Wednesday, February 28, 2007

On the Outside

One of the blogs I really enjoy reading is Waiter Rant not only for the interesting insight into the restaurant business, but also for the interesting insight into everyday human nature and emotion. In one of the latest posts, our anonymous waiter hits on a feeling that I sometimes find hitting a little close to home--the existential wanderlust to belong, yet always remaining just on the outside.

I'm the type of person that hates to be alone. I don't handle it well. I get stir crazy, I lose focus on what I'm doing, and I end up spending my time alone craving for human contact. I know one of the predominant reasons I'm like this is the type of job I have. I work with an international organization and even though I'm in an office of about 200 people, I don't work with any of them. I spend my day emailing people around the world, analyzing files, writing proposals, and doing a lot of isolationist tasks. When work is over, I want nothing more than to relax with some close company, be it my roommates, a girlfriend, a sports team, or friends.

So many people form relationships with the ones they work with and do things with their co-workers outside of the confines of the workplace. I don't really have that luxury. I see the gatherings of people around a cubicle as they discuss the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy or Lost and I notice jealousy creeping up inside me.

And it's not just work. As time has passed since college, my peer group has been continually shrinking as friends get married, never to be heard from again, or they move away (or I move away), or circumstances make it hard for us to spend time together. There were so many times while I was living in Rochester I caught myself going to a coffee shop with my laptop to do work after the work day was over just so that I could be in the presence of other people.

I had friends, yes, but I didn't get to do things with them as much as I'd have liked. Truly, I've never completely adjusted to the social structures outside of college. It was so ideal having your entire peer group within 10 minutes of yourself at all times.

Once I moved to Minneapolis, I didn't have that "outsider craving to be on the inside" feeling quite as much, but I do notice that it is still there at times. I doubt it'll ever go away. That's pretty much a fact of life. Learning to deal with it and address it is always harder. Sitting in Caribou Coffee hoping that friends would magically manifest themselves wasn't the answer, it was a perpetuating of the problem. Finally finding things to get involved with and to actually meet people in mitigated that longing. There's always that temptation to withdrawal from everything, though, and go back to just staying on the outside. Resisting it is key.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Cute Graph, Huh?

Dropping Fast

Wow, the Dow sure got kicked right square in the nuts today, didn't it? It really hurts seeing my entire portfolio drop by about 4% when I know I'm going to need to be cashing out some of my investments soon for the down payment on my house. Thanks China for your "cooling" economy. I appreciate it.

American Birkebeiner

This past weekend while most of southern Minnesota was battling winter storms, power outages, and more snowfall than we've had all year, I was up cheering on friends who were racing in the American Birkebeiner... well, more appropriately the Kortelopet, but whatever.

I was convinced to go up for the festivities by some friends who were racing in it. Truth be told, they tried to actually convince me to do the race, but cross country skiing isn't exactly my thing. I'll go run races or bike races or play most any sporting tournament, but when it comes to sports that involve strapping things to my feet in order to compete, I pretty much suck worse than you could possibly imagine.

The couple of times I've been downhill skiing were quite the tragic events for my ass cheeks and tailbone. I spent more time in contorted positions just trying to remain upright than I did actually looking like a skier. And when I did look like a skier, it was when I was on the ground because, frankly, all skiers that have biffed it look the same--grimacing and in pain.

I've since made a vow to never try that sport again, unless of course I want to purposely break myself. Not being one to completely give up on skiing, I did try cross country skiing, but sucked just as hard at it. I tried classical styled cross country skiing and ended up using my arms to push me along most of the time since I had no rhythm and couldn't manage to get my feet to work in those damn skis like they were supposed to.

Anyways, this is all besides the point. I went up to Cable, Wisconsin to cheer on some friends racing the Kortelopet. It was actually a great time even though another friend who was there to cheer and myself felt a little out of place surrounded by about 5,000 skiers and another couple thousand people that actually were into skiing or knew the first thing about it. I sure didn't.

