Marathon Sunday
September 8th, 2008
Okay, so my dearest love, the TubeZombie, has been working on a project today.
Please keep in mind that we live in an apartment while you’re reading this post. It’s a decent-sized apartment, actually. But when I say things like “kitchen”, please take the image of a kitchen, perhaps inspired by the kitchen in your home, and cut the size in half. Ready? Here goes.
TZ is working on a movie trailer. He’s learning as he goes, so I can’t make a lot of promises about when one (other than myself) might actually have the opportunity to see said movie trailer. “Is that because he’s not very good at it?”, you might ask. On the contrary. He’s spectacular. (I might be slightly biased.) The problem is that my dearest is a perfectionist. So, it won’t be available for public consumption until it is perfect.
For most of today, there has been a 10′ x 12′ green-screen in my kitchen. There have been professional lights in my kitchen and living room. I have to do a near-military-style obstacle course to get my favorite reptilian-named beverage from the fridge. You might think I’m ranting. Not even close. Not yet, anyway. I love TZ’s projects. He learns a lot. He’s really happy while trying to work out every single, teeny-tiny, so-small-a-gnat-would-never-see-it kink…but I digress. I’m happy that he’s happy.
The TubeZombie likes background noise. I’m pretty partial to it myself. Our background noise of choice is the tube (hence, the entry here) and, for today, the History Channel. They’ve been playing a marathon of Ice Road Truckers since we turned it on sometime this morning. Seriously. I’ve been watching/listening to/absorbing osmotically episodes for about 13 hours straight - with a couple of breaks for lunch and dinner. All leading up to the season finale, which is playing right now. But, it’s bedtime so I’m afraid we’re gonna miss the end. Because I need my beauty sleep…and there’s lots of reading to do tomorrow. I may even spend a little quality time with the tube.
Back in Hell(’s Kitchen)
April 15th, 2008
Holla here. Writing to you from amazing San Antonio, Texas where the women are big and the portions are beautiful. Wait…scratch that, reverse it, good. Just wanted to give you a quick sum-up from the new season of Hell’s Kitchen. This season’s third episode airs tonight and we will be watching it (hopefully) in our lovely little hotel room. In the first episode, Chef Ramsey sent home what’s-his-name after deciding that while “neither team is a winner tonight” it was the men’s team that sucked harder, so to speak.
Read the rest of this entry »
QuestionMark Conference Day II
April 14th, 2008
Day two was very good. The Westin Hotel, where the conference is being held, is an amazing place. It’s one of those places that makes you think, “Am I dressed well enough to be in this place?” Answer: No. Since putting on the pounds I have outgrown all of my slacks so I’ve had to modify the definition of ‘business casual’ to include jeans. There were others there in jeans, so I’m good to go. The classes were pretty interesting and there is a great diversity of accents from around the world in both the teachers and the students.
After the convention we went down to the mall in San Antonio. It is a very large mall with an amazing food court. Some of the food court is outside with the water from what I’m assuming to be the famous Riverwalk running through it. Large numbers of small boats loaded with tourists ran though the water and around the area we were in. The weather was a perfect combination of temperature, humidity, and breeze. We sat and listened to a live band out in the food court that was very talented. I won’t go into detail about the band, but I will tell you that there were a lot of pan flutes involved.
Oh yeah, parking for three hours at the mall cost a mere $12. They only validate parking at the IMAX theater or the comedy club, neither of which we visited.
I really don’t like this bath tub at the hotel. It’s a very old tub (this is a ‘historic’ hotel) that is very deep and sits on legs, bringing the brim of the tub up to about 14′ (or so it seems). Just getting in and out of the tub, which is also where the 300 year-old shower is, I’ve banged my foot on the edge once, and my knee twice. By the time I get done with this hotel, I’m sure the tub will have permanently crippled one of my legs in some way. And I can’t even begin to describe how old the plumbing and fixtures are, only to say that if the hotel ever needs replacement parts, they can probably scrounge up a few from the Alamo. Speaking of which, the Alamo, that is… it is just down the street about 0.8 miles from the hotel. It’s not out in the middle of nowhere like I thought it would be, but rather right across from the mall, with all sorts of commercial buildings around it. I think that some politician of yor said something like this: “Let’s make this a sacred monument, but only two feet outside of the wall. Beyond that, who cares!”
