New DVDs

     One of the best sitcoms of all time, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," is still running strong and is in its 7th or 8th season I believe. Well worth watching over and over, I picked up season 5 and 6 on DVD yesterday. Well worth the purchase price of $0. It's nice working in a used DVD store. If you have the means, pick up any season of Curb. You won't be disappointed.

Pet Peave of the Day: Vol. XV

     Mondays.

Biggest Loser: Week 4

     So after my movie last night, I had the choice of pasta or a bowl of cereal with some broccoli on the side. I opted for the cereal and broccoli (nice combination, I know). Apparently it has paid off. I'm down 3 lbs from last week, which I believe puts me in the lead for this little contest of ours. Nice. I think I'll go have a doughnut now.

Funniest Thing in a While

     MTV has announced the nominees for their movie awards. This is a joke right?

BEST MOVIE
I Am Legend
Juno
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Transformers
Superbad

BEST MALE PERFORMANCE
Michael Cera (Superbad)
Matt Damon (Bourne Ultimatum)
Shia Lebeouf (Transformers)
Will Smith (I Am Legend)
Denzel Washington (American Gangster)

BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Amy Adams (Enchanted)
Jessica Biel (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry)
Katherine Heigl (Knocked Up)
Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean 3)
Ellen Page (Juno)

BEST VILLAIN
Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd)
Topher Grace (Spider-Man 3)
Angelina Jolie (Beowulf)
Denzel Washington (American Gangster)

BEST FIGHT
Alien vs. Predator (AvP: Requiem)
Hayden vs. Bell (Jumper)
Matt Damon vs. Joey Ansah (Bourne Ultimatum)
Tobey Maguire vs James Franco (Spider-Man 3)
Chris Tucker & Jackie Chan vs. Sun Ming Ming (Rush Hour 3)

BEST COMEDIC PERFORMANCE
Amy Adams (Enchanted)
Johnny Depp (Pirates 3)
Jonah Hill (Superbad)
Seth Rogen (Knocked Up)
Adam Sandler (I Now… and Larry)

BEST BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
Nikki Blonski (Hairspray)
Chris Brown (The Christmas)
Michael Cera (Superbad)
Zac Efron (Hairspray)
Megan Foxx (Transformers)
Jonah Hill (Superbad)
Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad)
Seth Rogen (Knocked Up)

BEST KISS
Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey (Enchanted)
Briana Evigan and Robert Hoffman (Step Up 2 the Streets )
Shia LaBeouf and Sarah Roemer (Disturbia)
Ellen Page and Michael Cera (Juno)
Daniel Radcliffe and Katie Leung (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix )

BEST SUMMER MOVIE… SO FAR
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Iron Man
Sex And The City: The Movie
Speed Racer

i.e. pre-Razzies 2008

Biggest Loser: Week 3

     Shit. Almost forgot to keep you all up to date. Down 2 lbs. this week. That's what you get for living off of carrots, califlauer (no idea how to spell it) and broccoli (no idea how to spell it) for lunch everyday. Water instead of soda is good too.

MySpace

     So my newest form of entertainment is writing to random people on myspace and pretending like I know them. It's pretty fun. This dude from Maryland is having a difficult time remembering who I am. Good stuff.

Fuck it Dude, Let's Go Bowling

     Granted it's been about 15 months since I last picked up my bowling ball; but here are my scores from last night:

Game 1: 162
Game 2: 158
Game 3: 161

Fairly consistent I'd say. I got a spare on 90% of my frames, but could barely get a strike. It really started to piss me off. Perhaps laying off the beer and Jag would've helped.

As a side note, unbeknownst to me I was inadvertently trying out for a league. Apparently I've "made" the team and can join up in September if I want the job. I may take them up on it. I've been looking forward to taking on the Jesus and Walter in league play (although I have no fire arms) - I do quite enjoy the white russians.

My previous league bowling average back in college was 181. I'll keep all two of you readers posted on my progress.

Biggest Loser: Week 2

     Despite drinking beer and hitting up a huge party on Saturday with boatloads of food (including ginormous cupcakes and Coney Island hot dogs), I've managed to keep the same weight from last week. So I didn't lose anything, but at least I didn't gain. I'm still in the running. Only three and a half months to go.

Feel Free to Browse

     So I've been experimenting with a few different web browsers over the past couple of months. I got tired of IE and realized that although they've made some improvements, it just isn't as good as some others.

A very cool looking one you might not have heard of is called Space Time. A co-worker showed it to me and I played with it for about an hour before I realized it's pointless. It's "tabs" that it opens are actually separate windows all on the same screen that you can slide around and shuffle through. Kind of like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. It looks really cool but that's about it. Otherwise it's slow and hardly has any good features. If they can really tweak the hell out of it I may come back for version 2.0.

Then there was Opera. Basically a good little browser that is quick and manageable. Ultimately though, it was nothing special.

Then came Flock. I've been using Flock for about the past month and really loving it. It's still in its infancy, but the social skills are unparalleled. For those of you that utilize web 2.0, this thing kicks all sorts of ass. With sidescreens for saving images, auto-detecting media streams and RSS feeds, a social networking tool called Me.dium (allows you to track your friends and they can track and follow you as you surf around the web and chat together) and blog editor built right in, this thing is awesomeness for social networking hounds. But as I said, it's still in its infancy and has a few bugs. Just upgrading to version 1.2, things started to get sticky. It wouldn't load a couple of my sites very well and it is easily the slowest of all the browsers I used. I'm an impatient person when it comes to the net, so I just couldn't stomach it anymore. But it's one to watch in the future.

