I was going to take a picture of this, but decided I'm too lazy. Across the street from my work, is a clinic that specializes in treating hemorrhoids. Ha ha, hemorrhoids. And as funny as that is, I recently drove around the back side of the building, on a side street. And there I saw, the sign that says "Hemorrhoid Clinic: Rear Entrance." Or something like that. The little things in life... soak them up.
I give the owner of the hemorrhoid clinic 3 painful butt sores for that sweet sign.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Olive Olive You, Olives
Please forgive the pun that is the title of this post, but darn it, I DO love all of you, olives.
It's weird. I used to hate olives. I'd pick them off my pizza and out of my nachos (and I still do. Seriously, who puts olives in mexican food? That doesn't make any sense.) I resisted any attempts by foodies to make me eat olives. Then, one day, magically, I discovered that olives are actually delicious. I love the green buttery ones, the mushy black ones, the hearty monster black and green olives with the firm flesh and stubborn pits. I love the brine. I could eat an entire tub of fancy olives in one sitting. I have to force myself to put them back in the fridge.
I realized recently why I thought I didn't like olives. It's the same reason my mother insists she doesn't care for curry: she never had good curry, and I never had good olives. The disgusting black pearl olives they slice thin on pizzas are better described as olive-flavored gummy rings, in the same way watermelon Dubble Bubble approachs the taste of watermelon, but never achieves it. Like the way a prison b.j. could almost pass for the kind from a lady, but you know it's not.
I give real olives a couple dozen discarded pits.
It's weird. I used to hate olives. I'd pick them off my pizza and out of my nachos (and I still do. Seriously, who puts olives in mexican food? That doesn't make any sense.) I resisted any attempts by foodies to make me eat olives. Then, one day, magically, I discovered that olives are actually delicious. I love the green buttery ones, the mushy black ones, the hearty monster black and green olives with the firm flesh and stubborn pits. I love the brine. I could eat an entire tub of fancy olives in one sitting. I have to force myself to put them back in the fridge.
I realized recently why I thought I didn't like olives. It's the same reason my mother insists she doesn't care for curry: she never had good curry, and I never had good olives. The disgusting black pearl olives they slice thin on pizzas are better described as olive-flavored gummy rings, in the same way watermelon Dubble Bubble approachs the taste of watermelon, but never achieves it. Like the way a prison b.j. could almost pass for the kind from a lady, but you know it's not.
I give real olives a couple dozen discarded pits.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Monday, Monday
This will be another random round-up of stuff. Enjoy.
- Today I grabbed the last plastic spoon from the lunch room for my curry. After I finished my lunch, I noticed my co-worker, sitting next to me, eating her pudding with a fork. I felt bad: I could have eaten my curry with a fork, but chose to take the last spoon instead. She couldn't get to the last dregs of her pudding at the bottom of the cup.
- We went to a wedding in Eugene this weekend. Our friend T got married to K at Shotgun Creek Park out near Marcola. Her mom and dad got married there a long time ago. I didn't expect the place to be that great, but I was pleasantly surprised. We were in the shade the whole time, and the post-wedding dinner and party was held in one of those picnic shelter thingies. It was pretty fun, although I couldn't drink because I had to drive us home.
- I finally won the Tecmo Bowl (see my earlier post). As the Chicago Bears, I beat the Cleveland Browns 30-15. It took me 3 tries to win the divisional playoff, but after I did, it was smooth sailing. I'm going to take a break for a while, but when I try again, I think I'll stay true to my roots and be the Minnesota Vikings.
- The album is coming along. I've more or less finished the sex song (see previous entry), and have about 5 other songs in various stages of completion. It's been challenging to make them interesting enough to sustain an entire song length without lyrics. I'm also trying to find a balance between chopping and cutting music and outright sampling.
That's it for now. I have nothing to rate, so I'll instead rate this blog. On a scale of "What were you thinking?" to "Dude, that's sweet!"... this blog gets a "The back of my shampoo bottle is more interesting."
