Fighting for Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Super BigShow is the only hero you need in the world today!

It's Friday, and I have the day off. I did want to wish my Grams a very Happy Birthday this weekend! She is a very devoted reader and a savvy computer user. I am the envy of my friends when I tell them that my Grandmother emails me and surfs the web.

Have a great weekend everyone! I plan on blogging next week even with the holiday. I am doing some fun things outside this weekend including practicing my new golf swing, playing some tennis, and enjoying the wonderful weather.

BigShow Out....

TGIT... or TGIR

I always wondered where they got "R" for representing a Thursday class in college when I was scheduling. Why not represent Tuesday with a "U"? or an "H" for Thursday. Class meets TH.....

I'd like to talk about sports today (your favorite subject Dad!)

NBA Draft was last night. For the most part, it was uneventful since there are decent players in the draft, but no spectacular standouts (in my mind). It's the first draft with NO high school players which I think will be good for both the NBA and for college hoops. There was a lot of trading early on which is unusual, but in the end - the Timberwolves are still going to suck next year unless they get some bigger name help for KG. I still think they should make a case for Iverson who is unhappy in Philadelphia. Otherwise this could very well be KG's final season in Minnesota.

The Bulls did alright for themselves - adding to the already talented "Baby Bulls". And Jordan is back at the head office for the Charlotte Bobcats, who I think picked up the best player in the draft - Adam Morrison (from Gonzaga). He is the white guy with the ugliest mustache in college basketball last year. It looked like a porn star mustache but the look was catchy out West when he played.

And in ISU news - Will Blalock went very last (#60 overall - 30th in the 2nd round) and Curtis Stinson didn't get drafted at all. He'll be flipping burgers at Burger King on Lincolnway for a while.

Baseball fever is catching on now..... Boston rocked Pedro's return to Fenway. Boston's really looking good lately and they're on an 11 game win streak. They are also 13-1 in interleague play. Wow! The AL Central is really heating up though. Detroit, White Sox, and the Twinkies are all playing well and the three of them are some ridiculous 46-6 over the past month. Twins have won 14 of their last 16 and only made up a game and a half on the Tigers. With those three teams playing for the Wild Card most likely, one of the "Usual Suspects" might be going home early this year.... mainly either Boston or the hated Yankees! In the NL, the Braves continue to suck this year and I'm starting to wonder what they need to do to turn the season around... and fast! I'm pushing for Cincinnati this year (Griffey had another homer last night).

Agassi is on this morning at Wimbledon. I should have worked from home to watch the match. If he wins, the next round he'll see Nadal which is not a good thing. Nadal is the #2 player in the world and is unstoppable right now. No real upsets as of yet to talk about - more great tennis action this weekend though!

World Cup is down to 8 teams - action on Friday and Saturday!!!

Today's contributions for "Webpages of the Day" are courtesy Jim here in the lab. So instead of the usual format, I give you better laughs and things to talk about while at work today:

Webpage of the Day#1 - Title of article: "Awkward moments about in penis pump trial". The worst part is the person on trial is a JUDGE that was using it while in court. Funny part is the "sh-sh" sound that is made by the exhibit #1... or is that exhibit #69? "I don't even know what it is! That sort of thing ain't my bag ba-by!!"

Webpage of the Day#2 - Title of article: "Operation removes lightbulb from anus". How do you sleep so hard that you "wake up" to a glass lightbulb in your anus.... I would hope you would "wake up" in the process, not after the fact.

Webpage of the Day#3 - Of course the rage in Hollywood this week... Britney poses nude for Harper's Bazaar magazine cover. It's not totally nude, but more like the Demi Moore picture from years ago. She also has her black hair which is less trashy I would guess is possibly her motive. I hate to tell her but it's not the hair that makes you trashy, it's the girl inside... and the wacko you married.

The Reason My Hearing Is Bad

So yesterday I was still in concert mode all day. I decided to come up with a list of all the concerts I've gone to (or at least that I can remember in my "old" age). These are all Ticketmaster-type concerts, not the pay $5 cover to get in to see some local band. If you figure that Ticketmaster is getting at least $10 from me per ticket.... and I didn't go by myself to any of these concerts.... that's a lot of money that they get from just myself. This list also doesn't include any classical or musicals that I've gone too. I might have a lot harder time coming up with that list.

• U2 - 6 times
  
• Pop-Mart in Metrodome (Smashmouth opening)
• 3 Elevation (Target Center, Bradley Center, and United Center - PJ Harvey opening each time - only saw her twice... Drew and I were a little late to the Chicago one due to traffic)
  
• 2 Vertigo (Target Center with Fall Out Boy and United Center with Kings of Leon)
• Harry Connick, Jr. - 3 times (all in Ames)
• Pearl Jam and Tom Petty (Excel Energy Center in St. Paul)
• Summer Insane-asylum Tour (Somewhere in St. Louis)
• Metallica, Korn, Kid Rock, Powerman 5000, System of a Down
• Nickelback, Three Doors Down, Puddle of Mudd (Excel)
• Family Values Concert (Excel)
• Stone Temple Pilots, Linkin Park, Staind, Static-X
• Wheezer (the place next to Excel with 1000 high school kids... we were the oldest ones there)
• Ozzfest meets Warped Tour of 1998 (Somerset, WI)
• A lot of loud bands. Ozzy and Tool were the headliners
• Mancow's Lazer Luau of 1998 (Ankeny, IA)
  
• Anthrax, Drain STH, Local H, Candlebox, Gravity Kills
• Dave Matthews Band - 2 times (Target Center and Alpine Valley)
• Sevendust and Creed (Ames)
• Creed (Excel - can't remember who opened)
• Godsmack (Supertoad in Des Moines... that was a fun one)
• Smashing Pumpkins (Ames)
• Brooks and Funn with Reba (Honky Fest in Ames..... worst concert ever!)
• DC Talk (Ames)
• Velvet Revolver (Excel with Hoobastank opening)
• Green Day (Des Moines - Jimmy Eat World opening.... didn't see them)
• Bare Naked Ladies (Excel - Proclaimers opening.... didn't know who they were till we heard the walk 5000 miles an hour song)
• REM (Excel - can't remember who opened)
• Live and Counting Crows (Excel)
• Garbage (First Ave)
• Audio Adrenaline, Newsboys, Third Day (with my bro in Ames)
• Jars of Clay - 2 times (Ames and once at some place in the middle of Iowa)
• Nylons (Cedar Rapids - acapella group)
  
• Take 6 (Iowa City - acapella gospel group)
• Christian McBride and Joe Lovano (Ames - jazz concert that went till midnight)
• Carmen (Cedar Rapids - gospel).... ok, this one was a free concert but it was my first concert that I went to along with my big brother!

I wasn't allowed to go to MC Hammer (Vanilla Ice opened) back in the day because my folks were ultra-strict and wouldn't allow me to have any fun. I've been permanently scarred from not being able to go to MC Hammer when I was in 7th grade. Blame this event in my life as to why I'm "like this".

My list of "to see yet" is shrinking. The main band to see yet is Beastie Boys. The other ones I want to see are going to be a little more expensive and difficult to get tickets. Eminem, Prince ($300+ for his concerts), Michael Jackson, Wynton Marsalias Septet, and NEIL DIAMOND. Yeah, I want to see Neil Diamond. My mom said she'd go with me. I'd add Elvis to the list but he's left us unfortunately. Someday in Heaven, I'd like to think that Elvis will give a free concert every now and then and I'll be waiting in line INSIDE the gates to get into his concert. I'd also like to think that God has connections to get me a back stage pass to meet Elvis.