QuestionMark Conference, Travel Day
April 13th, 2008
Well, here I am in San Antonio, TX. Day one, the travel day, was quite error-prone. Let me break it down.
First, the airline decided that, since my wife was listed as needing a wheelchair, they would just go ahead and change our seating assignments to the front of the plane for both legs of the trip. I had originally signed up for the BACK of the plane because we like to wait until everybody else gets off before we deplane. That didn’t happen. The seats on the first leg were bulkhead seats, which gives the passenger an extra 0.00001 millimeters of leg space in exchange for not being able to keep your carry-on bag with you. Since there is no seat in front of you to place your bag under, you need to store it. OK, no big deal.
It was on this first flight that I suddenly remembered a strange physical anomaly that exists inside my body when I fly. For some reason, when I sit in an airplane seat, I get a sharp, stabbing pain in my right side, just below my rib cage. I think it has something to do with my 15+ years of slouching in an office chair in a nearly permanently crippled position. An airline seat forces you to sit up straight and face forward, lest you impale yourself on the arm rests or your neighbor. My body said, “No thanks to this perfect posture crap, we’re dealing some pain!” And onward we went. At least there was a layover, so the pain wasn’t too horrible until near the end of the second flight. Though we’re not technically ON the second flight yet. Oh no.
The second flight was delayed by an hour. No biggie either. Flights are delayed all the time, but it would pretty much guarantee that I wouldn’t make the opener two hours of the conference. It was just a 1.5 hour “Howdy do” anyway (see? I’m already using Texas talk!) and wasn’t any actual class meetings. So my second flight lands in San Antonio and I go to get the rental car. Oops. I forgot that even though there WAS A RESERVATION MADE with my name and it was paid for and everything, they still didn’t have a car for me when I got there. No biggie. They put me in a larger car (or in this case, a minivan) for no additional charge. Oh wait, did I say “No” additional charge? What I meant was, a nominal additional charge for the extra insurance coverage that I never rent a car without, which I’m also sure my company won’t compensate me for. Ugh.
Now that that’s taken care of we finally get a shuttle from the airport to the car rental place. Luckily, it is conveniently located a mere 912 miles from the actual airport (at least that’s how far it seemed.) So we get our minivan, and it’s a brand new Toyota Sienna (or whatever). The problem is: it’s so brand-spanking-new that, instead of an actual license plate, or even a temporary tag, it just has a yellow piece of paper in the window that says “no title vehicle”, meaning that this vehicle doesn’t even officially BELONG to anyone yet! Oh what a joy to drive that cop-magnet down the street it will be. And thank GOD I printed out a google map that directed us from the airport to our hotel. Oh, except for the fact that we are now nowhere near the airport since Budget rent-a-car seems to be deathly afraid of airports, so we don’t know where our map was supposed to start.
We eventually found our way through town on the narrowest roads ever created to hold cars. I think the actual law is that “crowding a vehicle” is defined as coming close enough to another vehicle that the transfer of atoms between the vehicles takes place. Other than that, you’re good to go. There are also a lot (LOT LOT LOT) of one-way streets in downtown San Antonio, just in case you did something foolish like get comfortable with how you’re driving in a new city, BOOM, a new one way street pops up. And guess which direction I’m going? So we finally find our hotel. I had seen it on google maps street view, so I kind of knew what I was getting into. But oh, how I wish google street view could turn into google pedestrian view and go inside these buildings. I mean, the Obrien hotel isn’t a dump by any means, but it does have a few strange little “quirks”. First off, they charge $10 a day to park in their lot, which is a small parking lot across the street from the hotel that shares the lot with a tiny one-hour-photo kiosk. That’s a little added charge that the representative at hotels.com “forgot” to put into her little spiel.
The inside of the hotel is “quaint” and “rustic” which are euphemisms for “tiny” and “old”. First off, there is really no free wireless broadband. You have to borrow a cable from the front desk and take it up to your room. She did say that there was wireless in the lobby, but I haven’t tried it yet. So we get up to our room and notice that there’s a balcony door. Cool. Except that it’s the only source of natural light, and the window is a full length pane in the door, so we don’t just want to leave it open because it’s not a one-way window like most reputable hotels put in. We notice a couple of other oddities about the door. First, there’s a gap in the top that’s letting air in/out. Secondly, the door opens outward onto the patio, not into the room, making it difficult to barricade. “But Justin,” you say, “why would you want to barricade your patio door?” Well, let me tell you Skippy. First of all, the door doesn’t close all the way, so it just pushes open. We finally figured out that the deadbolt will catch, but that doesn’t send me brimming with confidence. Also, the patio is just one large deck that’s shared with all the other tenants on the floor. And thirdly, the patio has the spectacular view of the dark, creepy back alley to the hotel. The things just add up to make me a bit uneasy.
