The Horror

It's now October, and all I can think is where are all my horror movies? It's been quite some time since a good one has been released, and there appears to be nothing on the horizon. Sure, Rachel Getting Married comes out this month, but I'm far too terrified to watch that. I've seen previews for Quarantine and it quite frankly looks terrible. Ditto The Haunting of Molly Hartley. What happened to the quality horror movies of the past? Or even the mediocre ones? Is the genre just tapped out? It seems like all that comes out anymore are formulaic teen slasher movies, or mindless gore fests like Saw 2-5? Yes, there is a fifth one of those steaming piles due out.

Whatever happened to Dark Castle Entertainment? They never put out a great movie, but at least they could be counted on to put out a watchable movie like Thirteen Ghosts or the House on Haunted Hill. I guess I spoke too soon. Upon further review, Dark Castle Entertainment is still putting out films, but their recent offerings have been awful. And what has Tim Burton been doing lately? Sure a lot of his movies are a little on the goofy side, but most are watchable.

I guess there are no scary stories left to tell. At this point I'd even take a well done remake or an old timey monster movie. The only Halloween-ish movie I'm at all interested in seeing is the Ricky Gervais/Greg Kinnear opus Ghost Town and that's really a comedy. But it reminds me of the Frighteners a bit and I really enjoyed that. It's tough times for horror fans.

Quote of the Day

Thanks to Pat for bringing this fantastic Holmgren quote to my attention. I don't know why, but it's hilarious to me.

Seattle's strange journey at wide receiver caused the team to bring back wayward former first-round pick Koren Robinson -- who, fittingly, strained a quad a day after signing his contract -- and trade a 2009 fifth-round pick to Denver for Keary Colbert. Speaking of Colbert, after watching him for a few days, coach Mike Holmgren told me: "The guy looks fantastic.'' Fantastic? "It's all relative,'' he said. "Right now, he looks like Jerry Rice.''

It's Over

The Mariners season that is. After sweeping the hated A's to finish the season, they played themselves out of the top pick in next year's draft, proving they really can't do anything right. I just hope that co-worker Bob is right when he says it doesn't matter. His theory (and he's been right before) is that Stephen Strasburg, the consensus top player in the draft and ace pitcher for Team USA in the Olympics, will command too high an asking price for the Nationals and will conveniently fall in the lap of the M's with the second pick. Not only that, but the Nats will refuse to deal with his agent - the evil Scott Boras - and that Strasburg, from San Diego State, has said that he doesn't want to play on the east coast and he and Boras will do whatever it takes to keep him on the west coast. Sounds reasonable, but we'll have to wait and see.

Regardless, the M's put on their annual end of season party for their employees tonight and it was a pretty good time. With all the guests that were brought, 1,100 people were in attendance. The food wasn't fancy but was tasty. Some comfort food was in order after the disaster that was the 2008 season, so they served up chicken pot pie, mac & cheese, and of course some salad, bread, a variety of desserts and drinks. Nothing fancy, but tasty.

Several prizes were given away. For the 8th consecutive year I emerged empty handed. I didn't get the tickets to watch a game in the owners suite. I missed out on the trip for 2 to spring training. I didn't even get one of the MANY items autographed by Kenji Johjima, leading me to start the rumor that he won't be back next year. To date the only memorabilia I've received from the ownership is a Joel Pinero autographed ball I received 2 years ago. Yes, that was after he left the team.

Matt Tuiasosopo and Ryan Rowland-Smith were in attendance. I didn't wander over to meet Ryan, but did talk to Matt briefly. Let me tell you, that man could have any woman he wants. In the short time I was there, I became the unofficial photographer as the crowd of women around him shoved cameras in my hand to take their picture with him. Ah, to be young, good looking, and rich. I refrained from asking him the 3 top questions on my mind though. I wanted to ask if Zack is still in the NFL somewhere, but figured he probably didn't want to talk about his brothers. I then wanted to ask him if he wants to punch Ichiro in the face, but thought that line of questioning might get me in trouble. Most importantly, I wanted to ask when he, Zack, and Marques were going to start pumping out some kids to revitalize the struggling UW football program. I'm pretty sure that would have gotten me fired.

I probably should have warned him that I've got a fairly good track record of players I've met leaving the team shortly after. Most recently I've met Adam Jones. Sean Green is still here, but Scott Atchison is history, Willie Bloomquist won't be here much longer. Mike Morse has probably played his last game.

