June 2004 Archives

I just got back from Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story with Tom, Amy, and Gina. The verdict? I mentioned a few posts ago about how I thought it would either be incredibly stupid or the quotably-stupid comedy of the first part of summer, and it looks like that's the case. If you like goofy stuff along the lines of Old School, or spoof movies that feature plenty of hilarious cameos, then I'd recommend this. Or if you're only sort've a fan of stuff like that, then wait for the rental.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: any movie with a pirate character, especially ones that don't necessarily take place anywhere near the ocean, automatically gets an extra star from me. Steve the Pirate, you da man. Alan Tudyk, the actor portraying Steve, kept reminding me of Warren Haynes, though. Eerie similarities. And according to IMDB, he was the voice of the sabre-toothed tiger in Ice Age. Hey! That's neat. I love IMDB for that.

And remember: "If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball!" or "You all are about as useless as a poopie flavored lollipop!"

(Yeah, so I'm a sucker for dumb comedies. Sometimes you just gotta laugh without worrying too much about anything else.)

EDIT: Comments are off for the time being, 'cause there's something screwy going on with them. Sorry, folks!

In absence of a bunch of energy for writing a full-bodied post with a tart aftertaste, I'm going to drop a few links that I've been checking out recently.

... Gina directed me to the Bad Fads Museum, a site dedicated to reliving and recounting all the downright weird fads of the past 100 years. Mainly, this site reinforces my opinion that people can think some really silly things are cool, and I like that. If we can always look back and laugh at ourselves later, then that's a good sign for humanity.

... In the Surprise Combo Final Move Iraqality of the political arena, the U.S. backed out of Iraq today, two days ahead of schedule. But all our troops our still there, and most of the general Iraqi populace still resent that fact. And if we did totally pull out, would it really get any safer? Who knows. It does seem neat that the government can still pull off a few slick tricks every now and then, though.

Well, that was really only one linkdrop and a rare political commentary, but hey, that's what the Crash Burn Grab Bag is all about.

Well, I've stayed up entirely too late tweaking on the new design, but here it is. If you don't see it, hit Refresh (or something along those lines) in your browser. The basic format for this comes courtesy of Movablestyle.com, which has some nifty stylesheets customized for MT. They do good work.

I'll be implementing some other changes and fixing up some stuff that's been bothering me with the archives over the next few days, so keep your eyes peeled for that! More picture galleries are on the way, too, that depict what went on at the end of the school year.

Yep, it's definitely time for bed.

That's right, everyone, a few of us did return to NRV Superbowl to try our hand at the pins once again. I, for one, surprised myself with almost maintaining the level of competitiveness I had during the intramural contests earlier this year. I choked like I normally do, however, and failed to break 200 for the first time. I ended up with a 154 the first game and a 130-something the second. Pretty much par-for-the-course for me, actually.

... I bought Wilco's A Ghost Is Born album on Tuesday when it was released, and I'm glad I did. If you like the band at all, buy this album!

... Add Dodgeball and The Terminal to the lists of movies I want to see sometime in the near future. I hadn't even seen a preview for Spielberg's new movie; I only heard about it through people who said they loved it. It seems the Spielberg/Hanks dynasty can add another notch to its hat. (Do you add notches to hats? I'm not sure, but I like the term anyway.) Dodgeball is definitely going to be one of those movies that supply my circle of friends with quotes for the next few months, so I have to get caught up on that. See Old School, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, Bad Boys, and Robin Hood: Men In Tights for other quote-birthing movies from my recent memory.

... In school news, it turns out that I may not be as scholarship-less as I'd feared last week. No, my department is simply taking its time in dishing them out to their students, including me. I'm not guaranteed one by any means, but at least I haven't been snubbed by them yet.

... I finally saw Jen & Stephen last night for the first time after the wedding. Married life of a week or two is agreeing with them. Good seeing you, guys! Their visit also sparked a wave of catching up with other old friends I haven't talked to in a while, which is always nice.

Tomorrow is Friday, it's officially sum-sum-summatime now, and the weather is looking good. Here's to summer!

I meant to post this a couple of days ago, but luckily my daily rounds of website checking reminded me to. Wil Wheaton (via his site WWdN) and some other nice people have come up with a great idea for helping our troops currently overseas: www.gmail4troops.com and www.gmailforthetroops.com.

What's Gmail, you ask? It's Google's new free e-mail service, which offers users storage of 1 gigabyte. That's a good chunk of hard drive real estate. It's free, but it's in beta testing right now, so you can only join if an existing user invites you (each new account gives you three invitations). So, the idea behind these sites is to send those invitations to soldiers overseas who could use the extra e-mail space to receive more pictures and movies from home, without worrying about deleting things due to paltry storage from Hotmail accounts and the like. Good stuff. I'd do it if I had an invite.

I don't know if Gerritt even remembers letting me have this hat after Wesley Weekend, but boy am I glad I hung on to it. I put it on this evening for the first time in a while, and I realized definitely could pass for an old golfer out on the links sometime, if I ever needed to. And you never know, in my secret espionage work, I may just have to pose as an old golfer.

