November 2005 Archives
iTunes songs left: 275
I just had an entry, and I lost it due to a stupid, stupid Backspacing error. Curses! I'll attempt to rewrite what I had.
I'm gearing up for a new episode of Lost tonight. Over the past few Wednesdays (with the exception of last week due to Thanksgiving), we've started a traditional viewing with special guest star Jeanette (when her work schedule permits). As I found out from the first four seasons of 24, a television show is much more fun when you're watching it with other fans. I don't usually like talking a whole lot while the show is going on, but if you can strike the right balance between making fun of the characters and paying attention to crucial plot points, you're in for a good time. When it's a well-written and well-performed show like these two are, all the factors combine to provide us with the best that good TV has to offer.
I've been enjoying this season of Lost so far, after the second batch of episodes started moving the plot along a little bit more. I have a few thoughts to share with you, however:
- A secret stash of razors? If I had truly been stranded on a desert island 48 days ago, I would at least have a Sean Connery beard by this point. Heck, if I go three days without shaving, I could pass for George Michael from his "Faith" days (not that I would want to). Either the guys on this show have the slowest facial hair follicles ever, or they discovered some off-screen shaving method that eluded Tom Hanks in Castaway.
- Ana-Lucia sneers a lot. In fact, I think this is the character's only facial expression. Granted, we found out last week that she has a good reason to be paranoid and angry, but I hope she'll be able to give off more than a passing grimace in future episodes. That, and I hope she can stop ticking everyone off, including me.
- What happened to the French Lady? I want to see Mira Furlan again. I'm sure we will at some point, but for now I'm going to assume that she tracked down that Desmond guy as the latest object of her affections, and they're off frollicking in the jungle somewhere.
- What the heck is up with The Others? This isn't a nitpick; it's simply a testament to how good the writers are at creating a suspenseful, mysterious enemy. The Others that we've seen creep me out with their seeming normalness. I want to know more, dangit!
To wrap things up, I've been enjoying the Lost blog at Filmfodder.com this past week. They offer the perfect take on each episode and keep track of the different plot points, so if you missed an episode and want to catch up, start out here.
iTunes songs left: 327
I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving weekend; I know I sure did. I spent the majority of my time in West Virginia with my family, which is how it should be. On Saturday, I drove down to Blacksburg and met up with Gina, which made the holiday experience complete.
I'm going to balance out the bad with the good today. First, the bad news. Last week, our family's dog, Biscuit, was killed. She had already been through a great deal, including the harrowing few days late in 2003 when she was most likely kidnapped but found her way back home, weak but none the worse for wear. It hurt a lot to hear the news, especially since I hadn't seen her since August when I moved up here. Dad gave her a proper burial at the top of our hill before I arrived last Wednesday. To you, Biscuit - you were a good dog.
And now, so as not to end things on a sour note, one of Gina's friends from high school, Colleen (of Hershey Trip 2004 fame), has made the Post! Well, she and the rest of her large Irish Catholic family did, anyway. This past weekend, her grandparents gathered as many of their family members as they could and piled them all into a bus, with the intent of driving all the way to New York to see the Rockettes. But as with all family road trips - and this one sure tops the list of BIG family road trips - the destination isn't really as much an adventure as the journey is. Colleen, you're famous. Thanks to Gina for the news.
Greetings from West Virginia! I took the long-haul drive back home today, and surprisingly I ran into very little traffic. Just snow. Feathery, dusty, wispy kinds of snow that didn't really stick to the road, but still caused my eyes to go crazy trying to follow everything that was going on. Seven hours and three rest breaks later, I arrived here.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, obviously, and I am thankful for a great deal this year. However, when I have multiple holiday feasts bearing down on me like a cornucopia of tryptophan and cholesterol, I sometimes have to have inspirational help to get through. Look no further than Sonya Thomas, the Black Widow. I've caught bits and pieces of this lady's championship-style speed-eating on various news reports, and I am consistently floored and amazed. She can out-eat you. It's true.
Happy Thanksgiving, all. I hope you have a safe and wonderful holiday.
At any rate, we spent most of the afternoon and evening wandering Old Town's sidewalks, which are lined with many buildings dating back to the beginning of the American colonies. For the tourist, there's the perfect mixture of history, shopping, and dining, all situated right off of the Potomac. What's more, even walking down those streets, you can't help but feel a bit more connected to the history of our nation.
