The Office returns Sep. 27

Today's Short List - 8/24

1. Galaxy got owned last night. Completely ruined my birthday. 3-0 and those see-you-next-Tuesdays celebrated right in our face.

2. I saw another man's hairy ass last night. It was disturbing. It was a Chivas fan mooning us.

3. Highlight of the match. Riot Squad gathered by the tennis courts to pick up sombreros painted with the Riot Squad logo and followed a full mariachi band into our section. They played our chants and stayed in the section the whole time. We passed a sombrero and bought them beers. It was fun as hell. People's faces were priceless when they saw the procession.

4. Did you see that Baltimore lost 30-3 the other day. Not the Ravens, but the Orioles. The first time in the modern era of baseball (since 1900) that a team scored 30 runs.

5. I'm hungry and we're going camping.

Today's List - 8/23

1. I am officially old. Please use a larger font when typing comments.

2. Got a couple of nice gifts last night at dinner. In-laws got me a dinner at Marston's, but its not a normal dinner - its called a winemakers dinner. Along with a 5-course meal I (and a yet undetermined guest) will be sampling 5 wines from Zaca Mesa, a good winery from the Los Olivos area. Also got a very nice bottle of wine that you can find in my "wine cellar" at corkd.com (see link in sidebar. I have nice in-laws. I don't think most people can say that.

3. Buffets kick ass. We went to the Atheneum at CalTech last night for dinner. It was buffet night. Where else but a buffet can you have prime rib, swordfish, champagne chicken, spicy shrimp rolls, au gratin potatoes, and ratatouille all on one plate.

4. Galaxy vs. ChivasUSA is nationally televised tonight on ESPN. I'm not saying much more, but the supporter's group that I sit with (L.A. Riot Squad) always brings the heat for Chivas. The word "historical" has been used in reference to our planned mischief tonight. Check it out.

5. There are several situations in which I could spend an infinite amount of money: at a good wine shop, a bookstore, Target, a stationary store with nice pens, etc. Yesterday I re-discovered an old one: camping gear. I could buy camping gear all day. We got a new tent last year. Its pretty big, but we are hoping that it will hold our family one day. Yesterday we got a camp stove, a new big cooler with wheels, and a camping coffee percolator pot. There's about a million other things that I could buy.

6. Costco is currently selling a 160-quart ice-chest. Its a beast. I think a small person could sleep in there. You may think your cooler is big - well, its not. This one is.

7. I'm reading Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. I don't think I like it much, but I can't stop reading a book in the middle. Except the last book that Amanda recommended to me, but I stopped reading that because it was a very confusing sci-fi type book.

8. Happy early birthday to Pete. I think his is the 25th? Happy birthday also to my brother and to my grandmother. We all share the same birthday. Also, happy birthday to Kobe Bryant, Julio Franco, Keith Moon, and Shelley Long. I would say happy birthday to River Phoenix, but he's dead.

9. Want to hear something weird. I share a birthday with River Phoenix and my wife shares a birthday with Joaquin Phoenix. Joaquin Phoenix was in "To Die For" with Matt Dillon and Matt Dillon was in "Loverboy" with... Kevin Bacon. So there you go.

10. You should see the pen my wife got me for my birthday. It dominates all other pens.

Today's List - 8/21

1. If you want to see the wines that I am currently holding (waiting for consumption) you can go to this link. The link has a permanent home in the "Links" section in the sidebar. I think its a pretty good collection for someone who is far from rich.

2. There are only 3 of those wines that are staying in my possession for the long haul. Anytime you come by the apartment looking for a nice glass of wine I am likely going to take you up on the offer. Most wines don't age that well. I think there are several that I could hold for 5-7 years, but I would rather drink them.

3. Tomorrow is my last day in my 20s. I feel like I should do something that you should really only do while in your 20s. Any ideas?

4. Stamps. We have a buttload of stamps, none of which are enough to send a letter or bill. At this point I am sending out bills and stuff with more than 70 cents worth of stamps. Am I lazy or is it really not worth going to the Post Office to load up on 3-6 cent stamps.

