These Boots Were Made for Cutting, and That’s Just What They Did

Stacy found a babysitter last night so we met up for a date at the movie theater. To my surprise, Stacy actually wanted to see Blades of Glory. I am surprised because she usually doesn’t want to see the same comedies I do, especially those starring Will Ferrell (i.e. one of the funniest men on the screen today). She answered me in two words, Jon Heder. Ahh, I see. I didn’t really care. I like Heder too and any reason for Stacy to actually want to see the same movie as me is the only excuse I need to watch it.

Holy crap was it funny. I expect spotty performances from Will Ferrell since he is not always spot on with the humor. How can any SNL alumni be? However, he was 100% in this one. Jon Heder did not disappoint either. It was a little weird seeing their coach played by Hayden Fox, I mean Craig T. Nelson, but it was good seeing him up there. Will Arnett of lamented Arrested Development fame and Amy Poehler of “I’m getting a bone thrown at me because Ferrell and I were on SNL together” were pretty good as the rival ice skaters, creepy as brother and sister pair skaters, though. Creepy in a funny way. Jenna Fischer, taking a break as mousy Pam on The Office sizzled on the screen as an even more emotionally screwed character than Pam who nevertheless makes a hot appearance in lingerie at one point (It tops her extremely awkward kissing scene with Heder, but only just.)

Most of the main stars’ performances on the ice were obviously enhanced digitally, but since I didn’t come to the show to watch them skate, I really didn’t care. Although I kinda wish Ferrell’s scene in Grublets on Ice was digitally enhanced to minimize the onscreen chunks, the less said about that the better.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s the run down. Chazz Michael Michaels (Farrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Heder) are competitors in the world of men’s figure skating. They tie for the gold at the fake Olympics (I assume the producers didn’t care to involve the red tape that comes with having the Olympics in your movie) and get into a fight during the medal ceremony. They are subsequently stripped of their medals (after lighting the mascot on fire, eep!) and banned from their division forever. Naturally, both skaters hit rock bottom in no time. We visit them in their pitifulness three and a half years later, just six months before the next fake Olympics, and find that there is a loophole that will allow them to skate again. They’re not banned from pairs figure skating. Through a chance circumstance, (as if there’s any sort of thing in these movies) they end up having no resort but to pair with each other.

Hilarity ensues.

Actually, hilarity ensued quite a bit before that point, but, meh. Point is, this movie was hilarious. Go see it, or, if you don’t go to movies, wait for the DVD and buy it, or, if you don’t buy DVDs, rent it, or, if you’re a cheap bastard, wait for it to come out on cable, or, if you don’t have cable, GO SEE IT! It’s worth it if you like to laugh, and if you don’t, then lighten up, sourpuss.

I give this movie four out of four triple axels on a scale that I just made up that means nothing.

The Office Moral: Use Mace Wisely

Ah, The Office, how do I love thee? In private, where no one can see my sick perversions. No, not really in private, Stacy and I do it together. Yeah, you read me right, together.

How many times can I say that the latest episode was comic genius? At least one more, because I’m saying it now. Everything from Dwight’s office arsenal to Michael Scott’s cross-dressing had me laughing until my sides hurt. I loved Angela’s promptings for every variation of the story of Dwight’s heroism and Dwight’s refusal of any accolade.

Dwight: No, don’t call me a hero. Do you know who the real heroes are? The guys who wake up every morning and go into their normal jobs, and get a distress call from the commissioner, and take off their glasses and change into capes, and fly around fighting crime. Those are the real heroes.

We were surprisingly light on Jimisms in this episode, but it didn’t detract. Kelly and Ryan made up for it in spades.

Kelly: What is so stupid about wanting to name a baby Usher?
Kelly: Usher Jennifer Hudson Kapoor.
Ryan: Don’t you see why that’s insane?
Kelly: Oh, so I’m crazy now?

I still feel bad for Jan every time she and Michael Scott interact in front of others, but hey, she’s brought it on herself, right?

Jan: Are you going to take care of this?
Michael: Yeppers.
Jan: What did I tell you about “yeppers”?
Michael: I don’t remember.
Jan: I told you not to say it. Do you remember that?
Michael: Ye–sh.

A few small moments showed the creators’ attention to detail that I really enjoyed. For instance, in the last episode we saw Oscar and Angela make a small connection in their common dislike of the bar. In this episode, we saw a further development of that relationship when Roy comes in for his final paycheck. While it’s Angela that has to hand the paycheck to Roy, it’s Oscar who stands between them protectively. It was sweet.

I don’t see things working out between Jim and Pam anytime soon with the latest brouhaha, which I consider a boon to the show. I’ve said it before and I maintain that to have them hook up would be jumping the shark. Just like Sam and Diane lost all their chemistry and sexual tension after they slept together, so would Jim and Pam. The show would certainly suffer for it. I do miss the sly glances at each other from the first two seasons as well as the conspiratorial meetings, but those days are gone as well. Still, The Office has yet to disappoint me, so I’m onboard for wherever they decide to take me next.

I’ll leave you with one final quote from the end of the show. As always, I give a big “Thank you!” to http://www.officetally.com/ for the handy quotes. Check out the site for a preview of next week’s episode!