We stopped by the Ramsay House first, which serves as the visitor's center for Old Town. From there, we followed the recommendation of one of the employees and headed over to Christ Church (pictured in this entry). There, a nice churchlady escorted Gina and I around the church while telling us some history, including stories of Christ Church's two most famous parishioners: George Washington and Robert E. Lee. I highly recommend this tour if you ever make it down there.
By this time, most of the museums and historic places were shutting down for the evening, so we took to the various shops lining King Street and bought a few random souvenirs (like the good luck pigs, which stem from German folklore). After that, it was time for an excellent seafood dinner at the Fish Market, followed by some overpriced ice cream at Pops' on King Street. We strolled around for a while snapping pictures of the Christmas lights, but by then it was starting to cool down, so we headed back to the car.
That was our evening in Old Town, but as soon as we had been there one day, we realized that we wanted to come back to see more. As Gina commented when we started walking by the river, it feels like you're somewhere completely different and detached from the bustle of the capital region while you're immersed in the Old Town experience.
I just now realized this, but today marks the 20th anniversary of the premiere of Calvin and Hobbes. I just thought I'd bring it up while we were talking about things that made me laugh like crazy while I was growing up. Calvin's imagination was/is a lot like mine, although I never really behaved like him. I still wish my cardboard boxes could turn into time machines or transmogrifiers - those things would come in very handy these days!
Happy birthday, Calvin and Hobbes. And to Bill Watterson, if you're out there - it couldn't hurt to just draw a new book or two full of comics, could it?
Finally, Zach Miller of Joe & Monkey (one of my favorite webcomics) has a tribute up as today's strip.
iTunes songs left: 430
Last night, Josh was flipping through the channels and landed on Die Hard, only about ten minutes into the movie, and we were both instantly hooked for the rest of the showing. Die Hard ranks in the top five action movies of all time, and it may just be one of my favorite movies ever. I'm not sure if that's because of or in spite of the fact that typically several months or years will go by before I see it again or even really think about it, but once I catch a few seconds of it on TV, all those famous lines and scenes come flooding back to me.
I have Stuart to blame for getting me hooked on the movie; it was a staple of our middle school years, when we were well on our way to taking advantage of what pop culture had to offer us. Die Hard had one-liners and scenes we could lip-sync to while we taped ourselves with a camcorder. It had action and explosions, and a great action star in Bruce Willis.
But best of all, when the first two movies were rerun on network TV, they played host to some of the most brilliant examples of awful dialogue editing ever devised by man. From voiceovers that barely matched the real actors' voices to replacement words that made no sense whatsoever ("yippie-ki-yay, Mister Falcon," anyone?), you never knew what was coming next, even if you had the movie memorized by heart. I have to hand it to whoever was responsible for editing movies for dialogue on network TV in the early 90's. Without them, I wouldn't have bothered to memorize all of these classic scenes using the wrong words, wouldn't have laughed a quarter as much, and Stuart and I wouldn't have come up with our own weird slang words based on the original screw-ups.
Anyway, it's a great movie, and I look forward to the next time I happen to randomly catch it on TV. As for the past, I'll always look back on an elite batch of movies - like Die Hard and Star Wars, for example - as pieces of my history that helped me develop the sense of humor I have now. Who'da thunk it?
iTunes Songs Left: 489
Hit Refresh if you don't notice anything different today. I finally was able to get the default Movable Type templates and such working, and I've settled on this look from MT's Style Library. Giving the proper credit to the template designers at MT, in the coming days I will tweak this look to use some of my own image work and color scheming. For now, I just wanted to prove that I could get the stuff up and running and have something new for all of us to look at. I know I have a lot of work ahead of me, though, especially with some of the archives and things. Wish me luck figuring all this out!
Not too long ago, I announced my plans to listen to every song in my iTunes library at least once, and I detailed some of the problems associated with that when one keeps constantly buying and downloading music (through all the proper legal channels).
