Here I go again

So, I was sitting in my chair the other day - By the way, I have a chair that I call 'my chair'. It sits in front of my TV and I sit in it. So, if I make reference to "my chair" ever again, know it's the big comfy leather chair in front of the TV.

Like I was saying... other day, me, chair... watching Jimmy Neutron (it's a great show). I saw that the episode I was about to watch was written by Steven Banks. That name may not register with most people, but as kids my parents videotaped a show starring Steven Banks where he sat in his apartment and procrastinated writing a paper for work, baking cookies, playing drums and all sorts of other things. I didn't really think it was possible that one of my favorite cartoons (I guess it's fair to call it a cartoon) now was written by the same Steven Banks, but indeed it was. He also was the head writer for SpongeBob Squarepants at one point.

The very same Steven Banks, whose show (starring an adult acting like a kid) I may have watched 10-20 times as a kid, was now writing a kids show that I watch as an adult. The universe is complete.

My point in writing this is to reinforce my earlier suggestion that there are certain people/groups who are consistent in providing high quality. Chris Cornell was the main example I used in my last post on this subject, but Steven Banks (though I didn't know it until recently) is another one of my prime examples. It's a common-sensical theory, but it reinforces what I posted previously and should lend credence to the need for trend identification in entertainment.

I think I need some data mining done on my favorite things (movies, music, books), because they seem very random. I bet, though, that on closer inspection I'd be able to find the common themes I like and be able to pick the things I like that much more accurately. After all, I can't spend $7-$20 on every movie hoping I'll like it... there's gotta be a pattern I can identify and apply to my movie spending.

SNL Most Haunted Places Parody

The following video is a parody of the Travel Channel's Most Haunted Places. Saturday Night Live once again proves that flatulence = funny.

Our tree is up

Our first Christmas tree may not have many presents under it this year, but by golly it's up. Katie and I spent Saturday getting it put together (it's a fake tree, you see) and then spent a good bit of time spreading branches out, stringing lights and hanging ornaments. I didn't realize fake trees were so much work...

After all our effort, more on Katie's part than mine, here's our first tree.

Myspace and my wife

My wife has recently created an account (and a blog) with myspace. You see, the other girls at her bank all have myspace pages, so she wanted one too. The only problem with this is that I tried to convince her to start keeping up with her own blog, a blog I created for her over a year ago... maybe even two years ago. She said it was too complicated and that she didn't have anything to say.

Here she is now, though, posting like a madwoman - eyes glued to the computer like Mathew McConaughey is on her screen shirtless. She's looking up old friends, making an effort to learn HTML. It's astounding.

In return for her snubbing the blog I created for her... I've been secretly dipping her toothbrush in the toilet. I think that's fair.

My first cyber shout out.

This one goes out to my Dad. We've been telling him how much sugar is actually in a coke for years... and now that youtube is here to do things I'm too lazy to do, I'm posting this video.

Watch the following video to find out how much sugar is in a coke. Imagine drinking three or more of these a day, which I did for some time in High School.

Wendy's unethical new upsize question

Sooner or later, I guess all companies will take a turn for the worst and try to implement a practice, like Wendy's has done, that is unethical, but will result in an increase in profit.

If you haven't been to a Wendy's lately, or have and didn't know what was happening, Wendy's has started asking "Do you want that Medium or Large?" when you order a combo meal. Ordinarily, this wouldn't present a problem. Asking to upsize is an annoyance that's present at almost every fast food burger chain, but it's hardly unethical. The problem with the question now is the pricing system, and the way the employees ask.

When you order your combo, the Wendy's employees ask you whether you'd like your combo medium or large in the same fashion a supermarket bagger would ask "Would you like paper or plastic?" - in a tone that suggests that your two choices are medium or large. Since they ask in this way, most customers just say medium, thinking that they just want the smallest option. The reason this is unethical, in my opinion, is that most people don't realize that the combo they're ordering (for the price they see on the menu) is with a small drink and fry. When you say medium, without knowing that you're upsizing, you're paying an extra 49 cents.