Golf League tonight - I'm determined to not suck as bad as the last two weeks. I'll let you know. Lesson #2 went well last night and I have a lot of new things to work on, just not sure if I can get them all ticking together by tonight.

Have a great Wednesday!!!

Song of the Day - I can always listen to Elvis, or Pearl Jam after the concert this week. But today the Song of the Day belongs to Neil Diamond:) You all love him!

Video of the Day - Another Hitchcock movie down, this time it was The Trouble With Harry which I found rather amusing. It again only has the one plot (no sub-plots) about a group of folks that find a dead body and each of them thinks they may have accidentally killed him. So they bury him... then dig him up.... then bury him... then dig him up again.... then bury him... so on and so forth. I liked this one. Not really suspenseful, but still good.

Webpage of the Day - England moves on in the World Cup. Some English Newspaper is claiming that Germany is saying that the extra English fans around Deutschland are drinking them dry. Not sure how you drink Germany dry, but I'm sure there are a lot of folks trying to do this....

Pearl Jam/Tom Petty Review from 6/26/06

Well that was a fun concert! The evening was rocking up in St. Paul with two of the bigger touring groups hitting the Excel Energy Center at the same time last night. Could anyone take the Energy level even higher than that of the Minnesota Wild games? I think this was my 6th concert at the Excel Center and the place was definitely hoppin' like it usually is. It's a great place for concerts because of the ease of getting in and out of downtown St. Paul, the abundance of parking that is close, there are no bad seats, and the venue itself is really good for acoustics (especially when compared to the poor Target Center).

So the big question of the night was who would open for who? It had been rumored that Pearl Jam was the opening act but nobody knew of a new Tom Petty album in the last 4 years to speak of. Pearl Jam just released their album Pearl Jam (how original). Sho' nuff - Pearl Jam was out right at 7:30 (an unusual occurrence at concerts - starting on time).

I've listened to the newest PJ album and while not impressed, I had prepared myself to hear a lot of songs from this album since it's the tour that is associated with it. The set list from two nights prior in Ohio had most of their new songs listed, and only one song from Ten that is owned by 90% of us that consider ourselves "fans of alternative era". The only more popular album is Nevermind (in case you're wondering Mom, this was the album by Nirvana - it pretty much began the rage into alternative music in the 90s). PJ kicked it off with Last Exit which was a fine way to get the crowd into it. Their complete set:

Last Exit (from Vitalogy)
Life Wasted (from Pearl Jam)
Why Go (from Ten)
World Wide Suicide (from Pearl Jam)
Do The Evolution (from Yield)
Given To Fly (from Yield)
I Am Mine (from Riot Act)
Army Reserve (from Pearl Jam)
Even Flow (from Ten)
Better Man (from Vitalogy)
Sad (from Lost Dogs among others)
Present Tense (from No Code)
Daughter / (I Won't Back Down) (from Vs.)
Jeremy (from Ten)
Comatose (from Pearl Jam)
Alive (from Ten)
Rockin' In The Free World (by Neil Young for anyone that didn't know)

For the most part, the crowd was lovin' it. I did notice that even though Pearl Jam is what I would consider "main draw material", they took 2nd billing to Petty last night and will for a couple of weeks on this leg of the tour. Here's how I gauged this conclusion: 1) The lighting effects were there, but they weren't anything great like they were for Petty. This is typical of any opening band. 2) The stage was bigger than what Pearl Jam was allowed to cover. 3) Pearl Jam took until the 4th song before I caught my first sniffing of the "wacky tobaccy", with Tom Petty - it pretty much began when he walked on stage.

Pearl Jam is easily the best opening band I've ever seen if that's the case:) My favorite part of the night was when Eddie (no, not the Polish Eddie that we all know and love) played the opening to Better Man and asked the crowd to sing along. We ended up singing the entire first verse without him and I was impressed with the crowd. Usually when it's "fan sing" time, it only lasts about two stanzas before the musically inept people take over and it all falls by the wayside. But the folks last night held together right till he came back in on the 2nd verse. I was impressed:)

Petty was pretty good. I am not a huge Tom Petty fan, but I could instantly tell by the crowd's reaction that most of the people there were buying tickets to see him. He definitely had more of the crowd participation at times. But there was also about 15 minutes where he and his band were playing the blues and the crowd started acting bored. Happens at some concerts, where everyone sits down, starts talking, runs to get more beer..... I wish the bands would pay more attention for that point in the concert and move on (or hopefully change for the next night's set).

The biggest disappointment for the night was the changeover. I'm always interested in the structure of running a concert so I always pay attention to details like this. PJ was on right around 7:30. They played till about 8:40. Tom Petty took the stage at 9:45. Yeah, that's right. A freakin' hour+ to change the sets. Petty played till about 11:15. To top it off, I have NEVER seen as many stage hands trying to help get the switch made. I am not exaggerating when I say there were 30+ people on stage trying to "help" but most were standing around doing nothing.

I was also disappointed in the failure of the television screens. Petty had some neat effects, but they also had a long half circle display that they were showing close ups of the band members along with some cool special effects. I am a big fan of symmetry and I know most of the displays like this are symmetrical. Even during the first song I could see that they were having issues. Then in the 3rd song, you saw the word "Link" all over the screens. I looked over at the guy running the light board and he had his hands over his head and was shaking it so I figured that wasn't part of the show. Then the screen froze and wouldn't turn off at the end of the song. From that point on, they turned the screen off and all the camera folks took the rest of the night off.

It was a great concert though. I did recognize more Petty songs than I thought I would. And now I can cross Pearl Jam off of my "still need to see live" list.

Have a great Tuesday!

Pearl Jam Tonight!!

Pearl Jam Concert tonight in St. Paul. Hazel and I are going, but for different reasons. She is excited to see Tom Petty who I heard is actually playing 2nd. I am definitely excited to see Pearl Jam who is playing first (this is how it was at the Milwaukee concert). If it were up to me, I'd leave after PJ was finished but I know how excited Hazel is for Tom Petty. We'll see how many people are rolling another "TNIOJ" in the crowd!!

Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me was on this weekend among many other funny movies. It rained almost the entire weekend so it was a good weekend to get caught up on house projects and watch movies in the background. There were two things that I remember about Austin Powers... one was the dialog when referring to the male genitalia.... Here's a replay for anyone who hasn't seen it in a while:

Radar Operator: Colonel, you better have a look at this radar.
Colonel: What is it, son?
Radar Operator: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant...
Jet Pilot: Dick. Dick, take a look out of starboard.
Co-Pilot: Oh my God, it looks like a huge...
Bird-Watching Woman: Pecker.
Bird-Watching Man: [raising binoculars] Ooh, Where?
Bird-Watching Woman: Over there. What sort of bird is that? Wait, it's not a woodpecker, it looks like someone's...
Army Sergeant: Privates. We have reports of an unidentified flying object. It has a long, smooth shaft, complete with...
Baseball Umpire: Two balls.
[looking up from game]
Baseball Umpire: What is that. It looks just like an enormous...
Chinese Teacher: Wang. pay attention.
Wang: I was distracted by that giant flying...
Musician: Willie.
Willie: Yeah?
Musician: What's that?
Willie: [squints] Well, that looks like a huge...
Colonel: Johnson.
Radar Operator: Yes, sir?
Colonel: Get on the horn to British Intelligence and let them know about this.