- Today I grabbed the last plastic spoon from the lunch room for my curry. After I finished my lunch, I noticed my co-worker, sitting next to me, eating her pudding with a fork. I felt bad: I could have eaten my curry with a fork, but chose to take the last spoon instead. She couldn't get to the last dregs of her pudding at the bottom of the cup.
- We went to a wedding in Eugene this weekend. Our friend T got married to K at Shotgun Creek Park out near Marcola. Her mom and dad got married there a long time ago. I didn't expect the place to be that great, but I was pleasantly surprised. We were in the shade the whole time, and the post-wedding dinner and party was held in one of those picnic shelter thingies. It was pretty fun, although I couldn't drink because I had to drive us home.
- I finally won the Tecmo Bowl (see my earlier post). As the Chicago Bears, I beat the Cleveland Browns 30-15. It took me 3 tries to win the divisional playoff, but after I did, it was smooth sailing. I'm going to take a break for a while, but when I try again, I think I'll stay true to my roots and be the Minnesota Vikings.
- The album is coming along. I've more or less finished the sex song (see previous entry), and have about 5 other songs in various stages of completion. It's been challenging to make them interesting enough to sustain an entire song length without lyrics. I'm also trying to find a balance between chopping and cutting music and outright sampling.
That's it for now. I have nothing to rate, so I'll instead rate this blog. On a scale of "What were you thinking?" to "Dude, that's sweet!"... this blog gets a "The back of my shampoo bottle is more interesting."
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Sleepless Mornings, and Other Stuff
Sorry I didn't write anything last week. I had to be at work at 3:30 am twice last week, and my parents are in town, so I've been a bit busy. Ooh, plus, the weekend before was my 1st wedding anniversary, so we were out of town. Here now are some miscellaneous updates on my life:
- We stayed at the Olympic Club in Centralia for our anniversary. It was the only McMenamin's hotel that had any vacancies on the holiday weekend. Not surprising, it's in beautiful Centralia. The hotel itself is fine. It was formerly a hotel for railmen, and is appropriately old-timey. Our room was just big enough for our bed and a sink. We shared bathrooms with the rest of the guests. Although we were kind of worried about that, it was no problem. There were plenty of them, and they were always clean. The Olympic Club itself has a movie theater (with second run movies, ala the McMenamin's trademark), a very small bar, a much larger bar, and a billiards room with several tables. This part of the hotel is very cool, with lots of tables and the usual McMenamin's charm.
The town of Centralia, however, is somewhat devoid of charm. It's trying, it's really trying, but the downtown is half-empty. There are a few shops here and there, only a handful of which have anything of interest (to the lady, not me). There's a pedestrian mexican place, and another restaurant that was kind of disappointing. I always find it off-putting when servers try to convince you their food is great, then ask you to confirm their opinion. We spent a lot of time walking around, doing nothing. It was relaxing.
- While in Centralia, we saw all 3 movies playing at the hotel: "Sex and the City," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the blah, blah blah," and "Wall-E." We had seen "Sex" and "Indiana Jones" already, but "Wall-E" we had not. It was really good. I don't usually like kids' movies, because they ignore the grownups forced to watch along. But Pixar movies are always different. I thought Wall-E had a great message for kids, was funny and sweet, and most importantly, had a compelling plot. I enjoyed it, although I understand the right-wingers don't. Something about humanity devolving into a race of corpulent zombies makes them feel bad about consumerism. Huh.
- My parents are in town right now, and leave tonight. It's kind of odd to have them back, since they moved away a couple years ago. I have nothing else to say about that.
- We also managed to squeeze in a movie this weekend, "Hamlet 2." It was pretty good, overall. There were some definite flat points, but Steve Coogan was hilarious, and managed to make what otherwise may have been lame into something funny with his performance. The film is about a high school drama teacher who tries to save his department with a blockbuster play, a sequel to "Hamlet" he wrote himself. The premise? What if Hamlet, using a time machine, was able to make it so everyone DIDN'T die at the end? It's one of those movies with a great premise, that could have flopped enormously in execution. While I don't think it was the best thing I've seen, I certainly got a lot of laughs out of it. I give it a "B."