Wrapping it up, I'd just like to say that hands down, the worst prize given away was a game used bat from Ben Davis. Where did they find that? Also, I'm pretty proud of myself for covertly taking a picture of my boss' boss taking a seat in my section to talk on her cell phone during Saturday's game. I'm pretty sure if I got caught doing that it would be a firing. Unfortunately she was turned the other way and I didn't want to risk the inevitable wrath that would have come from waiting for her to look my way. That being said, she got a few beers in her tonight and was way friendlier than I've ever seen her before. Friendly to the point that I may or may not have been on the receiving end of some, uh, good will. I don't think so, but one witness seems to think there was some minor flirtation going on. That would be just my luck though, the only woman I could attract being one who is 10+ years older than me and universally disliked by her employees. Sounds about right.

Sorrow

I almost never listen to the End, but it seems like every time I flip by there lately I have to stop so I can listen to Bad Religion before they move on to some of their usual alterna-crap. For the time being at least they are contributing to society rather than detracting from it.

Today's Weird News

Ben & Jerry are considering putting the cone back in the ice cream cone according to this story. The real tragedy here is that after reading the whole article about PETA pressuring them to make ice cream out of human breast milk instead of cows milk, that was the best I could come up with.

Luckily, battery charges were dropped against a West Virginia man accused of farting and fanning it toward a police officer. Even though he got away with it, I think the idea stinks.

Am I the only one who thinks that skirt is a little too short on the Sarah Palin action figure? And what the hell is strapped to her leg? And why is she wearing a Matrix trench coat? And who is the target audience for such a toy? All questions I'll never have an answer to.

Finally, a quiz! Which of these McDonalds burgers is fresh and which is 12 years old? If you picked the one on the left, goodwork. I'm loving it.

Good Bye WaMu

I'm sure you've all heard by now that another local company has been sold. In what's been a tough week - the sale of Safeco to Liberty Mutual officially closed on Monday - the FDIC seized WaMu and later in the day it's assets were purchased by JP Morgan Chase Bank. I haven't been able to figure out what effect this will have, and most likely nobody will know for a while. But I saw that the stock has dropped to $.44 a share in after hours trading. I've been thinking about buying some but have been unable to determine what will become of the shares. I'm sure JP Morgan will right the ship, so if the shares are converted to JP Morgan stock, then it could be a good investment. On the other hand, it's possible that the shares are now worthless. Anybody with some insight is welcomed whole heartedly. And I really hope that all the WaMu employees in the area are able to retain their jobs.

**Update**
Per the Seattle PI, don't buy any WaMu stock.

It's probably worthless. Stockholders, who had already seen shares plunge 95 percent since their October 2007 high of $36.47, have the lowest priority for claims against WaMu.

"Equity investors generally get the short end of the stick on these kinds of things," said "Stock Trader's Almanac" author and publisher Jeff Hirsch. "The company goes belly up, you lose."

What little remains of the company that used to own WaMu will go toward paying off creditors ahead of common shareholders. The creditors' claims are likely to be far larger than the money available to pay them.

Preferred shareholders, and even bond-holders, are likely to get cents on the dollar. Investors who hold senior notes or other debt will be notified by the FDIC as to their treatment as claimants of the receivership."

Everybody Hates Ichiro?

