So, I've been driving my wife nuts the last three nights...by going to bed at the same time she does. Boy she hates that. Normally I stay up a couple hours later than she does playing xbox, but Friday I had a breakfast meeting and then an all-day charity tennis event sponsored by ... ahem ... my employer, so I thought I'd crash early Thursday night. Friday night I was so dead tired after the tennis thing that I crashed. Saturday morning I had a tennis match, mowed the lawn, then Ash and I went to the ATL for dinner with her family. We got back late Saturday night, so for the 3rd night in a row, I was asleep by 11:00pm.
I have never been so all-over-sore as I have the last 2 days. My quads, ass, back, neck, arms, abs, you name it. Sore as anything. I could barely get up off the couch yesterday, or in and out of my car. I guess there's a downside to having a big ole' SUV. Well, that and $3 a gallon.
Saw the movie Stranger Than Fiction last Friday. Ash and I liked it; I'll pretty much watch anything with Maggie Gyllenhaal or Emma Thompson, let alone both in one movie. It was like Nerd Heaven!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
On Vegas, Baby!...and 300
Last week, on Saturday I left for Vegas. I got there about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and I got my first business card for a stripper by 2:30. Bree...$49 Special. I don't know what "special" means, but for $49 I have a good guess. It became normal after a while, seeing all the Mexicans snap the cards as you pass by and pushing them towards you, but the next day I had to do a double-take when I saw a couple of Mexican women snapping the cards.
I was there until eeeeearly Thursday morning. I played a lot of poker with my brother who crashed in my room at the Venetian (rough living, let me tell you).
Last night, I went and saw the movie 300 with SayBN, a fellow geezer. It was actually a pretty good movie. Obviously more of a "guy movie". It was sort of like a chronological prequel to Braveheart. Lots of fighting sequences where the lead characters are nigh-indestructible, long monologues with fist-raising endings, and even the part where the local aristocrat tries to have sex with the protagonist's wife...yeah that was in this one too. But the cinematography and the effects were pretty sweet.
Oh and by the way SayBN, the guy who played Dilios (David Wenham) was Faramir in the LotR The Two Towers.
I was there until eeeeearly Thursday morning. I played a lot of poker with my brother who crashed in my room at the Venetian (rough living, let me tell you).
Last night, I went and saw the movie 300 with SayBN, a fellow geezer. It was actually a pretty good movie. Obviously more of a "guy movie". It was sort of like a chronological prequel to Braveheart. Lots of fighting sequences where the lead characters are nigh-indestructible, long monologues with fist-raising endings, and even the part where the local aristocrat tries to have sex with the protagonist's wife...yeah that was in this one too. But the cinematography and the effects were pretty sweet.
Oh and by the way SayBN, the guy who played Dilios (David Wenham) was Faramir in the LotR The Two Towers.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
On The Last Kiss...
...or as I like to call it - The Last Movie Written By A Man Named Gabriele Muccino That I'll Ever Watch.
Sunday night. The wife and I just finished watching The Last Kiss. I saw it in Blockbuster and it had Zach Braff so I thought "wow, this must be really good." My wife watches literally about one movie a month, so the pressure to always pick a good movie for the both of us to watch together is hunormous. We both like Scrubs, and really liked Garden State. Garden State, this was not.
The movie wasn't awful until you actually got to know the characters. Then you stopped liking them and it wasn't so good anymore. It's about Braff's character being scared of committing to his beautiful pregnant fiancee, so he gets infatuated with an immature Fatal Attraction-esque college student instead. Good move Zach, let me know how that works out!
It was poorly written; at one point I picked up the box just to make sure Braff didn't write it or have any hand in the movie's overhead, so to speak (he didn't, thankfully, which led into an IMDB search on the real writer, the aforementioned Muccino). The special features just raved how this was a movie for people in their 30s. Yet the lead characters all act like they're in high school. Brilliant! There was a vignette on the special features entitled "last thoughts", where all the actors and maybe the director and whatnot got all serious in front of the camera and tried to sum up the movie in one sentence or less using dramatic words and sincere tones. At which point I turned to Ash and said "you know, you can spray a pile of dog shit with perfume, but it's still dog shit."
