A truly good friend of mine, a very intelligent person, honestly one of the smartest, funniest people I have ever known, passed away over the weekend. Jeff Freeman was a truly remarkable person and I will miss him tremendously.
His website was a constant source of hilarity and inspiration, and it makes me sad to think that he won't be updating it anymore.
You will be missed Jeff.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Running Commentary From My Head
The building I work at is creating a lake.
This is how weird things have gotten, that we're actually building a lake behind this office. I'm imagining in my head two guys from building management having this conversation:
Guy1: I'd like our property to be on the lake.
Guy2: Lakefront property is expensive.
Guy1: Hm...I have an idea.
It's actually full of water out there and they put a fountain in it that sprays water up in the air. Won't find that in any naturally formed lakes, let me tell ya.
I just find that bizarre.
Today's rant is about Tea and Coffee. For the Love of all that is holy, I would like tea and coffee that tastes like, and I know this is bat-guano insane, tea and coffee. Is that too much to ask?
Every different type of coffee we have in our office has some flavor in it. It's hazelnut, or french vanilla, or "paris" flavored and I don't know what "paris" is supposed to taste like but I'm guessing it's "artsy". Possibly some kind of cheese based coffee flavor. We also have "Kenyan" which I'm assuming tastes like 26 miles of running. I don't know.
I want to buy Tea in a can so I can stop drinking soda, but apparently Tea in a can is impossible to make without adding 50% lemon flavor. I don't want lemon flavor. If I wanted lemon flavor I'd buy Country Time Lemonade. I want Tea flavor. This does not exist.
I wanted to buy individual tea packets that I could pour in a water bottle so I could drink tea all day long. This is also non-existant. Oh, they make packets that you can pour directly into bottles of water. They come in the following "tea" flavors: Blueberry, Green Tea, White Jasmine, Blackberry, Strawberry, Lemon (STOP IT), Orange, Mango, and no kidding, pomegranite. There is no tea flavored tea.
I went to a restaurant on Tuesday and ordred Tea and the waiter says, "Have you had our tea?" This is a bad sign. Something bad is coming. I say, "No..." He says, "It's mint with a hint of grape flavoring and GAAH!-" Because at that point I was strangling him with the napkin from the bread basket.
Ok, not really, but I was thinking it.
When I order tea you shouldn't be asking me things like, "What would you like it to taste like?"
Uh, I'd like it to taste like Tea. Thanks.
Ok, Rant over.
Here's some Games I've been playing on the web:
Fantastic Contraption. This must have taken a long time to make. It's a really neat game where you build things to try to get your little square into the giant box. Careful what you build, some things will work and others won't.
Elements. This is sort of a weird "breakout" style game, where you actually rotate the level and try to get the ball to fall down to the next level. The goal is to get to the bottom of all 25 levels. Neat.
Loops of Zen. I thought this was cool, it's just connecting up all the connections so that nothing is lonely. Sort of a metaphor for life, don't you think?
Light-Bot. This is brilliant. They should give this to kids to teach them about programming. I've probably spent more time with this game than all the others combined. It's all about programming a robot to light up areas in your factory.
Gravity Hook. This is fun in a "Spider Man Web Slinging" climb to the top kind of way.
Maze Stopper. Neat idea for a game. Win the race by putting blocks in front of your opponents.
Neat things I saw on the web:
NinToaster. A guy with way too much free time on his hands.
Custom Receipt Maker. You ever buy something and you don't get a receipt so you have to write it down, but then you have this scrap of paper in with your receipts that doesn't look like a receipt? This webpage is here to solve that problem for you. It's a tiny little niche problem, but they've solved it.
Kentucky Math. This is why you should make sure your accountant isn't from Kentucky. Very funny. Plus, I love that math and numbers even allow stuff like this to happen.
Robocop Vs. Terminator. Very slick fan made film of the Terminator fighting...well, it's right there in the title. Oh, and a special guest apperance at the end from one of my favorite things.
This is how weird things have gotten, that we're actually building a lake behind this office. I'm imagining in my head two guys from building management having this conversation:
Guy1: I'd like our property to be on the lake.
Guy2: Lakefront property is expensive.
Guy1: Hm...I have an idea.
