After getting up, sitting around not doing anything in particular, and the finally showering and getting dressed, I headed out into the world to see about buying a Blu Ray player.
I looked at the (relatively) cheap one I’d seen the other day, but ultimately ended up figuring that if I’m going to buy a Blu Ray player I might as well get one from the people who made Blu Ray in the first place, so I dropped a little more money and bought the Sony BDP S350.
Eventually – probably somewhere around bonus/tax time – I’ll end up replacing the majority of my A/V equipment, with the exception of my receiver, with a Media Center PC with digital cable tuners and a Blu Ray drive, but for the time being I figured I might as well be as up-to-date as possible.
As I also mentioned, I’m not looking at converting my regular DVD collection over to Blu Ray – not yet, anyway – but I figured I should actually buy something to watch on it. It was kind of tricky to find anything that I wanted to see that I don’t already have, but then I stumbled upon Shoot ‘em Up, which I hadn’t previously purchased on DVD (mostly because I was waiting to see if it was also coming out on HD DVD, and then because I knew that eventually I’d get a Blu Ray player).
Shoot ‘em Up is one of three movies that I wish Scott would make an exemption to his “no Rated R movies” rule so that he could see it, as I know that he would enjoy it as much as I do. The other two movies, by the way, are, naturally, Sin City, and American Splendor.
Interestingly enough, Paul Giamatti is in two of the three movies (Shoot ‘em Up and American Splendor), and Clive Owen is also in two of them (Shoot ‘em Up and Sin City). Weird.
From Best Buy I went on to Arby’s for lunch, and then I stopped at a gas station to gas up, and from there went to Super Target to do some grocery shopping.
There were dozens of kids and teens there in soccer uniforms, and nearly all of them were limping, some with bandages around their ankles, some without.
Is there some sort of soccer league specifically for kids with brittle bones or something?
Maybe they all have a problem with walking similar to my own.
After that I came home and swapped out the HD DVD player for the Blu Ray player in my A/V stack. I’m a little worried about heat dispersion; the Blu Ray player vents out through the back, but it’s not as deep as any of my other equipment, so I can’t stack any components on top of it. But everything else vents out through the top, so I don’t really like the idea of putting it on top of anything else. Currently I have it on top of the receiver, hoping that it’s leaving enough of the receiver’s vents exposed to prevent any heat-related issues.
After setting up the new component, I reprogrammed my remote to add in controls for the Blu Ray player and to use it for the “Watch My Videos” activity rather than the HD DVD player. It didn’t get it right the first time: it set the input to “SAT” on the receiver rather than “BD,” so I had to go through and program it again.
And of course all of this heart-pounding excitement proved exhausting, so after I was finished I had to take a nap.
And that’s pretty much been my day.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Ahoy, Me Hearties!
Arr! A happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day to all ye scalawags and scurvy dogs! Twas an occasion I meant to mention in yesterday’s post, but me memory has sunk down into the cold and briny depths of Davy Jones’s locker!
Today also proved to be Global Jon Finally Gets Around to Mowing His Lawn Day; me mower were oft tangled in the thick sargassum of me backyard, once leadin’ me circuit breaker to walk the plank. Arr!
Okay, enough of that.
We’ll see if tomorrow or Sunday proves to be Regional Jon Cleans His House Day.
Also of note today was that over at Slacktivist Fred finally finished his five-year long dissection of the first book in the Left Behind series, which is something of a bittersweet occasion. Up next, we all hope, is his dissection of Left Behind: The Movie, followed by book two. Unless he picks up the pace, or scientists figure out how to make us immortal, I don’t foresee any of us surviving to see the day in which he finishes dissecting the three movies and all fifteen remaining books.
Not much else of note happened today. Traffic was at normal levels in the morning, with no inexplicable snarls at the toll plaza. Work proceeded according to the usual method, with nothing particularly noteworthy happening along the way.
The biggest news was the mowing, which, as implied by the pirate-speak, was a bit of a hassle. In the back I had to raise the mower up to its highest level and make one pass, then lower it back down and make another. On the low height it frequently got bogged down by the thick clumps of mulched grass.
