I have wasted several hours of my life in hysterics over DamnYouAutoCorrect. You know - the site where people send in their text message conversations gone wrong thanks to the phones autocorrect feature. Well, after hundreds of penis jokes and various texts that you have to wonder whether or not people just do it on purpose to get their convo on the web, I came across one of my all-time favorites among their top 15 tv show/movie DYAC's. This one had to be fat-fingered quite a bit, but it's no less funny even if it was faked.
It's not exactly the conversation that makes me enjoy this one so much, it's imagining the possibilities of a show full of random screaming. Who is the winner? I think its the one that says something so ridiculous that the rest of the contestants can't continue. Now that I think about it, it's not much different than a day in the War Room. I'm picturing the show and imagining half an hour of this (not recommended for work, children, or those offended by strong language).
When I was growing up, one of my mother's biggest pet peeves was what she liked to refer to as "toilet humor". You know, things young boys say like "you're a doo-doo head." If I wanted to get my mouth washed out with soap, that was a sure way to get the rag (okay, okay - it was mostly just a threat, though she made good on it at least once). Well last night, while we were dining at an "upscale" establishment on the square in Valparaiso, I paused one of our deep discussions about the guy that came in in track pants and a tshirt, the woman with shoulders on her dress that gave her a "v" shape (see below), or the reasons why born-again Christians become born-again to discuss the bathroom.
I'm sure that Snooki could lead us to a whole other realm of toilet humor, but I'm going to leave my feelings on her out of this particular post.
You see, I was the first to make the trip to the bathroom and I found this.
Most of you would probably be horrified if you woke up, mentioned that you had a headache and your spouse says "maybe it's from your glasses squeezing your fat head." In my house, this is what we refer to as affection - and a part of a slightly larger story.
Yesterday about halfway through the morning at work, my contact popped out of my extremely irritated eye and when I went to put it back in realized it had a small tear in it. Being that I was at work, didn't have extra contacts on hand and had left my glasses home where they belong, I sucked it up, put the contact back in and went to work.
Two hours of rubbing later (get your head out of the gutter), I decided, at my co-workers urging, that I should go home to take care of the problem. The internal battle on the way home between putting in a new pair of contacts and just dealing with glasses the rest of the day was brutal. I was pretty certain it hadn't been a month since I last changed contacts, which, now that I pay for them myself (growing up sucks), means that in the end I may wind up buying contacts more than once this year. But my glasses, which haven't been replaced in what seems like 10 years (a much skinnier time of my life) are horrible.
Imagine that the Jerry Maguire kid was forced to wear these glasses for the rest of his life. His head grows, but his glasses don't. The glasses get cracked along the way, but he's too cheap to spend his Jerry Maguire money on new ones. That's about where I was.
If you haven't figured it out, I decided to give my eyes a rest and wear the glasses. These are the glasses that my wife used to beg me to wear because they looked good on me. Unfortunately, those days have long since passed. I strolled back in to work, glasses precariously hanging from my ears and put on my best DirectBuy happy face. By this time I had already come to the realization that at some point in the last 10 years, Barry Bonds' agent has started to slip me whatever he was giving Barry and that this is what has happened.
So, after dealing with the quizzical looks at work - for those of you that have not had the contacts to glasses experience, those of us that do typically get several questions around the lines of "do you always wear glasses? No? They look good on you." - I decided it was clearly time for a new pair. I didn't get the questions, just the odd looks, which in my head clearly meant they were thinking - do I need to grab those glasses off his face and return them to the 10 year old that he stole them from?
I proceeded to go home, make dinner, drink 4 Hop Slams and watch 3 episodes of Breaking Bad (still in my glasses). At some point after Breaking Bad had broken my spirit and the Hop Slam had clouded my brain, I decided it was time to broach the subject with my wife. Rather than simply stating that I needed new glasses, I went the over-the-top dramatic route brought on by the 10% alcohol beer and rather emphatically stated that I have a fat head. All my wife could do was laugh - and tweet about the experience - and remind me that the headache I woke up with this morning may not be related to the Hop Slam.
Somehow, purchasing a new pair of glasses is still a debate that is raging in my head - it seems like such a waste of money considering I wear them in public about once every two years. In two years though, the glasses might go from simply irritating the top of my ears (yes, the frame lands squarely on top of my ear) to fitting only if I wear them like frameless spectacles.