Finally I've settled on Safari over the weekend. As much as I hate to use an Apple product and prove all those self-righteous, Apple "community" lovers right, I gotta admit: Safari is a nice browser. First and foremost: it's fast. That's my number one concern and this thing is lightning quick. Second, I really like the default font - I can't figure out what it is or find it on the other browsers - I'm sure it's there, I'm just a retard sometimes. And lastly, it's very simple. Actually, almost too simple. The tool bar on top is easily customizable, but it's very bland and until you get used to exactly where things (buttons) are, they all sort of blend together. But otherwise, I'm liking it quite a bit. I also like the ease of managing my usernames and passwords for various sites that Safari provides.

So for now, I'm sticking with Safari with the occasional Flock use for checking all my RSS feeds. Hope you've enjoyed reading this fascinating post; whatever browser you're using.

Pizza Tracker

     We aren't really big fans of Domino's Pizza. But today for lunch, we decided to destroy any chance of us winning the biggest loser contest with some cheap pizza.

Anyway, we got a coupon for online ordering only and subsequently placed our order. After placing the order, Domino's directed us over to their patented "Pizza Tracker." It gives us the name of the guy preparing the pizza (Reid, in this case) and the name of the delivery driver (Howard). On top of this, we're able to follow the pizza from conception to arrival. It's pretty kick-ass (well, it's something to keep us occupied at work while waiting for the pizza, at any rate).

I've included a couple of screen shots of our order below. I may order from Doms again; just to utilize the pizza tracker. Click on either image for the big version...

Biggest Loser: Week 1

     Here at my job, we play an annual game of "The Biggest Loser." At the end of week one I am down 2 lbs. I am not the biggest loser this week, but that's only because I had a lot of fatty foods still stored in my cupboard I had to eliminate. Now that those are gone, I can focus all my attention on fruit and vegetables.... and the occasional beer.

Pet Peave of the Day Vol XIV

     Excessive number of keychains attached to a set of keys. Seriously. You have three keys. Why do you have them all on separate rings linked together with a pewter sculpture of the Eiffel Tower, a plastic photo of Harry Potter, a quirky, yet annoyingly unfunny anecdote about being a woman and two koosh balls with a belt clip? This is overkill and incredibly annoying. Not to mention, not very good for your ignition switch.

Check it Out

     More stores should have self service check-out aisles. This is assuming of course that they can also cut back, ratio-wise, on the number stupid of people using them.

Bigot

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

http://www.hollyscoop.com/penelope-cruz/
penelope-cruz-and-javier-bardem-to-marry_15500.aspx

I'll kill him.

Sue Me For What?

     First time for everything. I had legal action threatened against me and my colleagues at RowThree today for posting a movie trailer. I said "posting", not "hosting." The dialogue went something like this:

RowThree: Paragraphs praising how great the movie looks and how much we like Bob Hoskins, etc..

Comment #1: Please remove this video link. This video is not permitted and legal action is being taken against the person who originally uploaded it. I therefore suggest you do the same if not Target the distribution company will be in touch. I know you will understand. Thanks

Editor of the film ‘Ruby Blue’

Comment #2: Please remove this video file of Ruby Blue or I will have to inform Target Entertainment of your website who will then take legal action.

Elaine Wickham
Producer

Me: It’s a myspace video. Have them remove it.
God forbid anyone should help promote your film.
PS - The film looks beautiful and awesomely shot. Looking forward to it.

---------

Then we wrote a nice long letter to the producer ostensibly telling them to eat shit.


I'll keep you posted. Use the link above to follow the story and see the trailer.

UPDATE: After a couple of days, the producers (not surprisingly) backed down as they no legs to stand on. Not only did they take back their legal action threat and decided to go after the real culprits (MySpace), but they offered us a whole bunch of free shit. Awesome.

Think Green

     The only good thing about March in Minnesota: The Shamrock Shake...

Spring is Here

     Pot holes would be a lot cooler if they were actually filled with pot. As it stands now, I don't like them and neither does my car.

Something that Made Me Smile

     On the way home from my Sunday afternoon cinematic experience, I stopped at a stop light. Across the way, walking to a parking lot was a family: a dad, mother, two younger sons and a teenage daughter.

On the way, one of the boys made up a snowball and drilled his mother in the back of the head. I thought she was going to turn around and scold the boy. Instead she turned around to face him and just laughed. Then it happened... WHAM! She gets nailed by another snowball in the back of the head by her other son. She turns and more snow starts heading her way. Remember, this is all happening around 4pm in the middle of Uptown.

Suddenly the father, who was unlocking the car, realizes what's going on. He heads to the snow bank, packs his own white ball of ammunition and lets loose on the sons who retreat across the parking lot. The daughter then decides to participate and also starts hurling snow balls at her brothers. Mom realizes that she's not helpless and also starts throwing snow. A full fledged snowball fight is now taking place in the middle of a parking lot by an entire family; running and yelling and laughing. White balls of frozen flakes are flying everywhere and it was pretty fun to watch.

Then the light turned green.

God's Abstract Art

     Just entering my garage, this is what I saw outside my driver's side window. It's kind of cool, so I snapped a picture.


click images for hi res version




another angle