My Day Has Finally Come, Trebek

As you may or may not know, Jeopardy is currently holding online auditions. Basically, this means that you get to take the test online to ensure that you feel like you are a complete idiot and therefore don't bother wasting their time by taking the test again somewhere else.

Of course, being one who always enjoys feeling like an idiot, I took the online test last night. How did I do? Well, I feel like I did pretty well. I also feel like I didn't do anywhere near well enough to move forward with the process, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see if I ever hear anything (they don't contact you unless they want you to go to an interview or take the test again in person). There were plenty of questions I knew, but there were also many where I could only make what I felt were reasonable guesses as well as a couple where I had absolutely no clue whatsoever. I realized that I wouldn't do so well if there were a category about opera. Considering that the test was 50 questions, and I know for a fact that I missed four of them (two where I had no idea and two I guessed and could remember enough to look up later and find that I was wrong) and that there were others where my answer was at least partly a guess, I will just assume I'm not hearing from Alex and the Clue Crew anytime soon.

But on the off chance I could ever get on the show, I'll have to practice my impression of Darell Hammond doing an impersonation of Sean Connery. "I'll take The Rapists for $1000, Trebek."

But Isn't That Just Pointless Busywork? Bullseye... Get Cracking.

A few random thoughts while I ponder how Xander Berkeley made it to the Final Four (See how clever and hip I am, making a joke about a character who died 3 seasons ago on the show 24? Oh, and for anyone who hasn't yet seen George Mason die in season 2 of 24, consider this your official spoiler warning.):

I saw a trailer for a movie called The Sentinel the other day. It had Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland as Secret Service agents protecting the president. Do you think Michael Douglas is upset about his demotion from Commander in Chief to the Secret Service? After all, his Chief of Staff managed to move on and become the President, but somehow Douglas moved back down the ladder.

So, I've mentioned before that our puppy is named Chewie. Not surprisingly, his name often gets shortened to Chew. It's just much easier when you're screaming at the top of your lungs to only have to yell one syllable. The problem with this is that when one of us sneezes, the dog thinks we are calling him. So if I'm sitting in the living room watching TV and suddenly sneeze loudly a couple times, I should pretty much just brace myself for a 35 pound puppy to come flying across the room and leap into my lap to find out what I needed. Since we can't really make the dog any smarter, the solution to this is to try to stifle the sneeze or at least minimize it. If I ever disappear and you never hear from me again, there's a pretty good chance I held in one too many sneezes and my head exploded.

Now that I think about it, did the people who made this Sentinel movie really think that they could make a movie with Kiefer Sutherland running around waving his gun at people and not have us all just call it 24, The Movie? Could they at least work a scene in where he screams, "There's no time!"

I hate it when I have to change my password at work. Our passwords all expire after 90 days. That means that every three months I have to sit around a come up with a new password and figure out how to make it work for each system. It's not like the same one could work for all of them, because we have to have "strong" passwords, but not all systems have the same criteria. I sit there trying to figure out what I could use that I would ever remember and think, "Wait is this the system where I have to use at least one non-alphanumeric character and the only one it will accept is a semicolon or is it the one where I can't use any lowercase vowels and numbers larger than 3?" Once I sort that out, I have to deal with telling my fingers not to automatically type the password I have been using for the past 90 days when I try to log in. It takes about three work weeks to finally get used to the new one. The progression usually goes like this. Day 1: Find new password. Change password. Days 1-3: Log into computer using old password. Denied. Must have been a typo. Log into computer using old password. Denied. Get frustrated. Begin typing old password. Realize what's going on and that hitting enter will lock me out of the system. Backspace. Log in using correct password. Days 4-7: Log in using old password. Denied. Get angry with self for using incorrect password. Log in using correct password. Days 8-11: Begin typing old password. Stop at halfway point. Backspace. Log in using correct password. Day 12-15: Prepare to log in. Feel strong urge to type first letter of old password. Fight urge. Slowly inch finger toward correct key. Log in using correct password. Day 16: Log in properly with no issues then become angry upon realizing that the 90 day period is over 1/4 gone and soon it will be time to change passwords again.

Just to geek things up a bit, I also think it's wrong that there is a movie called The Sentinel, and yet it has nothing to do with giant, mutant-hunting robots.

Those Volkswagen ads with the guy "unpimping" the cars are so strange that I can't decide whether they are the most idiotic ads ever or if they are hilarious. I find myself laughing at them at the same time as shaking my head and saying how much I dislike them. If you ever catch me saying "V-Dub representing Deutschland," you'll know I've made my decision.

On the subject of commercials, there is one for an acid reflux medicine that starts off with a woman saying, "I'm a problem solver. If there's a problem, I solve it." Every single time I see that ad, I wait for her to finish with "Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it." (If "Ice, Ice Baby" or "Under Pressure" isn't running through your head the rest of the day, I've failed.)

I'm actually very bitter that even though it's probably close to 15 years since Ice, Ice Baby, I still know the words, and they won't go away. I'm getting old. Memory is becoming valuable real estate, and those lyrics are taking up room that could be used for something useful. Can I sue Vanilla Ice for doing that? I'd probably have to wait in line behind all the people suing him for making them think it was cool to shave lines in the side of their heads and gel their hair up until it resembled a high-top fade.

That's enough of my random thoughts for now. If I don't come up with something interesting to post about soon, I'm going to lose all my readers. So please, both of you, be patient with me.

Trivial Tuesday

Wow. The NCAA tournament has been amazing this year with all sorts of surprises. George Mason, an 11-seed from a non-power conference, managed to bump off UConn and make it to the Final Four tying the record for the lowest seed ever.