So Gerritt, if you're reading this, thanks a bunch for the hat, man! I know it opened up new avenues for you, and I'm proud to keep the tradition alive. I may not look quite as good in it as you did (the reason I didn't actually post a picture of me wearing it), but it's still going to be a key part of my hatrack.

Well, the new DVD burner is installed and burnin' like a charm. It was pretty simple, really, just a matter of unplugging my existing DVD drive and plopping the new one in, by way of the power and IDE cables. What's really important now is that all my media backups are going to be much, much easier. And I can make cool movies on real DVDs, as soon as I find an authoring program I like.

The next step in the great DVD+/-R quest, for me at least, is to find a reliable brand of media. I've already settled on a couple of pretty good brands for my burnt CD collection, but DVD's are a different beast. Much like CD-R's, one blank disc is not necessarily the same as another, and knowing which brands your computer and DVD player support could make the difference between losing all your files and having 10 brand new coasters. The difference lies mostly in the processes and dyes each manufacturer uses; so yes, it can matter what color the bottom of your disc is. Lucky for me and anyone else interested in having quality burnt discs, there's already a wealth of information on the Net. It never ceases to amaze me!

From all reports so far, I'll be looking to pick up some Ritek DVD-R's next to try them out. Speaking of which, that's another goofy thing: the DVD industry couldn't decide on one format, so now we get to pick which one we think is going to be around a while. Or you can do what I did, and buy a drive that supports both formats. It eliminates some of the worry from doing this type of thing.

The new Wilco album, A Ghost Is Born, debuts next Tuesday. It's one of the ones I've been waiting for. I've scanned through the streaming player on their website, and it sounds like it's going to be an excellent follow-up to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and one more step away from traditional alt-country. (Wait, is there even such a thing as traditional-alt anything? Ah well, no matter.) If you haven't ever heard of Wilco before, or any of Jeff Tweedy's other musical projects, I highly recommend them. Pick up Wilco's Being There for some stuff that's closer to country but still rockin', or the afore-mentioned YHF if you're into something more groundbreaking, unclassifiable, but still really, really good.

... In other news, you can read about our great wiffleball showdown from this evening on TSPN today. I pitched for the losing team (we never quite came up with a name, or scored any runs to even make a name matter). We gave it our all with the bats and the gloves (wait, no gloves -- just hands), but we definitely came up short. It was still a good time, however.

... I found a good deal on a DVD burner at Newegg.com yesterday, so I went for it. It's on its way to me from New Jersey as I write this, so I'll let you know how the installation of my newest gadget goes. I've found that with the increasing amount of digital pictures I'm taking, it's becoming less and less efficient to back them all up on CD-Rs. With this beauty, I can get all the documents and images I've ever created on one disc, with probably a GB or so to spare. With Newegg's exceptional service, I'll probably get it by Friday. Man, I love that store!

In an attempt to get to bed early, I'll just post some random thoughts from today:

... Dang if I can't get a haircut in Blacksburg when "a little off the top" actually means just that! Oh well, next time I'll just let it grow until it looks like it belongs to a mid-70's Gabe Kaplan.

... Gina's taking an acting class, which I might have mentioned before. Her final consists of acting out a two-person scene from Loose Ends. Tonight, I'm reading up for the part of Paul in this scene, so I can help her rehearse. Time to flex those theatrical muscles. I haven't gotten a chance to use them since my last big Broadway run back in '87.

... Having Beyonce's "Naughty Girl" stuck in my mind all evening hasn't helped matters. I guess that's what comes from listening to the radio on the way to and from work every day with my carpool. Although, one benefit is that I'll probably have the five or six songs they actually play memorized before too long.

And now, it's time for beduhduhduhduh.

Man, I love our new toaster! My parents came down to swap vehicles again (so I'll be driving the scrappy green Explorer for at least a few weeks, it seems), and it was great to see them and my niece Annie. Each visit usually involves some sort of shopping trip for free supplies (for me, at least), and yesterday was no different. I finally broke down and bought a new toaster for the Residents. Considering our previous toasting friend came from a time when toasters consisted of a couple of knobs and a lever, this sleek, silver beauty is a definite improvement. I can now enjoy perfect bagels using the Bagel button, and small slices can be catapulted into the air using the Toast Boost! And honest, it's only a coincidence that this is a GE toaster.

In other news, I've had a productive afternoon dubbing my Wesley Weekend footage onto VHS. I still haven't decided if I'm going to make some sort of fun DVD with interactive menus yet, but it's still been fun rewatching all the performances and behind-the-scenes antics.

In other other news, I'm looking to revamp Project BS again over the next couple of weeks. It's important to keep a site looking fresh, I believe, but above all, I'm the one who's got to be happy with it. I like the current style just fine, but with the magic of CSS stylesheets, I'll be able to apply and test all sorts of different layouts with a simple copy-and-paste. On top of that, I just like playing around with new tricks. Hopefully, whatever the new style ends up looking like, I'll also be able to apply across all the other Project BS pages, for an overall better look and direction. Keep checking back to see what happens here.

