ivan was from Canada and Nikita was from South Carolina.

4) I will grant the point that Kitchen Nightmares is the best Gordon Ramsay show but only if we are discussing the British version. That show should be required viewing for anyone thinking of opening a restaurant or even running their own business. The American version is so staged that it barely counts as reality television. And I still like Hell’s Kitchen as a guilty pleasure and the only cooking show on tv that gives an indication of what actually takes place in a restaurant kitchen.

5) How can anyone rank Wallowitz over Kuthrapali? True, Wallowitz broke out the Green Lantern belt buckle tonight but Kuthrapali brings it week after week. I am still a bit torn on the Penny and Leonard relationship. I want Leonard to get the girl because, well, I am a sucker for those sorts of things. The problem is there really isn’t anywhere for the story to go with them together. The four guys and Penny is funny. Leonard and Penny with Sheldon and the other two is really awkward.

6) I really liked How I Met Your Mother tonight. It at least showed that Ted has matured a little over the years (dude, you should have called her back.) It does show that Ted has set his standards so unbelievably high that you can’t imagine him getting anyone that fits his ideal. Ooh, she has cats I’ll never speak to her again. Just seems a little too judgmental. Also, weird in how they didn’t pay off the Barney and Robin arguing in the strip club. They built up tension and it didn’t go anywhere. Still Barney is awesome no matter what the setting.

More Iceland travel notes

Some things I discovered in Iceland that were totally unexpected…

1) Apparently the entire country is not a frozen wasteland. Given the name Iceland you expect the type of place where Superman would construct his fortress of solitude. Instead, it seemed to be more attuned to Swamp Thing as every available surface was covered with moss and lichen. It was rather pretty but given that it was in the seventies at times we seemed to be at a loss as to where all the ice was.

2) If you have ever traveled to European capitals you realize that every other building you see is actually older than the United States. That is not the case in Reykjavík as the city was basically built in the past 100 years. For some reason instead of making all of these nice, quaint buildings they decided to take pages from the old Soviet design manual. Lots of corrugated steel and squat, drab concrete structures. Part of the is necessity in a country where it is always rainy, windy and cold but it does take a little bit of joy out of the place.

3) While the majority of Icelanders speak English (enough so that we never had any issue in making our way through any situation) the primary language is Icelandic, which hasn’t changed from the Viking era. Apparently, the language has been so constant that the average person can grab a thousand year old manuscript and understand it completely. Compare that to English where it is difficult to read a 400 year old Shakespeare play much less Chaucer or Beowulf. I don’t think it is possible to read Beowulf in Old English without years of training. Anyway, Icelandic is such a foreign sounding language that not only is it impossible to understand any words but it makes all of the speakers sound like elves.

4) Because much of the island is volcanic and filled with hot springs the hot water is piped in from the hot springs themselves, which means that the water has a wonderful tinge of sulfur to it. You know that the water in the shower had warmed up when it began to smell like rotten eggs. It did wake you up in the morning; I will give it that praise.

5) Before it sounds like I am ripping too much on the water I have to say that the bottled water from the glacial springs is the best water you would ever taste in your life. The ice cube I had from an actual 12,000 year old glacier may be one of the best things that I have ever tasted. So it isn’t all bad.

6) This is more of a comment on Europe in general. I have no idea why no matter what country I travel to, no matter how good the hotel is, that they have absolutely no idea how to design a shower. I can accept the fact that I am taller than the average European so I have to stoop to get clean. But for some reason all of the showers are designed with about 12 unlabeled knobs and the shower head in the absolute worst spot imaginable. It is always fun to be dealing with jet lag and trying to reverse engineer plumbing.

7) Kim and I were there for just under a week, traveled around about half the island, and probably went through at least two thirds of the inhabited portions of the place. In that entire time we saw only two black people on the entire island. It got to be really disconcerting after awhile. We saw more tourists from mainland China.

8) Speaking of other tourists I have to tell this story. As part of one of the organized tours we took we were given the opportunity to look at a geothermal power plant. Kim had no desire to look at it and stayed in the bus reading a book. I may have had even less desire to see it because I have spent a good portion of my adult life looking at power plants and had little desire to watch a utility powerpoint presentation that I wasn’t being paid to sit through. What amazed me is how all of the other people on the tour were going up to the windows and taking pictures of the generators and the plant design. Trust me, it is my job and it is not that interesting.

9) They are really, really big on hot dogs. I have no idea why that is the case and as I discussed a few days ago they seem to be an acquired taste. It just seems to be like the most random food for them to be into. I just assumed that their entire diet consisted of fish. Oh, and don’t eat the dried fish unless you ate the fish food you gave your goldfish as a kid.