Andy: I graduated from anger management the same way I graduated from Cornell — on time. Now I’m back, got a second chance, and I’m not going to blow it. So look out, Dunder Mifflin! I mean “look out” in a fun way. You know, not like, “I’m going to hurt you.”

Oh, and by the way, Final Paycheck would be a great name for a rock band.

Gem Mountain? More Like Porcelain Valley!

The following travelogue is by no means entertaining. It is dry and boring, much like me (Gotta use more moisturizer!) You’ve been warned.

Stacy and I decided to go on a mini vacation this week. We had seen a bit on the Travel Channel about a place in North Carolina called Gem Mountain where they give you a bucket of rough minerals and a flume to find semi-precious stones. We thought the girls would enjoy it and the host made off with more value in the found gemstones than she paid in the cost of the bucket. We booked a night in a local inn last week and planned for the eight-hour drive down to NC.
Little did we know, dark forces were conspiring against us. I am currently enrolled in a database class in school. This class requires Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Developer edition for assignments. The software isn’t expensive, only $50 a pop, but it performed a whammy on my laptop after I installed it. My system performance went down the tube. I eventually reached the point uninstalling it in frustration and completing my assignment in MySQL, which I already had installed with no trouble. It turns out my instructor won’t accept MySQL, even though the class is just on SQL and not teaching a specific software.

Whatever.

So I decide to break out my software and reinstall MS SQL. Only I don’t have the software anymore. I have the empty box, but no CDs anywhere. I searched for hours with no success. By that time, it was the night before our trip and the assignment was due the next day. See where this is going?

Fine, I think, I’ll just download a cracked version. I bought the licensed version anyway, Microsoft got my money. Only, I couldn’t find an English cracked version on Usenet. I did find a Korean version, though. I decided to bite the bullet and try BitTorrent and Peer to Peer. The only ones I could find that way were transferring at 4kbps or less. The estimated download time? 8 hours. By then I was falling asleep at the keyboard so I set the computer down and let it download through the night.

By the next morning the download time was readjusted to 14 hours – left. I knew there was a reason I didn’t screw with that P2P crap. Stacy and I resolved to find a copy at a local Office Depot or the like. I downloaded the Korean version, just in case. After a fruitless search at four different local stores, we gave up and started the drive south. Either I would make do with the Korean version or I’d turn in my assignment with MySQL and suffer the lower grade.

I am not a big fan of traveling long distances by car. The varying landscape cannot make up for the cramped quarters, limited activity, and general uncomfortableness of driving for hours at a time. Stacy drove first so I could install the Korean MS SQL. Through the sheer accident of clicking the right options, I made it through the half-Korean, half-garbled install process and got it on the laptop. Even though the software is in Korean, the command line interface, all that I needed for class, still accepted English. The errors and feedback from running commands was all in Korean, though. I figured I’d muddle through.

By that time we were approaching Tenessee and the halfway mark of our trip, so I took over driving from Stacy. The girls were amazingly well-behaved, although Vicki complained of pains in her stomach a couple of times.

It wasn’t until we got into the winding hills of the North Carolina “mountains” that the real trouble began. Vicki let out a warning, “I feel like throwing up!” and Stacy dived into the back seat with a plastic bag in the nick of time. And so it began.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. I figured Vicki just got carsick, poor kid. Understandable considering the up and down, side to side motion of the car over the mountain roads.
A few hours later and only one wrong turn, we made it to Spruce Pine, NC, home of Gem Mountain and the Spruce Pine Inn, a converted schoolhouse. The Inn was easy enough to find and the staff was pleasant. The room was one of the more spacious double-occupancy rooms I’ve been in, including “vaulted schoolroom ceilings” as the historical pamphlet told me. We headed out to the town for some dinner and ended up eating at an all-you-can-eat buffet. The food was passable, but Scarlett was done sitting down by that point. Thankfully, she’s adorable, so she just charmed all the surrounding diners as she staggered between tables like a miniature drunken sailor. Stacy and I took turns chasing her while the other ate and kept track of the older girls.

When we returned to the inn, I got to work on my homework after we put the girls to bed. It took a while for them to get to sleep with the unfamiliar surroundings, and by then I wasn’t feeling too good. My stomach was starting to feel upset. I suspected I had eaten some bad food, not a stretch of the imagination even at the cleanest of buffets. A few hours later, my suspicions were confirmed after repeated trips to the bathroom. I won’t bore you with those details (just the rest of these, I can’t believe you’re still reading this. Do you have some rare form of OCD that makes you finish everything you read? I can’t imagine any other reason to continue to subject yourself to my account. Just think of all the productive things you could be doing online right now, like browsing through Myspace pages or reading blogs – oh, right.) It was between one of these trips that I heard the tell-tale sounds of baby vomit coming from the travel crib. Scarlett was sick, too. The poor kid was up all night, either breast feeding with Stacy or voiding her stomach. I couldn’t figure out what we had in common at the buffet besides a drink I shared with her, but I couldn’t think of what else would cause her to get sick.