For good measure, I leave you with George Costanza. Unfortunately I couldn't find a good clip of him in the lady frames.
After more than four years of memories, the Nintendo Wii that we purchased as our own wedding gift - the one that we drove to Portage to purchase, during the hectic 4 day span between our wedding and leaving for our honeymoon when we closed on our first house - appears to be on its last leg. I wasn't ready to say goodbye - we didn't even finish collecting all of the collectibles in the new Lego Harry Potter game and I only got about 15 minutes with Zelda.
I'm fairly certain that the Wii somehow detected the new connection between the PlayStation 3 we have had for a week and the TV. It heard me talking about the incredible difference in graphics between the PS3 and the Wii and it could tell I was spending more time with Uncharted 3 than any of the Wii games I own. When it started to feel neglected, it said, "I'll show these assholes. Remember the NES grey screen of death? I've got something even better in store. I'll screw with them by turning on, acting like I'm going to play the disc, then give them this screen every time..."
"When they go to the Operation Manual, they'll find the computer nerds favorite solution - remove the disc, turn off the Wii and try again." Why not just tell me to blow in the damn thing? I'm seriously considering that as an option. I feel like this lady. So, I googled it - turns out I'm not the only one to experience this issue, but it looks like it's probably going to require sending it in to Nintendo - I can only imagine how much that is going to cost me.
So for now, I'll use my extra time to do something fruitful like watch 30 for 30 on the PS3 and determine how much I can get selling back my old Wii games. Maybe my post will make its way to Nintendo in Jeff Jarvis fashion and they will have pity on me. I really would like to play the Wii again.
I haven't done too many sports posts on here, so I thought what better time to do so than today. With a realistic possibility of a rematch of Super Bowl XLII on the line today, a great Brady vs. Henson piece on ABC yesterday, and my morning filled with PS3 and Breaking Bad, I couldn't think of anything better than to share my thoughts on the most recent football dynasty.
Many people hate Bill Belichick and Tom Brady and with good reason. Some believe that Belichick should have been booted from the league a few years ago when he was caught cheating. I've never given any real thought to why I like these guys so much. Belichick especially is one of the least likable people in sports. They shrug off interviews, they run the score up and they keep on winning, things that would normally drive me nuts. Brady is too good looking for his own good and has kids with not one, but two super models - including one out of wedlock.
But I've got a few reasons to like this strange couple and outside of the Bengals and the Bears, there isn't a team in pro football that I root harder for to win a Super Bowl. I'm going to try to come up with 10 reasons, but I probably won't get that far:
No energy for a long, well thought out post this evening. A 7 hour meeting, followed by a 45 minute drive home (typical 15 minute) from work, eating some Slava wings that my wife generously brought home, drinking 2 Fat Tires and 2 Coors Lites, playing 2 hours of video games, a little couch surfing and watching two episodes of Breaking Bad has successfully turned my brain and the rest of my body to mush.
So, I'm laying in bed and my lovely wife is trying to watch a video online, which is constantly buffering. Which made me think, what if someone made a YouTube video which consisted entirely of the "buffering" symbol? It would have to be the most frustrating thing ever on the internet. It's like driving through a city full of skyscrapers refusing to believe that, after the first wrong turn, the foreign lady that yaps at you from your Garmin will ever be able to spit out anything other than recalculating. You keep waiting for some fantastic content, thinking that your internet connection just sucks, only to have the video stop - no content, just buffering. The only thing more frustrating would be if the buffering video ACTUALLY buffers because you really do have a terrible internet connection.
The only image I could come up with that relates to my thoughts right now is M.C. Escher.
Which led to this (sorry for the poor quality):
And at some point in there, I heard this song from The League. If you haven't watched, I understand that you may judge because it's a show about fantasy football - but give it a shot, it's well worth it if you're looking for an R rated sitcom.
Welcome inside my brain on Friday night at 10. I'll be back with something coherent tomorrow, assuming that my wife allows me to use the snow, which no doubt will be cleared off the roads by mid-day tomorrow, as an excuse not to leave the house.
As I was browsing CNN.com today, I came across the headline "Survivors describe Concordia ordeal." I'm sorry, "Survivors?" Are they really referring to the thousands of people who made it off the Costa Concordia among the 11 that have died as "survivors?" So I clicked in to the article to read more (sucker), where I found the headline on one of the videos "Ship sank quickly, like on the Titanic."