That always makes me laugh. I did have to look up something at the end when Felicity Shagwell is unsure about going to the future with Austin. Austin says "The 70s and the 80s? You're not missing anything, believe me. I've looked into it. There's a gas shortage and A Flock of Seagulls. That's about it". Now being a product of the LATE 80s myself, I don't remember the band A Flock of Seagulls. But I now catch the same reference when Jules points to the one guy on the couch with the funny hair and calls him "Flock of Seagulls". I vaguely remember their song I Ran (So Far Away). 1982 so I was 5 at the time and it's not on any of my 80s compilation CDs:)

Speaking of Compilation CDs. I kept seeing the commercial for Buzz Ballads - two CDs for $18.99 or something like that. It has some good music, and some horrible music on there. But I'm curious why they chose the name "Buzz Ballads". Some of them aren't what I would call a Ballad anyway.

Lightning Crashes - Live
Champagne Supernova - Oasis
If You Could Only See - Tonic
Glycerine - Bush
Hemmorrhage (In My Hands) - Fuel
Counting Blue Cars - Dishwalla
What Do I Have To Do? - Stabbing Westward
Everything You Want - Vertical Horizon
Sex and Candy - Marcy Playground
The Freshmen - The Verve Pipe
Take A Picture - Filter
Easy- Faith No More

Still makes me laugh. I would probably call it "Frat Hits" or "Music to be played at Frat Parties". Not saying that in a negative way, just what I usually associate with music heard at Frat Parties. I also laugh at Easy being on there - that's the hit that nobody remembers by Faith No More.

Song of the Day - In honor of Pearl Jam tonight, I have had PJ playing all weekend. I love the album Yield even though most people haven't heard of that one. Their new one (titled Pearl Jam) is ok but hasn't fully grown on me as of yet. Still working on it.

Video of the Day - there were lots of good movies on TV this weekend, including Police Academy and Groundhog Day. I also watched the remake of The Pink Panther. It wasn't good, it wasn't bad. Probably what I was expecting. I used to love the older versions with Peter Sellers. I thought he was much funnier than Steve Martin.

Webpage of the Day - In honor of Agassi, announcing his retirement after this year's US Open - a tennis webpage for the day. Wimbledon is making some changes for the women this year.... of which I'm sure none of us men will be happy to hear. More on Agassi later.

Friday is Here!!

It's FINALLY Friday around the world which means a half day of vacation for this guy. We are headed down to the final day of Rochesterfest for lunch where the food is oh-so good (that's not "Oso" [Spanish for bear]- but he's good too) and the options are endless. I decided to take some time to discuss one of the best parts of summer - fair food!

Corn Dogs are definitely a favorite of mine down there. They even have the footlong corn dogs. You can get pretty much anything on a stick, or a rope. Turkey leg on a stick, a whole turkey on a rope, Polish Sausage on a stick, Pizza.... probably on a stick. Then comes the fried stuff - mini-donuts, Funnelcakes, onionrings, cheese curds, and even deep fried snickers (on a stick). Ice Cream everywhere (there's a really good shake/malt stand on the Northern half). What else am I missing??? Chocolate dipped cheesecake...

The US is out of the World Cup after a pathetic showing yesterday. We watched the game online and while many people will say the "refs were out to get us", I say "the US looked pretty crappy". My nephew had just as good of a chance at scoring a goal for the US yesterday.... and he's 5! Brazil on the other hand looked pretty unstoppable. It'll be fun to watch the 2nd round starting this weekend.

Today is the birthdate of the N64 gaming system back in 1996. It's been 10 years already since that thing came out and caused all of us to lose hours and hours of study time and sleep during college. Stupid Mario Cart - why'd you have to be so addictive? We inch closer to the release of the Wii (the "gaming system formerly known as Revolution"). I'm getting pretty excited for it!!!

Have a great weekend!

Song of the Day- In honor of June Carter Cash's 78th birthday, I decided to pull out some Johnny Cash (I don't have any of June's stuff) today. And did you know that Boy Named Sue was written by Shel Silverstein? Yeah, the guy that wrote Light in the Attic that is for kids. Interesting fact for the day.

Video of the Day - I watched The Big Whitelast night which has Robin Williams, Woody Harrelson, and Holly Hunter in it. What a strange movie from start to finish. It takes place in Alaska which already sets it up for being unusual. Holly Hunter plays the wife that has a condition that she thinks is part Turrets Syndrome and she is the highlight of the film when she swears uncontrollably.

Webpage of the Day - This is pretty funny - a guy filmed the Comcast Technician falling asleep on the couch as he's on hold with headquarters trying to get his cable fixed. Just shows that even the employees hate being on hold.

Overused Words and Phrases

Proof that the NSA is really useful afterall:

"The" is the most commonly used word overall, followed by "be," "to," "of," and, "a," "in," "that," "have," and "I," according to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary.

On the list of top 25 nouns, "time" is followed by other movement indicators: "year" is in third place; "day" is fifth; and "week" is No. 17.

The dictionary used the Oxford English Corpus -- a research project into English in the 21st century -- to come up with the lists.

Among nouns, "person" is ranked at No. 2, with "man" at No. 7 and "woman" at No. 14. "Child" appears at No. 12.

"Government" appears at No. 20 while "war," at No. 49, trumps "peace," which did not make the top 100.

The list of top 25 nouns: time, person, year, way, day, thing, man, world, life, hand, part, child, eye, woman, place, work, week, case, point, government, company, number, group, problem, fact.

So I thought this was rather interesting for a few different points - first, that someone (probably a team of 4-5 people) actually was paid to research this; two, that there is a way to record this information (NSA phone taps? Or just a lot of people wearing microphones); three, that when you think about it - the writers of this information probably just made it up. How many beers does it take to come up with a list like this? In my list of most used words, I'm putting "um" at the top for all of the presentations and meetings that I have to sit through.

I did a web search for "most overused words" and found a survey on rateitall.com that has a bunch of phrases that I do actually use on a regular basis. Among them:

• "(Fillintheblank) Rules!!"
• "(Fillintheblank) Sucks!"
• "You have no idea what you're talking about"
• "You don't get it"
• "You know what I'm sayin?".

Overused work phrases that I don't really care for include:

• Take that offline
• Work smarter, not harder
• Think outside the box
• "Ping" ________ (someone)
• Cutting Edge
• Send me an action item
• Any other overused quotes from Office Space

English language is funny like that..... Being in Japan and China, I learned quickly how dependent we are as a business culture on phrases that you have to have prior knowledge in order to understand.....

**Yawn**.... time to go nap.

Song of the Day - Still Elvis around here today. For all of the AI fans, pull out In the Ghetto to hear a real singer perfect it. I don't think Taylor did that well with it, but then again - it's Elvis! There is only one other person that should be allowed to sing Elvis in public (or non-karaoke.... half of my prepared karaoke songs are Elvis).

Video of the Day - Jurassic Park was on last night - can you believe that movie came out in 1993? I'm getting old. I remember seeing that movie in the theatre in high school and laughing at some of the dumbest things that we would say during the movie or point out. Chad and I were really bad at that during movies. Still a reason why people hate going to movies with me.

Webpage of the Day - This was kind of strange... a Pabst Blue Ribbon commercial causes a resort hotel to evacuate 35 guests at 12:30 in the morning. I knew that stuff sucked and should not be sold!!

Summer Solstice (Especially in Miami)

Rochester says goodbye today to "Roommate-Adam" as he begins the move to Raleigh, NC. Good luck and best wishes to Adam and Angie down South!