5. Libraries are weird places. They let you borrow books for free. That's very trusting of them.

6. Summer has killed my ability to listen to Podcasts. I am way behind without the 30-minute drive to and from work.

7. Did you know that the NFL is in the middle of pre-season. I just figured that out yesterday. The only thing more boring than a 3+ hour NFL regular season game is a 3+ hour preseason game. Well, that and any NBA game. Basketball puts me to sleep.

Based on the short list you can probably tell that my day was relatively uneventful.

Bringing camping to the next level

As a kid growing up in a relatively poor family, camping was one of our most common vacations. (Side note: poor only lasted until I was maybe 11-12. Nothing against poor, but I don't want anyone thinking that I had a rough childhood financially). Once we hit the late teen years we were more likely to hit up places with hotels, although we still camped every so often. Nonetheless, camping is still one of my favorite vacations. Unfortunately, most of my camping stopped around college. I did camp in the middle of nowhere once during the summer after my freshman year in college. It was with the friends of a friend in Northern California. We passed the night drinking Keystone and Coors Light, throwing knives, and practicing roping a fake bull. It was a good time.

I have been re-introduced to camping by Amanda's friends in the last couple of years. They have been doing regular trips for something like 20 years (when their parents took them). However, the days of whiffle ball and running through poison-oak have been replaced by drinking absurd amounts of domestic beer in cans (usually Bud Light and Coors Light), walking down to the beach, reading, a little Sorry (in which I think I am undefeated), and talking shit around the campfire. Again, good times.

This year I am stepping it up a notch - at least for myself. Due to my somewhat recent obsession with wine, I am going to bring some quality wine to camping this year along with some plastic wine glasses. So far, my only choice is a 2005 Marquis Philips Sarah's Blend. Its a blend of shiraz, cabernet sauv., merlot, and a little cab franc. Being from Australia, it should be a complete fruit bomb, which should be just right for camping. I may also bring a bottle of Four Vines Naked Chardonnay (naked means that it was not aged in oak) for the daytime.

Don't get me wrong. For the most part I will be drinking nice cold domestic cans during the day, but the 14-15% alcohol found in these wines sound pretty good for the night.

Today's List - 8/20

So I'm back from my trip to New England and have a few ideas/comments/annoyances to share.

1. New England is old. I guess old means that you don't have to have street signs. We got lost a number of times. I think old also means that you can randomly change the name of streets. One street had three different names in the course of five blocks.

2. People in Massachusetts are serious about two things: the Red Sox and Dunkin' Donuts. We spent two days in Falmouth, MA. I saw no reference to Starbucks, but there were two Dunkin' Donuts - one was a drive-thru.

3. During one of our experiences being lost we drove through the ghetto of Providence. Their houses are not in very good condition, but they are really neat old Cape Cod style houses. However, we just missed witnessing someone rob a Burger King.

4. Downtown Providence has little parking. However, for some reason they don't put meters next to spots where the sidewalk has bricks, thus creating a few free parking spots. I'm not sure why.

5. Have you ever heard the rule "don't shit in an RV"? I think there should also be a rule "don't fart on an airplane". Someone dropped as maybe four times during our flight from Providence to Cleveland.

6. A lot of people like lobster. They served lobster at the wedding reception. It was a great idea and loads of fun to see people all dressed up wearing lobster bibs and making a mess. However, that's a lot of work to get to your food. Cows are much more suited for eating.

7. I like kids and wouldn't mind having a few of my own in the near future. However, kids on airplanes are annoying. Especially kids whose parents can't teach them that they don't have to whine constantly to get a drink of water and then kick the back of your chair.

8. Humidity sucks.

9. I got a call from the manager at BevMo while I was in Providence. I'm not sure he ever actually apologized, but he sounded apologetic and wanted me to call him back and let him know what happened so it won't happen again.