Now I was really interested, was one of the passengers seriously comparing this to the Titanic? "Sank" is a loose definition for what happened in the first place and "like on the Titanic" is absolutely ridiculous. This wreck isn't even comparable to the Andrea Doria. So I decided to watch the entire video, and while one of the interviewees uses similar words, CNN has doctored the headlines up to make the whole thing more sensational.
Watch for yourself, the passengers aren't the ones sensationalizing - CNN is doing that on their own. This is just one of many things that continues to piss me off about the news. Links and video tags online are just like the ridiculous commercials we see for the 9 o'clock news everyday about what household product is going to kill you tonight.
For what its worth, I feel terrible for the families of the victims and I don't doubt that Costa Concordia will pay dearly for this mistake, nor do I have any problem with the lawsuits that Costa will lose. I was on a cruise in November and I'd have been pretty freaking terrified if this happened to me. I am on edge every time the boat hits a decent sized wave - I can't imagine how I'd react if the "wave" I just hit turned out to be something more and the ship didn't quickly rock back the other direction.
That said I do think the media is doing everything it can to blow it out of proportion in the interest of gaining more viewers and more clicks for the news channels. And as I started typing this post I thought to myself, this seems way too familiar. Because once again, Seinfeld beat me to it and I feel like, as always, George was right. Damn you, Larry David.
Today I had a sobering realization. As I read the full text of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech (thanks to a re-tweet of a link to the article), I was moved nearly to tears. Those tears were not just from King's powerful words, but from my sudden consciousness of the fact that in my 29 years of life, nearly 20 years of formal education, and 4 years as a college history major, I have never read the entire speech. Never read the entire speech.
I am embarassed at my own laziness for not seeking out such a moving speech.
I am embarassed that my educators were unable to impress upon me the importance of King's words beyond "I have a Dream".
I am embarassed that during college, my favorite part of our campus-wide MLK day celebration was that Monday classes were cancelled, which meant an extra weekend drinking night.
I am embarassed that I nearly passed on reading King's speech just this morning in favor of spending more time with Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback.
I am embarassed at how adamantly I claim that I am not racist, yet I have failed to acknowledge one of the most influential moments in putting an end to institutional racism.
Okay, Nathan, so you are embarassed - what now? It's a good question and one I'm not sure I can answer today. I embarass myself a lot and it doesn't necessarily mean that some monumental change is coming. To me, more than anything, I see this as another part of my continuing education. If nothing else, it means I am more aware, more cognizant of my own deficiencies.
One thing that I did learn in college as a history major is that there is power in understanding the events of the past in order to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. I hope that this experience helps me remind the importance of that fact and take a greater interest in events like this one. I hope that I never again feel compelled to write a post like this one in which I must admit my ignorance of such a large step toward realizing King's dream "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'"
I'm sure that some who are reading this will brush it off as me getting sappy one day - as I probably would have with a similar article I came across in the past 29 years. I did not compose this post to flatter myself in to thinking I can change anyone, say anyone is a bad person that doesn't "celebrate" MLK day the "right" way, or condemn the actions of others who have lived under a similar cloud to my own.
My goal with this post is to open up a bit, let you see a different side of me, and be more accountable for my words and actions. I don't anticipate you seeing a lot of posts like this one on my blog - for one thing, despite its simplicity, this has been one of the most difficult things I've ever written.
And so, I look to words from Mr. King's speech which I first read today to help me put the past where it belongs and learn from my own ignorance.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
Before you click play, I would encourage you to heed the following: If you are offended by curse words, you may not appreciate this. While I haven't made it terribly vulgar, there are certainly a few things in here that are not for young children or those that have a problem with 4 letter words that make movies R-rated.
As promised, this is a mashup of videos that came up in either random searches, tweets, or were brought up by conversations we had at work over the last couple weeks. Make your best guess in the comments what happened at work that led to searching out some of these specific clips.
Looking forward to making this a regular column on my blog...
That's right - my first ever "mashup" video. After getting a brief, simple introduction to video editing, I've gotten bold purchased some file conversion software, learned how to download and convert YouTube videos and now I'm hard at work creating a video (another possible weekly post?) of "What We were Watching This Week." Basically it's going to be a mashup of random videos we found throughout the week as well as some great old clips which somehow came up in conversations recently. A few teasers, you'll see some classic Seinfeld, Airplane, a new take on the James Bond theme song and more. In the comments, I'm thinking we ought to let some people that have no idea why these videos came up, speculate on how they became conversation at work. Since my wife is leaving me again all day tomorrow and I'll mostly just be watching football, you should get a look at my first attempt by the end of the day. Hope you are looking forward to it as much as me.