According to the official NCAA Final Four Record Book, what team shares the honor of being the lowest seed to make the Final Four seeding for all teams began in 1979?

This one might be more difficult than usual, but we'll have to wait and see.

Reply Hazy, Ask Again Later

A comment was posted last week asking, "What is the sound of one man not updating his blog?" I don't have an answer to that, but I can tell you the sound of one man without inspiration trying to update his blog to get people off his back. It sounds approximately like posting a meme. Here, let me show you using this meme, guiltlessly stolen from Becki.

Instructions: Go to your music player of choice (I was at my desktop, so I just used opened up iTunes instead) and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING.^*

How does the world see you?
Ugly - Bubba Sparxxx (Oh, we're off to a great start. But what about my inner beauty?)

Will I have a happy life?
This Is Such a Pity - Weezer

What do my friends really think of me?
Spoiled - Joss Stone (This is totally untrue, and I absolutely refuse to speak to any of my friends who think so.)

Do people secretly lust after me?
If I Had $1000000 - Barenaked Ladies (Once again, what about my inner beauty?)

How can I make myself happy?
Chocolate Cake for Breakfast - Bill Cosby (Oh, come on iTunes. That was pretty obvious.)

What should I do with my life?
Quality Control - Jurassic 5 (Well, that was pretty much a gimme wasn't it?)

Will I ever have children?
Big Poppa - Notorious B.I.G. (Wait, is that saying I'll have a bunch, or is that a fat joke?)

What is some good advice for me?
Don't Say Nuthin' - The Roots (If I knew how to do that, I would have followed the advice when everyone else told me that.)

How will I be remembered?
Never Ever - All Saints

What is my signature song?
C is for Cookie - Cookie Monster (Another fat joke? Come on now you're just being mean. And yes, that actually is in my iTunes library. Don't ask.)

What do I think my current theme song is?
I'm So Fly - Lloyd Banks

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
Holier Than Thou - Metallica(Please, just because I think I'm better than everyone doesn't mean I'm judgmental or narcissistic.)

What song will play at my funeral?
The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler (It seems odd that an audiobook would come up here. I'll take a mulligan and try again.)
Goodbye Cruel World- Pink Floyd

What type of men/women do I like?
Rich Girl - Gwen Stefani (Wait a minute, I'm not that shallow. Let's do this again and see what you really think about me.)
Gold Digger - Kanye West (Stubborn aren't you.)

What is my day going to be like?
Home of The Blues - Johnny Cash (Yeah, so what else is new?)

^*Of course I cheated. I tried doing it the right way and the only answer that was mildly interesting was when I asked if I would have children and the song that came on was "Beware" by Panjabi MC. A Ouija board, it's not.

Trivial Tuesday

This week's category will be history and mythology.

There is a new book that details a lot of research that has been done concerning the Oracle of Delphi. This was a place in ancient Greece where people could seek prophetic answers from a priestess who seemed to know the future accurately, though often wrapped in more than a bit of mystery. The Oracle and its predictions ended up playing a fairly important role in parts of history. The priestess and temple served a specific deity. Who was this Greek god?

Usual rules apply. Answer quickly and correctly to impress your friends.

Update: Aurora answered quickly and correctly, and, we can only assume, she also impressed her friends. Congrats to Aurora for knowing that the answer was Apollo.

That's All I Have To Say About That

A while back I posted about an online IQ test that a lot of people were taking and that after it gives you your score, it encourages you to spend $20 to get a more detailed report of your intelligence. I wondered at the time if it actually gave a score or if everyone received the same IQ score unless they forked over the twenty bucks.

I finally decided that maybe I should go back and take the test again, intentionally answering questions wrong to see if I could get a different score. I went through all 40 questions doing my best to get them wrong and found out that it does change my score. It told me that I had a very different IQ this time. According to these results, I should be playing a lot of ping pong and have a friend named Bubba. So, it is good to know that it doesn't automatically assign the same score to everyone. It made me feel a little better about the company running the site. Until this week, that is.

After my gumpesque score, I got an email that read: CK, As a top-scorer on our IQ test, the in-depth analysis of your IQ score is FREE. Click for your FREE IQ report.

Naturally, I did click to see just what I would need to do to obtain this report. I had to click through 4 pages of "special offers" that I could accept as part of the package before I could reach the page that had the actual report. If you incorrectly click the wrong box, you could be signing up for a Columbia House membership, a credit card, loan consolidation, the fruit of the month club and the communist party all at once. Maybe I'm just being a cynic (again), but it seems strange that when I get a score lower than the one that was supposed to keep little Forrest out of public school, I suddenly get a free report that also gives me a chance to sign up for a million other offers. I never saw anything like that when I got a normal score. It just makes me wonder.

Until later...

I Sense Something, A Presence I've Not Felt Since...

Call me a nerd, dork, geek or whatever you want, but I'm pretty excited about this. 100 episodes is a fairly long run for a series, especially one that hasn't even started shooting yet. Now if they can just manage to get someone else to write the dialogue.

You Know What The Odds Are On That? Impossible To One.

It's March once again, and the NCAA ignored the pleas of office managers across the country and released the matchups for their annual college basketball tournament on Sunday. Every year 64 teams are given the chance to compete to be the last team standing, to be the ones cutting down that final net, to be the ones CBS shows clips of while playing what is possibly the most pathetic song of all time, "One Shining Moment."