It's actually full of water out there and they put a fountain in it that sprays water up in the air. Won't find that in any naturally formed lakes, let me tell ya.
I just find that bizarre.
Today's rant is about Tea and Coffee. For the Love of all that is holy, I would like tea and coffee that tastes like, and I know this is bat-guano insane, tea and coffee. Is that too much to ask?
Every different type of coffee we have in our office has some flavor in it. It's hazelnut, or french vanilla, or "paris" flavored and I don't know what "paris" is supposed to taste like but I'm guessing it's "artsy". Possibly some kind of cheese based coffee flavor. We also have "Kenyan" which I'm assuming tastes like 26 miles of running. I don't know.
I want to buy Tea in a can so I can stop drinking soda, but apparently Tea in a can is impossible to make without adding 50% lemon flavor. I don't want lemon flavor. If I wanted lemon flavor I'd buy Country Time Lemonade. I want Tea flavor. This does not exist.
I wanted to buy individual tea packets that I could pour in a water bottle so I could drink tea all day long. This is also non-existant. Oh, they make packets that you can pour directly into bottles of water. They come in the following "tea" flavors: Blueberry, Green Tea, White Jasmine, Blackberry, Strawberry, Lemon (STOP IT), Orange, Mango, and no kidding, pomegranite. There is no tea flavored tea.
I went to a restaurant on Tuesday and ordred Tea and the waiter says, "Have you had our tea?" This is a bad sign. Something bad is coming. I say, "No..." He says, "It's mint with a hint of grape flavoring and GAAH!-" Because at that point I was strangling him with the napkin from the bread basket.
Ok, not really, but I was thinking it.
When I order tea you shouldn't be asking me things like, "What would you like it to taste like?"
Uh, I'd like it to taste like Tea. Thanks.
Ok, Rant over.
Here's some Games I've been playing on the web:
Fantastic Contraption. This must have taken a long time to make. It's a really neat game where you build things to try to get your little square into the giant box. Careful what you build, some things will work and others won't.
Elements. This is sort of a weird "breakout" style game, where you actually rotate the level and try to get the ball to fall down to the next level. The goal is to get to the bottom of all 25 levels. Neat.
Loops of Zen. I thought this was cool, it's just connecting up all the connections so that nothing is lonely. Sort of a metaphor for life, don't you think?
Light-Bot. This is brilliant. They should give this to kids to teach them about programming. I've probably spent more time with this game than all the others combined. It's all about programming a robot to light up areas in your factory.
Gravity Hook. This is fun in a "Spider Man Web Slinging" climb to the top kind of way.
Maze Stopper. Neat idea for a game. Win the race by putting blocks in front of your opponents.
Neat things I saw on the web:
NinToaster. A guy with way too much free time on his hands.
Custom Receipt Maker. You ever buy something and you don't get a receipt so you have to write it down, but then you have this scrap of paper in with your receipts that doesn't look like a receipt? This webpage is here to solve that problem for you. It's a tiny little niche problem, but they've solved it.
Kentucky Math. This is why you should make sure your accountant isn't from Kentucky. Very funny. Plus, I love that math and numbers even allow stuff like this to happen.
Robocop Vs. Terminator. Very slick fan made film of the Terminator fighting...well, it's right there in the title. Oh, and a special guest apperance at the end from one of my favorite things.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Still alive...snakes haven't gotten me...yet...
So, Allie apparently saw another snake in the front yard (smaller, less aggressive, not actually looking through a window) but he's vanished now, and we haven't seen anymore since then. Though we don't walk into the backyard without a military commando style check out the window and a brief flashing of the porch light if it's dark.
So, all in all we look to be safe from the invading hordes of legless reptiles. For now. I'm sure they're simply planning their next attack more rigorously (what if we sent two snakes at the same time!).
Anyway, there's blogging to be done, and I'm not going to let anything that doesn't have the ability to wear shoes deter me from blogging. Blog, blog, blog.
It's a stupid word.
Anyway.
Zombies go to the prom looks like it will require a rental.
If Snakes aren't really your thing you could always just play with this spider.
And speaking of shoes...would you actually wear these? That's pretty cool, though, right?
I'm not sure exactly how to play Gride, but the point seems to be to get your car over the hills. It does have some pretty funky music though.