On Sunday, I was the lucky recipient of one of four tickets (thank you again Mane!) to the Chicago Blackhawks vs the Detroit Red Wings at the United Center in Chicago. It was my first live NHL experience - and after the experience, I hope not my last! I might have been a little spoiled - with seats directly on center ice about 16 rows behind the Blackhawks bench, or with attending one of the biggest rivalries in the sport or with such a close game. Unfortunately, the Blackhawks couldn't pull off the W - after scoring 2 quick goals at the beginning of the first period, their offense was shut down. Detroit tied it in regulation with less than 5 minutes in the 3rd and then knocked in the winner in overtime.
On a night of firsts, I got to see Jimmy Hayes, a rookie for the Blackhawks take his first penalty shot ever - which, as you can see from the video, he missed. I figured why not keep the firsts going and make this the first video I've edited and posted to the web. It's definitely amateurish but for a video taken by my iPhone, decent quality.
I should also thank my cousin (a local hockey player) who was kind enough to sit by me through the entire game and answer all the questions that I had - unfortunately NHL 95 on my SEGA only taught me so much about the rules of the game. I definitely had some gaps in hockey knowledge which he helped fill in. And thanks to my uncle who, thanks to his connections, got me a puck (not one from the store at the UC) and my brother-in-law for inviting me to the game. Looking forward to the next one!
Ever since playing mousetrap as a kid (playing is a loose definition since, as I'm sure most people did, we just set up and released the trap instead of actually playing the game) and watching Back to the Future (and Back to the Future 3), I haven't wanted to make one of these. But since I'm too lazy to do a little bit of hard work to make a ridiculously simple task even easier, I'll enjoy the Rube Goldberg machines that others make. And considering I only live like an hour away, perhaps I'll make a trip down to Purdue to watch all the engineers with their machines at the National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.
As a part of making my blog more consistently readable, I thought I better come up with a weekly (or maybe even twice weekly column) highlighting some of my favorites from around the web. I'm sure I will expand this and become more sophisticated as I learn a bit more about what I can do with my blog, but for now I hope this is a good start.
I was always okay at math, but I was terrible at showing my work. I was not this clever.
Favorite Articles:
Change not quite as fast as we think? - This link is an article by Jeff Jarvis (do yourself a favor and follow him on twitter - @jeffjarvis - and while you're at it if you're reading this, follow me on twitter - @inpress83). Jarvis is the author of What Would Google Do, which I recently finished...
In the most unsurprising turn of events ever, Snoop Dogg was arrested for weed. What gets me about this is, get this - Snoop Dogg was in TEXAS. Stay the hell out of Texas Snoop, I can't believe you didn't see that one coming. My only question here - how does Snoop Dogg get a medical prescription for marijuana?!? I'd love to meet the doctor that wrote that prescription.
This is it - have at it (and please no anti-Bengals comments due to the banner, I'm still smarting from the loss today)
After looking for DVD's at Wal-Mart - side note, I'm typically anti-Wal Mart, but when your wife NEEDS to purchase the last Harry Potter movie before church, which starts at 10 on Saturday, there isn't much choice, plus Wal-Mart does not require turning left off of and on to the major highway in town - back to the point - looking for DVD's...
Over the last couple months, I've had the favor of getting to know several individuals involved with both The Exercise Coach franchise as well as with dlux Evolutionary Personal Training in Crown Point, Indiana - on off-shoot of the franchise offering much the same workout. Since I graduated high school and left my swimming career behind me, I have gradually gotten further and further out of shape (for those of you that are wondering - beer and cigarettes don't help).
I should really come up with a quiz or something here. I'm too lazy for that right now, so I'll just attempt to explain - there was some confusion at work today, which resulted in a co-worker, who was attempting to cast the part of an older, white-haired executive in our "office" screenplay, to ask if Leslie Frazier was dead. He's not, but unfortunately Leslie Nielsen is off the table to play the part. Linking to my blog on Twitter will probably provide my co-workers with additional fodder for Scene 95 (we'll see if they actually check the link).