10. Most parks (and public places in general) have laws that require you to keep your dog on a leash. A lady in one park on Martha's Vineyard didn't follow that law. Her dog got its ass kicked by another dog. That dog was on a leash and the owner did a great job getting his dog away from the other dog. Then, just ten minutes later, the lady let her dog off the leash again. Oh, and the dog was wearing a pink bandanna.

11. During the fight, someone kept yelling "dog fight!". I'm not sure why, but it was funny.

12. We walked around Martha's vineyard for 3 hours or so and I never saw a vineyard. If they named places after the most common resource available they would change it from Martha's Vineyard to Martha's Ice Cream Shop. I saw maybe 20 of them.

13. Don't get me wrong. Martha's Vineyard was beautiful. Very relaxing. People in the park flying kites. Amazing 100+ years old homes. Clear water on the beaches. I enjoyed my time there.

14. Human beings were not meant to fly. 5 hours on a plane is just not comfortable. I've been to Italy and that was 9+ hours. We really need to invent teleportation soon.

15. This video is funny:

Today's List - 8/13

1. This will be my last post for a few days.

2. This is officially my 300th post.

3. E-mail. I am used to getting somewhere around 20-30 e-mails every day. In the last 3 days I got maybe 15 total. Weird. I'm not counting spam either.

4. Did you hear Karl Rove is quitting at the end of the month? What the hell is Bush going to do? Think on his own? Scary. Good riddance though.

5. Baja Fresh really went skimpy on the steak tonight in my burrito. Very disappointing. They forgot the sour cream too.

6. My homie Randy is moving to Alaska on Thursday. I wish him well. Watch out for the bears and moose. Randy is a good guy and I'll miss having him around to harass and make fun of when he gets really hammered. I'm not sure the 49th state will be able to handle two Moe brothers at once.

7. Did you know that Tim Burton directed Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I did, but I guess its not really common knowledge. Caught the last 30 minutes tonight and I enjoyed it for entirely different reasons than when I was 9.

8. I am slowly approaching 7,000 visitors to this site. I may have a prize waiting for #7000 (or the person that comes closest to being #7000 that I can actually give the prize to.

Today's List - 8/12

1. Thanks to those that came by my/Steve's b-day gathering at the Crown last night. I think we made up half of the total customer count.

2. My body simply does not recover from drinking at an acceptable rate. I had the "ring of fire" all day. I mean, I drank a lot of beer, but it was only beer. There has to be a solution. B12 or something.

3. After watching hours of Shark Week I decided that I would never go in the water again. Just now I watched a repeat of another show on Discovery that talked about irukandji. They are a super-small (almost microscopic) jellyfish whose sting is 100 times more deadly than a cobra. You simply can't see them. I know that they are most common in places like Australia, but it reinforces my decision to only swim in pools. I may swim in lakes though as they don't seem to have as many deadly predators.

4. Galaxy suck. Becks may not help.

5. Anyone else watch Entourage? Really disappointing season in my view.

6. There's another cool ocean show on Discovery tonight. I think its called Deep Blue. It makes me wish that I had HD.

Today's List - 8/11

1. BevMo can eat my ass. I went yesterday to take back a bottle of wine that I bought there last week. When I opened the bottle the cork was falling apart because it was so soaked with wine and the wine smelled funny. I'm no wine expert, but I do know when a wine has been cooked (exposed to high heat). All I wanted was a new bottle of the same wine. They decided to give me attitude about it like I was trying to cheat them out of $11. In any case, my shopping days at the Pasadena BevMo are done and I wrote the company an angry letter.

2. Premiership opened today. Liverpool claimed 3 points with a win over Aston Villa. Steven Gerrard hit a brilliant free kick in the 87th minute to give us the win. Man, its really nice to have some EPL to wake up to in the mornings again.

3. Saw Bourne Ultimatum last night. It was OK. They seemed to rip off some ideas from other sources like X-Men and Steven Seagal movies. The other two were better.

4. People are lame. When you show up to a movie on a Friday night just as its starting don't expect to get a great seat. Also don't whine about those of us who arrived early not moving over so you can have the end-of-the-aisle seat that we arrived 20 minutes before to get.