The next morning Stacy and I were exhausted. We toyed with the notion of buying the bucket of rocks from Gem Mountain and just driving back home, but I threw that idea out. We had come all this way for our girls to go to Gem Mountain, and by gum, we were going to Gem Mountain! The five minute car ride was enough to finally put Scarlett to sleep. She had still been up from the night before. My stomach was still rocky, so I opted to stay in the van while Stacy took Vicki and Zoe into Gem Mountain.

It sounded like fun, with the flume mining where they’d put the rocks in a screened box, rinse through flowing water and reveal sparkling gems, but I was just happy to rest in the van. I snoozed for a while during their visit, thankfully Scarlett slept the entire time. When they came back, the girls had four small backs practically bursting with uncut gemstones, some bigger than Vicki’s fist. Very impressive.

We browsed their gift shop after Scarlett woke up and I found that I was feeling a bit better. I still wasn’t up to driving by the time we left, but armed with some Immodium and Dramamine from the gift shop, I hoped to make it home leaking a minimum of bodily fluids (I know, ewwww.)

And make it home we did. Not before Scarlett made a fine mess of her carseat at least three times, but we did make it home otherwise unscathed. I felt much better that evening, but I still hadn’t eaten anything since dinner at the buffet. I wasn’t quite there yet. Getting home signaled the last piece of the obvious puzzle to drop.

Stacy got sick.

I put the pieces together like a master detective who has been shown the clues in sequence and had the mystery patiently explained to him multiple times. First, Vicki complains of stomach pains on the way down, then throws up in the car. Car sickness? I think not. Then, Scarlett and I get sick at almost the same time after sharing practically nothing that could have been contaminated. Food poisoning? I think not. Finally, Stacy gets sick a full 24 hours after Scarlett and I. Coincidence? I think not.

I don’t know what we had, but it knocked Stacy out flat the next day. I had to call into work that morning and tell them I wasn’t coming in so I could stay home and nurse her back to health while I kept the girls out of trouble. Fun stuff.

Thankfully, Stacy felt better by that evening and we had a nice night watching NBC’s Thursday night comedy featuring The Office, but that’s for another post.

See, now don’t you feel silly for reading the entire entry? No payoff or anything. Did you learn a lesson from all this? I hope so, because otherwise it was a complete waste of your time. (Insert Nelson laugh here.)

Heroes on a Half Shell, Indeed

Jon and I caught TMNT this week, and though I’m a week late (I apologize for nothing!) I thought I’d post my thoughts.

First off, I went into the movie with low expectations. I read the comic before ever seeing the cheesy cartoon. While the comic was intended as a satire of then-popular teenage super hero comics, it was done in a seriously adult manner. Shredder gets his in the first issue. The cartoon was somewhat of a disappointment, but still entertaining in some ways. When the first movie came out, it brought back memories of the original gritty black and white. Even Splinter had the right origin story (pet rat mutated by the ooze, not a martial arts master mutated into a rat like in the cartoon.)

I was naturally disappointed by the second and third installments of the franchise, since they just upped the cheese factor to cartoon levels. When I found out this latest installment, TMNT, was to be a sequel, I was wary. Still, the trailers showed off some beautiful animation and triggered the same old nostalgia. Armed with the knowledge that the actual movie would probably suck, Jon and I caught the matinee on Tuesday.

It did not suck. It did, in fact, rock to some degree. The animation was even better than in the trailer. There was one sequence in particular on the rooftops in the rain that blew me away. So I picked myself up off the soda-stained floor and enjoyed the rest of the movie. Some of the art style’s quirks, like April’s extreme skinniness (though she did look hot in ninja gear, rawr,) and Max Winter’s extreme chinniness (did his chin continue growing all 3000 years of his life?) were a little distracting, (much like the structure of this sentence,) none of them were deal-breakers.

The cast was filled with uninspired voice over artist defaults, like that one voice you hear in every single WB/Disney animation project, Kevin Michael Richardson. You would recognize the voice if you heard it. However, the star talents, Sarah Michelle Gellar as April, Patrick Stewart as Max Winter, Mako as Splinter, and Ziyi Zhang as karai, with a little Laurence Fishburne action in the narration, made it all better. The turtles were voiced well, I didn’t recognize any of the voices or their names, which in this case was a good thing.

The story was as good as it should have been. How good can you expect a plot involving turtles transformed into pizza-loving ninja masters to be? I got the impression that the plot was merely a backdrop to tell the story of one family’s reconciliation and another’s disintegration. Nothing too cerebral, though. It was also backdrop to some sweet ninja turtle fights. Some of the twists and turns the movie takes to get to the resolution were good as well. Others broadcast the villains intent a little too loudly, making one particular twist a little too obvious by the time it came.

I give TMNT three and a half out of four half shells in a scale that I just made up. If your thing is seeing ninja turtles kick monsters, Foot Clan, and each other’s heads in a beautifully rendered urban roofscape, then check it out. If not, then I just wasted the last few minutes of your time. BWAH HAH HAH!

New Word Time!

Stacy and I were watching E! News the other night before bed. Just as we were about to turn the TV off, one of the hosts verbally and visually assaulted us.