The toilet wobbles a bit and gives you a feeling of relieving yourself on the SS Minnow kind of deal. The bathtub and shower are approximately 112 years old and are made from degrading pipe that leaks terribly. I’m glad I’m not paying the utility bills here.
So we went out and drove down tiny one-way streets until we found a Denny’s to eat at. By this time it’s almost 10:00 PM and we are very tired and very hungry. It takes this Denny’s (I kid you not) about 20 minutes to seat us, even though we only had a single party ahead of us. And, get this, they sat us BEFORE they sat the party that was there before us. Then it took another mere 20 minutes to give our order and a short 50 minutes to get our food. So, needless to say, I’m at the hotel now, writing this entry, seriously tired and wondering how I’m going to get to the convention at 7:30 AM. I’ll give you a hint: ain’t gonna happen, at least not that early.
So back to the hotel from Denny’s, my wife steps on a shard of steel in the parking lot, which penetrates her shoe and cuts a nice hole in the bottom of her foot. After some quick first aid we’re still waiting to see if it gets any worse.
Cloverfield
January 22nd, 2008
I’m stepping outside the walls of my own blog here. I can’t help but write a review on a movie that I just watched — Cloverfield. Yeah, it’s not on the tube yet, and, gods willing, it never will be.
This movie really sucked. The premise was that like the Blair Witch Project in that all of the footage was taken from a camcorder that a layperson was holding. Needless to say, it made for a very frustrating movie experience. It was literally like watching someone else play a video game. I just wanted to grab the controls (camera) away from that jerk and film the movie myself. It was like watching the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but with slightly better lighting. And why even bother putting in special effects? You could barely see what was going on. It was like having a one-legged cameraman have an epileptic seizure in the middle of an earthquake while trying to balance himself on a beach ball. If you want to see this movie, instead rent the following movies and combine them in your mind (note: you must watch them while bouncing upside-down on a trampoline):
Blair Witch Project, Godzilla, Dawn of the Dead (original), Starship Troopers.
As you will see, there isn’t an ounce of originality in the entire film. The acting was mediocre, the creature was lame, even the credits sucked. I felt both carsick and airsick at the same time.
Do yourself a favor and don’t see this movie. Just don’t.
Re-runs anyone?
October 30th, 2007
So…was I the ONLY one wishing for the World Series to be swept by one team? Probably not, but I’ll bet I was the only one (or at least one of a VERY few) who didn’t care which team swept - I just wanted it OVER! - and sooner rather than later. Yeah, Yeah. Congrats to the Red Sox (right?) and all that. Sure they won. Sure they did it as a team. Blah. Blah. Blah. I’m sick to death of perfectly good prime time TV being ‘pre-empted’ for a bunch* of whiney, animal-abusing, drug-taking, not-worth-a-tenth-of-their-contract-earning, ‘roid-raging, vow-breaking…(big sigh). Oh, what’s the point? Give me a sport - if you MUST - where the athlete is, uh, athletic. Where he or she makes money based on performance and only AFTER said performance. Go, Lance! And Tiger! And Roger! What? Federer, duh!
*I’m not specifically attacking any particular “athlete” or “team” here (nor all “athletes” and/or “teams”) - even if I did start this post talking about a particular “sporting” event. I’m just saying…
The only downside to the mercifully short World Series is that FOX network was unprepared for the lack of need for the entire primetime period on Monday and Wednesday and so is feeding us re-runs…at least they’re re-runs of something worth watching.
/rant
Thank Goodness for Kitchen Nightmares
October 4th, 2007
Well, we miss Hell’s Kitchen - there’s no doubt about it. At least we can now soothe ourselves with the much-beloved intonations of our favorite ‘crazy’ chef on his new hit reality series Kitchen Nightmares.
There’ve been two episodes so far…so let’s catch up, shall we?