10) You have to love a country where the kids go out to the clubs at five in the evening and don’t come home until the next morning. That is dedication for you.

Best of 120 Minutes: Have to go with the Sugarcubes tonight. It’s Iceland’s number three export. And for the record, we did not stay at the Hotel Bjork though we went past it.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) The Raconteurs “Consolers of the Lonely”
2) Scott Miller and the Commonwealth “Upside Downside”
3) Robbie Fulks “Country Love Songs”
4) Neko Case “Blacklisted”
5) The Tragically Hip “Live Between Us”

Now what is left to see in South Bend?

I have some sad news to report. The College Football Hall of Fame is relocating from South Bend to Atlanta. This means, well, it means absolutely nothing to most of you. Heck, all of you unless you actually happen to work there. Mainly it means that those in the South Bend region will no longer have to put up with constant commercials on how they should visit the museum. That and expect a significant reduction in the number of former Notre Dame players inducted into the hall as that was one of the ways they insured a large crowd during the ceremony. It was actually a rather nice museum though and I’ve been at both the South Bend and Kings Island incarnations.

Oh, and best sign seen at the Pittsburgh G-20 protests. “Obama: Put Arrested Development back on the air.” See, that is what we need more of in this country. I am sick and tired of people having reasoned debates about topics like health care and international conflicts. I demand presidential action regarding television sitcoms. It might be the only thing that all of us as a nation could agree upon.

Since I was out of country for the past few weeks I am a bit out of touch with several of my favorite shows. I have finally caught up with Hell’s Kitchen as they are now at the portion of the show where the only contestants left are the ones who can actually cook. Of all the reality shows on the air this one is the most fake (even though the people I know who work on the show swear to me that it is on the up and up.) More than anything about half of the contestants would have absolutely no right working in a top restaurant much less being a head chef so the first few months of the show revolve around Gordon Ramsay swearing at people who can’t cook. It is entertaining but not entirely exciting. I am still a few episodes behind on Top Chef where this season’s cast is a lot more talented than the last but that actually takes out a bit of the drama. There is such a defined top group that we are just waiting to get to the final four or five so that they can all fight it out. Plus, Vegas just doesn’t serve up as many fun food opportunities as the other cities did.

How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory had their season premieres this week. Interesting that the more I read about HIMYM online the more people refer to Ted as a bit of a douche, which to be honest is pretty true. During the first season you cheered for the guy, in the second season you were glad that he was happy with Robin but since then he has grown insufferable. That doesn’t even take into account that he is telling his kids all about all the women he slept with before he met their mother. The show is basically a vehicle for Barney and as long as he breaks out the tuxedo I am still a fan of the show.

Big Bang Theory is at a strange point in its development. The show has become entirely about Sheldon, which is great because he is the best character. Except that the conceit behind the show was that it was about Leonard and Penny as a couple and to be honest, no one really cares. The chemistry just isn’t there and we aren’t as invested in the character as we should be. It will be interesting to see where they take the plot lines this season.

Manufactured nostalgia

Interesting question posed to me in the comments last night. So we are faced with an A Team movie, a remake of Red Dawn, a remake of Melrose Place and every other show includes at least one vampire. Has Hollywood run out of ideas? And more importantly, how much nostalgia can be mined until it becomes meaningless.

Let’s start with the remakes of classic franchises. Seemingly every show from my youth (except for Alf for some reason) has been made into a feature film. Transformers, GI Joe, Brady Bunch, Speed Racer, Lost in Space, Flintstones, if you can name it they have probably made a movie of it. Even worse are the relaunches of television series with Melrose Place, Knight Rider, and 90210 all being prime examples. This is a phenomena that needs some further analysis.

First off, one of the reasons that Hollywood is sold on remakes is that it takes zero marketing dollars to tell people what the show is about. I have seen no commercials or adds about the new Melrose Place series but I can describe in perfect detail what the typical plot line will entail. Compare that to a show like Flash Forward, which I still don’t quite understand and I have read up on it. It is cheap and lazy to create remakes but that is what Hollywood thinks that people want.

That is another aspect of it. Remakes offer no intellectual challenge to the viewer. Now I have no problem with brain dead entertainment. I still watch pro wrestling for the sheer fact that I have no need to think while watching it. But remakes take even the most minimal requirements of attention to detail on a new show and throws them out the window. The viewer doesn’t have to pay attention to what is going on because they already know the story. We don’t need to think as to why there are giant robots on earth. The good guys are Autobots and the bad guys are Decepticons. Everyone knows this.