Sunday night. The wife and I just finished watching The Last Kiss. I saw it in Blockbuster and it had Zach Braff so I thought "wow, this must be really good." My wife watches literally about one movie a month, so the pressure to always pick a good movie for the both of us to watch together is hunormous. We both like Scrubs, and really liked Garden State. Garden State, this was not.
The movie wasn't awful until you actually got to know the characters. Then you stopped liking them and it wasn't so good anymore. It's about Braff's character being scared of committing to his beautiful pregnant fiancee, so he gets infatuated with an immature Fatal Attraction-esque college student instead. Good move Zach, let me know how that works out!
It was poorly written; at one point I picked up the box just to make sure Braff didn't write it or have any hand in the movie's overhead, so to speak (he didn't, thankfully, which led into an IMDB search on the real writer, the aforementioned Muccino). The special features just raved how this was a movie for people in their 30s. Yet the lead characters all act like they're in high school. Brilliant! There was a vignette on the special features entitled "last thoughts", where all the actors and maybe the director and whatnot got all serious in front of the camera and tried to sum up the movie in one sentence or less using dramatic words and sincere tones. At which point I turned to Ash and said "you know, you can spray a pile of dog shit with perfume, but it's still dog shit."
Saturday, February 24, 2007
On This Week
OK, I'm back. Miss me? I was in Dallas for training this week. Good class. But that still doesn't quite make up for the fact that I had to travel.
Traveling for work is like kissing your sister. If I have to fly somewhere, I'd much prefer it not be for work. Don't get me started on flying though, humans have no business being 35k feet in the air in a fiberglass tube. I don't believe in God, but if I did I'm pretty sure He would say " dammit you stupid humans, I made gravity for a reason. Stay...Down...There!"
My wife had to listen to me rant about the men and their baggage. In the airport, all the men have a rolling bag that is literally 2 inches on either side from being called a large suitcase, and a laptop bag that is literally 2 inches on either side from being called a large suitcase. And then they get pissed when it takes a half an hour extra to board the plane. Well, you focktard, let me explain it. You and all your cohorts took up all the overhead space with all your oversized carry-ons. Now the other half of the plane have to play peek-a-boo with all the overhead bins until the flight attendants get red-in-the-face-pissed and make them gate-check their oversized carry-ons. And now we're late. Well, we would have been but God was very mindful of this and he invented the tailwind.
Traveling for work is like kissing your sister. If I have to fly somewhere, I'd much prefer it not be for work. Don't get me started on flying though, humans have no business being 35k feet in the air in a fiberglass tube. I don't believe in God, but if I did I'm pretty sure He would say " dammit you stupid humans, I made gravity for a reason. Stay...Down...There!"
My wife had to listen to me rant about the men and their baggage. In the airport, all the men have a rolling bag that is literally 2 inches on either side from being called a large suitcase, and a laptop bag that is literally 2 inches on either side from being called a large suitcase. And then they get pissed when it takes a half an hour extra to board the plane. Well, you focktard, let me explain it. You and all your cohorts took up all the overhead space with all your oversized carry-ons. Now the other half of the plane have to play peek-a-boo with all the overhead bins until the flight attendants get red-in-the-face-pissed and make them gate-check their oversized carry-ons. And now we're late. Well, we would have been but God was very mindful of this and he invented the tailwind.
Monday, February 12, 2007
On Netflix vs. Blockbuster
I was a loyal, OK somewhat loyal (I took a couple breaks), subscriber to Netflix for 4 years. As time passed, it seemed like their turn-around time was getting worse and worse. I remember being in awe when I signed up, because I had three movies the very next day, I kid you not. In the first year or so, it was almost like a game, to see how many movies I could watch in a month. I had calculated that I needed to watch, on average, about 5 movies a month in order to just break even (as compared to typical new release fees from Blockbuster). I was squeezing them for quite a bit more than that.
