Some weekend activities

Jacob and I are going to see the movie Persepolis tonight at the Fox Tower. It is one of my favorite books and it looks like the author did the artwork as well. Anyone want to go with us?

Also... I STILL have not tried my new bowling ball. Friday night, is there anything else going on because if not we need to go bowling.

My Dharma initiative beer is chilling in the fridge in anticipation of Thursday LOST return.

Super Bowl Sunday

I will be watching the big (Packerless) game, the kickoff of which appears to be 3pm. It is a little hard to tell since the pre-game show, I swear to god, starts at 11am! That is just excessive.

In any case, everyone is invited as usual, I'll probably get it turned on at 1 or 2, but if anyone does want to come over earlier and make a day of it I am good with that too. We can just hang out like normal people rather than NFL freaks.

In my case, since I don't watch the pro bowl, this is the end of the season, so I will be in mourning and wearing black (well my socks anyway).

I hope to see you all there!

Bad ABC, No Biscuit.

FYI, I edited the LOST event on the calendar to start at 9pm instead of 8. ABC's been announcing that it's a "two-hour premiere event", but it turns out the first hour is just one of those stupid clip shows to get people caught up. As if that would even work.

I wouldn't be opposed to watching the first hour as a recap of sorts, but I'm definitely not married to the idea.

my kind of politics

do you love Barack?

Things heard at work today:

• The phrase "stakeholder buy-in"


• Comments about food poisoning.


• The ***hole who blows his nose every ****ing day, multiple times throughout the day, as loudly as possible, seemingly for as long as possible - twice in a row. Picture either: two full, consecutive breaths blowing unmercifully, forcefully, into a trumpet with no intention of making anything remotely musical, or two full breaths expended solely trying to make a farting sound (mouth to palm) as loudly as possible. Irritating doesn't begin to describe it. Does Tonya Harding still live in the area?


• An offer to extend my contract when I thought they were actually about to kick my lazy *** out of here before the end of my contract.

I've been thinking about UFOs a lot this week (as I'm making a promo about a local UFO sighting). I think its obvious the US governement is trying to cover it up anything, but they sure do a piss poor job of coming up with excuses. Today: "ohh yeah... our aircraft WERE over stephensville texas, we just... umm forgot about it...." Come on! At least blame it on global warming, everyone would believe that!

But really, if some of the UFOs are visitors from somewhere else, what do they want? Are they just checking us out? Seeing if we're friendly? Are we some sort of tourist destination? Like we would pay to visit the moon? or go on Safari?

And on that note- back to editing- but... someone put this on the calandar.

Aliens

I think you put your finger on it, Kristi. It is just not possible for me to believe that we are the only life in the trillions of planets in the universe. Equally improbable to me is that a culture that was advanced enough to travel

6.1724248 × 10¹³ miles

(that is 61,724,248,000,000 or, yes, almost 62 trillion miles) in one of their lifetimes (as a point of reference, the speed of light is 670,616,629.2 miles per hour, and even at this unattainable speed, it would take 10.5 years) could be duped by any instance of the pentagon or US government is pretty hard to believe.

On top of that, they would have to identify our planet out of trillions to come visit, cause you know there ain't any sidetrips with those distances.

Chuck Klosterman Will Save Music

I almost finished Fargo Rock City in one day and while I'm not going to peddle the book on anyone unless they are incredibly interested in Rock Culture, it is awesome to read things from a high and mighty music critic that make you feel good about any music you listen too. All he does is write about how much he absolutely LOVES glam metal and heavy metal. He breaks everything down associated with it.

My favorite thing he said was something like that Tubthumping by Chumbawamba will always be more important culturally than the grammy winning Bob Dylan album Time Out of Mind released that same year. It definitely says more about that time's culture than Dylan did, if for no other reason than its record sales. If you don't believe it, who would you be more interested to listen to again in 20 years? If you say Dylan's Time Out of Mind you're a liar because while anyone can always argue the technical and talent merits of a band, you can't argue how important and significant that fucking song was in 1997. That's right, from that logic, Insane Clown Posse is more important than probably 99% of all bands from the last 15 years. It doesn't mean its good or bad, but its definitely more important than any pretentious art-folk from a 3 piece in Montreal. Ridiculous as that may seem, I definitely stand by that.