“And FINALLY, Fergie poses for Maxim! Blah blah blah blah.”

Naturally, the visual assault involved images from The Fugness’s picture shoot. I decided then that the word Fug was not enough. There had to be a word that went beyond Fug; something that imparted the strong feelings of revulsion that accompanies viewing celebrities such as Fergie. Then, it came to me!

fergly adj.
1. A person so repulsive that he or she cannot be described by the terms ugly or fugly. (Origination: inspired by media saturation of the pop star Fergie in the mid 2000’s.)

Here’s the word in context.
“Man, Nicole Richie is so fergly, I wouldn’t touch her with Christina Aguilara’s hands!”

Here’s an image in case you don’t know who inspired this new word.

WTF?

Captain America Dies

Stormwatch 2007

Manassas, Virginia (SP) -- The Northern Virginia area is gripped in what weather experts are calling the storm of the century. Meteorologists are predicting massive amounts of snow, accumulating as much as 1” to 2” before the colossal storm continues eastward. Local weather authorities are urging city and county officials to declare an official state of emergency, restricting all road traffic to disaster recovery vehicles only.

“It’s like the sky opened up and took a great big dump on us,” said Manassas resident, P. Hicky after expelling a cheek full of chewing tobacco.

These trees are weighed down by as much as 2 lbs of snow

Another Manassas resident, fundamentalist J. Prescott, upset that her church services were cancelled, said, “I think this is a sign of the second coming. Just so you know, I’m ready for the rapture. Take me, Jesus!”

“It is my professional opinion that this storm will be the most severe weather ever recorded. The meteorological society will be studying the effects of this storm for years,” said Dr. Joseph Transyger, Meteorologist Emeritus at News Channel 8’s You Predict The Weather Day program.

Cocktails OR JJ Abrams Takes It Up a Notch

Last night’s episode of The Office delivered up its usual share of hilarity, but it ratcheted up the awkward level quite a few notches above the norm. Michael Scott’s diarrhea of the mouth was certainly not limited to him blurting out “Jan and I are lovers,” to the Dunder-Mifflin CFO hosting the party.

For those of you that haven’t seen the episode yet (shame on you): SPOILER ALERT!

Yes, it’s true, the Awkwardness™ passed from character to character like a baton at the relay race in the Socially Retarded Olympics. Dwight and Michael traded it a couple of times:

Dwight: What’s the square footage?
David: About 5,000.
Dwight: Does that include the garage?
Michael: Dwight, that’s not appropriate.
David: I don’t know.
Dwight: It’s a common question.
Michael: David, how much did this house cost?

Jim grew more and more awkward as he found that his girlfriend had “relations” with just about every guy at the party.

What? Karen’s a ho?

Nah, she just punk’d Jim so bad he didn’t even see it coming.

On the other side of town, at the bar, new heights of uncomfortable were reached by the whole gang. Creed, who is never awkward cause he’s Creed, reveals that he runs a fake ID business out of his car with a laminating machine he stole from the Sheriff’s office. Dang, he must carry a wheelbarrow with him everywhere he goes. Toby spends the entire evening winning a stuffed animal from the resident Evil Claw Machine™ for Pam only to have her rebuff his attempt at romantic generosity by reminding him that his daughter would like it, oh, and where was he all evening? She really wanted to hang out with him.

Nowhere was the unease more apparent than when Pam bared her horrible secret about Jim’s kiss to her on-again boyfriend Roy. The episode, directed famed Lost and Alias producer, J. J. Abrams, ended on a sincerely sinister note with Roy vowing to kill Jim Halpert after demolishing the bar with his drunk brother.

Yeah, kill.

So there you have it. While it was a hilarious episode, even in the Awkwardness™:

Dwight: Oh good, your up. Who makes this chair?
9-year-old Startled Awake: I don’t know, it was here when I was born.
Dwight: I want one. Really good solid construction. It’s comfortable. What is this? Oak?
9-year-old Obviously in Shock that a Stranger is in His Rocking Chair in the Middle of the Night: I don’t know.
Dwight: What do you know?

It ended on a decidedly creepy note. Pam and Roy are obviously through, this time for good, I’m thinking. Pammie’s newfound resolve to get what she wants may prove an interesting plot driver. Jim and Karen are still cute together and should stay that way. Michael’s retardation is stymieing Jan’s search for the forbidden high. Dwight is Dwight and I wouldn’t have him any other way. And Dunder-Mifflin soldiers on.

Oh, and thanks again to www.officetally.com for the quotes from this episode. Those cats are quick!

Ghost Rider? He barely Knew Her!

Okay, lame pun aside, he knew her pretty well. Stacy and I got a long-deserved break from the kids this week when we went to see Ghost Rider with Jon on Monday. We went armed with the knowledge that two good friends of ours did not like the movie. I quote, “The Punisher was better.” While I haven’t seen The Punisher (rated-R), I had heard plenty about it and knew that it fell somewhere between Daredevil and Fantastic Four among the latest crop of comic-inspired movies. I found it hard to believe that Ghost Rider could be that bad, considering how kick@## the previews looked. Then again, you can’t judge a book by its cover. You also can’t judge a book by what other people say about it. That’s why I don’t listen to movie critics. I lend a bit more weight to what friends say, but I usually reserve judgment until I have seen the movie.