Ok, let me sidetrack for a moment and say how much I dislike that song. It really just is not good. However, I do appreciate the honesty of CBS and the NCAA for marketing the tournament with a song that points out that for most of these college athletes, this is their one shining moment. The lyrics might as well say, "All the good players have already gone pro. This is as good as it's ever going to get for you. Get ready to go sell cars, or if you are lucky play basketball in Europe." It's actually much more of dream killer than you realize at first. Sorry for the tangent, now back to my point.

64 teams are in the tournament and are broken down into four regions. Each region has teams seeded from 1 to 16, based on previous performance and how well they are expected to do. In the history of the 64-team field, no #16 seeded team has ever beaten a #1 seed. In fact, the very high seeds (1-5) almost exclusively win the championship. Despite this disparity, they continue with this set up and odds makers give us the odds for each team to win the championship no matter how remote.

This year, ESPN.com columnist Gene Wojciechowski has written an article discussing the odds given by Danny Sheridan for each team to win the tournament. He points out how extremely high some of the odds are. For example, Nashville-based Belmont is given 10 billion to 1 odds. Fortunately for the Bruins, they are not the longest odds Sheridan gives to a team. Not even close, in fact. Oral Roberts University is given odds of 5 sextillion to one. This is a completely absurd number. That's like saying that as bad as he believes Belmont's chances are, Oral Roberts is 500 billion times less likely to win the entire tournament. How do you come up odds like this? How do you find anyone willing to take the bet? Was Sheridan aware that this is Oral Roberts University's basketball team not just one 88-year old televangelist we are talking about right? (Though I could make the argument that if the man can raise the dead as he claims he can, he can certainly win 6 basketball games in a row.)

This made me think back to when I was in high school, and I saw that Liberty was listed as a 1 trillion to one longshot to win the tournament. I began pondering a question then that I have yet to have answered. This question becomes even more important after seeing this year's odds. If I put down one dollar on Oral Roberts to win the tournament, and they win, I will receive 5 sextillion dollars ($5 X 10²¹), which should be just enough to allow me to live comfortably for the rest of my life. To win the tournament, a team has to win six consecutive games. If I were to bribe the starting five players of each team with one billion dollars each to throw the games, that would be 30 billion dollars. Do you know what $5 X 10²¹ minus 30 billion is? It's still $5 X 10²¹. I would have enough money that 30 billion dollars would be a completely insignificant amount. It would be like giving somebody a dime. I would have so much money that I would actually probably have more than the rest of the world combined. All of society would come to a halt and be subject to my whims. Inflation would make everything too expensive for anyone to buy...except me. I would rule over all civilization (as an enlightened despot, of course). What is there to prevent this from working (aside from the mob-owned casino that took the bet killing me instead of paying)? Am I the only person who thinks of these things, or would my plan be foiled by a similar idea from some guy who bet 10 bucks on Albany instead?

Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have revealed my master plan to you.

Until later...

Trivial Tuesday

I watched Big Trouble in Little China again recently. Kurt Russell always cracks me up in that movie. Let's just make this a really quick question. Big Trouble isn't the only movie Kurt Russell has done with John Carpenter. In fact, he's done. My question for you is how many John Carpenter directed films has he done and what are they?

When somebody asks you a trivia question and asks if you have the answer, you just stare him right in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that "Do you have the answer Jack?" "Yessir, the answer's in the comments section." (yes, I realize it's the second reference to that quote I've made in one of trivia questions. Shut up. I'm runnin' on empty over here.)

The Difference Is, Jesus Loves You, I Don't

Lots of people really love coffee. I, however, am not one of them. It doesn't matter how you make it or what you put in it, I taste nothing but the vile bitterness. Latte, cappuccino, mocha these are all just code words for a spit take waiting to happen.

So what is it about coffee that people love so much? Do they really enjoy it or is it all about the social context? Think about it, coffee holds a place in our society to which very few things can compare. It works its way into our vocabulary in many different places, even in situations where it's not actually involved. Coffee break, coffee grinder, you need to switch to decaf, coffee mug. All of those phrases refer to coffee but in common usage don't actually have to involve it at all. Matt Damon was wrong when he told us that going to eat a bunch of caramels was just as arbitrary as drinking coffee. Caramels don't have the same social status as coffee. Going to eat caramels is weird. Going to get a cup of coffee is normal.

Then again, maybe it's the chemical dependency. Sure you can get caffeine in other ways, but none as convenient and socially acceptable as coffee. I'd love to write it off as this and say that those of us who don't like coffee are somehow superior in our refusal to partake of the brew, but it doesn't explain everything. There are too many people who love coffee but drink decaf because they don't want the caffeine. There are far too many people who truly enjoy their coffee and can tell the difference between one bean and another or one roast and another. The ability to detect nuances in what, to me, is a uniformly bitter and harsh beverage amazes me.

I've said all that to say this. Whatever the reason, people love coffee. Some people will spend hundreds of dollars a month on lattes, while others spend a small fortune on special beans that are precisely roasted to release the perfect combination of flavors. But really at what point do you love your coffee so much that you decide to try Civet Coffee? In case you aren't familiar with it, let me explain. Civet Coffee, or Kopi Luwak, is a special very expensive type of coffee. The civet, a creepy cat-monkey looking creature, eats the berries of the coffee plant. (Think of the coffee berries as cherries, with the coffee bean as the cherry pit.) The animal eats the fruit and digests it, but doesn't digest the bean. When it is finished it gets rid of the waste, in this case a bean, it the manner typical for all mammals. These beans are collected, dried, roasted and sold to be made into coffee (hopefully, another step in there involves washing them really, really well). People buy this, and they don't just buy it, they pay a fortune for these beans. How good do the beans have to taste before it is worth while to spend twenty or thirty times more for beans that were recently residing in a civet colon? More to the point, who first thought it would be a good idea to collect and use these beans?

