The Lost Room

The Wife and I watched a Sci-Fi mini-series entitled The Lost Room which, at the end, I really loved and she really didn't. The Lost Room deals with a hotel room in New Mexico that essentially disappeared from reality in 1961 after something called The Event. Every object in the hotel room at the time of The Event has some sort of power to it -- using a comb freezes time for 5 seconds, a glass eye can disintegrate or restore flesh and a hotel key takes you to any door in the world. Most of the objects have been dispersed since The Event so one group of people want the objects for their power, and another group is collecting all objects in the belief they can contact (or become) God.

The Wife's problem with this series is the lack of overall explanation behind things. They never delve into what The Event is/was, why it affected all of these objects or how the room disppeared, although they hint at several things. The reality of the show is simply that all of this stuff has happened and you're following the main character along on his journey within this context. Personally, I'm okay with that but I know it frustrates her.

I think about it in similar terms as the briefcase in Pulp Fiction - you're not sure why the briefcase is important, you only know that it is. It would be great if everything could be explained in these entertainment forms, but I still find value and enjoyment in the storytelling process.

How about you -- does not knowing what's in the briefcase affect your appreciation for Pulp Fiction? Are you still upset they never really focused on Walt again after Season 2 of Lost? Do you still want to know why the birds are attacking in The Birds?

Facebook Civil War

Below is a somewhat comical attempt to recreate some highlights from the Marvel Comics' story Civil War in a Facebook format. I probably should have prefaced this by saying that anyone but Tyler will probably not understand this. Yes, I was bored at work and wanted to attempt some humor with this. There were about 8 other plot points I considered adding in but I wanted to keep it somewhat short and hit a few beats.

International Man

I was poking around online and looking for job postings in the field in which I am getting my Master's degree. I came across one job posting in Santa Monica with a salary that made me drool. I'm such a sellout but I can't apply for it yet since I'm still ~3 months away from graduation. On another job board, I found some postings with the government in foreign countries - there were quite a few but the only ones I remember were Germany and Egypt. How cool would that be?!

One Year Later

This post is scheduled for Sunday, September 19 which is our 1-year anniversary of marriage. Hurray, we made it longer than Jennifer Lopez and Cris Judd! :)

As I write this and our anniversary date approaches, I'm happy -- but unsure if I should feel something more overwhelming. Our first year has been pretty good - we got our own place which we're slowly turning into a home. We painted one bedroom a few weekends ago, and have a color picked out for our bedroom. We're both employed, are overall doing well and have wonderful family and friends in our lives.

I'm also excited because we qualify to help lead an Engaged Encounter retreat, like we went on last year. When we went on ours, it was led by couples in their 70s (or so) with years of marital experience. I think it would be cool to have a younger couple presenting to give some perspective on the early beginnings of marriage. Plus, I know The Wife and I could make it fun(and funny!) for the couples that attend.

So an emphatic 'yay' to both of us. Here's to one more year! :)

1/2 + 1/2 + 1/2 = ?

So, that John Mayer song "Half of My Heart" is admittedly catchy. The thing that baffles me, though, is the lyrics which go like this:

"Oh half of my heart's got a grip on the situation
Half of my heart takes time
Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you"

So...Mayer has three halves to his heart...which means he would have 1 1/2 hearts? Am I missing something here? Consider me puzzled, Mr. Mayer.

Double Down

I've seen advertisements for the new Really Big Chicken Sandwich at Jack in the Box. It is essentially a double chicken sandwich which got me thinking about the double cheeseburger. I love a good burger as much as the next guy but I wonder whose idea it was in the first place. Like some guy was cooking burgers and another guy came along and said, "You know what would go great on top of that burger?"

"What, man? Lettuce? Mayo?"

"No man, another burger." Minds were blown at that exact moment in 1942.*

* - Random guess at a year when the double cheeseburger may or may not have been invented

Learnin'

I've started compiling a mental list of things I still want learn. I'm in the last semester of my Master's Program and there's still a lot that I want to know how to do. Here's my list so far --

Learn how to fix shit on cars.
Learn how to fix shit in my house.
Learn how to make jewelry.
Take a sketch writing class.
Become a public notary to make some extra scratch.

Other stuff I'm looking forward to doing after I finish up school and have more free time --

Playing video games!
Selling old toys, comic books and other stuff on eBay / Craigslist.
Writing / drawing / launching a webcomic.

Mid-December cannot get here fast enough!

iTunes Weeding Update

Remember back when I was talking about weeding my iTunes library? The project is finally over and done with, so here are the final results. Keep in mind that while I deleted a great deal of songs, I also downloaded / "acquired" a few new ones along the way. So it started at 8,744 and is now down to...7,027!

Hurray!

Reason #40

Presenting Reason #40 why I love* my company...

The power went out at work the other day just after 11am. For some reason, they had us evacuate the building. So, we all stood outside for about 10 minutes when our boss told us to just go to lunch and come back at 1pm. Normally, we only get 30 minutes for lunch so getting anything over an hour was a huge blessing!

I called up my brother who works nearby, had lunch and headed back at 1pm. Unfortunately, the power came back on so we had to finish out the day. About 15 minutes back into the work day, the same boss emails us and says that our long lunch will be deducted from our timesheet of hours for the week.

Um...didn't you tell us to go take a long lunch? Weren't we just following orders? So bogus!!!

* - sarcastic indeed!

110 North

I vaguely remember hearing about this story years ago and very randomly came across a web article about it, so I figured I'd share some links.

Back in 2001, artist Richard Ankrom fabricated his own freeway sign to the exact Caltrans specifications and hung it up himself in broad daylight. He did both as guerrilla art piece and to help ease traffic in downtown Los Angeles. Remarkably, it took 9 months to break the news story and Caltrans didn't do anything about it because the signs really did help ease traffic.

The sign remained for about EIGHT YEARS until Caltrans finally went around replacing / updating signs.

Read about it here and here. Awesome story overall.