- We stayed at the Olympic Club in Centralia for our anniversary. It was the only McMenamin's hotel that had any vacancies on the holiday weekend. Not surprising, it's in beautiful Centralia. The hotel itself is fine. It was formerly a hotel for railmen, and is appropriately old-timey. Our room was just big enough for our bed and a sink. We shared bathrooms with the rest of the guests. Although we were kind of worried about that, it was no problem. There were plenty of them, and they were always clean. The Olympic Club itself has a movie theater (with second run movies, ala the McMenamin's trademark), a very small bar, a much larger bar, and a billiards room with several tables. This part of the hotel is very cool, with lots of tables and the usual McMenamin's charm.
The town of Centralia, however, is somewhat devoid of charm. It's trying, it's really trying, but the downtown is half-empty. There are a few shops here and there, only a handful of which have anything of interest (to the lady, not me). There's a pedestrian mexican place, and another restaurant that was kind of disappointing. I always find it off-putting when servers try to convince you their food is great, then ask you to confirm their opinion. We spent a lot of time walking around, doing nothing. It was relaxing.
- While in Centralia, we saw all 3 movies playing at the hotel: "Sex and the City," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the blah, blah blah," and "Wall-E." We had seen "Sex" and "Indiana Jones" already, but "Wall-E" we had not. It was really good. I don't usually like kids' movies, because they ignore the grownups forced to watch along. But Pixar movies are always different. I thought Wall-E had a great message for kids, was funny and sweet, and most importantly, had a compelling plot. I enjoyed it, although I understand the right-wingers don't. Something about humanity devolving into a race of corpulent zombies makes them feel bad about consumerism. Huh.
- My parents are in town right now, and leave tonight. It's kind of odd to have them back, since they moved away a couple years ago. I have nothing else to say about that.
- We also managed to squeeze in a movie this weekend, "Hamlet 2." It was pretty good, overall. There were some definite flat points, but Steve Coogan was hilarious, and managed to make what otherwise may have been lame into something funny with his performance. The film is about a high school drama teacher who tries to save his department with a blockbuster play, a sequel to "Hamlet" he wrote himself. The premise? What if Hamlet, using a time machine, was able to make it so everyone DIDN'T die at the end? It's one of those movies with a great premise, that could have flopped enormously in execution. While I don't think it was the best thing I've seen, I certainly got a lot of laughs out of it. I give it a "B."
Friday, August 29, 2008
I'm a TV Star!
Most of you know what I do for a living: I'm a TV news producer for a local station. I occasionally make it on air in some capacity. Sometimes it's just my name; the anchors will ad-lib about something. For example, when I write a goofy or funny story, one of my anchors will sometimes say something like "our producer, Max Power, really likes this story." Other times, I get to appear as an anonymous "guy" in video. Today I was running a story on new guidelines on how to clean your ears. Really hard-hitting medical news. As you might imagine, we didn't have any file video of ear wax. So I had one of our photographers shoot close-ups of my ears, along with a couple of unfortunate coworkers. By the way, it turns out, I need a haircut. This isn't the first time I've been on TV. Here are the highlights:
- Just a couple weeks ago, we did a story on how nobody reads printed newspapers anymore, so I got to flip through the paper. It didn't really make sense to me, though. Shouldn't the video have shown me putting the paper in the recycling bin and logging onto the internet?
- I was part of a dramatic Monopoly game, used in a sweeps piece on a real estate scammer. We dramatically threw down money and property cards, while moving our game pieces dramatically around the board. I think I won, in dramatic fashion.
- My work softball team highlights made the sports segment a month ago. Naturally, the only highlight they showed was our sports guy hitting a triple, but before that, they showed a shot of O. and I screwing around in front of the camera, saying "we're number one!" and so forth. Not my finest moment.
- Another sports highlight to mention here is the 3 on 3 media tournament the Rose Garden held last year. Our sports photographer got shots of our last game, in which I had a sweet reverse layup. But I also had been up all night because I was still working overnights, badly needed a haircut, and was wearing a nasty t-shirt. I should have thought about it ahead of time, I guess.