They ended up having to cut the races short this year on account of there not being enough snow and there being ice patches in many stretches of the course, which was too bad because it seemed to put a damper on the (I'm told) usually extremely festive atmosphere. No doubt I'll have to go back next year, hopefully knowing a little more about cross country skiing, and pray that there's actually some more snow around to get people pumped.

And what really sucked about it all is that the day after the race they got about a foot of snow. How's that for irony?

Monday, February 26, 2007

Work Woes

Work has been hellishly busy lately. Hellishly, I tell you. We've had some extremely urgent matters to attend to and the co-worker I share my tasks with is out on vacation this week so I'm fighting the battles alone. So, instead of writing anything, here are some pictures of the alumni basketball tournament I played in over Christmas break. Click the picture of me below being too awesome for my own good to be taken to the gallery.

Friday, February 23, 2007

A Word of Advice

Sell Outs

To me, Fall Out Boy, that crappy ass pop punk band you hear on every trendy radio station nowadays, are one of the most annoying bands on the planet. They used to be decent before they got discovered and then they did what any band that wants to make money does--make their sound ultra glossy and ultra poppy. Whatever, they suck, and I wanted to use the motivational poster maker I found the other day for something.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Soon to be Moving

New HouseLately, I've been a very busy person. Not so much with work, but with house hunting. Knowing that the lease on the house I am renting is up near the end of April and having no desire to rent for another year, especially the subpar house we are living in, I wanted to buy a place. What this meant is a lot of shopping around.

With the housing market being as soft as it currently is, there are a ton of houses on the market and also since it is so soft, I could look at houses a little out of my price range, realizing that in some cases the seller would come down to meet my price range if they needed to sell bad enough. In the process of looking, I ended up looking at probably close to 40 houses, give or take a few. I have a binder at home where I took notes on each one, so I can check to see exactly how many I saw, but I'm just not feeling up to counting them all up.

Anyways, what I trying to get around to saying here is that after a couple of months of looking, writing out multiple purchase agreements for properties that didn't end up working, and spending too much time online trying to weed out candidates, I have signed on a house! Hence, the picture in this post.

I'll be closing early April and moving in throughout the month. I'm heading off to a new neighborhood in the northeast side of Minneapolis (St. Anthony) as opposed to the southwest suburb I currently live in (St. Louis Park). It's actually a great little neighborhood, I'm only a little more than 20 minutes from downtown by bus (about 15 or less when I drive). The house is huge (a little under 2,000 finished square feet), has all new appliances, is in completely new and move in condition, has a 4 car garage that is nearly brand new, and was purchased at quite a good price.

All that is left to do is go through the inspection tomorrow, get my mortgage set up, get the title opinion, and close successfully. After that... I'm a freakin' home owner. How's that for crazy? I'm pretty pumped about moving in since the house is wonderful, but a little anxious about it as well since I'll be signing up for a solid 30 years of debt. Either way, though, it should be a very interesting spring!

Monday, February 19, 2007

Sunshine

I just saw the trailer for the movie Sunshine. And I'm happy to finally see what looks like an actual sci-fi film coming to theaters soon. It's also by the guy who brought us 28 Days Later, which I thought was phenomenal, so I have high hopes. It also comes out on the weekend of my birthday, so if you want to give me a really nice present, take me to see this movie. There isn't enough decent sci-fi around anymore and that sort of depresses me. There's only so many times I can go back to my DVD collection and watch old sci-fi movies over and over again. We need a new age of sci-fi. A renaissance of science fiction, if you will. That would make my year.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Finally, a Candidate I Feel Good Supporting

In case you haven't heard, Al Franken has decided that he is going to run for senate here in Minnesota. If you live in Minnesota and haven't heard about this, either you are completely politically ignorant or you are some isolated hobo in the great northern plains... in which case you reading this and not hearing about Franken is a little disturbing, to say the least.

