I Know It's Tuesday

So I'm back in Rochester, but swamped as usual. I apologize to my millions (AND MILLIONS) of fans for the no post yesterday. I need to remember to work most of my blogs on Sunday evening in order to get it complete on Mondays. I have too many meetings Monday morning.

A fun weekend in Des Moines at a wedding. There was a live big band playing at the reception so definitely no Chicken Dance, Hokey-Pokey, or other songs from my "overplayed at weddings" list. Too bad certain readers weren't as lucky at their weddings this past weekend;)

When I came back to work yesterday - I had a pleasant surprise. For those who don't watch The Office on NBC, you probably won't find the humor in this. I have a mug from the show that says "World's Best Boss" (of course I bought it myself). When I came in, I found it in a cooler in front of my desk surrounded by jello:



I was impressed (and quite amused) all day with it. Only problem was in the late afternoon when I went to remove the mug and begin thinking about taking it home to clean.... well Jello is very acidic or something as it removed all the lettering from my mug! So now I have a plain mug and a bunch of Jello that has the letters "World's Best Boss" on it! Easily replaceable for the amount of laughs it generated.

Lots of movement in the sports world yesterday. With the trade deadline ending today for baseball - the Braves pick up Mark Teixeira from the Rangers to add some strong hitting to their lineup as well as another lefty reliever. The Twins through in the towel already by sending Castillo to the dreaded Mets. So again the NL East becomes the trade zone for other teams giving up on their season.

And basketball - it is a sad day in Minnesota as Garnett now appears to be going to Boston for like 10 different players. I guess the new saying should be "you can take McHale out of Boston but you can't take Boston out of McHale". Bastard! Is it that hard to build a team around KG? You've had 10 years to do it! Good luck KG - hopefully the green will indeed bring you luck!

That's it for today - so like the month of July, I say goodbye!

Haiku of the Day -
Six foot - eleven
A Former League MVP
Thanks Kevin Garnett!!!!

Entertainment of the Day - I snagged the movie Let's Go To Prison that has Dax (from Punk'd fame) in it. It looked dumb but somehow still ended up in my rental queue. I'm glad it did as it was actually really funny and worth the 90 minutes (or 60 minutes at my viewing speeds). Rather interesting movie and has a happy ending, I promise.

Weblink of the Day - This page is AWESOME!! Two guys challenge 25 dumb laws across America to see if they can indeed get arrested. Check it out and laugh away!

HO-MER! HO-MER!! HO-MER!!!

Yes, this is the release of the very very long awaited Simpsons Movie. After 400 hilarious episodes, it now comes to a full featured movie! Unlike most cartoons, a movie doesn't have to signify the end of it all. Consider Beavis and Butthead, Southpark..... but not Family Guy;)

I've probably seen 95% or more of the 400 episodes. I watched it all through high school (1991-1995) and even had my tape collection that was a popular thing on long bus trips. Thursday nights it was me watching Simpsons on the TV downstairs while the rest of the world watched The Cosby Show. Then they went back to Sunday nights where they'll always belong!

So out of 400 episodes, it's hard to pick a "top 10"... but I'll try to at least share my favorite moments and/or episodes.

Favorite Episode - probably the Monorail... technically "Marge vs the Monorail". Mainly because of the parody of Music Man. Classic!!!

Other quality episodes

• Homer At The Bat (featuring the likes of Jose Canseco, and Ozzie Smith)
• Homer Vs. New York City
• Mysterious Voyage of Homer - eats the hottest chili pepper (with help from a wax candle) then hallucinates!
  
• Homer's Enemy... good ol' Frank Grimes... who may or may not remind me of some employees I work with!
• Simpsons Super Bowl Episode that changed the teams (and correctly predicted the winner some 4-5 years in a row if I remember correctly)
• Bart gets an Elephant (STAMPY!!!!!)
  

