Thursday, August 30, 2007

Back -- With Video

So, after a month or many devoted to moving into my house, I'm finally back in a groove. However -- for reasons you will see -- I'm still not in blogging mode. So, below you will find my compromise. Enjoy

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The One Thing I Learned the Week of June 17- June 23

1. Sometimes, I'm too damn stressed to learn anything.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Twenty Things I Learned in the Past Two Weeks (June 3 - June 16)

1. WHBF Channel 4 cannot light their talent to save their lives. Tambrey Laine, their lead anchor, could wreck traffic, but you'd never know it from the way she appears on their newscasts.

2. While the trees in my yard survived the storms this week, the winds did blow down my garage door.

3. One of my neighbors is crazy. The other neighbor likes to use his powerdrill before 8AM.

4. In two, maybe three, years, KWQC television will be unrecognizable from what it is today.

5. People only want me for my DVDs.

6. In the world of idioms, rhyming trumps reality. Who has ever seen a drunk skunk. I had no idea the species was prone to alcoholism, yet they are considered the embodiment of drunkedness.

7. Too Much Information: One of the unforseen practical advantages of underwear is they keep your shorts up at the urinal. This week... there was an incident.

8. Using "More better" in conversation is physically painful to me, and yes I did it in a conversation with MidAmerican Energy.

9. One of the hardest things to do is keep a secret you want to scream from the rooftops. Unfortunately, for now, I know that keeping that secret is the best thing to do.

10. The best position I could possibly have at KWQC just opened up.

11. I am a huge fan of stand-up comedy, but NBC's Last Comic Standing makes me cry and wince just as much as it makes me laugh.

12. People are pissed at The Sopranos for going out like the show it has always been -- ballsy, literate, unpredictable, and very, very, outside the mainstream. I've never thought twenty seconds of black could be poignant, agonizing, and brilliant. Those simpletons who always watched The Sopranos for the whackings and the sex never truly appreciated the show in the first place. God bless David Chase for giving The Sopranos back to the people who loved it for all of its genius, not all of its gore.

13. America's Got Talent might actually be watchable if they dispensed with the delusional and actually displayed the talent that's available to them.

14. The weaknesses of its sequels has not diminished the delight of the original Pirates of the Carribbean.

15. Apparently, the technology of high definition televisions is moving so fast, even the manufacturers are confused by their own catergorizations.

16. I am not a fan of my unshaven face. My beard trimmer went rogue on me this morning, and I had to go naked this morning. I haven't been able to look in a mirror since.

17. If you want to see me go into a blind rage, accuse me of doing something that you do on a regular basis. Having some troglodite tell me to "pay attention" nearly ended in homicide.

18. Golf on television is wonderful to nap to.

19. The 4400 is the most fascinating concept for a television show that was ever blandly produced. I can't stop watching it, even as it bores the hell out of me.

20. I will never forgive the makers of Deadwood for walking away from that show to go produce the treacly, precious John from Cincinatti (even if it stars one of my favorite actors, Bruce Greenwood).

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Ten Things I Learned the Week of May 27 - June 2

Warning. Some things I learned this week fall in to the Too Much Information category, but being that they were some of the more amusing moments of my week, I had to include them.

1. Of the 300+ movies I have on DVD, only about 50 are going to have a spot in my new home. That means discounted DVDs will soon be available to friends and family.

2. My favorite voice in pop music currently belongs to Pink.

3. My biggest turn-off: a girl without a sense of humor.

4. There's a parking spot at Best Buy, just two from the front, that is always open when I drop in. An old man with a walker nearly beat me to it today, but I was just too quick for him.

5. It's been three years since anybody's seen me naked, but that's still no excuse for me freaking out when Buzz snuck into the bathroom when I was taking a shower.

6. It doesn't matter how old they get, or how much they should know better, some girls still get all aflutter over quaterbacks. Even Steamwheelers quarterbacks.

7. It's impossible not to be a little bit of a tourist in a disaster zone. I felt guilty for being so fascinated by the devastation in the Muscatine area this week.

8. Mario Party's fun quotient diminishes by 1/4 each time you lose a player.

9. I am hoping that my closing tomorrow will represent a drastic upward shift in an otherwise static existance as of late.

10. Carlos Zambrano will be a bigger disappointment to Cubs fans than either Kerry Wood or Mark Prior.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Ten Things I Learned the Week of May 20 - May 26

1. We get a copy of the Victoria's Secret catalog at my house courtesy of "Mandrew" Rockwell. No kidding. MANdrew.

2. Kristina Shiroma is a little bit sciency, and a little bit party. And a lot bit making up her own words.

3. I'm not as cynical as I sometimes believe. The Travis Hearn home build was the first time I've been inspired at work in a long time.

4. The ending of season 3 of Lost is the greatest mindfuck I have ever experienced in all of pop culture. It was so nasty, so complex, and so unbelievably well-conceived that I will forever be in awe of that show's creators. The next nine months will be agony for anyone who loves this show.

5. Everybody I work with assumes I'm love with every girl I'm pleasant to. I can say, with absolute certainty that they have been off the mark with every girl they've suspected. What part of "I have a shameless crush on Keagan Feeney" is unclear?

6. It takes more muscles to frown than it takes to smile. So happy people are just lazy.

7. I respond to all of Buzz's indiscretions like the stiff at the end of the Mentos commercials. Hands on hips, shaking my head with a smile.

8. My brother has a girlfriend. Or at least he has a girl who calls him her boyfriend.

9. I have been increasingly worthless to the people that matter the longer I've had to wait to close on my house. But fear not gentle souls, because...

10. I will close on my house at 10AM the morning of June 4th. Finally Buzz will have his own fenced in yard in which to liberally spread his bodily waste.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Ten Things I Learned the Week of May 13 - May 19

1. My blood pressure is very high, and I'm likely six months away from medication, unless...

2. I lose weight. The doctor called me fat. Ever been called fat in an Indian dialect. It's weird. It took me a while to get what he was saying. "My feet? What's wrong with my feet? I don't understand."

3. Deep down I clearly think Jerry Falwell is more evil than Al-Zarqawi was. I didn't have near the thrill of hearing of Zarqawi's death as I did hearing of Falwell's.

4. I completely overuse the word "tremendous," and usually I don't even mean it when I say it.

5. If you attend movies on opening weekend, you are partly responsible for the high percentage of cinematic shit that Hollywood churns out.

6. I know a girl who, if I had any good sense about me, I should be dating, but I'm an idiot, and therefore, won't.

7. The DASH diet, which is the diet my kidney specialist prescribed for me, earned its namesake because it makes you want to dash to the nearest tall building and jump off.

8. I can do many of the same things I could do as a younger man. It just hurts more and for a longer period of time after I do them.

9. Kristina Shiroma has a bigger head than I do. Insert own joke here.

10. I am an evil genius with an excellently evil secret.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Ten Things I Learned the Week of May 6 - May 12

1. I have absolutely no desire to go to a movie theater anymore.

2. Buzz is White Sox colors.

3. I can sum up everything I hate about the television business in one word: affectation.

4. Friday Night Lights is coming back for a second season. Which means all of my nearest and dearest can expect an incessant, evangelistic badgering to please join me in watching the best show on television.

5. Harrison Ford hasn't made an entertaining movie in ten years (Air Force One - 1997).

6. All television journalism should look like Bill Moyers' Journal on PBS.

7. Just when I think I've outgrown my asthma and allergies -- they top rope elbow drop me and ruin my weekend.

8. Going to the driving range is not "golfing."

9. If you throw toys under the couch, my dog will give himself a concussion.

10. I usually get two good months out of Netflix before it becomes a total waste of money.