Anyways, Franken is running. Minnesota will again have another former entertainment industry persona attempting to work their way into political office. Jesse Ventura, our last venture into this territory, didn't exactly work out as I would have liked it to have. It was cool to tell everyone our governor could beat up anyone else's governor... for about a week. Then we wanted to see what Jesse could do politically, which pretty much consisted of nothing interspersed with the occasional insult or poorly phrased interview.

Al Franken, however, has been heavily involved in politics over the last few years and has contributed a lot to the political commentary circles that so many people pay attention to. I know that I've mildly paid attention to what he's done in the past, but probably not paid quite enough attention. Now, however, with his running for office, I'm all the more interested to see how handles himself. I'm sure he'll be a great candidate and considering I agree with the vast majority of his political leanings, I think I might finally have a candidate I don't feel so dirty voting for. And he was on Saturday Day Night Live. Booyah!

...yep, I did it. I said booyah. Bring back the mid 90's!

Make Out Music - Get Off My Soapbox CD Review

The 90’s were a hell of a great time for punk, weren’t they? You had the rise of both Fat Wreck Chords and Epitaph Records along with the myriad of ridiculously good bands on both rosters. NOFX was in the prime of their career, creating some of their most memorable tunes. Pennywise solidified themselves as punk gods. Face to Face, The Descendents, Lagwagon, No Use for a Name, Bad Religion, The Bouncing Souls, and so many other great bands were putting out seminal punk works. These were golden years for the genre, and we’ll probably never see such a strong punk movement again. Fortunately, there will always be at least a couple of bands that love the 90’s punk movement so much that they are unafraid to crank out some songs that would easily fit in back in that era.

Make Out Music present us with six quick songs that clock in at under 15 total minutes, but that still manage to provide us with a window back to the Epi-Wreck glory days. It’s pretty easy to pick out Make Out Music’s influences. You can hear the Bad Religion swagger oozing from “Get Off My Soapbox”. Simply replace Greg Graffin with a more grungy, nasaly singer and you'd have a picture perfect alternate universe Bad Religion b-side. “Ballpoint” at times gives you flashbacks to early 1208 with some modern crunch added towards the end of the song.

While we're talking influences, we can’t forget the blatant NOFX worship that is going on throughout the entire EP. The bass mirrors everything that Fat Mike has ever done. It’s not a bad imitation, but an imitation nonetheless, which is somewhat unfortunate because if each song didn’t sound quite so much like a blatant carbon copy of what has already been done slightly better a decade ago, this would be one hell of a throwback disc, paying homage to better days. As it is, though, it serves more as a reminder of what the good ol’ days were like and leaves you pining to go dig out your old Propagandhi and Bracket discs for a few spins.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Poop on You, FedEx

Today, as we all know, is Valentine's Day. It's a day that requires gift giving. Well, maybe doesn't require it, but it is in a guy's best interest to get his girl something lest he be given the evil eye or sent to the couch for the evening's sleeping. Truth be told, not all girls are totally into the Hallmark holiday, but many are. Anyways, I'm getting to my point...

So I ordered something for a special someone online since I believe in online shopping and I don't get to brick & mortar shops that much, unless it is for groceries or the occasional Target run. I ordered my gift early last week and FedEx said the package would arrive last Friday. Well, it didn't come. So I checked Monday to see what the deal was.

It turns out that instead of sending it to Minnesota, where I live, it "accidentally" got routed to California and now is on its long trek back to the midwest after its short coastal vacation. What this also means is that the package won't be arriving until tomorrow, which is a day late for a Valentine's Day gift. At least I have someone to blame other than myself.

In conclusion, what I'm trying to say is, "FedEx... screw you."

Thor Love Valentine's Day

thor valentine

Thor wish you happy Valentine's Day!

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Tiny Tax Refund

Even though I have a couple more months before I needed to have it done, I have finished up my taxes for this year already. Since I had a lot of new caveats to filing my taxes this year such as rolling over multiple retirement accounts, filing some decent sized capital gains (thank you Nvidia), and having to deal with an early partial disbursement of a Roth IRA (thank you idiots who work at Ameriprise) I decided to go the TaxCut route.

