I am late posting this, but it's worth it. Last Sunday was bad for me in football. I watch the Sunday NFL games with my friends, and we go to this cool bar that has good food and drink specials and no, I am not telling anyone which bar it is because for the time being it's relatively empty and we have the run of the place.
Last Sunday was a bad one, though, because my Bears got thrashed by the Bengals, and nearly all my friends root for the Bengals, which meant I got made fun of a lot before I ducked my head and made my way to the exit in shame. Though I was not nearly as in shame as this guy was. Why you ask? Because he several times he loudly and very strongly ordered a "cranberry and orange juice" from the bar. FROM THE BAR!
Order it from the server if you really need to, but who the hell goes to watch football and orders a nonalcoholic fruit drink? And announcing it prominently in front of other dudes, and who is sitting alone no less? Someone who wears a Romo jersey in DC I guess.
I am not a fan of Halloween. Never have been. I dressed up when I was a kid, but I never really enjoyed it and I don't miss it at all. I think a lot of it stems from not really enjoying candy at all (which must make Kelly's head spin, considering the debates he has with himself over candy consumption). I don't have a sweet tooth, so I just appreciate the quiet, hanging out at home and avoiding drunk drivers and women in their 30s dressing like they are 14 and thinking its attractive.
So what did I do for Halloween? I guess you can say I dressed up and played the role of chef. I smoked two racks of ribs Jamaican Jerk style and ate them until I fell into a nice, spicy coma. I'll take that over a grown man dressed like Gumby throwing up on the street anytime.
I am going to see the lovely and wonderful Cate Blanchett tonight at the Kennedy Center in A Streetcar Named Desire. Looking forward to it indeed. In honor of seeing her tonight, here is a good clip of her in one of my favorite movies, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
When I left work Friday night, a cop car was flashing its lights across the street in front of Macy's. I thought nothing of it, because cops at Macy's is not a special occasion. As I started walking, though, I noticed something rather strange. There was a wheel on the sidewalk. Not a tire, mind you, a whole damn wheel.
Some idiot lost his wheel. I laughed. And then I walked away. If you're losing an entire wheel on your ride (which, by the way, looks a lot like OJ's truck) you've probably got bigger problems. Maybe it was OJ, in which case that makes a lot of sense.
I grew up on Chevy Chase movies. Whether they are good or bad in your opinion, in my family they are comic gold. So for this instance of the Friday Funnies, we are going to look back at one of the best scenes from Spies Like Us. "Stop right there, and I'll bring back the sun." I used that to avoid a fight once.
One of the things about my friend Douglass is that he is un-abashedly pro-American. It's great, we all love making fun of him for it, but he stands by it and that makes it that much more enjoyable. Kelly and I often call him Captain America. So it's no surprise that he is thrilled that they are finally making a movie from the character after all these years of the comic book movie renaissance. It's all leading up to The Avengers movie which should get me and a whole slew of comic book nerds all sorts of excited. Sadly we have to wait until 2011 for the Captain America movie to be released, which leaves us plenty of time to keep making fun of Dboy. In the meantime, let us all enjoy these two trailers from not one, but two TV movies. Love the hair. I'm gonna get Douglass one of those shields. Or the mask at the least. He'd wear it in public, no doubt.
Sorry I missed last week. I thought I had posted it and then someone was kind enough to point out that their Friday dose of humor was missing. This week I am giving a couple deleted clips from last week's The Office, where Jim and Pam got married. Creed may be the most underrated talent on that show.
Hey, don't be upset if you missed out on Blog Action Day (and if you are not, shame on you). There are always other opportunities to make a difference. Next week there is an International Day of Climate Action, so go over and check it out and take part. If you need some other ideas or inspiration, this page over at Live Earth has some basic tips that even my mother could understand and take action on. So the rest of you have no excuse. And you know I won't stop shaming my mother to make herself more green, and challenging myself to do the same.
Here are some links to cool articles and stuff out there that help get the message across and get you edubacated, as Dr. Zehnder (my high school econ teacher) would say.
List of 100 things you love that global warming is going to mess up in our lives
NBC's Green is Universal site has some corny stuff on there, but also some nice quick tips and tricks.
I am a big Planet Green TV watcher, and their website is chock full o nuts, I mean, solutions.
By all means, this is just a light smattering of good resources and sites I know of (Treehugger and others are out there), but if you know of some good sites to check out, share them with me and I will pass them along.
So today is Blog Action Day, and it's focused on one of my big topics that I write about, climate change. This is a cool global event where bloggers all over the world are out to share info about climate change and things you can do locally, or in your home or office or wherever, to get others inspired to make a change and make a difference. Here's the intro video to give you an idea.
I, have made fire. And I didn't need to make weird man-love to a volleyball to do it, either. The fireplace in the new house is kinda small so it takes some work with the low airflow to get a proper conflagration going, but I got skills people. Need proof? I even shot a quick video of the fire to prove it's not some fluke.