The Miami Heat won last night in pretty convincing fashion. That's four wins in a row to take the championship. And I am a life long Jordan fan; I watched every single game of the 6 championships in Chicago. Last night I was convinced I witnessed the second coming of Jordan (no, he didn't come out of retirement for a third time). The comparisons are being made and I will add my vote to say that Dwayne Wade has what it takes to carry a team through a championship. He also has the ability to lift his teammates to higher levels (although if they played even better, it wouldn't have been so close in games 5 or 6), plus he has the ability to hit the big shots under pressure without any luck involve (ignore the last two missed freethrows - he looked exhausted and they still won). Wade's defense is also coming along and give him a few more years till he starts making the first team for all-defensive and all-offensive. It also helps that he gets the foul calls as he drives to the hoop whether he was touched or not (the "Jordan-effect" I call it). Only time will tell but Congrats to Miami and of course to Shaq on getting a championship without Kobe!!!

Today is the Summer Solstice (or the Winter Solstice for any readers "below the equator") meaning it's officially the first day of Summer! Scientifically, it means the Earth's Axis is tilted towards the sun at the greatest angle, providing the most hours of sunlight. Translation = The days only get shorter from here on out. The sun is directly overhead at midday along the Tropic of Cancer. Now the summer festivals can officially begin!!! (Hurry, Oktoberfest is right around the corner!!!).

Phantom of the Opera is showing in Vegas as of this weekend! They built a replica of the 19th Century Paris Opera House inside of the Venetian Hotel for a mere $40 Million! Hazel and I are planning on going to that while in Vegas in September. Tickets for that weekend are not on sale as of yet. For those that are familiar with Phantom... they do some really cool effects with the "falling chandelier" scene!

Have a great Wednesday!!!! In the words of Jim here in the lab: "Only 180 shopping days till Christmas!!!" Technically it's 179, but who's counting? That's 15,382,360 seconds.....

Song of the Day - This morning's workout selection at the RAC was as bad as ever. The only highlight was Take a Chance on Me by ABBA! It's my favorite song by them and not overplayed like the "other" ABBA song. If you want to become ill when you hear Dancing Queen, either go to a bunch of wedding dances, or try what this guy did on your next drive in the car!!!

Video of the Day - What happens when you mix Pepsi and Mentos in your stomach? We asked that after last week's experiments and this girl decides to find out..... I'd have done the same but I doubt you'd get thee same effect!

Webpage of the Day - Lego to cut 1200 jobs worldwide.... WE NEED TO BUY MORE LEGOS PEOPLE!!!!

Big Pimpin'

Congrats to the Carolina Hurricanes who won the Stanley Cup last night. I was kind of rooting for Edmonton, or at least an overtime game, but it was still a good matchup. Now to focus on NBA game 6 tonight - GO MIAMI!!

I installed my first screen door last night. Wasn't too difficult at all. Best part was how it was $20 cheaper at Home Depot than it was last week when I thought of buying it! I was fine until the very last step in the process. The closer that came with it slams too hard and even when I turn the screw that is supposed to restrict how much air comes out of the closer and slow it down - it doesn't work. So I'll go buy a new one for $5 or whatever. But there was definitely a change in the airflow through the house last night with that open. Much much better.

This news will piss off any ISU fans. McCarney gets a new contract with a guaranteed salary of $1.1 million. The best part of the article is a statement from AD Jamie Pollard: "From a compensation standpoint, Dan was 11th or 12th in the Big 12," Pollard said, "but our fans don't expect the team to be 11th or 12th - nor do we." Then why does McCarney coach like we're 11th or 12th? How come McCarney lost to 3 of the 6 teams that have coaches getting paid less than him? How come we can't beat all the teams ahead of him for coach's pay? I was also surprised to read that Squawkeye Ferentz is getting $2.7 million a year?!??!! What the..... for a football coach in Iowa!?!?!? Third highest in the country for some reason.

And the word of the day is: "p-i-m-p". A 4 letter word (Eddie - do you have FOUR quarters for a dollar?) that according to the Tampa Bay Times, has gone from "a bad noun to a good verb". It now "broadly means to embellish or champion". So here's to Pimpin'..... cause PIMPIN' AIN'T EASY!!!!

Song of the Day - It's gotta be Jay-Z today with some Big Pimpin' from 1999!! That brings back some college memories! "Love 'em and leave 'em"

Video of the Day - last week I had watched the new Harrison Ford movie Firewall which had its moments, but was too much like every other movie that he seems to do anymore. He's some former bad ass that tries to live a normal life, then his family gets kidnapped so he has to put on his ass-kickin' shoes and show everyone who's boss. This one does have Paul Bettany (Silas from The DaVinci Code) who does a good job. I kept waiting for Ford to say "Get off my Router" or something.....

Webpage of the Day - New Superman in 30 Seconds (re-enacted by bunnies). YAY BUNNIES!!!

Have a great Tuesday!!!

Elvis Ate America

What a fun weekend! Very productive as well!

Hazel and I had a wonderful weekend together and are STILL together! It's been the first weekend with no plans in over 2 months for the two of us. We worked some on her basement getting the initial start to the finishing process. Coax is ran and all the boxes are in place to begin the electrical wiring. I decided to be legal for multiple reasons and she's getting a permit this week. Then the fun stuff can begin.

This weekend also saw some very entertaining sports:

• Miami took a 3-2 lead over Dallas in the NBA Finals with a chaotic OT win last night. They seriously need to cut the number of timeouts that a team can take as the final 2 minutes of the game took over 35 minutes of real time to play. Too many TV timeouts as well. That's probably my biggest complaint about the NBA (can't complain about traveling since they never call it), is how when watching it, you never get to full momentum. It's all about commercials.
• Edmonton forced the all time best thing in sports.... a game 7 for Lord Stanley's Cup. That game is tonight and I'll be pushing for Edmonton to win it. If not that, then at least some sudden death overtime - the only way it can get any better than this.
  
• Phil blew it on the 72nd hole to lose the US Open. Even I could have done better than a double bogey on the 18th. And even I'm not dumb enough to pull out my driver when all I need is a par. What WAS he thinking? Damn Aussies taking our US Open....
• The US soccer team managed a 1-1 tie with Italy. Somehow the US is the "#5 rated team in the world" yet we have only managed ONE shot on goal in the two tournaments we've played in. What the..... that is the lowest in the tournament in case you hadn't guessed.
• And Kasey Kahne won a rain-shortened NASCAR event..... nevermind, there's nothing entertaining about that. In fact, that kind of sucks!!

I hit my 4th donation of platelets this morning. With the donation, I received a cool windbreaker with the Mayo Clinic Blood Donor Program that makes me the envy of all of my friends!! I did some reading this morning to find out that sometimes, platelet transfusions are sometimes needed for those undergoing chemo for leukemia, those with AIDS or ITP (blood disorder), or during surgeries such as a cardiopulmonary bypass (when a machine is used to take over the function of the heart and lungs). Let me know if you're interested in starting to donate and I can give you more details. It's easy (especially through Mayo here in Rochester.... free parking downtown!!) and is the start of my good deeds for the day.

I'm installing a screen door to go to my garage tonight after work. Should be easy and should also increase the airflow through my townhouse as that is the only opening on the east side of my house. Hard to get a breeze to cool the house off during the summer. Game 7 starts at 7pm on NBC!!!

Song of the Day - So Hazel and I were out with her former professor and his girlfriend Friday night. When we went back to the girlfriend's house here in Rochester for coffee, I noticed she had an Elvis CD.... Ultimate Gospel. This might be one of the greatest CDs ever recorded. So of course I went into "gotta have it" mode and luckily Best Buy was open for 5 more minutes. It's on now and makes me feel like clapping and PRAISING THE LORD!!!!!! Cause the Lord is GOOD!!!