Up until last year I had filed my taxes by hand. Wanting to try one of the programs out there I gave TurboTax a try... it sucked pretty hard. Then I gave TaxCut a try. It worked like a charm. Since I wanted to use an automated solution again this year, I picked up the latest version of TaxCut and did my taxes.

After only 2 hours, I had my taxes complete, printed out, and ready to mail in. Every year I try to only withhold enough so that I don't have to pay taxes come April. I don't like giving the government an interest free loan with my money. I'd rather keep it myself and get a small rebate come tax time. I know some people like that "gift" of a big refund, but I don't.

This year I came out pretty close again. I'll be getting a little under $170 back from the federal government and a quaint $28 back from the state of Minnesota. I'd say coming at less than $200 from being right on is pretty close to reaching my goal. I do get a little jealous, however, when some people get gigantic $1,000+ rebates that they can go blow on whatever they want, but in the end I'd rather have that money spread out throughout the year.

Now it's time to go celebrate being done with my taxes. Yay!

More Vacation Pictures

The whole group

I've added a few more pictures that I stole from Andy to my Jamaica vacation gallery. Check 'em out. I still miss being on vacation. Working is for the birds.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Jesus Comics

Alias Comics started out as a promising new publisher sporting some decent new, up-and-coming talent. I didn't give any of their initial offerings a look because I felt like the publisher was going to be yet another small publisher trying to do too much too fast and would be closing up show within a year. Surprisingly, they're still here, albeit in a slightly different form.

Not being able to completely hold their weight in the comic book direct market, Alias decided to brand themselves as a Christian comic book publisher. Fine. Whatever. They knew they were a niche publisher so they just went the extra mile and defined their niche. Right before they made that definition, I decided I'd give the publisher a chance. ArmorQuest was a cheaply priced (only $3.50) graphic novel that sounded cliched, but interesting nonetheless. I dig fantasy, so I thought I'd give it a chance.

Oh man, do I ever wish I had my $3.50 back. I've read plenty of bad graphic novels, but this one takes the cake. Not only was this a total rip off of the general fantasy story of "boy inherits something from a warrior, doesn't realize his power, discovers it, has trouble coming to grips with his power, is mentored by an aging warrior, then overcomes adversity to slay his ultimate foe," but it is done with a blatantly horrible Christian overtone.

I couldn't even keep track of how many lines of dialog were phrased to give off a Christian vibe. "I fight for the Lord... of my country," and "By the power that has been given to me by the Lord... of my country... I will slay the evil beast," are only a few paraphrases of what you'll read over and over again.

The art is also pretty basic, no frills, black and white line work. There is really no inspiration or energy in the art. Although, I suppose a very simple and boring style of art works perfectly for such a simplistic and also-ran story.

If this is any indication of what Alias has to offer right now, this is a publisher I can easily ignore every time I'm browsing comics. I would hope that some other titles might be good, but considering that they're a Christian only publisher, there probably isn't a lot of room for creativity.

Friday, February 09, 2007

A Couple of Good Flicks

Some more recent movies watched. Complete thread here.

Narc (8/10): Solid film. Ray Liotta and Jason Patrick both turn in fine performances in this noir-ish modern police drama. Easily the strongest part of this film is the closing in which you are presented with varying recountings of the movie's key plot element. Based upon the development of the characters throughout the film, making a snap judgment as to which is reality is not as cut, dried, and obvious as many films that attempt the same stylistic maneuver. Each character, especially Patrick and Liotta, grow into a character solidly living in the gray as opposed to either in the black or the white. Easily one of the better cop dramas in the last five years.

An Inconvenient Truth (7.5/10): As a documentary, this is a great film. As a motivational piece, this is a decent film. As a scientific piece, this is a pretty terrible film. I like that the topic of global warming is getting so much exposure because of Gore, his presentations, and this film, but I was hoping to see more actual hard science to show what we're doing to our planet that is so different. The only hard facts that were ever really presented were the rising carbon dioxide levels. Sure, that's a factor in regards to global warming, but there has to be more than just that one factor. He convinced the heck out of me that CO2 is on a horrendous rising trend, but I'm not convinced it is the only factor affecting our environment. Like I said, though, it was interesting to see all that Gore is trying to do to get information out to the world.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

SURGE!!!