Favorite Song - WHO NEEDS THE QUICKIE MART!?!?!? Planet of the Apes and "Dr. Zaius Dr. Zaius" (to the tune of Amadeus by Falco)

Favorite Halloween Episode - The Shinnin! "No, the Shinnin... do you want to get suuuued?" (Groundskeeper Willie). Apologies to The Raven with the incredible James Earl Jones.

Best Musical Guests - U2 and the PopMart Tour! Apologies to REM and Rolling Stones ("Homer it's only Rock and Roll" "ohhh... but I think I like it")

Lauging my ass off funny moments....

• Shock Therapy with Dr. Marvin Monroe (Season 1!!)
• Homer goes to buy a gun but is told there's a 5 day waiting period... his response "Ohhh... but I'm mad NOW"
• Homer getting baptized on accident by Flanders and replying "Oh Bartholomew, I feel like St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion by Ambrose of Milan."
• Anytime Homer says "Stupid TV.... be more funny!"
• When chasing after Stampy (and Bart), they almost hit a deer and you hear "D'oh" "A DEER"... "A FEMALE DEER" (Sound of Music reference).
  

You have to be paying attention to understand the Simpsons!!

Anyway - i could take days and talk about more Simpsons moments... but I won't. I'm headed out of Raleigh, so please take a moment and sing with me (use the Mickey Mouse Club song please)

"Now it's time to say goodbye, to IBM (my company)......
R-A-L, Ya'll come back now!
EI-G-H..... H? It's freakin' HOT HERE!!!......
North-Car-O-Li-Na!!!!!!"

Have a good weekend!

Pour Oh Pour The Pirate Sherry

Welcome home Nate, Martine, AND NOAH!!!

Last full day in North Carolina. I did see something that I don't believe you'll see in other states this morning on my way in..... the gas station advertised on their outside sign: "50 cents off two packs of cigarettes". Only in a tobacco producing state! It's starting to get warm again which is more usual for this area I'm told.... not that MN is much better right now. Where's fall at?

Found an inspiring story last night. It's a long read but the gist of it is this 19 year old, from the country of Malawi in Africa, is building a windmill with his engineering skillz while studying engineering. Pretty inspiring to see what someone with the creative desire can do without having it take a ton of money! Photos of his progress can be seen here. Good stuff.

One more comment about the drug-totin', drunk-drivin'....... now totally-denyin' LiLo. In an article last night, I read this:

That behavior won’t cut it anymore and neither will spa-style clinics, said Barry Gerald Sands, a Century City defense attorney who’s also a certified drug and alcohol counselor. “Whatever you have done in the past, do a 360-degree turn and go the other way,” Sands said Wednesday. “She has to change her alleged friends, people sharing or selling her drugs. She has to lead a clean and sober life.

So obviously Mr. Sands is an attorney AND certified drug and alcohol counselor so is deemed by the writer of the article as an "expert". And also obviously, math was not required for either one of those expertis.....es as a 360-degree turn would not take you "the other way". Comments like that make you appear stupid so don't use them.

Nintendo is skyrocketing (as expected) right now. They've sold almost..... 10...... MILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLION Wiis since launch. That was my best Dr. Evil imitation over cyber space - did it work? I also saw that Super Mario Brothers 2 was released for the Virtual Console this month so that gives me something to look forward to playing in the hot month of August. Fly Princess Fly!!! IBM stock is looking good lately as well!

Haiku of the Day
It's "up up down down
left-right, left-right, b, a, START"
Bring me my CONTRA!!!

Entertainment of the Day - I think there may (or may not) be a new movie coming out tomorrow... can't remember. I haven't watched any new movies yet, I should work on that one of these days. As for some good music (another bad thing about being in meetings all day, no time to listen to music) - but in honor of a crappy bowling captain who shall remain nameless, let's go back to Elvis singing "Viva Las Vegas" for today's song of the day!

Weblink of the Day - I found this pretty simple at first, but very addictive. Just follow the instructions in the upper left.