So, all you coffee lovers out there can ponder just how good this coffee would have to be before you would try it. Me, I don't have to worry about it. Right now, I'm glad to be the guy that when the waitress comes to the table and asks if he'd like some coffee, shakes his head and says, "No thanks, I don't."

Until later...


Edited to add: Wikipedia has a nice entry on Kopi Luwak which also has links to a few other articles.

Oh, Wait, Wait. Was She a Great Big Fat Person?

Do you know who Ted Levine is? If you don't know him by name, you'd probably recognize him if you saw him. He's been in all sorts of movies and on TV. Right now, you can see him as Captain Stottlemeyer on Monk. He's been in Memoirs of a Geisha, The Manchurian Candidate, Heat and many other films. He's also in the upcoming remake of The Hills Have Eyes.

I first saw him in an entirely different role, however. It wasn't his first movie, but the first time I remember seeing him was as Jame Gumb (Buffalo Bill) in Silence of the Lambs. The problem is that everytime I see him now, I think of that character. It doesn't matter if he is playing a police captain like he does on Monk, I fully expect him to kidnap and kill a bunch of people.

I'm not saying that if you play Jame Gumb, you can never act again, but is it too much to ask for him to occasionally tell people to put the lotion in the basket?

Until later...

The One Where My Inner Child Watches TV

Since Lost was a rerun this week, I ended up changing my TV watching routine. Unfortunately, I also apparently regressed to a twelve year old. (Hoping you all buy my attempt at saying I'm not normally this immature.)

First, I like a lot of the shows on VH1 now. Yes, I remember when it was a music channel. It was sort of the Adult Contemporary counterpart to MTV's Top 40. Now, it's transformed into what is essentially half a pop culture channel and half reality TV featuring celebrities. What really interests me are the pop culture shows: I Love the 80's (70's, 90's), Top 100 One Hit Wonders, Best Week Ever, Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever, and so on.

Tonight, I turned it on and found "I Love Toys." A countdown of the top 100 toys of all time (Magic 8-Ball, Sea Monkeys, Pong). It's basically just a bunch of clips of people talking about these toys. I was watching and pondering all my memories of these toys and wondering why I couldn't be on that show with the rest of these people. Then I realized, it's because they are funny or famous or both (or at least, they're supposed to be). If I can, maybe I'll go through their top 100 toys list and write some of my thoughts about them here. After all, it's my blog, and what are you going to do if you don't like it? Well, I suppose you could stop reading. Anyway, I don't know what all 100 of them are going to be, but if I don't see Optimus Prime before the end, something is wrong.

There was also a new episode of Mythbusters on tonight. They tested whether Ben Franklin could really have flown a kite in a thunderstorm, gotten it hit by lightning, had the charge move down the string to a key and to his hand. They decided that he could, but that it would have been fatal. I thought they jumped to that conclusion a bit too quickly considering all the trouble they had making it happen at all. More importantly and much more amusingly, Adam and Jamie tested some of the most popular flatulence myths. It was really amusing to hear them do the whole show without ever saying fart (it was censored the one time it was said--when Adam was saying they wouldn't say it). Instead, they only used the words flatulence and flatus. They tested whether lighting a match got rid of the smell of flatulence: It just creates another smell, but doesn't eliminate the gases causing the smell. How about whether certain foods increase flatulence? Beans do, carbonated drinks do, meat doesn't (at least in their testing). The big myth they tested was "Death by flatus". You've probably heard this one; I even think it was a Darwin Award winner a few years ago. A guy eats lots of beans and cabbage, then goes to sleep in very small, poorly ventilated room. His gas builds up throughout the night, eventually suffocating him. The final verdict on this myth? He would be more likely to kill himself through build-up of carbon dioxide from breathing than flatulence. He could build up enough gas to kill himself--if that was all he did for about three or four months. I always enjoy watching Mythbusters, but I particularly enjoyed this episode, and it made me wonder: Why aren't there more shows about the science of bodily functions? That's just good TV.

Until later...

It's Your Future...I See A Cab Ride

I realized that I haven't talked at all about my new favorite TV show. It's not even on any of the big 4 networks. It's actually on The Discovery Channel. The show is called Cash Cab. Basically, a guy drives around in a cab in New York picking up passengers and asking them trivia questions. For each question they get right, they earn money. If they get three questions wrong before the cab reaches its destination, he pulls over and kicks them out. Basically you can think of it as Taxicab Confessions for nerds. (I should probably point out that there was actually a British version of this first, but I haven't seen it, so we'll just pretend it never happened, ok? Good.)

The host, Ben Bailey, drives these people around but has to ask questions while dealing with New York traffic and making sure not to show any signs of disgust at how incredibly stupid people sometimes are. He does make the occasional face at the camera, but mostly he stays composed. Once people are out of the cab though, there's no reason to be so nice and he will make jokes about the answers that were given, the need to switch to decaf, etc. My favorite comment was after two guys who were obvious nerds and probably could have passed as members of Weezer won a considerable amount of money. They were celebrating on the street after getting out of the cab and as he drove away, the host looked into the camera and said, "It looks like somebody's getting a new Dungeons & Dragons set." You know what, you probably had to see it, so...never mind. The point is that he manages to drive, ask questions and be amusing all at the same time.