Video games companies send me all sorts of stuff to help promote their products, and I enjoy it. Sometimes it's cool stuff like a well-designed T-shirt or some funky toy that I'll keep on my desk. Most of the time, it's stuff that I think is neat but I have no use for, like a Mario Bros. backpack clearly designed for a kid. This is where my coworkers benefit greatly from me being the nice guy that I am. Because I always take the schwag and dole it out to the parents in the office whose kids would probably love some free toys and crap that a guy in his 30s has no need of.
This week I got a huge wooden crate (at right) delivered to my office. I was a tad perplexed, but not shocked. Some of my favorite gifts ever from PR companies have come in bizarre containers. I have a viking hat, I once got a metal-forged spartan battle helmet, a wooden sword, all sorts of fun stuff.
I was unsure what the box contained until Kristin helped me bust the thing open. The box clearly says it contains small items, but who knows what kind of tricks they were playing. At first I reached in and pulled out a small stuffed animal.
And then another.
And another.
And ... well, you get the picture. It was a lot.
In the end, half the box was empty, and the other half had a video game and 11, yes ELEVEN, stuffed animals that were all in various shapes but were round and silly looking. The game is called Squeeballs Party, and I have no idea how good it will be, but the name is goofy enough and the stuffed animals are all comical looking. Now, other than being one of those stupid women who stuff their car with beanie babies, I really had no use for 11 oddly designed stuffed animals. Kristin and I did enjoy chucking them at Laura, but we needed a better plan. And then it hit me ... we'll just coyly "decorate" our friend Leigh's office with them. So we hid them in desk drawers, under hats, behind office plants, anywhere we could put them to surprise her when she got back from a trip. And it worked. She naturally knew I was behind the squeeballs attack since no one else gets bizarre stuff like this in the office, but it worked and gave her a good giggle, which made it worth it for sure. And at least she didn't react like this guy below did, who may need to switch to decaf.
I don't want to have to point out idiots I come across, but sometimes they just call out to me and need to be put in their place. This idiot was on the train with me last night as I was coming home from work. The train was rather full because late at night Metro runs fewer trains, but the jackass decided it mattered none to him. Prime standing and seating space were taken up because Idiot here chucked his suitcase and his briefcase all over the floor of the train. One woman asked him to kindly make some space, and instead he added dbag and became Idiot DBag by ignoring her and then going back to reading his copy of DBag Report. I also just looooove the unbuttoned shirt that shows off the old man tuft on his chest. Classy, dude, classy. He was not a local because he kept getting up all the time to check out the Metro map and make sure he didn't miss his stop. I really wish he had.
Probably would have been cooler if I had cut the wood Paul Bunyan style, but that wasn't an option. I have no forest nor do I own an axe (well, I do now but, aww, forget it). We paid some people to drop off a ton of wood and so I spent some time last weekend hauling it from one place to the next. One place being the driveway, next being under the deck. Never having stacked wood before, I think I did a mighty fine job, making a couple nice working piles and further cementing my belief that my mom and I could totally kick some ass on the Amazing Race (the 1:20 mark gives you an idea of how we would have conquered Siberia).
CFED (the place I work) last week released its 2009-2010 Assets & Opportunity Scorecard. This project is nearly 10 months of work organization-wide that I, of course, had to design in about 7 weeks. Which is pretty much why my family and friends think I'm an ass who never returns calls, e-mails or anything social all summer long. This massive report is a big deal for us and we take is seriously, so when we released it and then held a 2-day conference here in DC to support it, by the time it ended we were all hammered on state-level data.
I certainly encourage all 8 of your who read this blog to check out the information on your state. You'll be impressed with how detail-oriented and data-driven we are in making assessments of a state's vitality and how well it supports its residents. Sadly, my home state of Kentucky went backwards from our 2007-2008 Scorecard. Ouch.
As part of getting out the message on the Scorecard, we worked with a media company to get an add placed in Times Square. I didn't have much time to design it and we wanted to make sure it was clear and simple for people to read, but I am proud of it nonetheless, because screw it, I made an ad that was shown in Times Square! I'll take it, thank you very much.
I am an unabashed fan of the Coen brothers movies. And despite all of their recent successes, it is still one of the early films that I consider their best. Raising Arizona is a classic, and probably one of my top 5 favorite comedies ever created. Here is one of the best scenes, featuring Glen and Dot. Love the Mordacai line and Dot talking about getting the DipTet. Just fantastic stuff. "This whole thing is just who knows who ... and, uh, over here you have favoritism."
It's been a rough week at work, and today I got some news that made me severely unhappy. So for the rest of the week at least, this is my opinion of things.
I am late posting this, but it's worth it. Last Sunday was bad for me in football. I watch the Sunday NFL games with my friends, and we go to this cool bar that has good food and drink specials and no, I am not telling anyone which bar it is because for the time being it's relatively empty and we have the run of the place.
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