So, basically, Wendy's is being tricky to get an extra 49 cents from unknowing consumers. In my opinion, that's unethical. I shouldn't have to be on my guard when I go to grab a burger... the pricing should be simple and the questions fair.

The situation would be much different if the employees asked the question with a different emphasis, other than that of the paper or plastic type emphasis. It's a nitpicky distinction, but one that's easily understood by any english speaker. If I hadn't heard the question spoken in similar fashion at 2-3 different Wendy's I would be less suspicious that it was intentional.

SpongeBob Creature from the Krusty Krab for the Wii

After our great experience with the last spongebob game we played, SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom, Katie and I knew that we'd be getting the new spongebob game for the Wii.

Yesterday, I braved the crowds on Black Friday to go out and pick up the new Wii spongebob game, Creature from the Krusty Krab, along with a new router for the house. I figured I'd surprise Katie with it since she was the one who spent most of her time playing Bikini Bottom on the gamecube. I bought it at Best Buy (and waited forever in line to do so) and headed home with my other Black Friday booty and waited for the Katie to arrive.

We didn't get to play it immediately after she got home, since we had to go to another of her family functions for dinner, but directly after dinner she rushed home to play.

We've both been pleasantly surprised that this game is just as silly as the first, looks much better and has introduced new gameplay mechanics with the wii controller - such as turning the controller sideways and turning it as you would a steering wheel to control a race car. It's been good fun so far and we expect to continue as such.

Infinite Mario Bros.

A java programmer in Sweden has created a Java version of Mario Bros. called Infinite Mario Bros., which is playable from within your browser. It's good, copyright infringing fun.

It looks like the levels and the worlds might be randomly generated... maybe that's why it's called infinite mario.

Thanksgiving...

Katie and I just got back from "Pie night", Katie's family's annual event held the night before thanksgiving where each family member is able to eat their favorite pie for dinner. I had chocolate pie again this year, and I have to say that it was much better than last year's chocolate pie disaster.

Tomorrow we'll be heading to my Grandparents house in Longview for our annual thanksgiving lunch, after which we'll head back to town and roll ourselves into bed with our greasy fingers and protruding bellies.

Friday morning Taylor will be getting up (or possibly staying up) to get in line for the Best Buy Black Friday sales event. A friend of his from work is looking to get one of the laptops there and in order to do so, they'll have to practically camp out over night. He told his friend he'd go with him though, so I bet they'll end up there for most of the night if they're serious about getting the laptop. While Taylor's there, I think he's going to go after the toshiba projector, similar to the one I bought last year. I might head out there with them if there's something I can get (that Katie will allow) or if there's something that might garner a profit on Ebay... a large enough profit to justify the ungodly hour at which I'll have to be up.

Anywho, the holidays are underway and it feels good to be in our own house and get to spend all our holiday time with each other this year, rather than being split up over thanksgiving and Christmas every year.

The wii is finally here!

Like a sap, I didn't choose the express shipping for the wii I pre-ordered through Amazon. So, I've been waiting since Thursday morning, prowling the UPS tracking site for any news on my wii. Tonight at about 6 it finally got to my parents house (shipped there since we aren't here during the day, and construction workers and others are all around the neighborhood).

We opened it up and played the sports game for an hour or so and enjoyed the games. I was surprised at how well the controller kept up with the motions in each of the sports titles and also well pleased with the implementation in general. I"m looking forward to seeing the new titles that will take advantage of the motion-sensitivity... including Zelda.

Katie and I left my parents house at about 8:30, and got home in time for me to play a few minutes of Zelda. I haven't really gotten to do much of anything yet, but I've been on my horse and I've harassed a digital chicken (one of my favorite pasttimes in previous zelda games).

Check out our flickr page for some pics of us playing... I'll try to get my hands on a video we shot tonight. It'll help you understand what it looks like to play the games.

Cereal Commercials

Why does every person in a cereal commercial hold their spoon with a closed fist? Is there some kind of conspiracy against proper etiquette among advertisement executives?