Video of the Day - Hazel and I finally watched The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I was impressed overall after a scary start when they added a ton of stuff that I didn't think was necessary. They did a good job with the special effects and making the animals talk. I did point out to Hazel all the symbolism in the story when compared to the story of Christ and the Crucifixion. CS Lewis was a very spirtitual writer and it is widely known that the Chronic (WHAT?)-als of Narnia in many ways parallel some of the stories in the Bible. I heard that they're filming Prince Caspian which was my favorite story. It'll be interesting how many of the seven books they try to film before the actors get too old to continue.

Webpage of the Day - Time lapsed GIFs that are pretty sweet. You'll see what I'm talking about when you click on the link!

Father's Day Weekend!

Happy Father's Day to all! (including my Pops - probably the most dedicated reader of my blog. Most of the people he works with get coffee for their first break, he doesn't drink coffee so he reads my blog!! How cool is that?) The first Father's Day was celebrated in 1910 for those that care. This year has seen many many babies born to friends of mine so I would like to officially wish you a Happy Father's Day, two days early!

And while Mother's Day is the busiest day of the year for phone calls (according to all the cellular networks), Father's Day is the busiest day of the year for people making COLLECT CALLS! What the.... go figure. Make the MAN pay for the call. Just another example of THE MAN keeping the man down!

There are two types of people in this world..... the first type takes this amazing time of year when two different major sports are down to the final two teams and both series are very exciting! The passion of playing 82 games, then another 20 in the post season comes all the way down to this weekend! The other type of person asks "when does football start". This person needs help.

Miami looked very good last night for the first time in the NBA finals. Game 5 is Sunday. Edmonton will hopefully win tomorrow night to force a game 7 for Lord Stanley's Cup!

The Honkers won in the bottom of the 9th yesterday. It was a great weather day for baseball and more importantly: not working!

US Open is underway. Some high scores as there is only one person under par after the first day. Mickelson is one stroke back, Vijay (my pick to win) is two strokes back.

US Soccer picks up again tomorrow with their match against Italy. If they lose - it's all over, if they win - they actually could make the second round even with a previous loss.

Have a great weekend! I'm working on the first step of finishing Hazel's basement. Lots of wiring of electricity, cable, and phone to all parts of the basement. Should be a good time! Hopefully there are no fires or explosions to worry about.

Song of the Day - I have some Red Hot Chili Peppers playing today. Does anyone have their new album yet? It's supposed to be pretty good so I was going to pick it up on my next trip to Best Buy (yeah, it's been over a month since I've been there!).

Video of the Day - I watched Kicking and Screaming yesterday (with Will Farrell) and it was very funny. Much funnier than Anchorman! Mike Ditka is hilarious in it and for any Bear fans out there, you have to see it!

Webpage of the Day - If anyone has $1.3 million dollars they wish to donate to "Bigshow's Bugatti Veyron Fund", call me immediately. Yeah, 1.3 million smackers for a car... that has 1001 Horsepower (they're European Horsepower so that's like only 940 US Horsepower) and goes from 0-60 in around 2.6 seconds. 124 mph in 7.3 seconds. My Trailblazer is usually at 35 mph after 7.3 seconds (and already burned through a gallon of gasoline)

Slow Day

Wow, I just noticed that I'm over 10,000 hits since I added the counter on. THANK YOU to all of you dedicated readers!!

Edmonton won last night to force a game six Saturday night! An exciting overtime victory, doesn't get any better than overtime hockey! Wish my golf game last night was half as exciting. I think I'm getting worse every week. At least I am now 100% positive that I did not qualify for this weekend's US Open.

Today is the IBM day at the Honkers game. The Rochester Honkers are some AAAAA league baseball team that some people take way too serious. Most of us go to sit on the sports deck by the 3rd base line and drink unlimited beer and all you can eat grill food. It's a great time and much cheaper to drink at than going to the bars here in town. It is currently sprinkling out and we're supposed to have scattered showers all day so it might be an interesting afternoon none the less. I can't even tell you who the Honkers are playing today.

Today is also IBM's birthday - it was founded in 1888 but incorporated on June 15, 1911. IBM is the biggest IT company in the world and is starting to take charge in the services and consulting world. In celebration of this company's birthday, we get to work today!!! WOOHOO!! Happy Birthday Big Blue!

Song of the Day - This is pretty nerdy, but still funny. It's the IBM Theme song with TJ Watson leading you in a sing-a-long! It has Monty Python goodness for humor purposes!

Video of the Day - The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments continue..... Mom, this is perfect for your science class next year! We tried to recreate yesterday outside the lab here at work and didn't get nearly the success that these guys did. If you haven't been following all the rave, here's a quick video to get you addicted! Way too much time was wasted developing this, but it's still pretty cool!

Webpage of the Day For those of you doing the 50 quarter saving thing, here's the complete list including pictures and explanations of the designs. There are 10 left to be designed (by the time they get all 50 out, we'll have added Puerto Rico to the list). I was disappointed with the North Dakota picture of the Bison.... they should have just used a picture of a cemented over old missile silo!!

Random Things

Diet Coke and Mentos - the mix seems to be the rave right now. Check out this awesome video. We are trying to do our own experiments in the lab with this. So far the recommendation from Jim is you need more than 3 Mentos to get any good reaction, and a hole less than 1/8" to get the explosive results (30 seconds). I'll try it this week or weekend and let you know what I find. It also brought on the conversation of eating challenges. I'm still up for the milk challenge (gallon of milk in under an hour) but waiting for Kahn to step up. Emerich is still mouthing off about the Twinkie challenge that he'll never do (100 twinkies in 24 hours). I don't think that'd be very hard either.

Miami Heat won last night in dramatic fashion. Down by some 40 points and looking like they're going home faster than a Cyclone fan at halftime, they made an awesome comeback to break it to 2-1 advantage for Dallas. Game 5 tonight for Lord Stanley's Cup (Go Edmonton) and then Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night. Lots of good sports going on!!!

In the ongoing National Anthem Singing Competition that is going on with all the playoffs on TV right now.... There are definitely more losers than winners in my opinion. Elliott Yamin (yeah, the American Idol guy) sang before game 2 in Dallas and I thought it was horrible. I could tell he started too high for his range and of course when he gets to the higher middle part, he had nothing and it showed. Then last night Michael McDonald sang in Miami. While it was "just a'ight for me", I was laughing the whole time thinking of his role in The 40 Year Old Virgin. As David put it, "If I have to hear 'Yamo Be There' one more time, I'm gonna 'Yamo' burn this place to the ground".

US Open this weekend for golf. Phil is on a tear winning the last 2 majors (PGA of '05 and Masters of '06), Tiger hasn't won in a while and is always a threat, Vijay has the most consistent game as usual.... should be a good tournament, especially with the US Open regularly bringing out some new talent with chances to win. I will be competing in next year's Open with my new and improved skillz! League tonight - I'm gonna kick ass!

Song of the Day - I think it's cool that they're using U2 music for the World Cup advertisements with Elevation being the main one. I recognize any U2 song that is used on TV and it's surprising how many of their songs are used. Introductions to a lot of their songs are just cycled and make good background music. Plus you can usually hear U2 songs being played at the arena during the games or before the ball is put back into play.

Video of the Day - I finally watched Munich that I've had for over a month from Netflix. I didn't know a ton about the killings at the Olympics other than a handful of Israeli athletes were killed due to the crap that is STILL going on in the Gaza Strip. It's scary how they retaliated and will continue to retaliate well after I'm dead.