In this case, I’m glad I did. Ghost Rider was much better than it could have been and nowhere as bad as some of the stinkers that Marvel has cranked out lately. It wasn’t even close to Spider - Man or X - Men levels of radness, but it rocked in its own way.

Let’s start with the visuals. No? You want to know about the story, you say. You want to know how compelling the characters were, you plead. Well too bad, non-existent, disembodied voice, this is my review.

The visuals were spot on. Never has a demon-possessed, flaming-skulled bounty hunter for the devil, with a flaming demonic bike of awesomeness and a death-dealing fiery chain of pain been translated so well between mediums. The initial transformation took a while to get to, but we were well served with some spectacular bike stunts in the meantime. The first time Ghost Rider made his appearance, you got a real sense of how painful such a transition might be as his flesh literally burns from his bones, leaving a grinning skull wreathed with hellfire behind. It wasn’t long after that his bike makes its own transformation with skeletal claws slowly reaching up to caress the gas tank, exhaust pipes elongating to bone-shaped tubes, down tubes morphing into solid chains, and a skeletal ribcage forming underneath it all. Very nice.

Ghost Rider’s origin was kept intact, something I feared would not happen. The previews made it seem like Johnny Blaze sold his soul to save the life of a girl, which would have been completely wrong. Thankfully, that wasn’t so.

The players ran the gamut from over-the-top comic book acting to genuine talent. This movie reminded me why I like Nick Cage. His Johnny Blaze had an excellent sense of timing and reaction. Cage lends a comedic quality to his characters that is understated yet supplies just the right amount of humor to offset the dark topic of the movie. Eva Mendes, who I maintain is near the bottom of the hot Latina starlet list (I would sooner take Salma Hayek, Vanessa Marcil, or Eva Longoria over her, though she is still miles above Horseface herself, Penelope Cruz,) played Roxanne Simpson, a hot newscaster with a smoking past with Blaze. Okay, I gotta stop with the fire references, this is too much even for me. She was all right, but I’m not much of a fan of hers anyway, so I paid more attention to her revealing outfits than her performance (boobtastic).

Sam Elliott, who was his usual crusty self, led the supporting cast. I wouldn’t have him any other way. His Caretaker was a joy to watch. Peter Fonda, looking extremely aged, played Mephistopheles né Mephisto. I expected his character to be over the top, but he was delightfully subdued, if a bit creepy uncle. I appreciate seeing Donal Logue in anything since his turn as a vampire lackey in Marvel’s first modern foray into comic book movies, Blade. Sadly, the rest of the supporting cast sucked donkey balls. Wes Bentley’s campy Blackheart led actors that were even worse in the villains’ camp. Besides Brett Cullen's Barton Blaze, the rest are completely forgettable.

If this movie lacks for anything, it is the plot, and boy does it lack. Mephistopheles sics Ghost Rider on Blackheart, who is searching for a contract that contains the power of 1000 souls. The previous ghost rider hid the scroll from Mephistopheles, fearing the power would make him unstoppable. Blackheart wants it to rule Hell and Earth with it. Now, why would a paltry 1000 evil souls from some abandoned town in the Southwest mean so much to the ruler of Hell? I would imagine that he gets more than that in a slow year. Not to mention, the state of the souls seems like it would devalue the deal. Wouldn’t 1000 innocent souls mean much more to Mephistopheles? Why can’t the ruler of Hell manage four demons, one of whom is his own son? Why can Ghost Rider handle them when he can’t? There were plot holes aplenty as the movie progressed. For instance, the legend says there is one ghost rider every generation, but the last ghost rider was from 150 years ago. Abuh? Wouldn’t it be nice if generations were spread out that far? I could dig living 150+ years.

So yes, the plot stunk, but oddly enough, that didn’t detract much from the movie. This flick did not pretend to be anything more than it was; a disposable bit of eye candy to while away a couple of hours. It didn’t aspire to be Oscar-worthy. It didn’t have its sights set on critical acclaim. It delivered itself as a guilty pleasure that I would certainly watch again, if for nothing more than seeing Ghost Rider blaze down the side of a building to land in the midst of a hornet’s nest of angry cops.

I give Ghost Rider four out of five flaming skulls on the meaningless scale that I just made up.

One Wedding and a Vampire

NBC has aired two episodes of The Office since last I blogged about the best half hour of comedy on television. In that time, Michael Scott sank to new levels of social retardation, Jim has pulled even more elaborate pranks on Dwight than before, and everyone else in the office has had a share of embarrassing moments.

Pam and Roy Phyllis and Vance of Vance Refrigeration’s wedding was a smashing success. If by success I mean that Michael horrifies the bride, offends the groom, and embarrasses his employees, a poor uncle with dementia and Michael Scott (not the same person) were thrown out, and Pam watches her wedding dream pass before her eyes, then yes, it was a smashing success!