At work today our email server decided it was going to take a nice, big, flaming dump and not work for about half of the work day. That's fine by me as it actually gave me some time to work on some projects I needed to get focused on, as well as wander around the internet for a bit. While I was wandering, I stumbled across X-Entertainment's article on long dead sodas.

Some of these sodas were obviously around before I was allowed to drink soda, but others I remember quite fondly. Most of the ones I remember, I actually wish were still around. For example, Surge. That stuff was yummy-tastic. Once it got to the point that no one was buying the stuff, the Hy-Vee grocery store close to where my family lived had the 20 oz. bottles on clearance for like a quarter a bottle or something. I have many fond memories of going in for groceries and getting to the check out with about 30 bottles of the green gunk in the cart. I miss it.

I also remember Crystal Pepsi and the Coke equivalent (was it Clear Coke or something ridiculous like that?). It wasn't too bad. I really didn't care what soda looked like, I just liked the taste. We never bought much of this because it was still cheaper to just buy generic cola. Still... from what I remember it wasn't terrible.

Now Orbitz was an interesting drink. Yeah, it was the one with balls in it. I was pretty indifferent towards this drink and actually never had it until they started having cases of it at the dollar store. By that time the drink was already in its death throes. The balls were weird, but not horribly so. What I remember most is that the flavors were just wacky. Not only in name, but in taste. None of the flavors tasted "right". They were just... different.

Lastly, the only other one from the list I remember was Pepsi Blue. Now this crap was terrible. I always liked the blue Kool Aid that tasted like blueberries, and I'm assuming that's sort of what Pepsi was trying with this, but it failed miserably. It was just plain gross. I think I only had it once and realized I never ever needed to have it ever again.

I wonder what drinks of today will be the oddballs of tomorrow. For some reason, I'm sure most of them will be energy drinks of one form or another. I see Red Bull and Monster surviving this decade with everything else pretty much falling by the wayside or into a niche market.

Best Pseudo-Hoax Ever

I'm obviously not old enough to have been around when Orson Welles gave his famous adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds as a news radio broadcast, but I still appreciate the boundaries that Welles was breaking in his mock news broadcast. I heard the original 1938 broadcast sometime while I was in college. I remember that one of the big three networks had tried to "update" the radio drama to our day and age by making it a mock news program. It was pretty bad.

After having seen the ludicrously fake television news show based on War of the Worlds I actually sat down and read the original book. For its time, I'm sure the novel was a great achievement, and it still should be regarded as a classic, but I found it to be a little less interesting than I'd hoped. Realizing how much of a classic it was, I also found out about the original radio broadcast so I found it on the internet somewhere, downloaded it, and gave it a listen. It was awesome.

With television you need special effects that would be nearly perfect to be anywhere close to convincing, but with radio the listener's imagination was still responsible for creating the images of the alien war machines marching on against the human race. Welles just needed to sound convincing for the entire broadcast to be real, which is what many people thought it was.

Now if you haven't had the chance to experience history by hearing Orson Welles' broadcast, you can! Because of the ever blossoming public domain audiobook realm (LibriVox for example), not only are there resources for finding free audiobook versions of your favorite classics, but pieces of history such as Welles' broadcast are being distributed to any who are willing to listen in amazement again to that prolific moment in radio history. Get it for yourself here and enjoy.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Oh Man...

I never thought I'd hear the following phrase ever uttered while at work:
I think we need to think about penetration testing.

Yet, here I am, at work, having just heard that in conversation. I had to hit the mute key on the phone to keep from laughing. Man, am I immature.







...but he said "penetration". Hehehehe.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Lack of Learning

Hop the bus, walk to my office, grab my coffee, sit down, answer emails, take the occasional pee-pee break, work on my project for the time being, eat some lunch at my desk, answer more emails, spend time on conference calls, pack up, walk to the bus, ride bus home, and that's the end of my work day.