According to the latest news, a "clubhouse insider" said that the rest of the team hates him and at one point there was even talk of several players ganging up on him and administering a beat down. While I'm certain that he's arrogant, I still find it very hard to believe that this is true. I think it's a made up story by a sports writer with an axe to grind who'd like to see Ichiro traded. But since the only player to come out and defend Ichiro was JJ Putz, who knows. Firing up a couple brain cells, I can't think of too many suspects who might have said that. Carlos Silva has been pretty vocal about his dislike of some of the guys in the clubhouse, but since he's been outspoken, I have a hard time believing he'd turn anonymous now. The only other player I can come up with is Erik Bedard, but that's just because he seems like a jerk who would hide behind anonymity. But then again he never talks to the press. So what's the consensus, is there any truth to this story or is it complete b.s.?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I'm not a fan of Jim Carrey, so I put off watching this for a long time in spite of good reviews. The premise is pretty good - the technology exists to wipe bad memories from your mind and so people have all memories of exes erased. While interesting, I still felt that it fell short in it's execution. The story telling is a little stylized - jumping around in time and not following a time line. In the years to come it will probably come across as dated but is in vogue now so don't wait too long to watch. Very early on, it becomes clear what direction the movie is headed, and from that point on I couldn't help feeling that it was taking too long getting there. I thought there was too much filler and it could easily have been trimmed by 25 - 30 minutes. The performances by most of the actors was very good though. I hate to admit it, but Jim Carrey can really pull off some quality dramatic performances. To me he is a lot like Robin Williams in that in comedies both come across as so desperate for approval that the performances are way over the top and more annoying than amusing but when they dial it back for dramas they can be quite compelling. Sadly, the same can't be said of Kirsten Dunst. I think her best performances were in Interview With The Vampire and Jumanji and her career has been in a steady decline since. But winding this up, I'll say that the Spotless Mind is a good solid middle of the road movie. Could have been better, but at the same time could have been worse.

Friday Jr

Welcome to Friday Jr! In order to make the week more tolerable, I've had to come up with a way to make the week seem shorter somehow and that way is to start referring to Thursday as Friday Jr. It's almost Friday, but not quite. I don't know how that relates to the rest of the week, I guess that makes Monday Friday's wicked step mother. I'm just working on one day at a time for now, so happy Friday Jr.

Useless Trivia

What Academy Award–winning Hollywood director gave his three daughters middle names inspired by where they were conceived?

Seahawks

Special thanks to the boy (aka my brother) and his wife for not only giving me Seahawks tickets for my birthday, but for selecting a game that didn't require me to wear a bag over my head. This was a glorious ass whooping in spite of the fact that I don't know who half the guys on the offense are anymore. I guess we'll have to wait a couple weeks to find out if the Seahawks have finally come out of hibernation or if the Rams are just that bad. But at least we should get a couple more guys healthy by then.



In other football news, I'm shocked at the beat down that Miami put on the Pats. But in a way it felt really good. Bostonians are badly in need of a reality check. I officially don't know what to think of Miami and Atlanta this year. And I guess you can throw Oakland into that too. Is this a fluke for the Dolphins or are they really putting the pieces back together? Is it all because Ronnie Brown is healthy again? And Atlanta has looked really good in 2 of their 3 games. Not much of a sample size I know, but intriguing none the less. And the Raiders have looked decent in 2 of their games despite looking horrific in their opener. I don't know if any of them can keep it up. But they are ruining my pig skin pick 'em.

Netflix

I'm offering some free advertisement here since it benefits me. Netflix is currently offering a limited time promotion (expires Halloween) in which I will get a bonus disc shipped to me if I sucker (I mean recruit) a new member into joining - luring them in with one month free. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head who would be interested that isn't already a member or a former member, but what the hell. If you go to netflix.com/tellafriend and enter one of the following priority codes, then we're both good to go: M966510092565, M906500092595, M956550092905, or M906530092915.

Sorry for the shameless advertising. Please resume whatever it was you were doing. I will go back to providing commercial free entertainment now. Or perhaps "entertainment" is more accurate.

Median

While waiting for the bus at the evergreen point park & ride the other day, I couldn't stop looking at the striped section of median and wondering what purpose it serves. You can see daylight under it, and you can see lynch pins at both ends so it is obviously movable, but how does that help anything? If they were closing down the 520 bridge, you would want to stop traffic about half a mile back at the last exit. Except that there is another on ramp later. But they could block that on ramp off too. Maybe blocking the lanes just before the bridge is easier than blocking them earlier or in multiple places. And I guess if there is an opening in the median, cars can turn around there. I guess I've worked it all out now. Thanks for playing along at home.

$200 Bill

Be on the lookout for this fake $200 bill. One unfortunate cashier at a Food Lion didn't recognize it as a counterfeit and was swindled. Any of us could have made that mistake. It's authentic from the portrait of George Bush on the front to the depiction of the White House on the back complete with signs on the lawn proclaiming "We like ice cream" and "USA deserves a tax cut." So if someone tries to pass one off on you, you will now know better.