Webpage of the Day - This is pretty funny - Screech (yes, THAT Screech from TV) is losing his house and YOU can help him keep it by ordering a shirt. He should just call Lisa and ask for a loan. She had all the money while Kelly had all the looks! Ahhhh..... Kelly Kapowski was one of my first crushes!

Competition Week

Lots of competition to discuss....

Golf tournament on Saturday. It was sweatshirt weather but we still finished -3 for the 18 holes. New golf swing is coming along nicely. Just need to keep practicing and I'll be on the PGA tour within a year.

Nadal beat Federer in the French Open Men's Final. What an incredible match! Both of these guys are playing so well right now and this will be the next big rivalry in Men's Tennis. Federer is something like 44-0 against the rest of the men on the tour... but is 1-4 against Nadal this year. That has some good potential! On a side note, this was the first year that the payout for the Men and Women's Champion was the same. I am 100% in favor of equality, but I do not agree with paying the men and women the same in the Grand Slam tournaments when they don't play the same amount. The men play best of 5 sets, the women play best of 3. I have watched a lot of memorable 4+ hour matches in the men's bracket over the years after a guy comes back from being down 2 sets to none (including Agassi in the 1999 French Open Final).

Miami is getting their butts kicked by Dallas in the NBA finals. It's a 2-3-2 format so Miami has the next 3 at home to get back even.

I actually was flipping through the channels this past weekend and ESPN Classic had the 1993 Game 6 between the Bulls and Suns (with Charles Barkely). The Bulls were up 3-2 but had the final two games in Phoenix. After the Bulls leading most of the game, Phoenix came back to take the lead by 4 with a minute left. Some no-name took a bad shot, with Jordan getting the rebound. He went to the other end as quick as I've ever seen someone in a non-fast-break situation for an easy layup. Then a defensive stop, then a great play to Paxon for the 3 pointer to win by 1 point. Good memories there! That was the first of the two three-peats.

US Soccer got their butts whooped yesterday in the World Cup. So much for the talk about the US pissing off the rest of the world by winning the World Cup.

Edmonton lost last night against Carolina in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It might be over but I'd still like to see a game 6 if possible. What was most interesting about the two games from Edmonton was the singing of the Anthems before the game. They sang the US National Anthem with a few people singing along, just as would happen here in the states. Then the singer started O Canada! and you could hear all 30,000 fans singing along. Sure enough, after the first stanza, the singer held the microphone up to the crowd and let them all sing the rest of it by themselves. It was pretty cool and was again, something you won't see around here.

And finally, the training of the IFOCE (International Federation of Competitive Eating) is in full force as the annual Nathan's Hotdog Contest comes up over the 4th of July. Joey Chestnut came in 3rd last year for the HotDog contest but was only a rookie. Now he's making waves as he just set the record for 47 Grilled Cheese samiches in 10 minutes. I would be willing to try that record - even if it would plug me up for the next 3 weeks!! I'd try it especially if all 48 of them were made with the George Forman Grill which makes them the best! I would also be willing to try the ears of corn and the corn dog records. I like corn dogs.

Song of the Day - O Canada! complete with lyrics and even an MP3. It's a very pretty anthem and quite singable. I did sing it at one of the Rochester Honker games a couple of years ago when we had a Canadian team visiting. After it was over a lot of people turned around to see if I was Canadian since I knew the lyrics. I just shrugged and admitted to watching a lot of hockey!

Video of the Day - I watched the remake of Bad News Bears with Billy Bob Thorton from last year. It was actually pretty funny in spots and of course Thorton plays a well veteraned drunkard as he does in every movie. I'd suggest it, but now I have to rent the original to remember and compare this one to.

Webpage of the Day - To build on the geeky home improvements that I've discussed before - these lighted faucets actually have a practical use! The color changes depending on how warm the water is. If it's cold, blue.... warm, orange.... hot, red! BRILLIANT!!!

Happy Bday Dad!!

Sorry for the short late post today....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! My Pops celebrates his day of birth today - be nice to him if you see him!!

I gave platelets again this morning, thus why I'm behind. I donate again next week and receive a windbreaker after that donation! That's more free stuff than I get in my paying job:)

Anyway - have a great Monday!

Friday in La La Land

Happy Birthday Jen!! The newest mother in town celebrates her birthday today along with Johnny Depp (one of her favorites), Natalie Portman, Michael J. Fox, and Dick Vitale. It's also the date that the Roman Emperor Nero committed suicide in case you're still following your Roman Empire History.

Last night was Game 1 of the NBA finals, won by Dallas unfortunately. What a pathetic attempt by the Heat. I didn't see much of the game since I developed my yearly migrane headache last night which made me useless for the rest of the night. I still feel weird today but that might just be because it's Friday.

I decided to actively pursue a volunteering position with the Children's Hospital here in town (it's part of Mayo just like the rest of Rochester). They have multiple positions available but I am applying for a position to just entertain and play with the sick kids when they are stuck in an unfriendly environment such as the hospital. The Mayo Eugenio Litta Children's Hospital here was designed to be such a place that is friendly for kids going through not-so-friendly times. I have the application to fill out now, then I'll have an interview. Hope they don't ask for references.... I would have to give them the names of my nephews. I think Elliott and Al would give me a good recommendation!

Federer got the easy path into the French Open finals. Nadal will probably meet him there for a good Sunday matchup. The woman's final should be boring - glad the French Open is almost over. Then the real tennis can start!

Song of the Day - I had some Stone Temple Pilots on last night - the No. 4 album that most "half-fans" have probably never even heard of. There's some good stuff on there that gets missed in a STP discussion. "Down" might be one of their best songs never heard on the radio!

Video of the Day - I did watch the opening lineup announcement last night for the game and thought "how lame is this?". So I found the greatest opening music ever for a team..... "starting at Guard, from North Carolina... MICHAEL JORDAN!!" anyone remember where Scottie was from?

Webpage of the Day - this will make your head hurt (not as much as mine though). Stare at the dot, then run your mouse over the picture. No, it's not a trick. The photo is indeed black & white. Your mind is playing games to show it to you in full color. You're smarter than you think!

Thursday Already

The new golf swing is in full effect. I'm hitting the ball very cleanly, but now my game is all out of whack so there will be a lot more practicing this weekend to get used to everything. The ball is traveling a lot further than before so my approach shots are missing by a lot. Plus I have a nasty slice on my driver now that I have to get rid of. We're playing in a 3-man tournament on Saturday so hopefully we'll see some better things then.

Ahhh, the old college days when $20 lasted a whole week and the only days worth waking up for were Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night. And according to a new survey, there is a new king of what's "in" for college kids. Since 1997, beer has been tops of the list... till now. Kahn's favorite iPod is now the biggest "in" thing. While I think an iPod (or mp3 player) is a necessity, should it replace beer? I don't know very many iPod drinking games but I'm sure we could come up with some.

And speaking of schools - yesterday I volunteered to help with a computer removal program set up through IBM and the United Way. We are helping remove the older computers from the schools here in town, put them all on a pallet, and then in a couple of weeks when the new PCs come in, IBMers will help unpackage them and set them up. The first school I went to was nice and air-conditioned, but most of the work was already done by the morning crew. We were only there 45 minutes and then a different school called saying they had no volunteers to help the fulltime support person there. So off the three of us went to go help.... at a school with no air-conditioning. It was a nice hot afternoon moving computer monitors and PCs around the school. I was dripping in sweat within 10 minutes over there. We were there about 2.5 hours and when we were done, I went to wash my hands and then remembered it was an elementary school (yes, the one where Holly teaches I think). So I'm on my knees washing my hands in the little kids' sink. I forgot that most of the world isn't made for people my size, but elementary schools only see people my size once every 5 years probably.