I'm sure most people in the business world have similar work days at whatever job it is that they do. There really isn't too much of a complaint buried in that first paragraph, but I will say that the same routine eventually wears on you and can keep you from feeling motivated to do much of anything after too many repeats. One thing that I see sorely missing from that list, however, is an opportunity to learn. I'm not talking about learning the newest little feature in Power Point or picking up a new trick to get one of your daily routines done 12.4 seconds quicker. No, I'm talking about actually digging into a topic and embedding new knowledge into your skull.

I was one of the fortunate, or maybe unfortunate I guess, kids that actually enjoyed the heck out of school--both high school and college. Sure, everyone enjoys college for the loads of free time, the almost complete freedom, the copious amounts of alcohol flowing throughout campus, and the random hook-ups with girls in the dorm around the corner, but no one really ever likes classes and homework. I did.

When it came time to write a paper, more often than not I had it done at least a few days before it was due. In class, instead of shaking off a brutal hangover, I was paying attention and, God forbid, actually participating. I loved soaking up knowledge into my brain and using it for something.

Now, I don't get that any more. The position I am at right now I landed because of the knowledge I already had. The company I work for wanted that knowledge and wanted me to put it to use for them, which is what I've been doing. There have been times I've picked up some new nuggets of interesting info to file away in my brain, but usually I'm stuck using the same knowledge I have over and over again.

Being at this position for almost a year now, I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to have any real opportunities any time soon to dive head first into a totally new realm or field. It seems like the modern work environment doesn't value openly educating workers in something that might not directly and immediately benefit the bottom line. I'd love to go back to grad school and pick up my MBA, but I'd have to do it on my own time and I know I don't have enough free time to make it work.

Wouldn't it be great if work would let me perform what I usually do for half the day or 3/4 of the day and the remaining time I could dedicate to educating myself for my grad school classes? I'd still have to use some personal time to achieve my goal of completing grad school, but it would be easier for two reasons -- 1) I have some time at work to do what I need to do for my grad school classes and 2) I am more motivated because of the interest and support from my employer. It's very gratifying to learn, but even more so when it is part of your job.

So how do you get an employer to buy into educating one of their employees? That's the real question and the tough task at hand. It would be wonderful if in that first paragraph I could toss in "read new materials, research new information, create a composition of the last two topics you covered, etc." every now and again. If only...

Monday, February 05, 2007

Hyperextension

Anyone reading this ever hyper extended your knee? I was playing in an ultimate frisbee tournament this weekend and ended up hyper extending my knee during one of our games. It was actually a pretty killer play. It happened on an end zone to end zone huck. As the disc was hanging in the air and coming down to grasping height, I had my defender totally beat, but since the disc was hanging, I had to go up over the defender for it, reaching backwards over him to get it.

As I came down, my body position was somewhat awkward with my left leg bent at the knee and my right leg completely locked at the knee, pointing forward at a slight angle. My right leg came down and took all of the impact. Upon taking on all of my weight and being in a locked position, my knee tried to bend in the direction it's not supposed to bend, causing lots and lots of shooting pain.

Once I finally was able to stop yelling at my knee for being such a pile of crap, I was able to hobble off to the sideline on my own power. I sat out the rest of the game, but played about half of our final game. I couldn't plant on my leg very much and it did hurt while I was running, but I wasn't totally non-functioning.

The next day, however, I found stairs to be quite troublesome, as well as walking around corners. Having my knee in any type of slightly off center bend causes pain, but if it's just a normal walking stride, I'm fine. Any reason for this? Anyone have a similar situation? I'm really curious as to how to handle this since I have an ultimate game coming up on Friday night and another tournament to play in this coming Saturday, which is followed by broom ball on Sunday. I'm hoping my knee will be good to go by then, but I also don't want to do anything more detrimental to it if I put it to a lot of use only a week after injuring it.