Well, I began the listening spree a few months before I even talked about it on here, so now it's coming up on a year or so since I started - and I'm down to 511 songs. 1.4 days' worth. 2.83 GB, boy-o. Out of about 3800 total songs, a number that keeps climbing up as my new music addiction continues. You might be saying, "hey, just turn the speakers down and hit play on whatever's left, Bret, it'll be done in a day and a half," but I am honor-bound not to do that. Whose honor, you ask? Take your pick. The rules are that I must actually be present and listening to each and every song, and that they must proceed in random order, so not even I will know what the very last song will be.
When and if I ever reach that point, I'll let you know. We'll have some kind of party. So begins...
... the final countdown.
Okay, I'm going back to watch Garth Brooks come out of retirement for a song on the CMAs. Here's how out-of-touch I've been with my country roots lately: I hadn't even realized Chris LeDoux had passed away, let alone that Garth had written a tribute song to him. Good ride, cowboy, good ride.
... In VT news, the Smart Road has been featured on the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet show. Cool! Here's a video link.
Gerritt, Mel, Josh, and I went to a Ben Folds concert this past Thursday night. I've seen a Ben show before, but this concert was a rare opportunity to see him perform with a complete symphony orchestra as his backing band. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, no less! In the brand-new Strathmore Music Hall, no less!
Strathmore, it turns out, is a beautiful place to hear music. The architecture is designed with the best acoustics in mind, such that it sounded like Ben and the symphony were right in front of our Upper Upper Nosebleed Tier seats. The room is live, as they say in the showbusiness. As for the show itself, the symphonic arrangements brought an entirely new dimension to Ben's songs. We were treated to several Ben Folds Five classics, as well as a few pieces from Rockin' The Suburbs, Songs For Silverman, and the recent EP's from last year. Ben also threw in his now-standard crowd sing-along antics, and he didn't curb down his sometimes-profane between-song banter for the presumably upper-crust environment, which I thought was awesome. I'm looking forward to the upcoming DVD that details a similar performance of his in Australia earlier this year. There's no word on a companion CD yet, but I'd be willing to bet there will be one. If not, there's always some DVD-audio capturing magic one could do, if one were so inclined...
Josh and I saw Jarhead Friday night. I enjoyed it; it's a very gritty and real look at what the wartime Marine lifestyle is like. One suggestion, though, which has nothing to do with the movie: whatever you do, don't pay an extra $2.50 to go to a "Director's Hall" showing of a movie at Fairfax Corner. We inadvertently did this, only to find out that there was no real benefit to it, other than "leather" padded seats (mine was ripped), a little bit of extra foot room, the chance to eat food in the theater, and get this - assigned seats. It was clear no one had any idea what was going on, and few people were enthusiastic about being forced to sit in a specific seat. The most enjoyment we got out of the Director's Hall experience was trying to guess before the movie just what the special benefits could be. I thought that perhaps the movie would be acted out in front of us in interpretive dance or something, but all we got was a theater manager thanking us for coming. I wanted my money back.
I don't get to stay up late enough to watch Conan very much these days, but I still recognize him as the funniest late night personality out there right now. Thus, I still try to keep up with the goings-on of the show, or at least feel connected in some way. That's why I love Conan Vs. Bear, which features not only some great artwork, but a shared theme: who would win in a fight between the reigning king of late-late night and one of the scarier wild animals? Find out the answer in various artistic interpretations!
I voted today in my first election as a Virginia resident. It felt good.
Let's talk more Metro stuff, since that's affecting me a lot these days. The WMATA (which always seems to remind me of waffles, for some reason that has no explanation) has unveiled a plan to introduce some new car designs as a test phase soon. These cars will have fewer seats and various configurations of handrails and "leaning" areas, all part of an effort to improve passenger flow and keep people from crowding the entrances so much.
I'll disclaim all of this by first saying that I've only had a couple of months of experience riding the Metro, and I only typically ride two lines, so my insight might not apply to everywhere. I'll also say that I'm pretty much indifferent to having fewer seats on the cars; I usually have no trouble finding a seat as early as I ride, and I wouldn't mind standing anyway if I had to.
I think my doubts about this plan stem from the goal of less door-crowding. From what I've seen, most people who stand around the door, instead of heading toward the center of the car, do so because there's just more space there. Granted, there's the advantage of not having to walk very far to depart the train, but if someone like the Asian hymn singer was going to stand anyway, it's just not in the mindset of the average commuter to head down to the middle of the car and grip a handrail with their waist in someone else's face when it's not necessary. Using the aisle is a last resort.