World Cup starts tomorrow - US has a tough group to fight with. Italy and Brazil are as always, heavy favorites. NBA finals start tonight - Shaq and Flash are a heavy favorite.

Song of the Day - I pulled out the Garbage album Bleed Like Me which is their latest one. It's some really good stuff - not to mention it's one of the louder albums I've ever owned (volume wise from the post-production). I hope they put out another album so I can catch them in concert again! That was one of the better concerts I've ever been to!

Video of the Day - With college days on the mind, I have to go with Old School as today's flick of the day. Will Ferrell made that movie the instant classic it is today. Elisha Cuthbert helped as well.

Webpage of the Day - Glad this attack was thwarted.... Donkey bombs are growing and we all need to keep our eyes open. Watch out for Llama bombs too!!

200 And Still Going!!

Today is my 200th posting!!! Seems like only yesterday that I wrote my 100th post (from Kyoto, Japan). I'd like to thank the faithful that have read all 200 of them. And those of you who skim for words like "nude", "sex", "free beer".

It was brought to my attention that June is a very important month.... it is National Accordion Awareness Month!!! Since 1989, this month has been established to show off the skillz and pleasure that this wonderful instrument provides in our times at Happy Hour! Here are some interesting facts about the Accordion:

• The accordion is a member of the reed family, not the keyboard family.
• Billy Joel and Barry Manilow also play the accordion.
• Actress Lucy Liu plays the accordion
• China is the largest manufacturer and exporter of accordions in the world. (Shocker!!)
  

In the long family tradition of making dumb decisions, Jeb signed a bill that now requires Florida High School students to declare a major. What the ?!?!?!? Here are my thoughts on this, not as a liberal that hates the Bush family, but as someone that enjoyed learning so much that I spent my time in college pursuing two different disciplines.

People have asked me, with my music background and love for musicology (Music History) - why don't we have more modern day Mozarts or Beethovens? We have a lot of smart people in the world today but one of the big reasons that I see is that we encourage students to develop a well rounded education during their development (including high school). Mozart and Beethoven studied only music at an early age (which will include other Humanity subjects like literature, art, some math and general science). But most of these "geniuses" lacked the other skills that were not taught to them.

Today's educational format allows students to explore different areas at the same time. My feeling is that if we have high school students (who now adays are too immature to understand the impact of their decision on their later life) declare a focus, we restrict their educational potential. I enjoy talking to people that are well rounded, not those that only have something to say when it deals with their narrow scope of the world. That's what I am, I have an opinion about everything but that's because I took courses on everything and enjoyed learning about it. Forcing our youth to give up part of that well rounded education in favor of getting the core courses leads to potential burnout (something seen very often with child prodigies in music who are forced to a high standard and give up the "normal" developmental activities with other kids). I am not afraid of change, I just think that decisions such as this (and many other decisions made by our current idiots in government) are impulsive and detrimental to the culture or shape of our society.

"That's a bad thing and that's all I have to say about that."

World Cup is 2 days away.... more to come on that.

Song of the Day - I had some Velvet Revolver (Scott Weiland, Slash, Duff) playing today while I was experimenting with the AirPlay from my roommate for my iPod. The thing works better than my iTrip, but still not 100% sold on it yet. Back to VR - they are writing their next record which I will anxiously wait for! It's the "new STP" as I call it! While not as good as STP, they come very close in some songs.

Video of the Day - The Beautiful Hazel and I finally went to The Da Vinci Code last night. It was pretty good, just felt very rushed and almost too fast at points. I noticed many things from the book that were skipped and even the somewhat changed ending (which I wasn't as fond of). I never felt any character development as I did with the book but that's usually what happens. As Emily has said "not to sound too cliche - but it wasn't as good as the book":) I agree 100% with you Emily!

Webpage of the Day - Proof that some people have WAY too much time on their hands. Headline reads "Women lowering voices to raise salary". Sorry, it's the best I could do today.

Happy Evil Day!!!

Today is 06/06/06 which is freaking out the media and the superstitious nuts of the world. The date doesn't do anything for me but how cool would that be to have your birthday today? When you give blood.... "Give me your name and your birthdate please", "Adam Dickinson - 666". Easy one to remember. I read that people were having their c-sections and trying to get their babies born before today to ensure that their child was safe from the title "spawn of Satan".

The remake of The Omen comes out today. This is one classic horror flick that I haven't seen. All I know is they named their child "Damien" in the movie so of course he's going to turn out as the Anti-Christ if you name him Damien. The original was from 1976 when horror flicks were low budget yet still "piss your pants" scary. Now they have too much money and just put as much blood and gore into them thinking that will make them scary. Wrong.

I also read that there's a town actually called "Hell, Michigan" that is having a huge 6-6-6 party tonight. The Mayor of the town said only 666 of each souvenir item was ordered so get your collector Hell T-Shirt now. They probably say "I went to Hell and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt". The town even installed "The Gates of Hell" in a children's play area of all places. Good things we're teaching our kids now a days. "Mommy, can I go play in the Gates of Hell?"... "Not till you finish your broccoli!!"

For those that are wondering where 6-6-6 became so "devilish".... Revelation 13:18 in the New Testament says "This calls for wisdom: Let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number, its number is six hundred and sixty-six". This beast becomes the Anti-Christ per modern belief of the literal happenings of Revelation. I personally find some of these people neurotic and in need of a stay at the Insane Asylum.

Yahoo! has an interesting article about other superstitious people including President Reagan and even Vegas gambling casinos!

NHL finals started last night with an amazingly great game in Raleigh. The Hurricanes won on some last minute heroics. If you like hockey, or don't like hockey... you should be watching these finals and see how fun the NHL can be this time of year! Basketball finals start Thursday. World cup starts Friday. French Open finals on Saturday and Sunday.

Song of the Day - For Eddie, I'll list Type O Negative today which is some devilish music and his favorite for some odd reason. Lyrics include "Jesus Christ he looks like me" and "Loving you is like loving the dead". Eddie has always had a weird taste in music. It is loud though which is great for pissing off people from Lindstrom's room during "Roudy Half"!!

Video of the Day - Another "Demonic" movie was The Exorcist. While I can't post the entire movie here, I can do one better and remind you that the 30 Second Bunny Theatre has a remake of The Exorcist re-enacted by bunnies for you to enjoy! This is one of the original re-enactments and one of my personal favorites. I did watch Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist this week and it was pretty stupid. Another effort to get more money out of the original classic.

Webpage of the Day - And the Spawn of Satan himself. Watch this interview and make sure you watch over his left shoulder to see what's going on and pay attention to what he's talking about. This one takes the cake!

Spam Spam Spam Spam

Happy Monday!

I read about this last week in my USA Today and it's still going on and it still bothers me. It's the National News Story about the two college girls that were in a car accident back in April and one died, the other was hospitalized. Now it seems that they had the two girls' identities reversed. The poor family of one mourned their loss and came to terms with their loss for weeks, only to find out that she is indeed alive. The worse of the two situations is the family that thought their daughter was still alive and cared for her for 5 weeks in the hospital only to find out that she isn't their daughter and the person they thought was there, is actually dead and already buried. I'm still trying to figure out how with modern day science and medicine something like this can happen.... just baffles me. They have pictures of the two girls next to each other saying how much they resembled each other.... I guess I don't see it. Just about as much as I look like Mr. Clean though.