Super Weekend

What the hell Chicago? Or more appropriately, what the hell Rex Grossman? Talk about the king of suck. I think I've seen 6th grade pee-wee league quarterbacks play better than he did. Yeah, it was raining, but being a professional level athlete should count for something. It's not that I was rooting for the Bears because I would have rather seen both teams somehow lose the game, but it's just the fact that Grossman was such a buzzkill every time he touched the ball that I got mad each time the Bears offense took the field.

So congrats to Indy and all that, but screw you Grossman for sucking it as hard as you did. If it wasn't for the kickoff run back in the beginning of the game, I think Indy would have taken control right away and run the Bears into the ground. Meh, whatever. I still think New Orleans should have made it. I would have liked to have watched that game.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Storage Space

The last month or so I've been busy looking at houses, trying to find that one that I'll be happy living in for the next five or so years and that won't break the bank on me. I've looked at probably 15 or so houses inside and out and one thing I've noticed that the place I live in now has that a lot of other houses doesn't is storage space.

The place we're renting now has some great storage areas and some not so great storage areas. The two bedrooms on the main floor have very small closets that don't hold much, which is really annoying for Karl and Jared, but the main bedroom on the second floor has a phenomenal amount of space dedicated to storage. Since the house is a story and a half design, one entire side of the upstairs has cold storage on the side. It's worked out great for throwing my luggage, books, and other junk that I don't regularly need access to in it. The main bedroom also has a full walk in closet which, quite frankly, rocks my socks off.

A lot of the places I've been looking at have adequate amounts of storage, but few match to sheer amount of space we currently have available at the place we're renting, which makes me wonder if I'm going to have adequate space wherever I move to store all my comic books, books, DVDs, and the butt load of clothes that I have. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out ways to store things, but a house only has so much space in it before you have to add on and make more. All I know is that come April when we move it's going to be interesting to say the least.

Super Bowl Buzz Kill

Planning on having a big Super Bowl party at your place? Have a TV that is larger than 55"? Well, then you might be breaking copyright law if you have a gathering of people to watch the game. From IndyStar.com (emphasis mine):
NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Thursday the league stands by its interpretation of copyright law and would look into any violators that comes to the league’s attention. The main concern for the league, Aiello said, is groups that charge admission to watch games and those that use a TV screen larger than 55 inches to show the game.
I have a 57" HDTV and plan on watching the game in all of its 1080i HD glory and I'm sure I'll have some people over to watch it as well. How absurd is it for the NFL to say that you can't watch the game in groups if you have a television larger than 55". And what's even more puzzling is how was 55" arrived at?

Thinking about it, I'll probably have the game playing on my 32" LCD upstairs as well too so is my showing of the game on two screens going to save me? I can say that all my visitors are watching on the LCD and only the people living here at my house are watching on the big screen. It's just so dumb. Seriously, copyright related laws are ridiculous.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Because It's Hilarious

The End

An Odd Correlation

Yesterday was, frankly, pretty freakin' cold out. And it looks like the rest of this week will be cold. What was surprisingly to note was that in the middle of this extra cold spell, the gym is extra full. I assumed that since it is so cold out that people would usually not venture out but instead stay at home and veg out in front of the television. I know it takes me a little bit of a mental nudge to get my ass to the gym when it's this cold out.

When I think about it, though, it isn't all that surprising that the gym is fuller than normal the colder it gets out. When it gets in the single digits and below, I realize I have nothing I could possible want to do other than sit in the house or go work out. Not wanting to be too tremendously lazy (being sort of lazy is perfectly ok), I tell myself that it's too cold to do anything fun outside like play broomball, go for a run, or play in the snow so I might as well go to the gym.

Obviously there are plenty of other people that figure the only thing to do is go work out too. I barely got on a treadmill last night and when I did, I made sure to stay on it as long as my little legs would let me because I knew if I took a break, I'd not get on again. Maybe I need a new gym that isn't so damn crowded... but then again, I'm stuck with this one for like another year at least since I paid for 18 months about 6 months ago. Stupid long term commitment deals.