- Finally, I got to play a terrorist recently. We did a story about how the airport has a new security system in which guards are trained to spot suspicious behavior. To illustrate, I demonstrated how terrorists get nervous before blowing stuff up. I bit my fingernails (extreme closeup), darted my eyes around nervously (extremely extreme closeup), and tapped my foot anxiously (I did my best Larry Craig impression). Now that's not just being in the video, that's ACTING!
I give my news video experience about eight seconds of uncomfortably close camera shots.
- Just a couple weeks ago, we did a story on how nobody reads printed newspapers anymore, so I got to flip through the paper. It didn't really make sense to me, though. Shouldn't the video have shown me putting the paper in the recycling bin and logging onto the internet?
- I was part of a dramatic Monopoly game, used in a sweeps piece on a real estate scammer. We dramatically threw down money and property cards, while moving our game pieces dramatically around the board. I think I won, in dramatic fashion.
- My work softball team highlights made the sports segment a month ago. Naturally, the only highlight they showed was our sports guy hitting a triple, but before that, they showed a shot of O. and I screwing around in front of the camera, saying "we're number one!" and so forth. Not my finest moment.
- Another sports highlight to mention here is the 3 on 3 media tournament the Rose Garden held last year. Our sports photographer got shots of our last game, in which I had a sweet reverse layup. But I also had been up all night because I was still working overnights, badly needed a haircut, and was wearing a nasty t-shirt. I should have thought about it ahead of time, I guess.
- Finally, I got to play a terrorist recently. We did a story about how the airport has a new security system in which guards are trained to spot suspicious behavior. To illustrate, I demonstrated how terrorists get nervous before blowing stuff up. I bit my fingernails (extreme closeup), darted my eyes around nervously (extremely extreme closeup), and tapped my foot anxiously (I did my best Larry Craig impression). Now that's not just being in the video, that's ACTING!
I give my news video experience about eight seconds of uncomfortably close camera shots.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tecmo Bowl and Renting Movies
I recently was able to reconnect my Wii to the interweb, after months offline. It was mostly laziness. I didn't want to connect the laptop to the wifi router to write down the codeword. Anyway, Nintendo offers cheap downloads of its old games directly to the Wii hard drive. We got Tecmo Bowl and Super Mario Brothers for $5 each. I forgot how much fun Tecmo Bowl is. I've played a few games now, rediscovering how sweet Walter Payton really was. I am hesitant to be anyone other than Chicago, but I should branch out. I used to do okay with the Vikings, which I used to pick because they were my favorite team. The only bad thing is that the player names are gone. I'm not scoring a touchdown with Willie Gault, I'm scoring with an anonymous wide reciever.
I'm also amazed at how short the levels are on Super Mario. I remember playing it for hours, struggling to get through the levels. But on replaying it, I'm surprised at how quickly I'm able to get through levels. It's funny, too, that I remember exactly where every hidden extra life or hidden tube is, years after last having played it.
I rate discovering the joys of old video games one blistered left thumb.
On a completely different topic, we rented a movie at Blockbuster last night, "Son of Rambow," which was a gently enjoyable little film. But what I'm writing about is the incredible cost of renting movies. Blockbuster is advertising 99-cent rentals, which only applies to the oldest of their collection. To offset these savings, it's now charging a whopping $4.99 to rent a new movie. $5 for a rental! If you buy 4 used movies there, it costs exactly the same as renting 4 movies. I don't see how it hopes to compete with Red Box and Netflix.
Blockbuster gets 4 dollars signs, and little repeat business.
Friday, August 22, 2008
M-V-P! M-V-P!
So the softball team played its last game last night, losing 4-1 against CBS Radio. It was the lowest scoring softball game in the history of the sport. We played 7 innings in less than an hour. It was a good season; we got better as the year progressed, and were very competive toward the end of the year.
Afterward, the team went to a pizza and beer thingy, paid for by our employer. Our coach/rightfielder handed out awards, and I got Most Valuable Player. It was nice. I put the award on my desk at work, right next to Perry Mason and a picture of Midge.
I give the softball season 4 for 5 with 2 doubles and 7 RBI.
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