A couple people have pointed out to me that Michael’s latest forays into public humiliation have been a little over the top. I don’t think so. Look at the poor blighter’s history. He peed all over himself and threw the rings in a queen-sized hissy fit at his mom’s wedding. I think everyone was fortunate that Mr. Scott didn’t piddle himself as Phyllis’s dad did the miracle walk down the aisle.

As funny as the wedding scenes were, the highlight of the show for me was Jim’s Pavlovian experiment with Dwight. The entire sequence took place during the opening scene and consisted of Jim triggering the error chime on his computer and then offering Dwight a mint. By the end of the scene, Jim had triggered the chime and watched in amusement as Dwight held out his hand for the mint, only to become baffled when Jim asked him what he was doing.

“I don’t know, my mouth tastes so bad all of a sudden. ::smack:: ::smack:: ::smack::”

Classic Jim!

His wedding crasher prank was amusing, but it did result in poor Uncle Al’s expulsion and Michael Scott’s redemption, so it was more of an intricate plot device than anything. Was anyone else creeped out by how quickly Pam got back with Roy?

The next episode will forever be known to me as “The Joss Whedon Episode” simply for the fact that Joss Whedon didn’t think it should be known as that and I’m a contrary @$%&. In “The Joss Whedon Episode” Dwight discovers that the office is the current home of a deadly vampire bat! Naturally, there is no reason to assume it’s a vampire bat until Jim shows signs of vampirism after a bite that mysteriously disappears.

As Jon pointed out, what truly drives the funny is Jim’s steadily worsening symptoms and Karen’s wooden delivery of her lines.

“Tch! Ow! That bread is white hot!”

“But Jim. This. Garlic bread. Is cold.”

By the end, Dwight is so convinced that Jim has fallen to the Powers of Dark that he has armed himself with a Creed-manufactured wooden stake.

God speed, Jim, God speed.

Christmas Joy of Software Development

Software development is like Christmas.

I don’t mean that in the joy-to-the-world, open-the-presents-under-the-tree, goodwill-to-man kinda way. I mean in the mall Santa hauling one kid after another onto his lap as the harried short person in the elf costume shooed all of the eager kids from one end to the next and can’t I please have the Omnibot 2000? I’ve been super good all year! Why is Santa’s lap warm and wet? Did that last kid pee on Santa? Oh man, please tell me it was the last kid that peed on Santa. I don’t think Santa brings Omnibot 2000s to kids that pee on him.

Christmas Dreams Dashed on the Rocks of Reality

Um, back to topic

Let me explain. The customer is like the eager kid bouncing up and down in excitement on Santa’s knee. The kid rattles off a stream of things he wants as Santa listens patiently and smiles.

“And I want this, and that, and one of those, and another one of those, and five of these, and…”

He pats the kid on the head and sends him on his way with a candy cane. I know what you’re thinking; Santa must be the software developer. Oh no, that would be fun, because then the developer would have the power of Santa to reward or deny the eager kid his requests. Nope, the developer is Santa’s workshop elf. Santa’s lone workshop elf. You see, the elf doesn’t get to tell Santa that the toys he wants him to make are beyond reason. Santa tells him to make the toy and expects results come Christmastime. Did I mention that Christmas is two days away? And that there’s only one elf? Yeah, software development is like that.

Join me next week as I explain how raising kids is like being a Keebler elf!

I Am 99% Sure That Is Not The Real Benjamin Franklin

If you missed The Office yesterday, don’t read this post, if you didn’t, then you already know that it was, in fact, not Benjamin Franklin.

Last Night’s episode, Ben Franklin, was more comedic gold from the cast and creators of my favorite comedy. Let’s break it down, medium style.

Phyllis’ upcoming nuptials prompt an all-girl shower in the office while the guys get a GAI (Guy’s Afternoon In, totally not gay) in the warehouse. That’s an all male shower, of course, which is totally not gay.

I was going to give a blow-by-blow of the episode, but chances are you’ve seen it or don’t care, so I’ll skip that. I’m just going to give some highlights of my favorite lines, courtesy of the fine people at www.officetally.com.

Michael: I am instituting primae noctis.
Jim: Primae noctis, I believe from the movie, Braveheart, and confirmed on Wikipedia, is when the king got to deflower every new bride on her wedding night. So …
Michael: I’m sorry. I had a very different understanding as to what primae noctis meant.

Michael: Okay, coed naked strippers in this office. For realsies.
Angela: Under no circumstance should a man strip off his clothes in this office.
Meredith: Shut up, Angela!

Michael: Guys! Beef. It’s what’s for dinner. Who wants some man meat?
Jim: Michael, Dwight would like your man meat.
Michael: Well then my man meat he shall have.

Ben Franklin: You know, I invented electricity.
Pam: I know.
Ben Franklin: Well, I’m sensing a little electricity right here.
Pam: Didn’t Ben Franklin have syphilis?

Michael: Stripper? Could I ask you a question? About women? Um … should I tell my girlfriend that you danced up on me?
Elizabeth: Secret secrets are no fun. Secret secrets hurt someone.
Michael: Wow. Thank you.