But it’s done now, and hopefully a combination of sunlight, frost, and low moisture will keep it from growing too much until the leaves all fall and choke the life out of it.
When I was killing time on Wednesday I saw a (relatively) cheap Blu Ray player, which I might pick up this weekend. Apart from buying the player, I didn’t invest too much into HD DVD, so it won’t be too difficult to make the change. I probably won’t replace my regular DVD collection, but I’ll probably start buying Blu Ray movies in the future. In particular, I want to be able to pick up High Def versions of Iron Man and The Dark Knight when they come out, so that means making the switch. It also means that I can start using my computer to burn Blu Ray discs to play on the TV.
In any case, that will pretty much do it for this entry.
Today also proved to be Global Jon Finally Gets Around to Mowing His Lawn Day; me mower were oft tangled in the thick sargassum of me backyard, once leadin’ me circuit breaker to walk the plank. Arr!
Okay, enough of that.
We’ll see if tomorrow or Sunday proves to be Regional Jon Cleans His House Day.
Also of note today was that over at Slacktivist Fred finally finished his five-year long dissection of the first book in the Left Behind series, which is something of a bittersweet occasion. Up next, we all hope, is his dissection of Left Behind: The Movie, followed by book two. Unless he picks up the pace, or scientists figure out how to make us immortal, I don’t foresee any of us surviving to see the day in which he finishes dissecting the three movies and all fifteen remaining books.
Not much else of note happened today. Traffic was at normal levels in the morning, with no inexplicable snarls at the toll plaza. Work proceeded according to the usual method, with nothing particularly noteworthy happening along the way.
The biggest news was the mowing, which, as implied by the pirate-speak, was a bit of a hassle. In the back I had to raise the mower up to its highest level and make one pass, then lower it back down and make another. On the low height it frequently got bogged down by the thick clumps of mulched grass.
But it’s done now, and hopefully a combination of sunlight, frost, and low moisture will keep it from growing too much until the leaves all fall and choke the life out of it.
When I was killing time on Wednesday I saw a (relatively) cheap Blu Ray player, which I might pick up this weekend. Apart from buying the player, I didn’t invest too much into HD DVD, so it won’t be too difficult to make the change. I probably won’t replace my regular DVD collection, but I’ll probably start buying Blu Ray movies in the future. In particular, I want to be able to pick up High Def versions of Iron Man and The Dark Knight when they come out, so that means making the switch. It also means that I can start using my computer to burn Blu Ray discs to play on the TV.
In any case, that will pretty much do it for this entry.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Is Killing Time A Capital Offense?
The word “waste” is often used as a euphemism for the word “kill,” as in, “The boss says we should waste the guy.”
Yesterday, once again, I learned that while I’m good at wasting time in the conventional sense of the word, I’m not very good at wasting it in the other sense.
Yesterday was, as was mentioned, Scott’s birthday. It was also new comic day.
As it turned out, I was meeting up with Scott and crew for a birthday dinner at a restaurant across the street from the comic shop. Convenient, no?
No.
Dinner wasn’t until 6:30. I get off work at 4, and it generally takes me 35-40 minutes to get to the comic shop from work. While there are a lot of little shops in the area around the comic shop, there’s really nothing there that would make it easy to kill an hour and a half.
I considered multiple options for dealing with the time problem. The obvious one, as suggested by my mother, was to simply skip going to the comic shop on my way home and just go home, then head back out at the appropriate time.
This had obvious advantages, but one disadvantage: once I get home, I have a hard time forcing myself to leave.
I also considered going in to work later than usual, meaning I could leave later than usual and have less time to kill. The problem with that, though, is that traffic is bad enough at 7:30 in the morning; I shudder to think what it’s like later than that.
Instead I decided that on the way to the comic shop I would stop at some other places like Wal-Mart and Best Buy to kill some time, and then head towards the comic shop, counting on the increase in traffic to delay me further.