But if you pay attention you’ll notice that remake shows never last as long as you would think. The shows get cancelled, the movies make less money and all in all they are less successful each and every time. That is because Hollywood has completely misjudged the idea of nostalgia. I am not nostalgic for the shows of my youth. I’m nostalgic for my youth. Yes, I remember sitting on the couch watching the A Team as a ten year old and you know what I want: to go back to being a ten year old without a care in the world. My longing isn’t for a show featuring Vietnam vets who were unjustly prosecuted and now work as underground enforcers. All I want is to be a kid again. We enjoy the memories of the shows for who we were then; not for the shows themselves. And remaking the shows only causes a brief return to those moments and then we are thrust back into our boring, everyday lives.

Is Hollywood out of ideas? That seems to imply that they had any to begin with. I think they have a strong feeling that the average consumer is an idiot and they produce their products appropriately. If you hate the fact that mass media is treating you like a moron you know what you do? Ignore mass media. There is a whole lot of great art being made out there if you take the time to look. We all have hundreds of cable channels at our disposal and broadband lines capable of bringing us nearly anything that was ever made. Find what you like and tell Hollywood to take a hike. Enough people do that and they will get the message.

What's for dinner

Some thoughts about Icelandic food…

1) Our first dinner in Iceland was Domino’s Pizza. Now some people would claim that this really breaks the spirit of traveling overseas. I respond with the following. A) I had another one of my medical misadventures on the plane (I owe Kim everything in the world for helping me through it) and neither of us were in an adventurous mood, B) jet lag killed any desire for us to leave our hotel room and C) it was the best Domino’s Pizza I have had in my entire life. Seriously, it was freaking awesome.

2) We went on a number of bus tours, which meant pre-arranged stops at tourist locations for lunch. At one we were requested to try the meat soup, which I must admit was quite tasty. However, you have to question any soup that is simply defined as being flavored by meat. Could be beef, could be lamb, could be some other small creature, you can never be quite sure.

3) As is the case with most of Europe in Iceland there is this unnerving tendency to serve every sandwich with some sort of unnamed sauce. In England everything comes lathered with butter whereas in Iceland it appears that Thousand Island dressing is the condiment of choice. This led to Kim’s continual request that our meals come as listed on the menu and not with some sort of mystery attachment.

4) Per Kim (since I never tried it) the Icelandic Brie was just off the charts good. I personally found the Icelandic hot dog to be quite good while Kim did not enjoy it in the least. It is a natural casing dog much like the Bohemian hot dogs I had as a kid and came with a mustard sauce that was quite like a remoulade. Personally, I just like the fact that I went all the way to Iceland to have a hot dog.

5) At one point we had dinner in a Mexican restaurant in which I ordered a fish and chips and Kim ordered a chicken sandwich. This made perfect sense at the time. I believe it was because they wanted thirty bucks for fajitas.

6) One of the best things we did was have dinner at a tapas restaurant (recommended by Canadians who while we can fault their health care they are good at finding places for dinner). This let us try a number of Icelandic delicacies as well as give me a chance to try a few things I had never had before like escargot. We had puffin, the national bird and mascot, which was kind of oily and gamy and not that great. Monkfish was also quite good but the star of the night was the minke whale. Yes, I tried whale and it was delicious. Like a cross between tuna and a really good steak. That and a few other dishes made it one of my best meals ever.

7) Yes, you can complain that we dined on several cute creatures, especially when you include our lamb lunch the next day that was just exquisite. I would just like to state that on our whale / bird watching expedition we saw neither whales nor puffins so we felt like they owed us for not being there. And the lamb was just too good to pass up.

8) Next to our hotel was this bakery that we passed every day but only ate at on our last day. Which was a mistake because they had this cinnamon roll covered with fudge that would make you end your diet in a second. I’m not a big pastry type person but this was pretty amazing. Inexpensive as well, which was a great change of pace.

9) At one point Kim ordered a hamburger that came with a fried egg on top of the bun. You know that you have spent a long time travelling when that seems to be a perfectly normal way to serve a hamburger.

10) If I learned one thing from our trip it is this: you can never go wrong when you order the lobster feast.

And I'm back...

Did you miss me? Was my wit and panache longed for in the midst of cyberspace? Did anyone actually notice that I had stopped writing for two weeks?

Anyway, as I said I went on sabbatical which is really a fancy way of saying I finally took a vacation. In fact this was the first time that I took five days off from work that did not involve volunteering in New Orleans in almost a decade. It has been that long since I have had a real vacation and that says something and I don’t think it is very good.