This past weekend was filled with a trip to Austin, MN area to visit Hazel's family. We enjoyed a wonderful tour through the infamous SPAM museum. It's worth the free tour if you happen to be in Austin. Not sure I'd drive cross country to visit it, but it was pretty funny to go through. They tell you that all the information you have heard about what makes up SPAM is wrong and it's actually just the shoulder parts of the pig. Hmmmmm..... I do want to try the "hot & spicy" SPAM this weekend.

They also have a SPAM Mobile. Since my connections with Oscar Meyer have failed to get me a ride in the Weiner Mobile, my new goal is to get a ride on the SPAM Mobile. While not as cool of a conquest, it would still be pretty sweet!

Finally, I finished an amazing book this weekend. Wyatt loaned me her copy of The Time Traveler's Wife which at first I thought it was going to be a romance novel. Within 10 pages I was hooked on the book. It probably qualifies as a science-fiction drama with less emphasis on the sci-fi and more on the drama. It's incredibly well written and caused some intriguing interest from me that I haven't had in a book in a long time. Basically, Henry is an involuntary time-traveler who only wants to live a normal life. Through time, he meets his wife Clare and they have a very unnatural relationship in three elements of time: past, present and future. She meets him for the first time at age 6 when he's in his late 30s. Henry meets her for the first time when he's 28 in the present when she knows everything about him, and he knows nothing about who she is. Sounds confusing, yes - but it was surprisingly easy to follow after the first 30 pages or so.

Song of the Day - I have a little bit of Guns N Roses playing this morning. Nothing starts out a week quite like GNR!!

Video of the Day - One of the best parts of the SPAM museum was the tribute to the Monty Python segment to SPAM. I used to spend some time watching Monty Python but I don't remember this segment originally. But here it is for you to laugh and enjoy. Dang Vikings!

Webpage of the Day - The Carlsen twins head home today. These are the Conjoined Twins that were separated here in Rochester. Here's an updated page from Mayo of their news and status.

Picture Day!!!

Congrats to Matt and Jen on the birth of a daughter. I'll be stopping by today later to check up on them. More details to come.

Tomorrow will mark the one year anniversary of me being in my townhouse. So I guess it no longer qualifies as "new" when I talk about it. I've given it a pretty decent face lift considering it is just a town house so my options are limited as to what I can and want to do. I've painted 5 of the 8 total rooms, sealed and coated the garage floor (with funtime chips sprinkled in it), built a kickass dropdown workbench, redone the bathroom floor, fixed a cable outlet (reran it), installed a flower garden in the front (which will be finished as soon as Menards restocks my rock on Sunday), and most importantly, removed the Green Bay Packers sticker they had left me in the garage. I should have asked for money back once I saw that was there.

I'm still very happy with my townhouse. I have never seen my neighbor to the south as he's a doctor from Pennsylvania and everyone said he'll only be there once, maybe twice a year and for only a couple of weeks. There is no furniture in the house, just a table and a lamp shade. It's always quiet on that side of me. And Lorna on the other side of me is a sweetheart who never makes a noise. Sometimes I can hear her garage door opening or her cleaning off her deck with her hose, but that's about it. She said she can't hear us (which is a minor miracle at times) and if she does, she'll just take her hearing aids out. I would like to think that I'm a good neighbor!

Today's picture day for everyone. Here's some collages to share and for you to enjoy as Summer feels like it's here to stay in Minnesota! Click on the pictures for a much larger and easier to see picture.

The wonderful outdoors and cabins of North Carolina trip that I was on:


Here are some family photos from that weekend as well as other recent ones:


Here's a picture of the lovely Hazel with her awesome boyfriend!



And finally, a sweet picture of some stud dressed and ready for trouble last weekend for Disco in the District!!! There were a lot of people smiling and enjoying my dedication. There were also a lot of people wondering if that was my real hair or not. I told them yes it was.



Song of the Day - With summer pretty much here, I'll kick it off today with some Vivaldi and his Four Seasons that a lot of you would recognize from TV. It's a wonderful Baroque piece for Violin and String Orchestra that entails all four seasons. All 4 Seasons are contrastingly beautiful and you can feel the change of the weather and surroundings as you listen. Too bad there's not a movement that describes the heat and humidity that is in front of us (with a taste of it last weekend).

Video of the Day - I watched Zathura this past week (Apprentice fans will recall it called "Zenthura") and it was ok. Too much like a cheap Jumanji but I'm sure some kids will like it. I thought it was funny that the teenage daughter in it is Jon Stewart's daughter in real life.

Webpage of the Day - This is something you don't read every day. Swearing Parrot is purchased in Israel but that's only the beginning of troubles for the guy who purchased it. Too funny....

First Day of June

The headline news on MSNBC this morning should scare us all..... the biggest news reads:

Can Hypnotist End Lohan Shopping Addiction??

Quality reporting there folks!! News that matters.

Drew and I were paired together last night for golf which provided for some scary moments. But we pulled out an impressive 41 with some quality chipping on both of our parts. Drew had a birdie on 7 all by himself since we used all 4 of his shots. I had my lesson yesterday which I know will help in the long run. I just have a lot of practicing to do. It's just like an instrument, you take a lesson but can't expect to see immediate results without putting in the practice to make the new tricks take action. I'll be spending a lot of time in the yard this weekend with the whiffle balls practicing and out on the driving range.

So I was thinking yesterday about The Breakfast Club (which was on ABC family last night ironically) and decided there are some other movies that help define "my generation". I would even say these movies help define anyone who graduated high school between 1994 and 1996 (one year each way of me).

• The Princess Bride - a bus trip classic and I think everyone in that category above has seen the movie at least 10 times.
• Pulp Fiction - while some people will say they hated that movie, it was out right after I graduated high school in 1995. We saw it probably 15 times in the $1.50 movie theatre since there was nothing else to do.
• The Breakfast Club - another movie that everyone has seen. Was out when we were still in middle school.
• Star Wars Trilogy - even though I only remember seeing Episode VI in the theatre.
• Top Gun - big on planes after this one. More interested in the fast jets than the fast women while watching it.
  
• Dazed and Confused - the bridge to college was helped with this one. Watch out for the Soul Pole!
  

Those are my selections. I did find a list of "The 100 Greatest Movies of Generation X and Y". I think they should have separated them since I guarantee you that less than 5% of Generation Y would select The Wizard of Oz as a top 100 Greatest Movie.

Miami lost to Detroit last night in basketball. This has been a good series to watch, and good for the NBA. Series is now 3-2 Miami as they return to the south for game 6 Friday night. They need to win or they'll be going home. They should have won last night but Wade was a joke from the line and Shaq couldn't step up either. The French open has begun as well but I haven't had time to watch it yet. Hopefully this weekend I can catch up on the clay court madness.

Song of the Day - My iTunes playlists are caught up. I had lost them all with the new laptop last November and I finally went through all 10,000+ songs and put them into playlists. But now I have Kashmir running through my head after thinking about Dazed and Confused movie from earlier.

Video of the Day - Hazel and I FINALLY finished Rear Window this week after inching through it for the past month. I don't mind watching movie in segments and will find myself doing that on the weekends with movies. It takes me a few seconds to remember where we left off, but then I'm ok. Hazel wants to rewatch it since she had fallen asleep in the movie so many times and missed a lot. It was pretty good. Probably one of the better Hitchcock films I've seen thus far.

Webpage of the Day - Ice Cream Truck Driver gets a DUI.... check out his level and imagine what those conversations were like when you're trying to get a Bomb-pop from him. Speaking of bombed.....