This Just In...

French toast rules.

Mohinder!

As weird as this may sound, the following is true - I was on the radio Thursday morning. Well, my voice was, as I called the Kevin & Bean Afroline and left a message. It's a voicemail thing and they play back some of the bizarre or funny calls on the air and mine was chosen for Thursday morning's broadcast! I edited the clip down from the podcast, so you can listen to it.

It's dumb, but I basically sang a parody of Cheap Trick's "Surrender" but changed the lyrics to fit the TV show Heroes, and specifically the character of Mohinder. Take a listen here - Mohinder!

I've already established that I can't sing for crap, so need to tell me again. Wow, this turned into a Heroes-themed week all of a sudden. Have a great weekend everyone. Mohinder!

Superpowers

I'm being 100% serious when I say I hope to develop superpowers at some point in my lifetime. Any time I come down with a serious headache or illness, I secretly hope it's a superpower manifesting itself. Sadly, that has not happened. Yet.

Obviously, if given a choice, everyone would want to fly or turn invisible or something like that. I think the ability to stop time would be pretty dope, too. I'd only use that power once a year - to go rob a bank and get away with it. Hey...armored truck shows up and poof!, $250,000 mysteriously vanishes and I get to take a vacation.

I know freezing time has to be pretty popular, too, so my superpower of choice is to be a cryokinetic - the ability to freeze things! Iceman has long been my favorite member of the X-Men and I would be a HIT during the summer sweltering months here in southern California. Even just at a party - no need to buy ice, just invite Chris. I could also pull plenty of pranks by making douchebags slip on a sidewalk or encasing a coworker's mouse in a block of ice.

What superpower would you want?

Time Travel

Let me start off by saying I am not some genius-level physics expert. I am, however, a comic book dork and I think that qualifies me to speak about the topic of time travel. It's used pretty frequently in the TV show Heroes which, generally speaking, I love.

Spoiler alert for Heroes! In the Season 3 premiere, we have two time traveling characters - Peter who comes back from the future to stop something, and Hiro in the present day, who happened to screw up history last season. Let's address Future Peter first - he comes back in time and successfully prevents an event from happening that ruins his future. So, at that exact point, the timeline he came from should cease to exist, right? If that event never happened, then the course of events is altered and that Future Peter as we've known him in the last 5 minutes should cease to exist. But...he's still there. And still messing with stuff in the present day.

Now, onto Hiro - in last night's episode, he had something stolen from him, and needed to get it back. So, why doesn't he just go back in time to 3 seconds after it was stolen and steal it right back? I know Hiro said he didn't want to go to the past anymore, but he goes to the future. If you have time traveling powers, you essentially have unlimited redos. I would imagine each time you go back or forward and do something, that creates a different timeline. The course of events is changed each time, so there have to be at least 428 different timelines within the Heroes universe at this point.

Ugh, I'm getting a headache just typing this. Never mind.

Talk Like a Pirate

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day, everyone! I remember first hearing about this on KROQ-FM's Kevin & Bean morning show years ago. Sure enough, when we got in the car this morning, they were talking to Ol' Chumbucket and Cap'n Slappy. Sure, it hasn't quite taken off like Christmas but just wanted to wish you all a happy ITLAPD.

In honor of today, I'm posting this clip from Saturday Night Live when Peter Sarsgaard was the host. I don't know why the clip cuts off at the end, but you should get a few laughs in before it does.

Bargains! Imprisoning Me!

I read this article about the new Metallica logo the other day. Someone posted this photo in the comments section which cracked me up to no end. Even metal singers enjoy a nice shopping trip to Armani. I guess this is the original article / photo here.

If the photo doesn't make you laugh, you should know that it pokes fun at the lyrics of their song "One".

E-Mail Forwards

I got an e-mail forward today from one of my fiancee's relatives that reminded me why I hate them so much. This e-mail violated both of my pet peeves -

1) Those ones where you "sign a petition" and pass it on to everyone in your address book don't work because...everyone has different address books! Person #12 in my address book doesn't know person #3, or even know if they signed it. So now there are multiple versions of one thing. The only way these e-mail "petition" things could conceivably work is to send it to one person at a time.

2) Research, research, RESEARCH. Guess what - if you're checking your e-mail, you're already on the internet. Do your research before telling me there's a movie about gay Jesus coming out, that cellphones will soon be assaulted by telemarketers or that the word 'picnic' is offensive to African-Americans. Google found all three of those results in about 5 seconds each.

I shake my fist at you, internet forwards!