The great draw of the show is that these are just random people getting asked general knowledge questions. It's fun and easy to play along. When people miss answers you can get frustrated with how ignorant they are and talk about how you would never have missed such an easy question. Maybe that has to do with why I like it. I can see these people struggle to come up with answers when I can sit at home with no pressure and feel superior because I wouldn't be getting kicked out of the cab into the rain. Is it that simple? Am I really that shallow? Probably, yeah. Now, if you'll excuse me , I'm going to go buy a ticket to New York. I've got a cab to catch.

Trivial Tuesday

Let's go back to the Oscars for our trivia this week. Writer/Director Paul Haggis is experiencing great success with this year's Best Picture, Crash. Before becoming an Oscar winner, Haggis wrote scripts for television, including writing for the series "Diff'rent Strokes", Walker Texas Ranger", "LA Law" and "thirtysomething".

However, Crash is not his first brush with Oscar gold. He previously received an Academy Award nomination for a screenplay, but did not win. What movie earned him that first nomination? As a bonus, what movie won the award?

Want to know how to play? Read the rules. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

Update: Aurora managed to get here first but still couldn't come up with an answer in time to beat Invisible Lizard, who knew that Paul Haggis wrote Million Dollar Baby, which was nominated for but lost Best Adapted Screenplay to Sideways last year.

I'm Curious, Is It Strictly Apathy, or Do You Really Not Have a Goal in Life

I'm tired, I'm lazy and I have nothing interesting to talk about that can be turned into an entire post, so I'll just give you a paragraph or so on a few random topics.

The puppy hasn't been sleeping all the way through the night recently, so I've been watching a few games of the World Baseball Classic on ESPN. The games for Pool A are being played in Tokyo and start at about 3:00 AM here. Pool A consists of China, Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei (apparently, Taiwan cannot have its own country, but as a consolation prize, China will let them have their own baseball team). So, other than people like me who are wondering why the stupid dog won't go back to sleep, who exactly is the target audience for these games? Are there people who are getting up in the middle of the night just to watch the game on ESPN, or is it just a better alternative than being one of the 45 channels running an infomercial for the Sweep'N'Mop?

I fell on the ice the other day and crashed down fairly hard on the sidewalk. Nothing serious, but I ended up with scrapes on one knee, one hand, one elbow and all the way across my back. I also have a gigantic, hideous looking and not-so-great feeling bruise on my knee. This shouldn't really be a problem, except that if I am not busy doing something else, I poke the bruise. "Ow, it still hurts." Poke. "Yep, painful." Poke. "Man, that's unpleasant. I should really stop doing it." Soon, I'll start repeatedly touching the eye of the stove and change my name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. (Forgive the obscure early 90's basketball reference.)

Since we're on the subject of basketball. Could somebody please talk to Gonzaga's Adam Morrison about that mustache he's currently sporting (see here)? I don't know if I can handle watching the NCAA's if he's not getting rid of that thing; it's really distracting.

There's a guy I see every once in a while at work. I don't know who he is. He's a really big guy. Bigger than me. Taller than me, but heavier too. I'm overweight. No, I'm fat. This dude is enormous. Anyway, he has a really strange haircut. The sides and back are almost completely shaven. It looks like he uses clippers with no guard to cut them. On top, his hair is short, but not so short that you need to use clippers to cut it. The problem is that rather than having any sort of blending between these two layers, the hair on top sticks out from his head a little forming a ring all the way around. It has the effect of making him look like the world's largest toadstool. Seriously, are there not enough issues just being a fat guy? You have to be a fat guy with a mushroom for a head? One day, some Italian plumber is going to try to steal this guy's head because he thinks it will help him fight the koopas. (Forgive the not obscure 80's video game reference.)

It snowed a little yesterday. I understand that you have to be careful when driving in bad weather, and that we hadn't had any snow for a while, but some people take it to extremes. If I have to resort to driving behind a garbage truck because the car in the other lane is going that slow, it might be a sign to that person to go just a little faster.

I went to the grocery store the other day and looked over my purchases as I walked out to the car to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. I looked down the list of items on the receipt: Black bean burgers, goat cheese, all natural peanut butter, whole wheat flatbread, organic mixed baby spring greens. As I got into the car and turned NPR on for the ride home, I thought to myself, "When did I turn into that guy?"

After I wrote my "100 Things about Me" post, MK wrote hers, but she made a list of 101 things and did it in an hour. Show off.

Alright I'm out of things to talk about. I've gotta get some inspiration before I can post anything else.

Until later...

The Corpse Bride

The newest DVD from Netflix was Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. A relatively short (77 minutes) film made using stop-motion animation, it was extremely entertaining even if relatively predictable. It didn't take long at all for the not-yet revealed details of the plot as well as the ending to become evident.

The movie was remarkable and worth watching just for the animation itself. The puppets were animated to show every detail of every emotion and every gesture. Inanimate though they were, they had more expression than a large portion of the botox-laden "real" actors in other films. Peppered with clever in-jokes and pop culture references, the film certainly seemed to bear the stamp of self-proclaimed geek John August (one of the screenwriters of this and a few other Burton films.) Really though, how can you say anything bad about a film with a maggot that looks and sounds like Peter Lorre?

Besides, who would have thought you could make an entertaining musical about necrophilia?

My Running Diary Has A First Name It's O-S-C-A-R

Since I know all of you are simply dying to know what I'm thinking while watching the Oscars, I'm going to keep a running diary. It will probably end up being boring, much like most of the ceremony.

I'm also keeping track of my entry into the Entertainment Weekly World's Biggest Oscar Pool on Oscars.com, just in case I happen to get all my picks right and win a the Grand Prize. I'm expecting to be right on about a third of my picks, if I'm lucky, but you never know.