Unfortunately, The Universe saw fit to counteract the dilatory effect of traffic by making sure that I didn’t hit any red lights along the way. If I had wanted to hit only green lights there’s no way in hell it would have happened, but because I didn’t…
So I got to the comic shop earlier than expected. I killed time there by wandering around looking for a birthday present for Scott. I’d actually offered to buy him Neil Gaiman’s latest The Graveyard Book when we go to the National Book Festival, as I did with Anansi Boys when we went back in 2005, and I’m still going to, but I decided that I couldn’t show up for dinner empty-handed.
Oh sure, my gift for the evening could have simply been my presence, but what kind of shitty gift is that? That’s worse than getting some homemade gift that your kid made for you out glitter and pipe cleaners.
I ended up buying him an Emma Frost action figure.
After engaging one of the comic shop employees in some nerd speak, it was around 6:15, so I wandered around outside for about 5 minutes before finally taking a seat in the waiting area at the restaurant.
In addition to Scott and Stacy and myself, Jamie and Casey also joined us, as did another friend of Scott and Stacy’s.
Apparently I was witty and clever at some point in the course of the dinner, which led Stacy to turn to their friend and say, “See? I told you that he’s funny,” which led Scott to point out that “he” was sitting right there and could hear them, which I actually thought was funny.
I don’t really recall what I said. Personally, I think my best moment was when Casey said, “I know you’re not a big sports guy…” and I responded with “I’m not even a little sports guy.”
As for the assertion that I’m funny, it made me think that if my dad, from whom I inherited my sense of humor, had been there he would have said something like “Well, he’s funny looking anyway.”
As for dinner, I had the mustard-crusted chicken, which was excellent as always, and a pineapple-orange-strawberry smoothie, which, towards the end, was giving me some major brain freeze.
After dinner and after we’d all said our goodbyes I headed to my car to find that there were ten or so teenagers – and a dog – congregating around it. I just ignored them and got into the car assuming that they’d have enough sense to get out of the way once I started moving.
Amazingly – teenagers, especially the kind who hang out in parking lots, tend to not be terribly bright – they did have enough sense, though it did take them a while to figure out that maybe they should move the dog out from behind my rear wheel.
And with that I was on my way home, and that was pretty much my day.
Today wasn’t especially eventful, though it was kind of odd. For one thing, on my way in to work on the Greenway, traffic was backed up for a mile from the toll plaza, and the whole pointlessly snarled mess added an extra twenty minutes to my commute.
However, when I got to work I found that in addition to my 10:00 call being canceled – which I already knew yesterday – my 2:00 call was also canceled. I was sitting there thinking, “It would be nice if my 4:00 call would also get canceled,” when my phone rang. It was the person I have the 4:00 call with calling to tell me that she needed to cancel it today.
Clearly The Universes is up to something, and is trying to throw my off the scent by first hitting me with a lot of aggravation, then making nice.
When I told him about my suspicions via IM, Scott asked if I felt an ominous cloud of doom hovering near. I said that I did.
Well, nearer.
Yesterday, once again, I learned that while I’m good at wasting time in the conventional sense of the word, I’m not very good at wasting it in the other sense.
Yesterday was, as was mentioned, Scott’s birthday. It was also new comic day.
As it turned out, I was meeting up with Scott and crew for a birthday dinner at a restaurant across the street from the comic shop. Convenient, no?
No.
Dinner wasn’t until 6:30. I get off work at 4, and it generally takes me 35-40 minutes to get to the comic shop from work. While there are a lot of little shops in the area around the comic shop, there’s really nothing there that would make it easy to kill an hour and a half.
I considered multiple options for dealing with the time problem. The obvious one, as suggested by my mother, was to simply skip going to the comic shop on my way home and just go home, then head back out at the appropriate time.
This had obvious advantages, but one disadvantage: once I get home, I have a hard time forcing myself to leave.
I also considered going in to work later than usual, meaning I could leave later than usual and have less time to kill. The problem with that, though, is that traffic is bad enough at 7:30 in the morning; I shudder to think what it’s like later than that.