5. Last night Randy, Pete, and I were trying to come up with the ideal cast for the always pending G.I. Joe live action movie. I found several places on the net that have mentioned Mark Wahlberg playing the role of Duke. I can see that. The article for #6 also says that the role of Roadblock will be played by Ice Cube. That would get him redemption in my eyes for the "Are We There Yet" Fiasco.

6. Thundercats movie? That's also a rumor, but it seems much further along in the process than G.I. Joe. Hugh Jackman as Lion-O. Jessica Simpson as Cheetara. Micheal Clarke-Duncan as Panthro. That's what I've read.

7. Both Thundercats and G.I. Joe are slated for a 2010 release, but He-Man is slated for 2009. Joel Silver of the Matrix is involved.

8. I usually don't talk about movie stuff this much. Have you noticed how crappy the movie selection is these days? Honestly, three years ago Amanda and I would never have seen Bourne Ultimatum. There's always Harry Potter in another 18 months. And the teaser for the next Batman (The Dark Knight) is up on the net in a few places.

9. Next time you're at the movies make this drink: in a cup just less than 1/2 full of ice - about 10-15% Sprite, then about 70% Lite Lemonade, then top it off with more Sprite. Its delicious.

Enjoy your day.

Today's List - 8/10

1. I finally got called into jury duty. However, I was there for less than an hour and they let me postpone until my winter break. Word on the street is just before Christmas is a good time to get called in because judges don't like tho be there before Christmas.

2. People are annoying. This lady explained, very clearly I thought, the reasons one could get excused from jury duty and the reasons/methods/consequences of postponing jury duty. Essentially, you just had to step outside and talk to the "postponement interviewers and give them a good reason to postpone and pick a new week up to 90 days away. Easy, right? I guess not. The first question asked was "Can I get postponed for a vacation?" Answer: talk to the interviewers. Next 5 questions: "Can I get postponed for ___________?" Next 5 answers: talk to the interviewers. At this point she said "Let me clarify. I can't grant your postponement. Whatever your reason is, you will need to talk to the interviewers." Next question: "Can I get postponed for maternity leave?" I feel bad for that baby because her mom is retarded.

3. There are a lot of tall buildings in Downtown LA. They create this sort of wind tunnel that feels like a good breeze, but I think its filled with pollution.

4. David Beckham made his MLS debut last night. Exciting? Meh. They lost and played like complete shite until he came on. However, at that point Galaxy had lost one player to a red card and 20 minutes wasn't going to save us. We'll see what happens next.

5. Anybody ever been to Providence or Cape Cod? We're looking for stuff to do. I'm thinking about a pirate museum in Salem. Amanda says that the Salem Witch Museum is corny and the pirate museum is loosely affiliated so my expectations are pretty low. I would also like to visit the JFK library. I've been to the LBJ library in Austin, TX. However, I've never been to the Reagan library which is really close. Or Nixon, which is also really close. Maybe its because they are Republicans.

6. I made a list of things to do this summer. There are maybe 40 things on the list and I've only done 4. I need to get crackin'.

7. Amanda Tivo'd this really strange kids show(?) that involves dogs dressed up like people. Its one of those its-so-bad-that-its-awesome things. Here's a really crappy YouTube version that is clearly some guy recording it off his TV, but you'll get the point. We saw it on HBO Family.



8. Is "Tivo'd" really a word. Can I "tivo" something even though I don't have Tivo? (I have Time Warner DVR)

That's about it for now. Enjoy the weekend.

Today's list - 8/9

Now that we are in summer I have a little extra time to blog and a lot of things that I want to say. Therefore, for the rest of the summer, I am going to write a list of the things that I have on my mind. They may best based in anger, mired in hate, soaked in positivity, or completely devoid of emotion. So here's today's list.

1. Went to the Angels vs. Red Sox last night. Pops used the company seats and we sat maybe 15 rows back of the visitors dugout - nice seats. I love baseball - grew up playing it. But man, this game takes FOREVER. First pitch was at 7:05 and the game ended about 11:10. Over four hours. Soccer is 90 minutes plus extra time (maybe 5-6 minutes) and you're done. No timeouts, commercial breaks, etc. Makes your life so much easier.