So, extending that open area around the door and putting more handholds there will most likely, by extension, only make the crowding problem in those areas of the car worse. The elderly and infirm who currently have to slug their way through a crowd of people to find a seat will now have to wade through even more people, over a longer distance, in the same amount of time before the car begins moving. And this, of course, assumes that riders are courteous and attentive enough to give up their seat to someone who needs it. I don't think courtesy is completely dead, but I haven't personally come across any situations like that just yet.
Luckily, it seems WMATA will be testing out the new configurations before actually putting them in full service, so maybe we'll see how it all plays out before they introduce them full-time and everyone gets angry about it.
I'll refrain from commenting very much on this weekend's game. The pain is still a little too deep to bear at this point, and Tom and Josh have already written excellent reflections on just what went wrong in Lane Stadium Saturday night. I know on my end, I refused to watch ESPN or read the papers Sunday.
All weekend, in fact, it seemed as if nothing could go right: I got caught in accident traffic on 66 on my way down Friday night, followed by no fewer than two accidents on Sunday evening - one on 81 and then another on 66. My trip back was a total of five hours, but it would have been more if I didn't at least have the presence of mind to take Route 11 around Lexington/Stuart's Draft, where the accident traffic began getting serious. Of course, hundreds of other drivers had the same idea, making the trip through the Virginia farmland a little longer than anticipated.
But I'm putting all that behind me, because I still got to see Gina and hang out with my friends at the game, a Ben Folds concert is on Thursday night, and I'm settling in even more into my job. There - the balance is restored.
I tried a new commuting route today, just to shake things up. I was operating under the advice of a co-worker, but the advice was mainly for the portion of the trip going across the river and into D.C. That left me trying out an alternative to I-66 for getting into the district. Today, I traversed Route 50, which runs through Fairfax, Falls Church, and Arlington - and has a ton of traffic lights. Since it's your typical four-lane highway-through-town, everybody wants to use it, so from here on out it is not my first choice of road to take. The two good things about taking this route are: first, it runs basically to my apartment (all I have to do is get as far as 123 and go up a few lights - the trick is getting that far), and second, the total trip time using 50 was about the same as if I'd taken the Metro. This is a good thing only in that it could have easily taken me longer than a Metro ride, at which point I would have broken down into fits of hysterical laughter and finished my commute a broken man.
The advice of my co-worker, however, which took me down Independence Avenue and helped me to largely avoid 395 and all the main congested routes, worked beautifully. So, the hunt begins for the best possible way to get over to D.C. I will say that I left a little later than I wanted to this morning, so I might still try 50 once more, this time a bit earlier in the morning. We'll see. As of now, making the drive made me appreciate the Metro even more. This evening alone, I saw more examples of rampant Northern Virginia bad driving than I care to repeat in a family setting.
Triggered by the release of Revenge Of The Sith on DVD, I've been constantly reminded of all the various great Star Wars quotes that are out there. Sure, a lot of the lines dealing with the Force or being Luke's father have made it into the general social psyche, but only bigger fans get into the lesser-known lines. I'm talking about such classics as "get in there, you big furry oaf, I don't care what you smell" or "you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." I've been guilty of using those on more than one occasion.
However, I have a new candidate for a Star Wars line that can have multiple uses. Consider Darth Vader's response to a minion who has failed: "The damage is minimal. The punishment ... is SEVERE."
Think about it. You could use this in everyday life, just to spice up conversations at work, at home, or at school! It's tyrannical rule and injustice at its dramatic finest.
Let's look at an example involving Mr. Smith, an executive, and his assistant, Bob:
Bob: "Here's those contracts you wanted, Mr. Smith. I'm sorry I didn't get them done sooner, but my arm was broken."
Mr. Smith: "That's okay, Bob. The damage is minimal. The punishment ... is SEVERE."
Or say you work at Blockbuster and a customer delivers some movies too late, or you're talking to a mailman who's lost a package of yours. Has some guy just rear-ended you? Slap a minimal damage/severe punishment suit on his behind. The possibilities, my friends, are endless. Go ahead and try it out tomorrow. I double-dog dare you.