After that though, I stopped being so anal about the turnaround time, and we just watched them when we had time and didn't think much of it. We got pretty good delivery time, but we just weren't watching a lot of movies. So, we coasted for a couple years. Then we moved to Columbus, which apparently confused and angered Netflix, because they were consistently forgetting to send us any movies. I would literally drop a movie off at the post office, and get its replacement in about 7-8 weekdays, pretty much just shy of 2 weeks. So my turnaround basically quadrupled. Awesome. Was I being throttled?
A couple months ago I decided to try Blockbuster, and I'm glad I did. They don't have the turnaround issues, they pretty much have the same selection, I get a free game rental each month, it's the same price, and you can take them back to the store and get a free movie in return. The only problem I've had with them so far - three discs have been shipped completely cracked in half. I still think it's amazing that neither of these places use plastic cases to ship DVDs. If anything, it's hard keeping track of all the flipping movies. Let's say you take 2 movies back, now you have one online movie, two in-store rentals. Two days later, the next 2 online movies get shipped, now you have 3 online + 2 in-store. Do we have the time to watch 5 movies? Can I always remember when the 2 in-store ones are due back? No, that's why I joined an online service in the first place, so I didn't have to pay late fees...!
Bottom line: both Netflix and Blockbuster shipped from Atlanta, yet somehow my Netflix turnaround time was 3-4 times longer than Blockbuster. Netflix couldn't either; I asked them once. I did appreciate Netflix's Friends feature, and not to mention the 4 years worth of ratings. But I'm just not that patient. When the wife gets hooked on a show and has to wait almost 2 weeks to watch the next episode...well, they have a saying in the South - "if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy".
After that though, I stopped being so anal about the turnaround time, and we just watched them when we had time and didn't think much of it. We got pretty good delivery time, but we just weren't watching a lot of movies. So, we coasted for a couple years. Then we moved to Columbus, which apparently confused and angered Netflix, because they were consistently forgetting to send us any movies. I would literally drop a movie off at the post office, and get its replacement in about 7-8 weekdays, pretty much just shy of 2 weeks. So my turnaround basically quadrupled. Awesome. Was I being throttled?
A couple months ago I decided to try Blockbuster, and I'm glad I did. They don't have the turnaround issues, they pretty much have the same selection, I get a free game rental each month, it's the same price, and you can take them back to the store and get a free movie in return. The only problem I've had with them so far - three discs have been shipped completely cracked in half. I still think it's amazing that neither of these places use plastic cases to ship DVDs. If anything, it's hard keeping track of all the flipping movies. Let's say you take 2 movies back, now you have one online movie, two in-store rentals. Two days later, the next 2 online movies get shipped, now you have 3 online + 2 in-store. Do we have the time to watch 5 movies? Can I always remember when the 2 in-store ones are due back? No, that's why I joined an online service in the first place, so I didn't have to pay late fees...!
Bottom line: both Netflix and Blockbuster shipped from Atlanta, yet somehow my Netflix turnaround time was 3-4 times longer than Blockbuster. Netflix couldn't either; I asked them once. I did appreciate Netflix's Friends feature, and not to mention the 4 years worth of ratings. But I'm just not that patient. When the wife gets hooked on a show and has to wait almost 2 weeks to watch the next episode...well, they have a saying in the South - "if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy".
Saturday, February 10, 2007
On an Excessive Amount of Electronics
Currently as I type this, I can look around this game room and see the following electronic devices:
On another single outlet in the living room we can find:
Oh and let's not even get started on all the websites we have to register for. Say what you will, but there's something to be said for Microsoft's Passport idea.
- computer
- speakers
- modem
- router
- printer
- phone
- Vonage router
- xbox
- xbox 360
- lcd tv
On another single outlet in the living room we can find:
- tv
- vcr (what a dinosaur)
- tivo
- wireless adapter
- dvd player
- receiver
- cd player
- and a lamp
Oh and let's not even get started on all the websites we have to register for. Say what you will, but there's something to be said for Microsoft's Passport idea.