Hapless

So far this year, all Seattle sports teams can be described as hapless. Every one of them has been a disaster so far. I even question the Mariners ability to lose out and secure the top pick in the draft. I still fear that they'll find a way to screw that up. But my real point here is that the Seahawks are still early enough in the season to be able to turn things around and become hapfull. I don't know if that's a real word, but I believe I just invented it. I plan to use it often enough that it works it's way into everyday speech. So here's hoping for a hapfull performance from the Seahawks on Sunday. And maybe even the Huskies will look somewhat hapfull against the evil Stanford Cardinal.

Avenging Unicorn

I'm not usually one to collect or play with toys, but have to admit that I'm amused by the Avenging Unicorn play set. I'm not sure what exactly the unicorn is avenging, but I assume being driven to extinction. Who knew it was the fault of mimes? It also appears that what looks to be a hippie and maybe a mormon missionary may have been involved as well. Whatever the reason, it should be clear, don't get on a unicorn's bad side. I was able to find a silent movie on youtube of the afore mentioned unicorn in action, but alas it was three and a half minutes long and not all that interesting. If you would like to catch a few seconds of it to sate your curiosity, however, here you go. It does feature some enjoyable ragtime music. I'm pretty sure it's by Scott Joplin but since the only songs of his I can name off the top of my head are The Entertainer and The Maple Leaf Rag, and it isn't either of those, I can't tell you the name of it. I would guess one of his other rags, perhaps the Fig Leaf Rag.


Anyway, I've gotten off track a bit. Also available for your pleasure is the Avenging Narwal. It is teaching those evil little cute baby seals a lesson as well bringing justice to a penguin and for no reason whatsoever, a koala bear. And apparently both are available right here in Seattle at what has to be the weirdest toy store on earth - Archie McPhee. I can't believe I've never heard of that place before.


Finally, to complete my super, off track adventure, I found a super cool video of some guy named Adam Fulara playing the Maple Leaf Rag on a double neck guitar. This is one you have to watch. Damn I wish I could do that. This guy is 100% awesome.

Useless Trivia

In 1900, 1/3 of all automobiles in New York City were powered by electricity.

Unfortunately there is still only 1 car in the world that is powered by Ed Begley Jr's sense of self satisfaction.

Million Dollar Idea

This morning I saw an ad for some digital picture frames. Then I thought to myself, you know, people like to carry around pictures in their wallets, somebody should make a wallet sized digital picture frame. Shortly after it hit me - they already do make those - they're called cell phones and I've got one in my pocket already. And that's when I realized I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. It's also when I realized why I'm not a millionaire with ideas like that. Sooner or later something better will come to me.

Where's Van Damme

I've you've been wondering where Jean Claude Van Damme has been in recent years, wonder no more. Apparently he's been on a Brazilian reality show which could very well be called Dancing With The Brazilian Stars as far as I know. It's a shame that such quality programming isn't available here in the states.

Trampoline Hijinx

I believe this qualifies him for a Darwin Award honorable mention.

How Not To Protect Your Car During A Hurricane

Shamelessly stolen from here. And yes, that is a garden hose, not a rope. Good luck fearless auto owner.

It's Finally Here

Top scientists have been toiling round the clock to develop the next major breakthrough. Certain to change the world, this is certain to be looked back upon as one of the major achievements of our time. As I'm sure you've guessed by now, I'm talking about 3-ply toilet paper. How have we managed to progress this far as a society without it? This is the life changing event we've all been waiting for. And now that this mystery has finally been cracked, the scientist should now be free to find the cure for cancer.

Short Movie Roundup

I don't know if I've been subscribed to Netflix for too long and have finally run out of good movies that I haven't seen or if I've just lacked good judgement in my recent rental activity, but I have seen some really bad movies lately.

I rented The Warriors and Dreamgirls because they are in HD and I've been hoping to utilize my HD DVD player a little more. Both were huge mistakes. The Warriors was one of the stupidest, worst acted movies I've ever seen. A 1979 movie about gangs in New York, I really don't have the words to describe how ridiculous it was other than to say that there was a gang of mimes, a gang of guys in baseball uniforms, need I say more?

Dreamgirls I expected to be similar to Ray or any of the other music related movies that have come out in recent years. Even though it's not my kind of music, I thought I could sit through the music for the story, after all it got good reviews. What I wasn't expecting was a full blown musical with very little story. I can usually sit through almost any bad movie, but only made it a little more than halfway through Dreamgirls before giving up. It really was like fingernails on a chalk board. Maybe worse.