So, all in all we look to be safe from the invading hordes of legless reptiles. For now. I'm sure they're simply planning their next attack more rigorously (what if we sent two snakes at the same time!).
Anyway, there's blogging to be done, and I'm not going to let anything that doesn't have the ability to wear shoes deter me from blogging. Blog, blog, blog.
It's a stupid word.
Anyway.
Zombies go to the prom looks like it will require a rental.
If Snakes aren't really your thing you could always just play with this spider.
And speaking of shoes...would you actually wear these? That's pretty cool, though, right?
I'm not sure exactly how to play Gride, but the point seems to be to get your car over the hills. It does have some pretty funky music though.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?
It wasn't actually snakes so much as it was A snake.
6:45 Allie wakes me up to tell me "There's a giant snake on our backporch."
6:45 is not a good time to be woken up. And in the list of reasons why you wouldn't want to be woken up, "There's a giant snake on our backporch." Is right near the top of the list along with "The police want to ask you some questions." And "I think something's on fire."
So I get up and go look, and I see this guy:
Yeah, that's a 4 and a 1/2 foot Rat snake, sitting on Allie's chair, looking in our window. That's just creepy.
Well, first, before I got too involved and he was just sitting on the porch, Allie went and hit him in the head with a hoe. I'm all like, "What are you, Conan?" But now the snake's not just hanging out on our porch, he's mad. That was when he moved to the chair to wait for us.
He's looking in the window like, "Come back out here and do that again, wench!"
So, now I have to call people.
At this point Allie's like, "I gotta go to work. Deal with him."
Fan-tastic.
The first place I call is the exterminator that usually comes to do our bugs. He tells me, "You should call animal control."
Good idea. I call animal control and have this conversation:
Me: Yeah, there's a giant snake on my back porch.
Animal Control Lady: Can you get out your front door?
Me: Uh...yeah?
Animal Control Lady: We don't send someone unless you're trapped.
Me: Uh...ok then.
Animal Control is not helpful unless you can't possibly get out of your house without being attacked. Good to know. I'll file that away for future reference.
So, I look up Snake Removal on Google (Google is your friend!) and the first guy I call tells me, "It costs 229$ just for me to come out there and if he wanders away before I get there I still have to charge you."
Yeah, no thanks dude.
So I call someone else and this guy's like, "It sounds like a rat snake. You don't want to get rid of him. It eats Rats."
I tell him, "It's going to eat me if someone doesn't come get it. Besides I have 3 cats."
He says, "Well, fine, I'll come get him, but it's 75$."
75$ is way better than 229$ so I agree and he shows up. He has a metal hook and a plastic tub. He says, "They're really not poisonous, but they can be a little aggressive."
Yeah, he's taken up watch on my porch and he's waiting for me to open the door so he can attack Allie. We're a bit past aggressive at this stage.
The guy goes out and snags it's head with the hook, and then puts his hand on the middle of the snake and picks him up. He says, "See? He's docile." The snake waits until that sentence is finished and then he starts striking at the metal hook holding him up. The guy goes, "Oh, well, there's the attitude."
Mr. Snake got a spot in the tub and a 75$ trip to the woods behind the snake wranglers house (Bet his wife loves him).
Anyway. That's the excitement for this week. Next week I hope to find a nest of scorpions somewhere so we can do all this again.
Here's a couple more pictures of Mr. Snake.
6:45 Allie wakes me up to tell me "There's a giant snake on our backporch."
6:45 is not a good time to be woken up. And in the list of reasons why you wouldn't want to be woken up, "There's a giant snake on our backporch." Is right near the top of the list along with "The police want to ask you some questions." And "I think something's on fire."
So I get up and go look, and I see this guy:
Yeah, that's a 4 and a 1/2 foot Rat snake, sitting on Allie's chair, looking in our window. That's just creepy.
Well, first, before I got too involved and he was just sitting on the porch, Allie went and hit him in the head with a hoe. I'm all like, "What are you, Conan?" But now the snake's not just hanging out on our porch, he's mad. That was when he moved to the chair to wait for us.
He's looking in the window like, "Come back out here and do that again, wench!"
So, now I have to call people.
At this point Allie's like, "I gotta go to work. Deal with him."
Fan-tastic.
The first place I call is the exterminator that usually comes to do our bugs. He tells me, "You should call animal control."