Instead I decided that on the way to the comic shop I would stop at some other places like Wal-Mart and Best Buy to kill some time, and then head towards the comic shop, counting on the increase in traffic to delay me further.
Unfortunately, The Universe saw fit to counteract the dilatory effect of traffic by making sure that I didn’t hit any red lights along the way. If I had wanted to hit only green lights there’s no way in hell it would have happened, but because I didn’t…
So I got to the comic shop earlier than expected. I killed time there by wandering around looking for a birthday present for Scott. I’d actually offered to buy him Neil Gaiman’s latest The Graveyard Book when we go to the National Book Festival, as I did with Anansi Boys when we went back in 2005, and I’m still going to, but I decided that I couldn’t show up for dinner empty-handed.
Oh sure, my gift for the evening could have simply been my presence, but what kind of shitty gift is that? That’s worse than getting some homemade gift that your kid made for you out glitter and pipe cleaners.
I ended up buying him an Emma Frost action figure.
After engaging one of the comic shop employees in some nerd speak, it was around 6:15, so I wandered around outside for about 5 minutes before finally taking a seat in the waiting area at the restaurant.
In addition to Scott and Stacy and myself, Jamie and Casey also joined us, as did another friend of Scott and Stacy’s.
Apparently I was witty and clever at some point in the course of the dinner, which led Stacy to turn to their friend and say, “See? I told you that he’s funny,” which led Scott to point out that “he” was sitting right there and could hear them, which I actually thought was funny.
I don’t really recall what I said. Personally, I think my best moment was when Casey said, “I know you’re not a big sports guy…” and I responded with “I’m not even a little sports guy.”
As for the assertion that I’m funny, it made me think that if my dad, from whom I inherited my sense of humor, had been there he would have said something like “Well, he’s funny looking anyway.”
As for dinner, I had the mustard-crusted chicken, which was excellent as always, and a pineapple-orange-strawberry smoothie, which, towards the end, was giving me some major brain freeze.
After dinner and after we’d all said our goodbyes I headed to my car to find that there were ten or so teenagers – and a dog – congregating around it. I just ignored them and got into the car assuming that they’d have enough sense to get out of the way once I started moving.
Amazingly – teenagers, especially the kind who hang out in parking lots, tend to not be terribly bright – they did have enough sense, though it did take them a while to figure out that maybe they should move the dog out from behind my rear wheel.
And with that I was on my way home, and that was pretty much my day.
Today wasn’t especially eventful, though it was kind of odd. For one thing, on my way in to work on the Greenway, traffic was backed up for a mile from the toll plaza, and the whole pointlessly snarled mess added an extra twenty minutes to my commute.
However, when I got to work I found that in addition to my 10:00 call being canceled – which I already knew yesterday – my 2:00 call was also canceled. I was sitting there thinking, “It would be nice if my 4:00 call would also get canceled,” when my phone rang. It was the person I have the 4:00 call with calling to tell me that she needed to cancel it today.
Clearly The Universes is up to something, and is trying to throw my off the scent by first hitting me with a lot of aggravation, then making nice.
When I told him about my suspicions via IM, Scott asked if I felt an ominous cloud of doom hovering near. I said that I did.
Well, nearer.
Some Randomness
On Digg today I saw a stupid question for which I have a snappy answer:
It's certainly not distracting me; if anything, I've been picking up all the slack left by everyone being too busy social networking. Facebook distract me from porn? You're kidding, right? Half the time I practically forget that I even have a Facebook page. I spend the other half not giving a shit about my Facebook page. The only way Facebook could distract me from porn is with more porn.
***
The first sentence of this post at Less Clothes is clearly trying to convey some information, but I'll be damned if I know what that information actually is:
Aubrey O'Day from Danity Kane has in(sic) interview with Complex magazine this month where she talks about her rep as a whore
Aubrey O'Day? Danity Kane? Complex magazine? Do any of these words actually mean anything? It's like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation with that alien race that spoke only in metaphors.