2. I hate Orange County. My Dad and I went to a bar/restaurant before the game for a pint and some food. (since I definitely don't want to eat at Angel Stadium anymore). There were no less than 6 guys in there with feauxhawks and it seemed to be part of the uniform for waiters. All of these OC people look the same. Its like communism or something. Orange Curtain.

3. People from Boston are lame (except the ones that I know - Jodi, Fr. Mark, etc.). I would guess that maybe 1/3 of the people at the game were Red Sox fans. Why? If you like Boston so much why do you live here in So Cal? And, if your team is so great why have they only won the World Series once in like 90 years? Shit, the Mets have won it twice and they've only been a team for 46 years. Stick with hockey. Oh wait, your hockey team sucks. Football? Well, they actually play in Rhode Island. Basketball? KG is not going to save you. Even your soccer team, which also plays in Rhode Island, can't win a title.

4. The Angels suck. Yes, I know they are in first place, but I don't think I saw one Angels player show any sign of emotion last night. I guess losing isn't a big deal. Maybe you could have done more to put it in the faces of the 20,000 annoying Bostonians? Well, with 162 games in a season I guess one loss is no big deal. At least they're not the completely useless Dodgers.

5. Jury Duty update. Well, its Thursday morning and I'm blogging so you can probably figure it out for yourself - no call-in yet.

6. Just finishing City of Falling Angels. Good book. I like his writing. However, with about 50 pages to go I am not sure that there will be an ending. Its part of that genre of books that is non-fiction written more like fiction - narrator, dialogue, etc. There's a couple story lines that I want to see closed out, but I won't necessarily die if they don't. I'm not sure what kept me going on this book, but its really really good.

7. I liked Harry Potter too.

8. Birthday party - Saturday 5-? at the Crown. Come by and meet my family.

9. Thursday drink-'til-your-vision-blurs day.

A couple of funny things

First, there is a website that Arianna Huffington set up where you can do a search on a name, address, or zip code to see how much money people have donated to campaigns and to whom they gave this money. My birthplace, Redlands, is home to a Mormon super-temple (not the official name, but its more important than a regular one) and there are two really big Mormon families that I know of who maxed out on donations to Mitt Romney. I'm not poking fun, it was just interesting to see.

Second, Slate has a story about Rudy Giuliani's daughter and how her facebook page showed that she was a member of a facebook group called "One million strong for Barack" D'oh!

Finally, check out the new awesome license plate that you could have if you lived in Oklahoma:


Why oh why do I have to live in California?

A few notes to keep you/me entertained

1. Barry Bonds can eat a dick. I'm just glad A-Rod will pass him in a few years.

2. Have you been the recipient of an e-mail saying that you got an e-card from either Colleague, Neighbor, or some other non-descript well-wisher? Me too. Don't go to the link - its a virus of some sort. No, I did not learn from my mistake. I learned from my brilliance which said "very few of your neighbors or colleagues like you and the ones that do wouldn't send you an e-card." So be warned.

3. This is my week for jury duty. So far I have not had to report. I feel my luck running out. However, I am flying out Tuesday for a wedding in Massachusetts so I'm thinking that will get me out. If not, I will make some racist comments.

4. I turn 30 this month. There's a rumor floating about that I will be celebrating early on the 11th due to my absence on the following 2 weekends. This rumor also says that we have the back room at the Crown reserved.

5. English Premier League starts Saturday. Liverpool open against Aston Villa. I may have to open the season at Lucky's for breakfast. Kicks off at 9:00.

6. Lynlee says that she only visits Escape from the Rat Race to use the link to get to this blog. Please go visit Rat Race so Pete can stop drowning his tears in Sapphire and Tonic.

That is all.

Note to self...

...don't try to clown Kevin Smith - a man who has made a living being witty. If you do, this could happen. In fact, it did happen at ComicCon this year.