UFOs

Have you heard all this talk in Texas? I know I'm a major conspiracy theorist- so I'm wondering what do you guys think? Are there UFOs? Or is it just some strange "Norththern Lights-esque" phenomenon? I'm on the fence about it honestly. I guess I think they're out there, but the idea of them coming and hovering over our planet repeatedly, for YEARS, and not doing anything seems... unlikley. Then again... maybe we just can't see them.

Or maybe you're all aliens and I'm the only one whos actually human.... Spooky...

Re: Seriously

What is weird about that? Where its being premiered or the movie? If its the fact that they made a sequel, that is AWESOME. Harold and Kumar was fucking awesome (that is probably strongly based on the fact that I smoke the weed). I can tell you right now that watching that movie will rule and I will love it. I'm not sure if it will have the same great premise of the first one. I really love buddy movies. Dude Where's My Car?, Blues Brothers, Lethal Weapon, Half Baked, Bad Boys (NOT BAD BOYS 2), Bill and Ted, Turner and Hooch. You can't go wrong.

Deadly

I have come to hate the word DEADLY. If you wonder why, just watch the local news.

Seriously

I swear to god I am not making this up.

Premiering this year at the SXSW Film Festival: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

Apoplectic Fits

Last I heard, May 20th, though that release date is potentially a leak - they haven't announced an official one through proper channels. You'd think they'd want to release it ASAP here, as it's selling like crazy in Japan, already broke a million copies. And with America's general fitness craze...

Generally, when you see a release date like Jan. 1st, April 1st, etc., at retailers, it's false. When a company believes a game will come out in a certain fiscal quarter but doesn't have an official release date, they'll commonly use the first or last day of that quarter as a placeholder in their computer systems.

What really kills me about the Smash delay is that they said they want to "polish" the game more...yet it's only been delayed a week in Japan. WTF Nintendo? Why?

Help Me Bobby Kenobi... You're My Only Hope

I have been sitting in her in anticipation of the Wii Fit release for months. I kept reading January 1st 2008, but alas not even a release date on Amazon. When ohhh when will my wii fit come? where ohh where could it be?

God Dammit

For those of you who persist in believing that we live in a good and just world, I bring you these tidings: Super Smash Bros. Brawl is now delayed until March 9th.

Well, hell.

"Fuck it, split 'em."

Thought you Vegas-bound folks might get a kick out of this:

Dying to Lose In Vegas: The $3 Blackjack Death March

AFI honors

That is the american film institute, they have a casual thing every year to honor 10 movies and tv shows. I seem to be completely out of touch, because very few of these have i actually seen (those in bold):

The films honored at the lunch were “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Into the Wild,” “Juno,” “Knocked Up,” “Michael Clayton,” “No Country For Old Men,” “Ratatouille,” “The Savages” and “There Will Be Blood.”

The honored TV programs were “Dexter,” “Everybody Hates Chris,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Longford,” “Mad Men,” “Pushing Daisies,” “The Sopranos,” “Tell Me You Love Me,” “30 Rock” and “Ugly Betty.”

TORNADO!

My work is such a cluster f*%$ today. If you want to know more about the Tornado just turn on the TV. It on EVERY channel.
Why? I'm not sure. I suppose we are mourning the loss of a number of trees and back yard sheds.

"Stay tuned to KOIN News 6 for continuing tornado coverage."

That Looks GOOD

I'm serious. I'll get one of those.

Famous Bowl

This is the funniest thing I've read in a long time.

Also, second on the birthday well-wishes. You made it another year! Congratulations!

Happy Birthday Josh!!!

Can't wait for a little M&6P action later tonight.

Sometimes my job is alright

So... just found out the stories we're doing for sweeps. Nothing too exciting except for this.
The reason we're doing the story- the company is based in good ole' PDX.

WARNING: Don't open the link at work.

M6P Tomorrow?

I can't speak for Gloria, but I think I'm going to stay home. We'll be going to the Moon and Sixpence for my birthday tomorrow night though (can't say no to the band and darts).

I don't have a stove

so I don't give a shit how expensive organic produce is. All my food is brought to me on a plate, or handed to me in a bag. I'm almost positive it is not organic. I don't know how much a gallon of milk costs. I should be president; I am supremely qualified.

Pub crawl. Good.

If you want to avoid just one nasty thing in your food chain, I would strongly recommend buying organic meat as that one thing. All of the meat that I do not buy is either organic or not and so I would know.