7:57-As the pre-show ends and people are being rushed to their seats, ABC takes us inside to Billy Bush who is just as annoying as last year.

8:00-The show starts with clips from all sorts of movies, beginning with the DeLorian from Back to the Future and ending with Superman.

8:02-Billy Crystal and Chris Rock provide us with the first gay cowboy joke of the night. It certainly didn't take long.

8:03-What was the deal with the Mel Gibson section of this skit?

8:05-A shot of Heath Ledger in the audience. Yeah, forget whether playing a gay man was a bad choice, that mustache is possibly the worst career choice he could make.

8:07-Charlize Theron is enjoying this monologue almost as much as I am.

8:08-Shockingly, Jack Nicholoson is wearing his sunglasses.

8:08-The second gay cowboy joke of the night.

8:11-"Raise your hand if you were not in Crash."

8:12-Stewart just called Walk the Line, "Ray with white people."

8:14-Brokeback Mountain: the joke that just won't die.

8:16-Nicole Kidman comes out to present Best Supporting Actor. I'll take this time to say I don't know how you could pick a single person out of Crash to be a nominee for Best Supporting Actor.

8:19-George Clooney wins, and I'm 1 for 1 on the night. This will probably be the last time I'm perfect in my picks tonight.

8:24-And we're back with John Stewart not being funny.

8:25-Tom Hanks in a really bad Saturday Night Live style skit. Tom needs to wash his hair and cut it. But mostly wash it.

8:27-This stuff is not funny. I am actually pained watching this.

8:29-Ok, somebody shut Ben Stiller up. Oh, and King Kong wins for visual effects. (2 for 2)

8:30-MK just threw a handful of popcorn on the floor for the dogs. You'd think they just won the lottery, as excited as they are.

8:31-The super-cute Reese Witherspoon comes out to present Best Animated Feature. I've only seen one of the three nominees this year, (We saw Corpse Bride this weekend), so it's hard to guess.

8:33-It's Wallace and Grommit. (2 for 3) Wow! Those are some huge bowties. It's a shame; I was hoping it was Corpse Bride so we could get a better look at Tim Burton's hair homage to Kramer.

8:34-I was going to make a joke about how ugly Naomi Watts dress is, but then I saw a shot of the audience and I have to wonder did we segregate the latino/a audience members? I just saw every famous hispanic person all sitting on the same row.

8:36-Dolly Parton is singing a song from Transamerica. I feel like there should be a joke, but I can't make fun of Dolly. It looks too much like someone's been starving her for the past three years.

8:41-There's a Subway ad on for the Honey Ham and Swiss. We discussed the commercial the other day. MK questioned whether there really is honey drizzled on the sandwich. I contended that it was honey ham, not ham with honey on it. "No," she said, "they show them putting honey on it." "Sure, but they also show women hitting on Jared, and I don't think that's happening either."

8:42-John Stewart makes a Scientology joke. He is going to be served with a law suit before he gets out of the building tonight.

8:43-Are there two more nasal siblings than Owen and Luke Wilson. The Oscar for Live Action Short: Six Shooter. (3 for 4)

8:45-Animated presenters. The ducks not getting pants joke is kind of funny. The Animated Short winner: The Moon and The Son. (3 for 5)

8:48-It's GQ's man of the year, Jeniffer Aniston presenting Best Costume Design. I have to admit, I loved the costumes in Memoirs of a Geisha and Walk the Line. Memoirs wins. (3 for 6 and falling fast)

8:51- Russel Crowe comes out and the entire audience ducks. Why didn't Sprint ask him to be in the "Theft Deterrent" ad for the Super Bowl?

8:57-Will Farrel and Steve Carell come out with horrible make-up to present the award for Make-Up. One of the few skits or jokes that has worked tonight. The Chronicles of Narnia wins and I'm below .500 (3 for 7)

9:01-It stinks to be one of the people at the Scientific and Technical Awards. You get an award and a half-second of mention on the main show.

9:03-Morgan Freeman flubs his lines while presenting Best Supporting Actress, but he can get away with it cause he's Morgan Freeman. The very pretty and very pregnant Rachael Wiesz wins. (4 for 8)

9:11-Lauren Bacall. I have to confess that I thought she was dead. Bacall introduces a piece about Film Noir, one of my favorite genres of all time.

9:16-John Stewart's most accurate line of the night at least so far: "I'm a loser."

9:18-The political campaign ads for Best Actress were actually pretty funny.

9:19-Terrence Howard is presenting for Documentary short subject. By the way, did you know he has a degree in Chemical Engineering? Musician, actor, scientist. Impressive.

9:21-A Note of Triumph wins and in the acceptance speech one of the winners thanks the Academy for "Seating me next to george clooney at the nominees luncheon." (4 for 9)

9:21-That is one ugly dress Charlize Theron is wearing. GFY, here you come.

9:23-I'm surprised, to see March of the Penguins won. I expected there to be some box office succes backlash. (4 for 10)

9:25-I like this song from Crash, and the burning cars set is interesting, but the dress this woman is wearing is the same color as her skin, which is really distracting. This performance really does bring back the feelings of the movie.

9:32-Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are presenting Art Direction together. It's like Speed 2, only not because Keanu Reeves is actually there.

9:35-Memoirs of a Geisha wins, and it's about time I got something right. I was going through quite a dry spell. So, why was Keanu up there? He said only three words the whole time. To be fair to him, none of the were "Whoa!" (5 for 11)

9:36-Sam Jackson is out to intorduce a series of clips from films that deal with issues. There are some great films there, but there is no way on earth the The Day After Tomorrow belongs in there.