Good idea. I call animal control and have this conversation:
Me: Yeah, there's a giant snake on my back porch.
Animal Control Lady: Can you get out your front door?
Me: Uh...yeah?
Animal Control Lady: We don't send someone unless you're trapped.
Me: Uh...ok then.
Animal Control is not helpful unless you can't possibly get out of your house without being attacked. Good to know. I'll file that away for future reference.
So, I look up Snake Removal on Google (Google is your friend!) and the first guy I call tells me, "It costs 229$ just for me to come out there and if he wanders away before I get there I still have to charge you."
Yeah, no thanks dude.
So I call someone else and this guy's like, "It sounds like a rat snake. You don't want to get rid of him. It eats Rats."
I tell him, "It's going to eat me if someone doesn't come get it. Besides I have 3 cats."
He says, "Well, fine, I'll come get him, but it's 75$."
75$ is way better than 229$ so I agree and he shows up. He has a metal hook and a plastic tub. He says, "They're really not poisonous, but they can be a little aggressive."
Yeah, he's taken up watch on my porch and he's waiting for me to open the door so he can attack Allie. We're a bit past aggressive at this stage.
The guy goes out and snags it's head with the hook, and then puts his hand on the middle of the snake and picks him up. He says, "See? He's docile." The snake waits until that sentence is finished and then he starts striking at the metal hook holding him up. The guy goes, "Oh, well, there's the attitude."
Mr. Snake got a spot in the tub and a 75$ trip to the woods behind the snake wranglers house (Bet his wife loves him).
Anyway. That's the excitement for this week. Next week I hope to find a nest of scorpions somewhere so we can do all this again.
Here's a couple more pictures of Mr. Snake.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Where oh where have i been?
Monday, August 4, 2008
Short post today.
So, thinking about Batman, and how he keeps tearing things up while he's driving that tumbler around, the question occurred to me: Is Gotham the only place on earth where you can make a legitimate auto insurance claim for "My car got Batmobiled"?
While I'm still on a Batman kick, here's an interview with Heath Ledger about it.
Awesome 3-D painting for a parking garage: Check it out.
Star Wars Dance Off. Nuff said.
While I'm still on a Batman kick, here's an interview with Heath Ledger about it.
Awesome 3-D painting for a parking garage: Check it out.
Star Wars Dance Off. Nuff said.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Dark Knight
IS THE BOMB-DIGGITY.
How's that B-Fish? He asked me for a Dark Knight Review. It is, quite possibly, better than Batman Begins, which is quite possibly now only the second best live action Batman movie ever made. That's not a lot to compete with, I know. But in my head the list now goes like this:
1. The Dark Knight (2008)
2. Batman Begins (2005)
3. Batman (1989)
4. Batman (1966)
5. Batman Returns (1992)
6. Batman Forever (1995)
7-1,304,402,948. Every other movie ever made (18??-20??)
1,304,402,949. Batman and Robin (1997)
That's right, every other movie ever made, ever, is a better Batman movie than Batman and Robin. (By the way, I made that number up, I can't back that up with facts).
Oh, and I'm not putting the animated movies on this list (there are now three of them) because they exist in their own seperate world, and they're all really quite good. If I had to put them up there they'd be numbers 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3.
I know there are people who disagree with me, that think Batman Returns was pretty good. We can all agree that the 1989 Batman with Michael Keaton was pretty good, better than people thought it would be. Jack Nicholson is a passable Joker, though really, he's just playing Jack Nicholson in clown make up. But that's ok. We all love Jack.
I was so disappointed with the second one though, with the mutant Penguin biting people's noses and giant penguins with rockets strapped to their backs...I mean, come on. That would have been something I expected from the old Adam West Batman. And yeah, Adam West Batman made it onto the list ahead of this because at least they knew they were being campy. They weren't pretending to make real movies.
Batman and Robin, though? What an atrocity. I mean it's Star Trek V level of bad. Remember that? When Kirk went across the universe to meet God because God needed a space ship? Yes, that's for real. That's the plot.
Dark Knight though, man, there's nothing that's not good about that movie. It's long. It's almost two movies in one, but I couldn't get enough of it. Heath Ledger is beyond amazing as a crazy Joker who is genuinely creepy and funny, just like a homicidal clown should be. He's, well, he's the Joker.