Still, I suppose that half-naked pictures of some blonde with big boobs are something of a universal language.
***
I seldom write about politics here, for a variety of reasons, but I guess all the time I've been spending in the comments section at Slacktivist has raised my political awareness a little, so there are a couple of things I wanted to mention, specifically with regard to the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
First of all, while I'm sure that Tina Fey did a fine job of portraying her on the Saturday Night Live premiere - I haven't seen the clip - people really need to stop drawing comparisons between the two, because Tina Fey is so much hotter.
Also, while as I mentioned, I haven't seen Tina's portrayal, I have seen this video featuring Gina Gershon doing a dead-on impression:
Link to video
(Embedded version didn't want to work)
In a Slacktivist comment thread, someone, while admitting that it's really neither here nor there and isn't any sort of real issue, mentioned that there was something bothersome about Sarah Palin's hair. I had to agree, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it is. Then I figured it out:
***
Okay, that's it for now. I may be back later with my stirring tale of yesterday's romance, intrigue, and adventure.
Or, you know, what actually happened.
It's certainly not distracting me; if anything, I've been picking up all the slack left by everyone being too busy social networking. Facebook distract me from porn? You're kidding, right? Half the time I practically forget that I even have a Facebook page. I spend the other half not giving a shit about my Facebook page. The only way Facebook could distract me from porn is with more porn.
***
The first sentence of this post at Less Clothes is clearly trying to convey some information, but I'll be damned if I know what that information actually is:
Aubrey O'Day from Danity Kane has in(sic) interview with Complex magazine this month where she talks about her rep as a whore
Aubrey O'Day? Danity Kane? Complex magazine? Do any of these words actually mean anything? It's like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation with that alien race that spoke only in metaphors.
Still, I suppose that half-naked pictures of some blonde with big boobs are something of a universal language.
***
I seldom write about politics here, for a variety of reasons, but I guess all the time I've been spending in the comments section at Slacktivist has raised my political awareness a little, so there are a couple of things I wanted to mention, specifically with regard to the Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
First of all, while I'm sure that Tina Fey did a fine job of portraying her on the Saturday Night Live premiere - I haven't seen the clip - people really need to stop drawing comparisons between the two, because Tina Fey is so much hotter.
Also, while as I mentioned, I haven't seen Tina's portrayal, I have seen this video featuring Gina Gershon doing a dead-on impression:
Link to video
(Embedded version didn't want to work)
In a Slacktivist comment thread, someone, while admitting that it's really neither here nor there and isn't any sort of real issue, mentioned that there was something bothersome about Sarah Palin's hair. I had to agree, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it is. Then I figured it out:
***
Okay, that's it for now. I may be back later with my stirring tale of yesterday's romance, intrigue, and adventure.
Or, you know, what actually happened.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Odds And Ends
First of all, Happy Birthday to Scott:
No, you don't get a new logo every year.
Second of all, I have to say that I can't find anything in this list that I disagree with:
Our 10 Favorite Actors from Geeky Movies & TV
You had me at Clancy Brown.
I'm trying to make up for not posting last night, and for the fact that I probably won't post anything tonight. No Riff Trax night this week, as Scott will be celebrating his birthday, but part of that celebration involves me having dinner with him, his family, and other friends this evening, so by the time I get home I'll probably be too tired/lazy to post anything.
My brother-in-law Dean had surgery yesterday to put in some sort of plate to help his collarbone heal. Hopefully his recuperation and recovery will continue unabated.
In any case, since I'm at work I suppose that I should actually do some work.
No, you don't get a new logo every year.
Second of all, I have to say that I can't find anything in this list that I disagree with:
Our 10 Favorite Actors from Geeky Movies & TV
You had me at Clancy Brown.
I'm trying to make up for not posting last night, and for the fact that I probably won't post anything tonight. No Riff Trax night this week, as Scott will be celebrating his birthday, but part of that celebration involves me having dinner with him, his family, and other friends this evening, so by the time I get home I'll probably be too tired/lazy to post anything.