The Forbidden Kingdom I actually enjoyed. It had it's goofy parts, but I expected that from a Kung Fu film. How can you go wrong with Jackie Chan and Jet Li teaming up? Throw in some great scenery, a couple of hot women, and some supernatural forces to explain the flying around and you really can't go wrong. There was plenty of room for improvement but it was still pretty good.

I followed that up with Monster Squad. Perhaps feeling a bit nostalgic for the 80's, this seemed a little like a low budget Goonies knock off. I really can't recommend this to anyone. When kids are saying, "the creature stole my twinkie" and "I kicked the wolfman in the nards," you know you're in for some bad times.

I'm currently well into Before the Devil Knows You're Dead and so far I'm less than impressed. The story is a bit on the melodramatic side, and the editing is pretty annoying. I don't remember putting this one in my queue and don't remember why I would have rented it, but it does have Marisa Tomei in it looking better than I remembered. I don't know where she's been all these years but she needs to get more work. Other than that this movie doesn't have much going for it.

I Swear

..... if I have to see just one more of those retarded "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials, I will blow up Steve Jobs house. It seems that Apple's target market is 15 year olds. If you actually own a Mac, you should feel insulted. If you aren't insulted, I owe you a punching.

Hurricane Ike

This man is being forcibly evacuated from Galveston. It's hard to believe this isn't a photoshopped image. Since the source is the Houston Chronicle, I assume it's a real photo though. I just hope that the people who didn't evacuate remain safe. I can't imagine people wanting to stick it out in the face of something like this though.

Randomness

This morning on the bus ride in to work, I couldn't help wishing that buses had cup holders. Maybe that conflicts with their no food or drink on the bus stance, but I don't care. I couldn't do my daily reading because one hand was occupied by holding my coffee. Come to think of it, I guess cup holders would be used primarily as garbage holders anyway, so maybe it's just as well that they don't have them.

I also noticed this morning that my driver looked a lot like the guy from Blues Traveler. I think his name is John Popper. But how could a guy who got pulled over doing 100+ while drunk get a job with Metro? I think it must not have been him.

I had to side step a dead squirrel on the way into the office and all I could think of was how much I don't want to eat at Quiznos. That was some successful marketing campaign.

1 Week

One week into the 2008 season and the Seahawks are in complete disarray. After losing to the Bills, the team has in one way or another lost Ryan Plackemeier, Rob Sims, Maurice Morris, Nate Burleson, Jordan Kent, and Justin Forsett. They have also managed to lose my faith in Tim Ruskell. I really don't think he knows what he's doing. Just like the Jaguars, it has me pondering the meaningless of life.


Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

New Show

I've come up with what will be the next hit tv show - Barbecuing With The Stars. Every week world renown chefs will barbecue with the likes of Warren Sapp or Art Donovan or Charles Barkley. There will be a theme ingredient that must be used. It might be ribs, or brats, or tri tip, but that ingredient must be used. The celebrity who is able to consume the most without vomiting would win. Perhaps an obstacle course or some sort of physical activity post gorging would be involved as well.

This is so brilliant because it combines two of America's favorite past times: celebrities and gluttony. I'm telling you, not since Trading Medications has there been such and exciting show.

Do You Want To Be Rich?

Do you want to be a superstar? Baby you already are, you already are.

I don't know why, but I've got the itch to listen to old Sweetwater again, but what are you going to do? I've actually had the song Everything Will Be Alright stuck in my head for a couple days, and for some reason can't find tabs for it on the internet anywhere and am not a good enough guitarist to figure it out on my own, but since I think I posted the video for that song last time I got the itch, I'll go with Superstar this time and I'll also go with the unbelievably long run on sentence that should, by rights, cost me my grammar god status. This song gives me Rich Amaral flashbacks though.

Incidentally, this may be the only video ever shot on the observation deck of the space needle. If there has been another one, I don't know about it. Also, to the best of my recollection, the only video ever shot on the Bremerton ferry was the MXPX tune Move To Bremerton. Hands down the biggest band to ever come out of my high school, they were a couple years younger than me and I never knew any of them, but my brother was friends with at least one of the guys but I couldn't tell you which one. I guess that's not saying much though since I couldn't name another band from my school. I did hear that one of the guys I knew - Ryan Carter - tried out for the Black Crows though. I don't know if there was a better guitarist or if he just didn't smoke enough weed, but he didn't get the gig and his dreams of glory died there. I'm not sure what became of him, but probably nothing interesting. This trip down memory lane has been brought to you by Sweetwater. Please watch their video below.