Earlier this year, I first heard about the celebrity death-trio myth, and well, the name says it all. Apparently, famous people usually die in threes; that is, there will be three deaths within a month or so of each other. This guy's got a list of some that happened back in 1999. The more you think about this, the spookier it becomes.

Who are the three celebrities this time around? The most prominent one is obviously Ronald Reagan, with the actor Richard Biggs (whose death I also mentioned) preceding the former President. Today's news of Ray Charles' passing completes the trio.

According to the legend, the trio of celebrities must be linked in some way, or at least have some kind of equivalent fame. Two of these were actors, one eventually becoming the leader of the United States. Two were African-American. Two had lived full lives well past their 70's, while one passed away unexpectedly and tragically. The best I can do to pull all three together is that they were all entertainers at some points in their lives, and while they all came from different backgrounds, they were important in their own right. If you've got some other details I'm missing, please comment.

And here's to you, Ronald, Ray, and Richard.

Wait! R names. Of course!

Might I suggest some chocolate peanut butter ice cream from the Crank the next time you're wondering what to do for a dessert in Blacksburg. It'll cause one heckuva sugar rush, and it's pretty darn good to eat, too. I love that place, but I love it in moderation . . . 'cause with stuff like the Crank's ice cream, too much of a good thing is . . . really dumb and bad.

One of the guys at work is taking Friday off so he can go up and watch the state funeral for President Reagan. I do sort've wish I could get away with that, since this is certainly a part of history that we don't get to experience all that often. I suppose this is the first full-fledged presidential state funeral since Johnson, as far as I have read. Either way, it's interesting how much ceremony and tradition is interwoven in something like this. Please show reverence.

Tonight was crazy fun, with some crazy volleyball action on the Wesley court. It was merely part one of some weekly get-togethers we'll be having here, and I'm looking forward to them. This week has been full of good times and surprises. It occured to me that we're only in the third week of summer, with a long stretch of June, July, and August to go. I'm pumped!

Yes, I can, with a little (okay, a lot) of help from Gina! Two weeks ago, she cooked me a delicious dinner one weeknight. It wasn't until after I'd finished it that she said, "now it's your turn." Now, I'm no master chef, by any means. I don't even have a cool catchphrase like "BAM!" Truth be told, I'd never given myself the chance or the time to learn how to cook any dishes properly. My escapades in the kitchen up till now have always ended with a call to a carry-out place, lots of smoke, or preparing something in the microwave and/or toaster.

No longer!

Tonight, I prepared some delicious marinated chicken, along with some other tasty sides. Gina guided me through the process. She has inherent baking and cooking skills. All I do know is that it turned out surprisingly well for a first attempt, and this is encouraging. I should've known the power lied within me, since my mother and brother have both turned out to be quite the chefs. After dinner, we spent a nice relaxing evening together - a nice recovery from the hectic workday.

The only question that remains is: will I use my power for good ... or for evil?

Congratulations to Jen & Stephen, the second couple now hitched during the big Wedding Tour 2004! I wish you two the absolute best. The wedding festivities began on Thursday night, with part one of a bachelor party. Stephen's dad, also the best man, threw it and had us bring in tools for Stephen (so the bride doesn't get all the good stuff). Since Otey beat me to the stud finder, I went with the all-in-one screwdriver, for screwing things. We also created teams for a UVA vs. VT pool tournament, in which VT quickly forced all the UVA teams into the loser's bracket, as it should be. My partner Chris and I battled all the way to the championship, but we ultimately lost to Ben and Gerritt. We still came away with some levels as prizes for our troubles, however.

Friday night, a bunch of us hung out at the wedding party's hotel in Blacksburg. Details won't be forthcoming any time soon, but there were lots of good times there. Saturday's wedding had BUMC jam-packed with Wesley notables of the past four years, plus lots of parents and friends and their families and maybe some more of their friends. This easily could take the prize as the biggest wedding I've gone to, so props to Jen and Stephen for being a part of so many people's lives. It was great seeing a bunch of my college friends together again, though it ended up being hard getting to actually spend time with them all. Sorry to everyone that I didn't get to hang out with.

The second week of work means it's time to implement some other new beginnings into my evening routine. This included taking my first online Econ test (which was, after much over-preparation, a piece of cake), celebrating Jason B.'s birthday with some of Ev and Sarah's cooking, and spending a lot of time laughing with Gina, dancing around for no particular reason. Good times. I think I'll slowly ease back into a gym schedule, too, and steadily try to get the rest of the projects done as I feel like I have time. Objective: keep having fun this summer. Status: Making Progress.

In Econ, we've reviewed opportunity cost. I have a few glaring examples right now. There are so many good concerts within a 3 to 4 hour radius that would be such good little trips, but they're all during the freakin' week. (Not the freakin' weekend, mind you.) So, the cost of me working and being able to afford going to a few more concerts is not being able to go to as many concerts. It's a vicious cycle, isn't it, kids? I'm not bitter, though, because I'm having fun anyway.