Hulkamania

I recently finished reading the autobiography of Hulk Hogan. There was no one bigger than Hulk Hogan to my brother and I when we were youngsters. Sadly, Hulk left this important story out of his book -

In 1991, my brother and I were in the car with our Mom and Grandma, driving down Valley Circle Blvd. when Hulk Hogan drove past us on his motorcycle. Mom instantly recognized him but my brother and I weren't paying attention and didn't see him. A few yellow lights and miles later, we caught up to him at a gas station. Our Mom gave us a piece of paper for him to sign and we approached our hero to ask for his autograph. I was so nervous that I barely knew what to say. My brother was much cooler, of course, and asked if he was ready for his tag team match at Summerslam. He said he was confident he and The Ultimate Warrior would win (they did) and signed our paper, which my bro still has. I still think it's cool that Mom drove kinda crazy so we could catch up to him.

It was quite the moment for a pair of lifelong wrestling fans and Hulkamaniacs. This was the man that bodyslammed Andre the Giant! This was the man that give such thrilling interviews you believed every word when he shared the three commandments of Hulkamania: 1) train, 2) say your prayers and 3) take your vitamins.

His book is fairly entertaining, even if it glosses over quite a bit. It turns out my childhood hero had one major fear in his life, though - helicopters. So just keep that in mind, kids - even the Immortal Hulk Hogan is scared of something. Check out this great pre-match interview from Wrestlemania 4 where he tangled with Andre the Giant.

Seven Years

I was at the library the other day looking for a Dreamweaver / HTML book. I found one that looked pretty decent, but didn't get it because it was published in 2001. "Seven years - that's old!" I thought to myself.

Then it occurred to me that the anniversary on 9/11 is this week...today, actually. It struck me that there are 7-year old boys and girls that probably have little to no concept of this tragedy. They probably know every Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers lyric, but won't know what it was like to wake up that morning and live through that tragedy via the news or in person. I think about 9/11 from time to time and my heart still aches.

Wow, seven years.

Thank Goodness She's Locked In

After last week's awesome Stormtrooper post, my friend Jenny posted a comment that read "It's a good thing you already have a fiancee. This article proves you are nothing but nerd. :p" I completely agree with that, so I've decided to add a new tag to my blog called Thank Goodness She's Locked In.

There are certain ideas I share with my fiancee and the minute they leave my mouth, I think to myself, "Thank goodness someone agreed to marry me." Not just "someone" of course - I'm thankful it's her, but I'm grateful she puts up with my dork moments and random thoughts. My most random (and frequent) thoughts seem to revolve around baby names, although we are nowhere near ready to have kids. Among them:

- We should name our son Doctor. If he ever becomes a doctor, he'd be Doctor Doctor and if not, then at least he has a prestigious name.

- Our son's middle name should be Danger because it would be an instant pick-up line. (Yes, I'm trying to help my son get laid in the future.)

- We should name our son Ready, then change his name when he's a few months old to something like Benjamin. Then for the rest of his life, he can always say, "I was born Ready."

Before you ask me, yes, ALL of the above ideas were met with an enthusiastic eye roll from my fiancee and yes, I know how lucky I am to have her.

Thank You, Kid Rock!

Kid Rock rapped over Metallica's "Sad But True" and made an okay song out of it. The funny part (other than me liking it) is Kid Rock's claim that he "put Detroit city back on the map." I think they gave him some kind of achievement award at Cartographers Expo 2006 for doing so. Thank you, Kid!

The Luckyist Keyboardist

Quick, name your favorite rock star keyboardist.

Exactly. They don't exist. Those words go together like "new Eddie Murphy movie" and "awesome."

With the possible exception of Bon Jovi's David Bryan, who has been with the band since they formed in 1983. Keyboard players were kind of big in the '80s with new wave bands but they've gone the way of ska music being played on KROQ. That's a pretty impressive testament to a guy who kind of resembles a cocker spaniel.

Not to knock the guy too much - according to his Wikipedia page, he had 4.0 GPA while in Pre-Med at Rutgers University before he decided to play keys to songs like "Livin' On a Prayer." He's also released three solo albums and has written a musical.

A tip of the hat to you, David Bryan. If anyone asks who my favorite rock keyboardist is, I guarantee I will say you.

Stormtrooper Effect

I was thinking about Star Wars the other day. Okay, fine - I think about it nearly every day. Specifically, about weaknesses in the Empire and one of them stands out above all others - the lack of effective Stormtrooper armor.

These are your guys, Empire. They're your front line to get stuff done, whether it's enforcing Imperial law or installing reactors. Granted, you did provide them with blasters and commlinks but the armor is ineffective against even one blaster bolt! Look at the Rebel troops by comparison - they're just dudes with a blaster and a helmet. No wonder they get shot and die so easily.

I don't know where the hell the Empire spent all of their money but surely it wasn't on building up a decent army. The Emperor must have had to take out a second mortgage to build Darth Vader's armor that there just wasn't much left for the stormtroopers. Poor guys, they're just trying to make their way in the universe like anyone else.