Two weeks ago (9/19/07) - Series Premier: Peter’s
Chef Ramsay visited a restaurant called “Peter’s” in New York and had plenty to say to the owner whose name was…you guessed it - Tina. No, seriously, Tina is the sister of the restaurant’s namesake and one of the co-owners…apparently the only one who cares at all if Peter’s succeeds or fails. After Peter whines, complains, primps, eats, whines some more, scolds a server for his mistake, and complains some more Chef Ramsay has had enough. I never thought Peter would get a grip but after a few well-chosen words from the guru of gastronomy and a night to think it over, he seems to have pulled it together and is beginning to pitch in and take some responsibility.
Last week (9/26/07) - Dillons
Chef Ramsay has a whole new ‘mess’ to deal with here. He finds a soft-spoken, well-mannered and…okay, I’m gonna say it…almost lovable owner, an indecipherable menu, a broken kitchen, rotten food and three…count them…THREE…managers. That’s right folks, too many chefs may spoil the stew but too many managers will ruin the restaurant! I wasn’t sure how Chef was going to turn this one around - turns out he didn’t have to. It was obvious real early on where the dead weight was in this place. Before too long, Martin, the run-your-fingers-through-my-hair-but-don’t-ask-me-to-do-anything-or-expect-me-to-know-anything General Malingerer…er, Manager, couldn’t take the heat of exposure for the useless leech that he was and quit, stating, “This is my final night.” Chef Ramsay’s response? He whispered, “Tell the owner. Don’t tell me.” B’bye Martin! Good riddance!
Chef changed the name to ‘Purnima’ (In Indian it means “full moon”), revamped the menu to reflect true Indian food with a modern flair, updated the kitchen and totally remodeled the dining area. A stunning success.
Tonight is episode three and I can’t wait! I’m so excited my mouth is watering…
House Season Four Premier
September 26th, 2007
What a great launch.
A young woman is crushed when her place of work collapses due to a natural gas leak/explosion. She is rushed to Princeton, where House, now all alone since losing his crew last season, must rush to find out why she has so many problems. I mean, duh, she was crushed by a building. But further testing reveals that she was also an alcoholic, on antidepressants, and allergic to a medication she had taken recently in the past, but didn’t have an allergic reaction to at that time. So now what? The girl is badly damaged, and her boyfriend and parents are adamant that she never did booze, drugs, or cheated on her boyfriend (Did I failed to mention that a test also revealed that she had an abortion?).
So what does House do without a team? And why is House without a team, you ask? Well, didn’t you watch last season? Quick rundown: House fired Chase for reaching his peak as a diagnostic team doctor; Foreman quit because he was turning into a heartless jerk and didn’t want to become House Jr.; Dr. Cameron quit because she is a weak, bleeding heart fool.
So house starts bouncing ideas off the janitor, even talking the man into donning a smock and getting signatures from the girl’s parents. He is soon discovered and House is given a tongue-lashing from Cuddy (no biggie there). In the meantime, Dr. Wilson has stolen House’s $12,000 guitar and holds it ransom until House interviews at least five people to replace his team. House retaliates by ‘hiding’ (aka transferring) one of Dr. Wilson’s patients to another floor and not telling him where.
House ends up solving the mystery of the girl with the mysterious past: she wasn’t the right victim. In the confusion of the building collapse and recovery missions, the girl was mistaken for a co-worker that look a lot like her. She was so badly bruised that her family and boyfriend mistook her for their own. Eventually, they had to be told that their daughter/girlfriend was actually dead, and the real victim’s family was notified.
The end of the episode showed Dr. House pulling in 30 people to the lecture room to interview them all at once. He mentioned that his interviewing methodology would be time consuming, unfair, and probably illegal. Awesome.
Debunking Viral Video Claims
September 21st, 2007
So you know not to believe 99.9999999999% of all viral videos you see, right? Don’t you? I admit, V-V is one of my passions. I love ’stumbling’ and ‘youtubing’ all over the place to see funny, dramatic, weird, and sometimes just plain wrong videos that the whole world seems to want to share. It’s a great way to exercise your freedom of expression. A lot of people have been posting “how-to” videos that show you great ways of doing things you always thought to be more difficult and/or expensive than they are. But are these videos real? I’m not quite sure. I’ll be throwing some posts on here with my own explanations, as well as some debunking help from various sources such as snopes.com (one of my favorites). I’m not saying these videos are fake or wrong, but it is wise to question them.
Hell’s Kitchen Finale
August 15th, 2007
The winner: Sanjaya. No, Just kidding. It was Rock.
Final donkey count: 11
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