Troubling

I just got home to find that there were not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, oh wait, there were four police cars with lights on at my complex. Sorry, I got a little carried away there. And actually there may have been more than four, that's all I saw. I'm not sure what was going on, but it couldn't have been good. I think that it's the not knowing that bothers me the most. I know that curiosity killed the cat, but more than anything I want to walk up to one of the police cars and ask what's going on. But the memory of the last time something similar happened still lingers in my mind.

The year was many years ago. I refuse to narrow it down more than that. I was living in West Seattle at the time and had drifted off to yet another dream filled sleep when I was awakened from my slumber by the sound of a helicopter. I peered out the window to see police cars with lights flashing blocking some of the area streets. The closest officer was 2 houses away. Like tonight, I resisted the urge to go out and ask what was going on, if for no other reason that it would involve me getting dressed. I would have none of that.

It wasn't until the next day that I talked to one of my neighbors who had gone out to investigate. The officer he spoke with responded with, "get back in your house, lock the door, and don't open it for anybody." I don't remember how I eventually found out that there had been an armed robbery at a convenience store down the street and the suspect had fled in my direction. I assume they eventually caught him. And so tonight I'll keep an eye on the proceedings from the confines of my home. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the details. I'll call up security if I have to.

Good Sports News

In what was an otherwise horrible weekend for Seattle sports, there was one slim ray of sunshine in it all. That's right, I've come up with a new nickname that I'm sure will catch on like wild fire. Tired of the tongue twister name Feierabend, I've taken to calling him Bender. And what's more, Bender beat the hated Yankees today taking him one step closer to making the 2009 rotation.

I still can't rationally discuss the UW - BYU game, but would like to thank good buddy Sheehan for the ticket. My only job was to be the good luck charm and I let him and everyone else down. I also can't rationally discuss the Seahawks debacle. I also now owe Shelvis a beating for being a Bills fan. Expect it when you least expect it Shelvis.

12 String

My interest in acquiring a 12 string is rearing it's ugly head again. I've had these desires before, but they've always passed before I pulled out the credit card. If I succumb this time, it won't be a $3100 Taylor beauty like this one I'm sad to say. Maybe the $400 Ibanez or the $400 Ovation. I guess I'll have to schedule some play time when I come into some money.

Once this toy is safely in my hands, I'll post information on upcoming shows. I just don't know if I want to restring and tune all those strings. That's going to be a pain in the ass.

Quote of the Day

"When I see someone wearing Crocs, I immediately know we have nothing in common."

This article actually isn't all that interesting, but I couldn't agree more with the comment. Crocs are so hideous that I actually have to fight back the waves of violence that I feel rising when I see someone wearing them. I'm just going to come right out and say it: people who wear Crocs are evil. Yes, evil and they should all be deported to Gitmo.

Sir Nils Olav

I don't know how this story slipped past me, but thanks to go out to the Mistress of Shenanigans for bringing it to my attention. As you may or may not know, I disapprove of giving animals people names, let alone first and last names, but leave it to the crazy Norwegians to promote a penguin to the rank of Colonial-in-Chief and then knight said penguin. That is some hard core crazitude. Follow the link to see a video of Sir Nils Olav inspecing the troops.

Batman Neck

I woke up yesterday morning with a mild case of Batman neck. I don't know if it was unfortunate pillow arrangement that was to blame or if it was the old sleeping in an awkward position rearing it's ugly head again. What I do know is that my neck was sore and it was painful to turn my head to the right without turning my entire torso.

It's starting to fade now, but there's got to be a better way than just waiting it out. I would think that heat might help, but for some reason have never tried it. Pain killers don't seem to do much good. Whatever the secret technique is, I'm committed to discovering it. Not only is Batman neck unpleasant, it's humiliating too. Plus it makes it hard to check my blind spot when driving.

Several brief unrelated topics

I find myself in need of a haircut again. I'm starting to look like the Heat Miser. I think it's only been 3 weeks since the last one. I miss my long hair, getting my hair cut every month is becoming a real nuisance. I need to get back on the every 6 months (or so) plan. I liked that. If I didn't get around to it for a month or 2, it was no problem.