9:41-Does the President of the Academy have any special powers? Can he declare war or veto nominations if he disagrees.

9:43-Mickey Rooney is in the audience looking like he might actually be bored to death by the Academy president's speech about how important they are.

9:44- And everything the man just said has been completely forgotten because Salma Hayek's on stage. She says something about music. I don't know I wasn't really listening.

9:46-John Williams is nominated twice for score this year. I love the score from Munich, but the music from Brokeback Mountain is great as well. Brokeback wins. (6 for 12)

9:56-John Stewart makes me wish once again that Billy Crystal was hosting, or Steve Martin or Chris Rock, or Whoopi Goldberg. Ok fine, Billy, Steve or Chris then.

9:57-Maggie Gylenhaal comes out to introduce a montage about Visual Effects. Speaking of visual effects, couldn't they digitally remove some of the hair on her face? What? It was Jake? Oh, nevermind then. Congrats on the sorta beard, Jake.

10:00-Eric Bana and Jessica Alba present the award for Sound with the worst analogy ever, comparing mixing the four types of tracks to having four beautiful women (or men) competing for your attention. King Kong wins. (7 for 13)

10:04-Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin give Altman an honorary award by annoying the entire viewing audience.

10:18-Ludacris introduces the third nominee for Best Song. It's been a big year for him. He was in two different movies with Terrence Howard and in both cases he and Howard end up pointing a gun at each other (there's also only one gun in each case). Three 6 Mafia performs the song in place of Terrence Howard, and it was actually much more enjoyable when he did it.

10:23-Queen Latifah presents the award for Best Song. It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp wins, but it was definitely the song most integral to the film. (8 for 14)

10:25-John Stewart: "I think it just got a little easier in here for pimp."

10:26-The political campaign thing was good once. Now, you're just trying to reuse one of the few things that was funny.

10:27- Jeniffer Garner is out to present for Sound Editing. Did she really just have a kid? King Kong wins. It's sweeping the effect awards. (8 for 15)

10:30-Clooney gets to be introduced as Academy Award Winner for the first time. It's the people who died last year montage. We will miss Mr. Miyagi, and that guy that played the ghost on the subway in Ghost, and Nice Guy Eddie, and Mrs. Robinson. I had forgotten that Richard Pryor died this year.

10:35-I just saw an ad for Tab. They have an energy drink now. But, Tab. Tab! Tab always makes me think of Back to the Future. "Gimme a Tab." "I can't give you a tab until you buy something." "Ok, gimme a Pepsi Free." "You want a Pepsi, Pal, you're gonna pay for it."

10:38 Will Smith says hi to people in other countries before presenting the Best Foreign Film to Tsotsi. (9 for 16)

10:40-Somebody give that man another award for Best Acceptance Speech. Quick, with an actual point.

10:41-How long did John Stewart have to practice to correctly pronounce Ziyi Zhang? She's presenting for Film Editing. How do you know who is good? It's one of those you really only notice if it's bad. Crash wins. (10 for 17)

10:44-I don't automatically think two time Oscar winner when I hear Hillary Swank. Anyway, she's presenting Best Actor. Heath Ledger is going to win this, but Terrence Howard deserves some sort of award. At least Joaquin Phoenix won a Golden Globe.

10:48-Ok, Hoffman won instead. I'm shocked that it wasn't Ledger, but I think if we've learned anything tonight it's that I know nothing. (10 for 18)

10:55-John Travolta comes out to present for Cinematography. Umm...nice hair John. Memoirs of a Geisha wins. It wasn't what I picked, but I am pleased. I loved everything about the look of that movie. (10 for 19)

10:58-Jamie Foxx presents Best Actress. How did we get to this point of awards season and I still have no idea what Mrs. Henderson Presents is?

10:59-If Kiera Knightley wins, can she trade the statue for a cheeseburger?

11:00-Reese Witherspoon wins. It really isn't a surprise. I absolutely loved her in that movie. (11 for 20)

11:05-Three awards left and my money's on Brokeback winning three of the four. Not that I have money on this, but those are my uneducated guesses.

11:08-Dustin Hoffman, who seems to be a combination of every character he's ever played, presents Best Adapted Screenplay to Brokeback Mountain. (12 for 21)

11:11-Larry McMurtry really is a stereotypical nerd. It's like someone inflated Woody Allen to a slightly larger size.

11:13-Uma Thurman presents the Best Original Screenplay to Crash. Great movie and great choice. (12 for 22)

11:18-Well, I am definitely tired of seeing ads for Sons and Daughters on ABC.

11:19-Tom Hanks comes out to present Best Director. He still needs to wash his hair. What is with that greasy look. Ang Lee wins and no one is surprised. He is great director and had one of the movies with the most buzz this year. (13 for 23).

11:21-Ang Lee just said, "I wish I knew how to quit you." to his Oscar. I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean.

11:22-Jack is out in his sunglasses to present Best Picture. Anything other than Brokeback will be a shock at this point.

11:23-Wow. A huge upset. Crash wins Best Picture. It was so divisive that I didn't really think it could win. People tend to think it is either absolutely brilliant or highly manipulative. Count me as one of the former. People in the audience are so excited that they are jumping up and down and one of the women is having to repeatedly pull her dress up. Let this be a lesson folks. If you intend to do a dance of joy, straps are your friends. (13 of 24)

11:26-Did she just thank husband and her wife? I think the orchestra playing her off made her flustered.

11:30-It's over. Finally. Time for bed.