My brother-in-law Dean had surgery yesterday to put in some sort of plate to help his collarbone heal. Hopefully his recuperation and recovery will continue unabated.
In any case, since I'm at work I suppose that I should actually do some work.
An Open Letter To Sci Fi Channel
Really, Sci Fi Channel? Really?
I understand that advertising dollars are vital to the continued production of network television. Honestly, I do. I also understand that a lot of revenue can be generated from product placement.
I get that.
Your original series Eureka gets a lot of money from Degree antiperspirant. This is made abundantly clear by the number of times it’s mentioned in program identification spots that air during commercial breaks, the sheer number of commercials for Degree that also air during commercial breaks, and in particular by the commercials that feature characters from the show.
Given the sheer number of times that Degree is mentioned during commercial breaks, the rampant product placement in the show itself seems excessive. I mean, honestly, in the episode titled “Do Over,” which featured a Groundhog’s Day style plot in which the same day was repeated over and over, we all noticed – we couldn’t help but notice – when Sheriff Carter took his Degree antiperspirant out of his medicine cabinet and prominently displayed it on his bathroom sink. Trust me; we saw it.
And then, as the day repeated itself, we got to see it again. And again.
That was irritating enough, but with last night’s episode, “Here Come the Suns,” you really went too far.
Bad enough that you had one of the characters on the show actually speak the Degree advertising slogan as a line of dialogue, but you brought things to a new level of inanity when it became clear that the entire premise of the episode was built around using a product that was obviously intended to be a fictionalized stand-in for Degree antiperspirant to resolve a life-threatening situation.
When you had already taken it that far, you might as well have gone all out and have Sheriff Carter look into the camera while holding Degree antiperspirant and say, “Once again, Degree antiperspirant saved the day, providing me with absolute protection when I needed it most!”
Hell, why stop there? As a resolution to the Mayoral election subplot you could have had Degree antiperspirant elected Mayor of Eureka.
Your are not engaging in product placement, you are, in fact, engaging in product bludgeoning.
I’m actually beginning to fear that if this continues on its current course someone from Sci Fi Channel will show up at my house, drive me to the store, and force me to buy Degree antiperspirant at gunpoint.
Like I said, I understand that you need advertising dollars to continue production of shows like Eureka, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Commercials? Sure. Occasional, unobtrusive product placement? I can live with that. But entire episodes that revolve around antiperspirant? Turn around and get out your binoculars and you might be able to see where you crossed the line.
Just something to keep in mind, and to feel utterly ashamed about.
Thanks,
Jon
P.S. Given how often I mentioned Degree antiperspirant in this letter, could you send some of that product placement money my way? It might go a long way towards addressing my feelings of disappointment over your poor judgment and hacky attempts at shilling for your corporate sponsor.
I understand that advertising dollars are vital to the continued production of network television. Honestly, I do. I also understand that a lot of revenue can be generated from product placement.
I get that.
Your original series Eureka gets a lot of money from Degree antiperspirant. This is made abundantly clear by the number of times it’s mentioned in program identification spots that air during commercial breaks, the sheer number of commercials for Degree that also air during commercial breaks, and in particular by the commercials that feature characters from the show.
Given the sheer number of times that Degree is mentioned during commercial breaks, the rampant product placement in the show itself seems excessive. I mean, honestly, in the episode titled “Do Over,” which featured a Groundhog’s Day style plot in which the same day was repeated over and over, we all noticed – we couldn’t help but notice – when Sheriff Carter took his Degree antiperspirant out of his medicine cabinet and prominently displayed it on his bathroom sink. Trust me; we saw it.
And then, as the day repeated itself, we got to see it again. And again.
That was irritating enough, but with last night’s episode, “Here Come the Suns,” you really went too far.
Bad enough that you had one of the characters on the show actually speak the Degree advertising slogan as a line of dialogue, but you brought things to a new level of inanity when it became clear that the entire premise of the episode was built around using a product that was obviously intended to be a fictionalized stand-in for Degree antiperspirant to resolve a life-threatening situation.