Let me not spoil any of it, but know this, Joker is just bat-guano crazy. There's no Darth Vader-esque backstory that ruins the Joker by showing me his troubled childhood and why he became a villain. And I think villains are all the scarier for that. I loved Vader before I knew he was just a whiny punk who didn't think he got enough respect from Obi-Wan. Man, I wish I could forget those movies existed. (As a side note, there's a new Conan movie that's supposed to come out next summer, despite the fact that they don't have a cast, a director, or anything resembling an idea of what they're doing, except apparently they're doing Thulsa Doom's backstory...Yeah, the character James Earl Jones played in the original Conan. Cause we need to see his childhood and figure out what whiny thing happened to him to make him go bad. Great. Thanks jerks. This is what I need.)
Anyway, Ledger is Awesome, Aaron Eckhart is awesome as Harvey Dent, Bale is still a great Batman, Michael Caine is still a wonderful Alfred, and Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) is still just as fantastic as he always is. The whole cast is great, the script is above and beyond, and the movie is just a phenomenal amount of awesome all packed up together.
Iron Man was top notch, and now Batman is raising the bar. I wish all superhero movies were this good.
How's that B-Fish? He asked me for a Dark Knight Review. It is, quite possibly, better than Batman Begins, which is quite possibly now only the second best live action Batman movie ever made. That's not a lot to compete with, I know. But in my head the list now goes like this:
1. The Dark Knight (2008)
2. Batman Begins (2005)
3. Batman (1989)
4. Batman (1966)
5. Batman Returns (1992)
6. Batman Forever (1995)
7-1,304,402,948. Every other movie ever made (18??-20??)
1,304,402,949. Batman and Robin (1997)
That's right, every other movie ever made, ever, is a better Batman movie than Batman and Robin. (By the way, I made that number up, I can't back that up with facts).
Oh, and I'm not putting the animated movies on this list (there are now three of them) because they exist in their own seperate world, and they're all really quite good. If I had to put them up there they'd be numbers 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3.
I know there are people who disagree with me, that think Batman Returns was pretty good. We can all agree that the 1989 Batman with Michael Keaton was pretty good, better than people thought it would be. Jack Nicholson is a passable Joker, though really, he's just playing Jack Nicholson in clown make up. But that's ok. We all love Jack.
I was so disappointed with the second one though, with the mutant Penguin biting people's noses and giant penguins with rockets strapped to their backs...I mean, come on. That would have been something I expected from the old Adam West Batman. And yeah, Adam West Batman made it onto the list ahead of this because at least they knew they were being campy. They weren't pretending to make real movies.
Batman and Robin, though? What an atrocity. I mean it's Star Trek V level of bad. Remember that? When Kirk went across the universe to meet God because God needed a space ship? Yes, that's for real. That's the plot.
Dark Knight though, man, there's nothing that's not good about that movie. It's long. It's almost two movies in one, but I couldn't get enough of it. Heath Ledger is beyond amazing as a crazy Joker who is genuinely creepy and funny, just like a homicidal clown should be. He's, well, he's the Joker.
Let me not spoil any of it, but know this, Joker is just bat-guano crazy. There's no Darth Vader-esque backstory that ruins the Joker by showing me his troubled childhood and why he became a villain. And I think villains are all the scarier for that. I loved Vader before I knew he was just a whiny punk who didn't think he got enough respect from Obi-Wan. Man, I wish I could forget those movies existed. (As a side note, there's a new Conan movie that's supposed to come out next summer, despite the fact that they don't have a cast, a director, or anything resembling an idea of what they're doing, except apparently they're doing Thulsa Doom's backstory...Yeah, the character James Earl Jones played in the original Conan. Cause we need to see his childhood and figure out what whiny thing happened to him to make him go bad. Great. Thanks jerks. This is what I need.)
Anyway, Ledger is Awesome, Aaron Eckhart is awesome as Harvey Dent, Bale is still a great Batman, Michael Caine is still a wonderful Alfred, and Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) is still just as fantastic as he always is. The whole cast is great, the script is above and beyond, and the movie is just a phenomenal amount of awesome all packed up together.
Iron Man was top notch, and now Batman is raising the bar. I wish all superhero movies were this good.
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