So what have we learned tonight? We learned that gay cowboy jokes really do get old after a while. We learned that John Stewart is not a good choice for Oscar host. We learned that Dolly Parton probably gives us a good idea of what Lindsay Lohan will look like in 40 years. We learned that it really is hard out here for a pimp. We learned that you can easily disrupt my train of thought by putting Salma Hayek on screen. Most importantly, we learned that my ability to pick Oscar winners is not going to win me that lifetime Netflix membership and trip to next year's Oscars.

This Is The Most Blatant Case of False Advertising Since My Case Against The Movie The Neverending Story

A new pizza restaurant opened up in our town recently. I have not yet visited this restaurant, but I have heard several people talk about it. The restaurant offers an all you can eat pizza buffet for $3.99. Unfortunately, the word from the people I have spoken to is that it isn't even worth the four bucks. We drove past it a few days ago and noticed that the parking lot was practically overflowing, leading to the following exchange.

MK: Look at that. Their parking lot is really full for a place that we've heard is just awful.
CK: Sure, but it's all you can eat pizza for four dollars. People love paying a little and getting a lot of food.
MK: I know, but if it's not good who cares if it's four dollars?
CK: Think about it. All you can eat pizza. Four dollars. Sadly, I've heard that it's not worth it even if it's free, but I have to admit, I've been tempted to go. I mean, come on. Pizza. Four bucks. All you can eat. (Drools)

It was at approximately this point that she took away my debit card and driving privileges. At least until the court order that keeps me 500 feet from the buffet kicks in. Something about being a danger to one's self or some legal mumbo jumbo like that.

Until later...

I've Got The Internet Going Nuts

Wow, I just logged into Statcounter to see what's been bringing people here recently and my total number of visitors was at 24,999. A few minutes later, we hit 25K. (Insert crowds cheering here) Sure I get lots of visitors searching random things and never coming back again. Mostly, these are the people who go to google and type in "useless information." I'm still not really sure what they expect, but I don't think you can get much more useless than this site.

Congratulations to Invisible Lizard who was visitor number 25,000. You don't really win anything, but you can feel special for a minute or two.

By the way, visitor number 24,999 was one of around 5 people who got here today searching for George Michael. Go figure.

Until later...

Hi Principal Skinner! Hi Super Nintendo Chalmers!

I realized earlier today that for the second time in recent weeks, I have dressed myself for work without really paying that much attention to what I'm doing. Sure, I don't look like I think about how I'm dressed most of the time anyway, but I at least stop to think about it. Recently, whether I'm getting dressed before I'm completely awake, losing my ability to focus or turning into an idiot (thus the Ralph Wiggums quote in the title), I've been having issues.

Today, I was walking along the hallway and noticed that my shoes were very squeaky. I can't stand it when my shoes squeak. It's an annoying noise, and, as self-conscious as I am, it makes me absolutely certain that everyone is watching me and thinking unkind things. I was walking along worrying about the squeaky shoes, when I suddenly realized that the shoes I was wearing today aren't the ones that squeak.

I looked down and saw what I was wearing: White shirt, black pants, black belt, black socks, brown shoes...D'oh. (Last time it was a similar scenario, but it was the belt that was brown) There really wasn't much I could do about it, unless I felt like going home to change shoes. More than likely, no one noticed. If anyone did they probably didn't really even think anything of it. If only realizations like that would somehow make me worry less about this type of thing.

Until later...

In the Middle of Our Street

I can't stop watching House. Really, I can't. When the show first came out, I fought against watching it because I was sure it would just another completely predictable medical show with really bad science. I wasn't too far off the mark. Now, however, it's not as if I don't know exactly what's going to happen on every episode, but I'm drawn in anyway.

Think about it, every episode follows the exact same path. Here, since American Idol preempted House last night, I'll show you what would have happened.

9:00-Person who will become the case of the week is perform his/her everyday routine. Suddenly and unexpectedly to everyone but us, the person suffers a dramatic medical incident requiring him/her to be rushed to the hospital.
9:03-Opening credits.
9:10-House butts heads with Cuddy.
9:15-House declares that the patient obviously has (insert common problem) and explains how to treat it.
9:20-Patient reacts poorly to treatment and it is discovered that the patient (or in the case of child, the guardian of the patient) was keeping a secret that would have changed the diagnosis.
9:25-Further testing reveals a second potential problem. House sends the team scrambling to go test for the problem.
9:30-House butts heads with Cuddy.
9:35-Testing has not revealed the source of the problem. House looks sad and defeated.
9:40-House butts heads with Cuddy.
9:45-Wilson says something insightful to House.
9:50-House realizes the underlying problem that was preventing them from seeing the actual diagnosis.
9:55-House and team make proper diagnosis.
9:57-House and team treat patient.
9:58-Patient is better.
9:59-Coming up: Scenes from the next all-new House.

It follows this pattern every week. Sure the timing may change by a few minutes and Wilson may say something insightful twice rather than once, but the basic show is exactly the same. So, the question remains: Why am I watching it every time it's on? If you will forgive me for paraphrasing Mars Blackmon, "Money, It's gotta be the snark." Hugh Laurie is absolutely brilliant in this role and delivers the sharply written dialogue of the irascible Dr. Greg House perfectly. He's abrasive, he's annoying, he's occasionally unethical, he's a complete emotional mess, he's hilarious and he's one of the best written characters on television.

I have to give credit to the writers of the show, because, even though they use the same basic storyline each episode, they manage to give all of the characters, not just House, excellent dialogue that keeps me coming back each and every time it's on. Unfortunately, Simon, Paula and Randy have been making sure that isn't too often recently. Now that I think of it, House would make a great Idol judge.

Until later...