So what did I do? Well, Kim and I went to New York to Iceland back to New York to Detroit to South Bend then back to Detroit and finally home. We spent nearly a week in unseasonably warm Iceland where we saw glaciers and icebergs and waterfalls and geysers and a whole lot of gray skies. We also ate amazing food including the best ice cube you will ever taste as well as puffin (they are both cuddly and delicious.) We then went to New York, going from a country of 300,000 people to a city of 8 million. We did the museums and Times Square and saw a play and I had my first experience of life in New York. Then it was on to South Bend for the Notre Dame game and reunions with some old friends.

Obviously I have a thousand stories to tell and I will be sharing them over the next few weeks. Right now I just want to say that I am back safe and sound though the jet lag has finally caught up to me. Travelling the world via early morning flights starts to drain you once you reach your mid thirties. So, I am going to thankfully sleep in my own bed right now and get ready to go back to work in the morning. More stories to follow.

But what do you mean Tali won More to Love while I was gone? Why in the world did Luke choose her? I really have to disagree with his logic there. Mandy was robbed.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Death Cab for Cutie “Transatlanticism”
2) Tommy Malone “Soul Heavy”
3) Damien Rice “Live from Fingerprints Warts and All”
4) Various Artists “Bloodshot Records Sampler 2001”
5) Rufus Wainwright “Release the Stars”

I'm a ninja, it's my birthday

Well, in roughly an hour and a half I will turn 36 and will now be on the late portion of my mid thirties. To think of what has happened to me over the past year is astounding. Comparing where I was a year ago to where I am now is just mind boggling. I would never have expected any of this to happen.

Last year on my birthday I was packing up my apartment in Kansas City and moving to Delaware. After five possibly misspent years out on the Great Plains I was moving to the east coast where I knew absolutely no one. Seriously, I did not know a single person within a hundred miles of my new home. I was returning to a company I had worked for in the past but was faced with the fear that maybe after seven years away I had forgotten everything I had learned on the first go around. I was saying goodbye to the familiar and hello to a complete blank slate. Incredibly, it worked out in the best way possible.

I didn’t feel that way at first. I still don’t feel that I am an east coast guy and I will never understand the whole idea of going to the shore on weekends. Wilmington is a small city and everything seems to be a drive for me whether it is to go to a bar or a grocery store or to an area of actual culture. But I love my apartment and I have gotten used to the area. It might not feel like home just yet but it feels pretty nice.

My job is going exactly the way that I hoped that it would. It is tough to explain just how at home I am talking about power lines and how energy flows. I know it sounds like the most boring thing in the world and I am sure to most people it actually is but I just love the fact that I can model every power line in the country and figure out what will happen next. Plus, I jumped back into the industry at the perfect time as everything is up in the air again. Having gone from a company I didn’t particularly like to this is a wonderful change of pace.

But obviously the biggest moment of the past year is the one I never would have predicted no matter how much I tried. I never even fancied the thought that Kim and I would get back in touch and decide to start dating. It would have been a dream on the level of winning the lottery; it seemed that unlikely. Yet today here I am dating the woman of my dreams and happier than I have ever been. Every day I remind myself that I am the luckiest guy on the planet.

All I can say is for the first time my life is precisely where I want it to be. I have the best girlfriend ever, a job that excites me and a wonderful family. Things aren’t perfect but of course they never are. I wish I knew people out here who I didn’t work with or had a regular trivia game to play or was fifteen pounds lighter but those are all things that I can address. I do miss my friends in KC and sometimes wish I was on my way to the Brick on a Friday night to unwind but sometimes you have to move to grow. That is what this year has been all about. I am looking forward to my birthday tomorrow for all the possibilities the next year holds. After this one I feel that anything is possible.

On that note I have something to announce. As my regular readers have probably noticed the posts have been a little lacking at times recently with the occasional skipped entry. For lack of a better term, I’ve been busy with my real life and am tired as a result. I still love to write but over the past few months sitting down at the laptop and writing a page of material has grown a little tougher. So, after some thought I have decided that after four years and ten months, 1,253 posts and probably around 800,000 words I am due for a little break so I am taking a two week sabbatical. I guess that would be more of a hiatus than a sabbatical but either way I just want to take some time to recharge my creative batteries and take care of some other projects. I’m not going to stop blogging or change from the five posts a week schedule or anything. Just taking a little time off to celebrate one hell of a year.