Michael: So you know who turned out to be kind of a creep? Ben Franklin. And Elizabeth the stripper? Gave me great advice. Which rhymed. Really makes you wonder how Ben Franklin can become president but someone like Elizabeth can’t.

Dwight: I don’t care what Jim says. That is not the real Ben Franklin. I am 99% sure.

I Should Apply for a Job

I've been away too long. To apologize, I've decided to become a total shill for Axe. Technically, this is a Lynx commercial, but it's the same stuff and this one is longer. For those of you that do not appreciate the female form in motion whilst wearing a bikini, I got nuthin.

Yo Ho, Web 2.0!

New word time!

"Moblo". No, that's not what the Hollywood starlet said to her sugar daddy.

So Jon and I (where were you. Brian?) went to Web 2.0 training today. Most of the time. we go to these more for the sweet OT that they reward rather than hoping to get much out of them. There's not a lot of demand for anything beyond minor problem-solving skills and ridiculously proprietery knowledge to do our jobs.

However, this training gave me quite a few ideas. There are some technological advances that Web 2.0 is advancing that I will probably look into, such as AJAX and XHTML. I'll be sure to post some of my experiments here.

That's not why I'm blogging tonight, though. You see, I learned a new term today, "Moblog". It stands for "Mobile Blogging", or blogging with a mobile device such as a smart phone, which is exactly what I'm doing right now (I love you, T-Mobile MDA!)

But I can't be bothered with this unwieldly six-letter word! Naw, man, I gots places ta be and shiznit.

So the word is moblo, not moblog.

Truth in Advertising?

It's been out for a little while, so you've probably seen it, but I have a weird fascination with Axe's newest commercial. It starts out kinda hot, then really gross, then hot again as the couple rolls through a tomato patch and picks up a cute tomato picker. That's when the guy gets really lucky. Anyway, here's the commercial.



I don't remember where I saw it, but someone recently made the comment that Axe is for sweaty nerds that think wearing it will impress the ladies. I don't know enough about their demographic, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it might be true. Meh. I use Axe because Stacy likes the way I smell afterwards, but we have yet to tumble into an accidental three-way while making out. Hmmm. Maybe we need to make out on mountains more often. Something to think about.

Happy New Year and All That Jazz

I'm normally not that excited for the end of the year/beginning of the next. I will stay up until midnight to give my wife a smooch and that's about it. One year we actually went to the Melting Pot to celebrate with a good friend and her brother. That was the last time I really "rung in the New Year".

I recently watched Comedy Central's 2006 Last Laugh with Jack Black, Patton Oswald, and one other comedian whose name I can never remember and I really don't care about. Our jovial Mr. Black pointed out something about New Years that pretty much cemented my take on the "holiday". It's made up. We made it up to celebrate the transition between two arbitrary periods of time. We made up time. It's just to keep track of when stuff happens. Big whoop! So really, New Years Day is just another day. I personally commemorated it with a batch of laundry and a short call to Stacy.

Don't let anyone ever tell you that I don't know how to get down and party.

Similarly, I don't get into New Year's resolutions. I found that the best way not to break a resolution is to not make one. This year I am making an exception. This year I resolve to get out of my dead-end job and do something different. I've been working on the same desk for 6 years. There have been plenty of changes in those 6 years, but I just don't see myself going anywhere positive from here. I already have a lead I'm following up on to that end, so I'm hoping this will be my first and only successful resolution.

I'd ask you to wish me luck, but I'm pretty sure that's something we made up, too.

An Evening amongst the Curio Collection

With Denver snowed in and our holiday visiting prospects dashed, Stacy and I decided to take the girls to see Night at the Museum on Christmas day. It did not disappoint. Besides the PR campaign’s complete lack of showcasing Carla Gugino’s involvement in the film, a fact that Jon says is a big reason not to go see the movie, it looked decent in the previews. It did not disappoint. Even at his most unbelievably awkward, Ben Stiller can still get a laugh from me. There were a few awkward moments, but Stiller got to showcase some of his comedic talents beyond being that guy we all like to cringe at. Robin Williams was remarkably reserved as Teddy Roosevelt. Limiting him to a single character with no zany voices really worked out. Owen Wilson (uncredited!?) was remarkably tolerable as the miniature cowboy hell bent on overtaking the neighboring Roman diorama. Perhaps the biggest surprise was seeing how spry Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Bill Cobbs were. This was also the first time I have had the pleasure to see The Office executive producer Ricky Gervais onscreen. Or at least I thought it was. Reading his IMDB entry I found that I had already seen him as a guest star on Alias.

Stiller’s Larry Daley copes rather well with the shock of the museum displays coming to life. More interesting is his progression from get-rich-quick schemer to dependable leader and responsible dad with romantic prospects in the shapely form of Ms. Gugino’s Rebecca. Even William’s Roosevelt finds romance in the movie. We see Larry risk losing his first steady job in years, discover his inner strength, and defeat the treacherous villains with the aid of the entire museum before the end. Besides a couple of scenes that kept Vicki’s feet nervously kicking, such as the T-Rex skeleton bearing down on Larry before he realizes Rexy just wants to play fetch, the movie is an adventure anyone can enjoy.