When you had already taken it that far, you might as well have gone all out and have Sheriff Carter look into the camera while holding Degree antiperspirant and say, “Once again, Degree antiperspirant saved the day, providing me with absolute protection when I needed it most!”
Hell, why stop there? As a resolution to the Mayoral election subplot you could have had Degree antiperspirant elected Mayor of Eureka.
Your are not engaging in product placement, you are, in fact, engaging in product bludgeoning.
I’m actually beginning to fear that if this continues on its current course someone from Sci Fi Channel will show up at my house, drive me to the store, and force me to buy Degree antiperspirant at gunpoint.
Like I said, I understand that you need advertising dollars to continue production of shows like Eureka, but a line has to be drawn somewhere. Commercials? Sure. Occasional, unobtrusive product placement? I can live with that. But entire episodes that revolve around antiperspirant? Turn around and get out your binoculars and you might be able to see where you crossed the line.
Just something to keep in mind, and to feel utterly ashamed about.
Thanks,
Jon
P.S. Given how often I mentioned Degree antiperspirant in this letter, could you send some of that product placement money my way? It might go a long way towards addressing my feelings of disappointment over your poor judgment and hacky attempts at shilling for your corporate sponsor.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Invincible Super Entry
Chris Sims of the Invincible Super Blog is currently running a contest, the rules of which are to "draw a picture of Batman using nunchucks that are made out of something from which nunchucks are not normally made."
Below is my submission:
I call it "Sidechuks."
Of my regular readers, only Scott will understand the full extent to which this image is funny (if we assume that it's funny at all), particularly given that the Robin featured in it is Jason Todd.
(The girl is a character known as Spoiler)
Below is my submission:
I call it "Sidechuks."
Of my regular readers, only Scott will understand the full extent to which this image is funny (if we assume that it's funny at all), particularly given that the Robin featured in it is Jason Todd.
(The girl is a character known as Spoiler)
G1V I7 UP...Err, Give It Up
There comes a time in all of our lives when, though we’ve struggled and fought bravely and honorably and to the utmost of our ability, we have to lay down our arms and accept a hard but inevitable truth: we just aren’t going to be able to get the personalized license plate we wanted, no matter how many adjustments we make to it by replacing letters with numbers, or how many alternate spellings we try.
Of course, not everyone is able to accept this truth, and those who are not able to will fool themselves into believing that the nonsensical string of numbers and letters affixed to their bumpers actually represents something meaningful that other drivers can actually understand.
And of course this assumes that having a particular word or name on your license plate, even if it is perfectly understandable, is actually going to signify anything meaningful to anyone besides you anyway. Then again, I suppose they’re called “vanity plates” for a reason.
When I’m stuck in traffic and I see a license plate that has letters and numbers arranged in a non-random enough pattern that there’s a clear intent to say something, I while away the time by attempting to decipher its meaning.
Ideally this shouldn’t take a lot of time, because otherwise what’s the point of having your license plate say something? It’s a vanity plate, not the Junior Jumble.
This morning found me stuck at a red light and mulling over the meaning of the plate on the car ahead of me. The “WLF” portion of it clearly indicated “Wolf,” but I was baffled by the number and letter combination preceding it: 10BR.
“What the hell is a ten B R wolf?”
Eventually I realized that it was supposed to indicate “Timber Wolf.” Maybe I’m a little slow – hey, it was early on a Monday morning, after all – but making the progression from “one zero B R wlf” to “ten BR wlf” to “tenber wolf” to “timber wolf” isn’t an especially straightforward task, and I have to say that if that’s what you’re forced to resort to, well, maybe you should pick something else for your license plate to say.
And why “Timber Wolf” anyway? Obviously it denotes something so important about you that you feel the need to put it out there for us to – eventually – see, but what that may be is just as unclear as the confused jumble of letters and numbers that announces your timber wolfishness.
Yes, I know; it probably has something to do with sports, but in my geekiness, I can’t help but wish that it indicated a fondness for Brin Londo.