As always, thanks to everyone who does read my thoughts from my corner of the world. See you all in two weeks. Take it away Josh…

Saturdays are the best days

With college football starting up tomorrow I thought that I would take a look at the games on tap for this weekend and give my expert commentary. I’d even put my money behind my picks except that the courts have banned Delaware’s experiment with sports gambling, which is sad because it was one of the few reasons to live in Delaware. The only reason, actually.

Oregon vs. Boise State: I recommend watching this game in black and white. Partially because it will provide a nice, old timey feel to the game but mainly because a stadium that will feature a team in orange playing a team in neon green and yellow on blue turf is not something that should be watched with the naked eye. I think the color scheme will cause high definition sets to explode. If Boise State wins they get to play in a BCS bowl; if they lose, well, they remain in Idaho.

Utah vs. Utah State: It’s the battle of the Beehive State, such named because…ok, even I don’t know that one. I assume it involves bees. Winner gets domain over all of Utah or at least the portions not owned by the Mormon church which are naturally controlled by BYU.

Central Arkansas vs. Hawaii: The game is at Hawaii which means some guy who accepted a scholarship to Central Arkansas has scored a free trip to Honolulu for this game. Meanwhile, my engineering career at Illinois featured two trips to Chicago for conferences and that is about it. I knew I should have spent more time in the weight room instead of the lab.

Illinois vs. Missourah: It is the Braggin Rights challenge. This is a traditional rivalry game for the Illini, which is interesting because I have no idea what our feud is with Missouri. Outside of the people in the southern part of the state who have some St. Louis envy we consider Missouri to be the home of Branson and not much else. Having lived there for five years I can confirm that once you get past Yakov Smirnoff’s theater in Branson there really isn’t anything else of importance in the entire state. I’m hoping for an Illinois win out of spite more than anything.

Texas vs. Louisiana Monroe: Nice to see the Longhorns starting the season off with a major challenge. When I can’t tell you where Louisiana Monroe is it is a sign that their team is probably not a major contender.

Florida vs. Charleston Southern: My predicted line for Tim Tebow: 280 yards passing, 63 yards rushing, 4 TDs (3 pass, 1 run), and 5 lepers cured. I am so pissed that it was raining in May and I couldn’t get my picture taken in front of the Promise speech that they carved into the stadium wall already. First time I have ever heard of a monument to a college player who was still playing.

(One of my favorite lines ever. The Virginia basketball coach once said of a Duke benchwarmer, “If we had a guy like Taymon Domzalski on our team we would build a statue of him.” To which I replied, “Yes, and he would be fouling Thomas Jefferson.”)

Alabama vs. Virginia Tech: Wow, this should be a great game for the opening weekend. You always have to love southern football games. Huge crowds, an acceptable level of rowdiness and extremely well organized fans. Also, several guys named Bobby Joe will be on the field and we need more of that in sports.

Miami vs. Florida State: Miami wins after Florida State misses a field goal. Or after the NCAA suspends three quarters of the Seminoles team in the first half. Or they just start removing wins from Bowden’s record during the game. Man I hate Florida State.

Mickey Meets Magneto

Sorry I forgot to post last night. I was busy working on my spec script for “Wolverine Meets Goofy” for the Disney-Marvel merger. It has some wonderful dialogue like

Goofy: “Gosh golly Logan, Donald is going to be really upset when he finds out you decapitated Scrooge McDuck.”
Wolverine: “He has to learn his lesson. You fund Doctor Doom’s plan to rule the world and you end up one dead duck.”

Hey, at least Goofy makes sense as a mutant. Otherwise we are forced to deal with that age old question as to what Goofy is. He can’t be a dog because Pluto is a dog and he doesn’t talk so what the hell does that make Goofy? And why does no one have an issue with Donald Duck wearing a sailor suit sans pants and hanging out with his similarly pantsless “nephews?” Am I the only one who sees the symbolism there?

Obviously, like Doctor Octopus I am a bit up in arms at the moment over this whole merger. If I was a Marvel stockholder I would be celebrating like mad because they make out like bandits in this deal. As someone who enjoys comic books though, and who has seen how Disney has pretty much destroyed ESPN, I do fear what this might result in. I am guessing a Jonas brother as Captain America or Miley Cyrus as Scarlett Witch. It will be interesting to see just how much interplay there is between the two brands. A little would be wonderful; too much would be disastrous.

Here is something that I will talk about more as this week goes on. I have lived in Delaware for a year now. Yes, tomorrow will be one year in my new job and a year since I packed up everything that I own in Kansas City and made my way east. Heck, I am a year removed from being a trivia maven having somewhat retired from that scene. It has been quite a year if I should say so myself. But more on that later.