Wireless Woes

Since we didn’t make it out to Utah before Christmas last week, our days were wide open. Stacy wanted to use the time to clear out the office and move Scarlett’s crib in there. Our hope is that we can let her cry in the crib without fear of waking the girls. Maybe then she’ll learn to self-soothe and we can get a decent night’s sleep again. Part of the office move involved dismantling the computer desk and moving it into the living room downstairs.

It only cost me $230 to do it, too.

Why 230 clams? Because my HP Media Center PC decided to spontaneously fry its power supply in the short trip between the office and the living room. I didn’t want to accept that it was the problem, but the rapidly blinking power indicator on the back of the supply was hard to ignore. We were also leaving the cable modem and wireless router in the room upstairs, so I had to get a wireless card for the HP, too.

230 smackers and a trip to CompUSA later and I have a working computer thrumming along with a powerful 500 watt supply and a brand spanking new Wireless-N network card. Who knew moving a computer one level down in my house could be so expensive?

Speaking of Wireless-N, I couldn’t be more frustrated with Linksys. It’s not really their fault that the industry can’t settle on the next high speed wireless protocol, but damn it, I can’t seem to get the same components in my network at the same time.

When I started building our wireless network, I used D-Link equipment. After many frustrating attempts to keep my computers on the network, I gave up and went for my tried-and-true brand, Linksys. At the time, they had come out with a new Wireless-G overlay called SRX. This used multiple-in, multiple-out channels to increase range and compression to increase speeds. I was ecstatic with the 108mbps connections I was making with my Dell desktop and work laptop.

Then I got my personal laptop. This is when Linksys first let me down. My new laptop has a PCMCIA express port, but Linksys doesn’t make anything but PCMCIA cards. Alas, I was stuck with nothing but the built-in wireless-G connection, back to 54mpbs for me.

Later, Linksys came out with new SRX protocols, including 2.0, 200, and 400. You’d think all I needed to do was upgrade the firmware on my router to use them, right? Wrong. SRX 1.0 is not upgradable. Thanks a lot, Linksys.

The latest wrinkle in my wireless network woes is Wireless-N. CompUSA no longer carries any SRX components. So my new wireless card in the HP is not compatible with my SRX network. If this draft of the wireless protocol happens to be the one that is picked for the industry, then I’ll have one component ready for the new system. In the meantime, I have one more component that is locked down to 54mbps.

How much will it cost to upgrade my entire network to Wireless-N? Around 230 bones.

My Brain Hates Me

While going to bed with the wife away sucks, it does usually mean that I get more sleep. Whether it's the getting the baby for midnight nursings, comforting one of the older girls after a nightmare, or being awoken by a flailing arm, my nights (and Stacy's) are regularly interrupted. Add to that the fact that I can never seem to get to bed before 11:00 PM on work nights and you get an idea of how tired I am when I come in to work. Since none of those distractions exist when the family is away, I usually get a full night's rest any given night.

Just to make sure, I took some Excedrin PM last night. I got to sleep around 9:30, which wouldn't give me a full 8 hours, but it'd be more than usual.

That's why I was surprised when I woke up at 11:30. Muddled with sleep, I stared at the clock for a few moments trying to puzzle out how I could sleep all the way to 11:30 without waking up and why it was still dark outside. Ohhhh, 11:30 PM, well that's okay, I still had 5 hours to sleep.

Then I woke up at 1:30. WTF? Whatever, I still had more sleep time.

Then again at 3:00. Ok, now I'm kinda pissed off at myself.

By the time my alarm started going off at 4:25, I was only lightly sleeping. Angry at the entire situation, I hit my snooze out of defiance. I was going to get some more damn sleep even if it was only 9 minute increments!

I finally gave up a little before 5:00 and got out of bed. There's something about not even reaching REM sleep that really bugs me. It may be a wholly psychological thing or an actual physiological effect, but I always feel off when I don't get at least 4 hours of continuous sleep. I have come to the conclusion that my brain is angry at me for some reason. Maybe it was all the paint fumes I inhaled after finally painting that empty spot on the basement wall?

Excuse Me as I Wax Melancholy

There are few card rides that are more depressing than the one immediately following dropping your family off for a week-long trip. I know I'm being maudlin about it, but I'm in a funk right now and I'm hoping this will be somewhat cathartic.

I love my family. There are times when they drive me crazy, individually and collectively, but all the other times make the occasional annoyances well worth it. Nothing compares to the sound of three little girls shouting, "Daddy!" when I walk in the door after work. Snuggling a sleeping child is a close second. I have such a hard time sleeping in an empty bed that I will usually stay up into the wee hours of the morning to avoid it when my wife is gone.

I'm sure that by tomorrow I will feel my usual self. I'll most likely fill my time alone by watching a ton of movies in the theater, playing video games, and watching TV. Im working two days of OT this week, so my usual three day work week will be five. Hopefully the fact that I have to get up for work will help me get to bed at a decent hour. Then again, working OT on the swing shift kinda defeats that idea. However, the OT is uding the holiday, so double time and a half is coming my way. What better way to pay for two Christmases than some holiday OT?