Surely there's a reason.

Our toilets erupted this week.

Three days after moving into our new house (this past Monday night) the choice to take a bath started a chain of events that really worked out in our favor, though it ended up meaning that we'd have to replace a good bit of our carpet and sop up sewage water with our towels.

Monday night Katie came home to work on her paper that was due Tuesday while I worked on getting our DSL hooked up. She finished up with her paper early, and I suggested that she take a nice long bubble bath to de-stress herself from the school work. She agreed and took a bubble bath in our tub. When she got done, she started draining the tub of the bath water.

The bathtub wasn't draining very quickly and the toilet was gurgling. She called me into the bathroom and I just figured there was a clog in the tub's drain... and flushed the toilet to see what would happen. Nothing good. The water started to back up, but didn't overflow. Just after flushing, we heard another gurgling sound from the guest bathroom.

When we walked into the guest bathroom we found that water a quarter inch in depth covered the floor. The toilet paper roll on the side of the counter was even wet. The toilet had erupted with bath water from the tub in the master bath. We acted quickly to turn off the water supply to the toilets in case something crazy was going on and then went to call my parents to ask for a good plumber and a number (no phone book yet either).

Katie went back to our bathroom while I was talking to my parents about a plumber, and began to notice water forming puddles in front of our closet on the linoleum and the carpet starting to get soggy. We started damage control, trying to find everything that was exposed to water and soaking it up with a towel.

By the time we'd soaked up all the water up with our towels (all but maybe 2), I'd talked to a plumber who said that we'd probably be ok to wait until in the morning to have someone come out, which was great because they charge $140 /hour after 4PM.

We ended up getting one of the builder representatives to come out that next morning and take a look at what was going on. When he put a pipe camera in our main drain clean-out pipe, he found the cause of our problem - an entire sandwich and a bunch of shrimp. His best explanation was that it was a group of kids who had jammed an entire sandwich and batch of shrimp in our clean-out pipe (located, unlocked in the front yard)... even said they'd seen things like that before. I can't see that that is very likely, but it's not important.

To complete his investigation, he took a moisture detector of some kind and went looking for wet spots. He found that our office carpet had been soaked, our closet (in the master bath) and the carpet in front of the guest bathroom had all been exposed.

In the end, all the carpet in our closet was replaced, the padding in the office and the hallway under the carpet had to be replaced and we had to have our new friend the sandwich removed.

As strange as it sounds, I still consider us to be very lucky. Considering the fact that the sandwich was there, we were lucky that we didn't start the dishwasher or clothes washer and leave the house. The results, if any other appliance were involved, would have been much more disastrous. Either way, we're ok, and I think we're no worse for wear.

New House and SPEEEED

Well, Katie and I survived the move this weekend. We wouldn't have made it without help from the family though.

Taylor, Patrick, Billy and my Dad all helped with the big stuff (boxes, furniture, katie's shoes) while Katie handled some of the smaller stuff. My mom went to receive the new appliances at the new house across town, since the delivery guys showed up without warning. Emme and Katie's mom showed up a little later to help arrange our kitchen (and did a great job), and Chris also came over later, though he was out of commission due to surgery earlier in the week.

We're still getting settled in, but I think we're gonna like it here. If we don't, well, we don't have a choice.

How could we not like it though? We have the highest speed broadband I've ever owned. It's so fast that some of these words are showing up on the page before I even type them. Take a gander at the image below:

That's an image from the speed test at speakeasy.net. Things are officially good here, and not just with the internet. We've been blessed.

Moving weekend - AGAIN!

Tomorrow morning Katie and I are moving into the new house. Since we're both procrastinators this means that we're packing everything tonight. So, when I get done with this post, the computer is gonna be dismantled and packed away. I had to make a post before my week without internet.

As far as I know, Bellsouth isn't gonna hook us up with DSL until late next week. By that time, I will have moved a sleeping bag into my office, so I can have internet where I lay my head. Anywho, I better get back to packing before Katie finds out I'm posting to my blog instead of packing.