I've been bitching about the cold spring and the cold summer for months now, but at least it isn't snowing here like it is in Kenya. Most of the residents had never seen snow before. Where's my damn global warming that Al Gore keeps promising me?

The football player formerly known as Chad Johnson has apparently legally changed his name to Chad Ocho Cinco. Chad will take the field in a jersey with Ocho Cinco on the back on Sunday, and official Ocho Cinco jersey's will go on sale shortly. I think it would be terribly funny if he were traded and had to change his number. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. But I do want to thank him for doing his part for the NFL and taking the spotlight off of Favre. I knew I could count on one of those crazy ass wide receivers.

Finally, after seeing this article, I've decided that a trip to the UK is in order. We need a price war like locally.

Smoking Jacket

I think I want a smoking jacket. Unfortunately, in this day and age they are a little hard to come by and a little pricey. A quick search of the internet turned up the stylish number on the left from Salvatore Ferragamo. But with a hefty price tag of $1,660, I don't think that will ever hang in my closet. More likely is this number. Quite a bit more affordably priced at $51, it still allows it's wearer to feel pompous. Made of imitation silk, it's what I imagine emperor Qin Shi Huandi wore while smoking.


I'm making it my mission to bring the smoking jacket back into style. But if Hugh Hefner couldn't do it, I'm not sure I can either.


And now for today's completely random plot twist: I like toast. I had 2 slices of toast with dinner and my apartment still has the delightful aroma wafting about. I don't know why, but just an ordinary piece of toasted white bread with some butter on it is a treat.

Where's Hugh Jackman

I was just thinking that I hadn't seen Hugh Jackman in anything in a while - The Prestige is the last thing I can remember him in and that was close to 2 years ago. I know he's working on a Wolverine movie, but it seems like he's been pretty inconspicuous for a guy who so recently was one of the biggest box office draws. And according to IMDB, he hasn't been in anything I've heard of since then, except lending his voice to Happy Feet (which I didn't see). Is this the end of Hugh Jackman?

While looking around for info, I stumbled upon the trailer for Ghost Town. It looks kind of like a comedy Sixth Sense but without any kids. I think Ricky Gervais is pretty funny in most of the stuff he's in and so have high hopes for this one.

I'm Back

But for how long..... I've been so tired and busy lately that I really haven't had the time or interest in blogging. I had a half written post about the Seahawks that I finally had to delete when I realized that there had been 2 games since I started writing it. And as if that weren't bad enough, it seems like everyone around me has been experiencing some degree of pain, suffering, or tragedy. There have been some really strange issues, some issues I don't know about - I just know something's wrong, and one particular friend that is going through something so bad that I can hardly think about it without wanting to cry.

It's been difficult to find the motivation to talk about anything but on the positive side, has significantly curtailed my normal whining. It's really hard for me to complain about my petty problems with some of the issues other people have been dealing with. And to everyone who is going through difficult times, it may not mean much but you're in my thoughts and prayers.

That being said, let me lighten the mood by bringing you this story about an Illinois man who lit another man's pants on fire while he slept, presumably because he was a liar. And it should go without saying that alcohol was involved.

In completely unrelated news, my continuous search to find someone to play tennis with came to an end today. It's been over a year since I've been able to talk anyone into playing tennis and my physical therapist finally ended the drought. I'm happy to report that even with a mangled finger, being severely out of practice, and being out of shape, I did all right. I've referred to myself as the Babe Ruth of tennis before, but today managed to keep all of the balls inside the fences. That's quite an accomplishment for me.

Daily Dilemma

Tonight for dinner I'm having some tasty french bread dipped in olive oil. Now olive oil is something I splurge on - I always get the extra virgin because it's extra delicious. As I'm eating though, I can't help wondering what kind of olives it's made from. Black olives? Green olives? Kalamata olives? Some blend of olives? I scoured the bottle for answers but found nothing. I even went so far as to read everything I could ever want to know and then some on Wikipedia but am still lacking answers. Why would the oil companies be hiding this information from me? Is the mafia behind it all. I have very nearly lost interest since I'm now full, but one day I'll get to the bottom of this, even if it means I have to go into the witness protection program.