PUB CRAWLIN'

I can't believe no one's mentioned the annual January 8 pub crawl yet. It's tomorrow people!

Anyone? Amnesia, Bye and Bye, then M6P?

Kristi - sounds like good advice.

Buying Organic

I generally am too cheap to buy organic... but I heard this once and I think its a great philosophy to use when you're making that cost vs. healthy decision.

If you eat the skin of the vegetable/fruit its a good idea to buy organic, if you're just going to peel it away, save your money.

I know some of that nasty shit can get inside too, but if you have to be cost effective- its a good place to start.

Whole Foods

Prices are insane. So are New Season's, but just a slight bit better. I alternate between the convenience of New Season's (one less than a mile away from my house, I think it was the original one) for the organic stuff I buy (though trying to get less prepared stuff, since it's less healthy and more expensive), Fred Meyer for commodity stuff, Costco for commodity stuff in bulk, and Trader Joe's for, well, whatever, when I'm near one. I agree, Trader Joe's is so much better. I used to buy Chocolove dark chocolate a lot. The price difference between Trader Joe's and Whole Foods was something like around $2 to something around $4.

The price comparison was between Nature's and New Season's, similar types of markets, so I think the comparison in prices was valid, as I tended to find New Season's prices were comparable to Nature's, I mean, Wild Oats, I mean, Whole Foods.

They closed the Hillsdale Wild Oats when Whole Foods bought Wild Oats. Annoying. I thought and still think a Trader Joe's there would be great. I guess I should email them.

Organic Prices

I used to price shit at Wild Oats and its nasty how fast things rise in price. Organic foods seem like a wonderful thing, but until they price things at a reasonable level, there is no way I will ever shop at Whole Foods instead of Trader Joe's.

Food prices

While shifting some of my stuff, I happened upon a receipt from Nature's Northwest from 6/25/2001 (OK, it wasn't me that moved the stuff or happened upon it - it was Jolea). Since I've been feeling lately that the prices of food have been going up at a ridiculous rate, much faster than the growth in wages (what growth?), I thought it would be interesting to compare the prices. I was only able to find four matches, but it pretty much confirms what I've been feeling. Admittedly, four items isn't statistically significant in any way, but still, it doesn't contradict my impressions.

Bearitos Refried Beans: 2001, $1.29. 2008 $1.99.
Cascadian Farms Grape Juice: 2001, $2.99. 2008, $3.59.
Amy's Chili: 2001, $1.99. 2008, $2.79.
Tillamook Medium Cheddar: 2001, $2.99. 2008, $3.89.

70 cents, 60 cents, 80 cents, 90 cents. No big deal. Percentage-wise, though, around 70%, 20%, 40% and 30% respectively. I don't follow inflation, but those percentages seem pretty high. Everything just seems to be about 20% - 30% more expensive than I remember it being only a few years ago. Oil prices? Weak dollar? Stagflation? Come to think of it, why isn't Bush being tarred with stagflation the way Carter was? If this isn't stagflation, I don't what is (keep in mind it's very possible I really don't know what it is :) ).

Naked Runch

http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=77232

Can I just say...

...WTF wind?

I don't like it when I can feel my house moving.

Mr Potato Head

This looks like something one of us would do.
The pictures are very telling.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/31/AR2007123102054.html

Hillary Repackages Herself as a Black Man

(From http://www.borowitzreport.com)

Hillary Repackages Herself as a Black Man
Bold Strategy to Win New Hampshire

In what some party insiders are calling a Hail Mary bid to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today attempted to repackage herself as a black man.

In the wake of her disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, there was consensus among Mrs. Clinton’s campaign aides that her presidential bid needed to be rebooted, but few party professionals expected her to change her race and sex with only five days to go until New Hampshire.

Read the rest at http://www.borowitzreport.com

Hello Iowa

Clinton: 29%
Edwards: 30%
Obama: 38%

Fuck yes. It's on now.

I've read a ton of fascinating articles about this tonight, if anyone else is interested in this I can post them.

Man, that is just...that's awesome.

RE: James Hong

He was in the greatest movie of all time, Tango & Cash.

Seriously though, James Hong is kind of 'the shit'. He's got one of those voices that recognizable even when the nearest TV is in another room.

James Hong

David and I saw Chinatown yesterday and saw this guy in it:



We thought it was familiar, but man, if you check out his imdb page, he is in A TON of moves, TV shows, video games, just everything that needs an old asian guy.