(Sorry, the Legion has been on my mind a lot lately for some reason.)
On a totally unrelated note, the person behind these rejected Valentine’s Day cards clearly has a window that allows him to look into my life.
Of course, not everyone is able to accept this truth, and those who are not able to will fool themselves into believing that the nonsensical string of numbers and letters affixed to their bumpers actually represents something meaningful that other drivers can actually understand.
And of course this assumes that having a particular word or name on your license plate, even if it is perfectly understandable, is actually going to signify anything meaningful to anyone besides you anyway. Then again, I suppose they’re called “vanity plates” for a reason.
When I’m stuck in traffic and I see a license plate that has letters and numbers arranged in a non-random enough pattern that there’s a clear intent to say something, I while away the time by attempting to decipher its meaning.
Ideally this shouldn’t take a lot of time, because otherwise what’s the point of having your license plate say something? It’s a vanity plate, not the Junior Jumble.
This morning found me stuck at a red light and mulling over the meaning of the plate on the car ahead of me. The “WLF” portion of it clearly indicated “Wolf,” but I was baffled by the number and letter combination preceding it: 10BR.
“What the hell is a ten B R wolf?”
Eventually I realized that it was supposed to indicate “Timber Wolf.” Maybe I’m a little slow – hey, it was early on a Monday morning, after all – but making the progression from “one zero B R wlf” to “ten BR wlf” to “tenber wolf” to “timber wolf” isn’t an especially straightforward task, and I have to say that if that’s what you’re forced to resort to, well, maybe you should pick something else for your license plate to say.
And why “Timber Wolf” anyway? Obviously it denotes something so important about you that you feel the need to put it out there for us to – eventually – see, but what that may be is just as unclear as the confused jumble of letters and numbers that announces your timber wolfishness.
Yes, I know; it probably has something to do with sports, but in my geekiness, I can’t help but wish that it indicated a fondness for Brin Londo.
(Sorry, the Legion has been on my mind a lot lately for some reason.)
On a totally unrelated note, the person behind these rejected Valentine’s Day cards clearly has a window that allows him to look into my life.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Things That Amaze Me
It amazes me that I’ve never broken my ankle, or even seriously sprained it, given how often this happens:
Yes, I do go around saying, “Hey, look at me! I know how to walk!” What, you mean you don’t? Weirdo.
Of course, I recognize that by mentioning this I’m asking for trouble, but it seems like it’s bound to happen eventually anyway.
Not much of note going on today. It is, as always, laundry day.
Yesterday I found a bunch of episodes of The Day The Universe Changed and the various iterations of Connections online, so I’ll probably be nourishing my inner nerd by watching them.
For the uninitiated, both shows were BBC productions written and hosted by a guy named James Burke, and their purpose was to examine the ways in technological advances have fundamentally changed the way we live and how we change the world, with Connections focusing in particular on the connections between two seemingly unconnected inventions. Burke has an engaging, witty style that helps to make what could otherwise be a dry recitation of history interesting and entertaining.
At least, you know, if you’re a nerd.
In any case, I should probably get back to doing the laundry.
Yes, I do go around saying, “Hey, look at me! I know how to walk!” What, you mean you don’t? Weirdo.
Of course, I recognize that by mentioning this I’m asking for trouble, but it seems like it’s bound to happen eventually anyway.
Not much of note going on today. It is, as always, laundry day.
Yesterday I found a bunch of episodes of The Day The Universe Changed and the various iterations of Connections online, so I’ll probably be nourishing my inner nerd by watching them.
For the uninitiated, both shows were BBC productions written and hosted by a guy named James Burke, and their purpose was to examine the ways in technological advances have fundamentally changed the way we live and how we change the world, with Connections focusing in particular on the connections between two seemingly unconnected inventions. Burke has an engaging, witty style that helps to make what could otherwise be a dry recitation of history interesting and entertaining.
At least, you know, if you’re a nerd.
In any case, I should probably get back to doing the laundry.
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