Friday, February 09, 2007
On Indebtedness
This kind of goes along the same vein as my last post, about my philosophy on the work-life balance; similar, but different. But my epicurean tendencies do spill over into most other areas of my life. Here is another example: debt and the many faces of indebtedness. It's obvious that someone so selfish would be an impulsive shopper and have a complete lack of self-control when it comes to buying something s/he wants, rather than needs. Guilty!
But again, here's my justification, and I think this might clarify my self-image instead of being painted as a selfish, egotistical, epicurean. I think these words about sum it up: fatality, mortality, "death and taxes". Religious/spiritual beliefs aside, whether there is or is not an afterlife is irrelevant. To throw away your life on this earth because you believe there is an afterlife is stupendously idoitistical. That's like saying "you know what, I'm going to just beat the hell out of this car, because I'm getting a new one in 3 years anyway." Who says that?
So, now that we have proven the relevance of living this life, as opposed to hedging bets on some future one, we can begin to establish that it's important to do it right. Live it up! Here's an example: why wait and save up $50 every paycheck for that new iPod until you have $300 saved to go buy it. Just charge it, and pay it back $50 out of every paycheck, and you know what, you get to play with your new iPod for the next 6 paychecks instead of pining for it. If you're going to buy something anyway, what's the flipping difference? Yeah sure, you pay a little interest, but big deal. Obviously I'm not condoning going out and buying all sorts of stuff you don't need and carrying a lot of debt, but I don't see anything wrong with satisfying your immediate obsessions, in moderation.
So, I have a bit of debt. So what. I'm happy. I'm not going to go to bed at night and get all insomniac because I have so much debt. I'm not going to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for lunch when I could go have the #8 at Taco Bell. I haven't done my time, worked my way up the ladder, working at crap jobs like this one, just to starve myself, or waste my time cutting coupons or waiting for sales, just so I can pay off a little more debt each month. I figure if you want that new laptop bad enough that you are willing to go into more debt to acquire it, and you can afford the additional payments, then I say go for it. You're going to get it anyway, why wait, why deprive yourself now? The only thing I don't like about this philosophy o' mine is keeping track of the payments I have to make to different lenders; I do have a bad tendency of being a few days late all the time. Luckily most have a 2-month period before they'll report you to the credit bureaus, or my 700 credit score would look more like a GPA.
But again, here's my justification, and I think this might clarify my self-image instead of being painted as a selfish, egotistical, epicurean. I think these words about sum it up: fatality, mortality, "death and taxes". Religious/spiritual beliefs aside, whether there is or is not an afterlife is irrelevant. To throw away your life on this earth because you believe there is an afterlife is stupendously idoitistical. That's like saying "you know what, I'm going to just beat the hell out of this car, because I'm getting a new one in 3 years anyway." Who says that?
So, now that we have proven the relevance of living this life, as opposed to hedging bets on some future one, we can begin to establish that it's important to do it right. Live it up! Here's an example: why wait and save up $50 every paycheck for that new iPod until you have $300 saved to go buy it. Just charge it, and pay it back $50 out of every paycheck, and you know what, you get to play with your new iPod for the next 6 paychecks instead of pining for it. If you're going to buy something anyway, what's the flipping difference? Yeah sure, you pay a little interest, but big deal. Obviously I'm not condoning going out and buying all sorts of stuff you don't need and carrying a lot of debt, but I don't see anything wrong with satisfying your immediate obsessions, in moderation.
So, I have a bit of debt. So what. I'm happy. I'm not going to go to bed at night and get all insomniac because I have so much debt. I'm not going to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for lunch when I could go have the #8 at Taco Bell. I haven't done my time, worked my way up the ladder, working at crap jobs like this one, just to starve myself, or waste my time cutting coupons or waiting for sales, just so I can pay off a little more debt each month. I figure if you want that new laptop bad enough that you are willing to go into more debt to acquire it, and you can afford the additional payments, then I say go for it. You're going to get it anyway, why wait, why deprive yourself now? The only thing I don't like about this philosophy o' mine is keeping track of the payments I have to make to different lenders; I do have a bad tendency of being a few days late all the time. Luckily most have a 2-month period before they'll report you to the credit bureaus, or my 700 credit score would look more like a GPA.
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