Pay Attention!

New pet peeve of mine - when you're out to dinner with a big group of people, the waiter comes by with food and no one pays attention to them.  Maybe it's just me but I tend to be hyper aware of people around me, so I always feel bad for the waiters standing there with four plates balanced up and down their arms, and no one else can bother to turn around and say, "The salad with ranch is mine."

I can't tell you how many big group dinners I've been to where the waiter is walking up and down the entire group of 15 saying, "Mozzarella sticks...who has the mozzarella sticks?" only to have the person sitting next to me wake up from their daze to say, "Oh, mozzarella sticks? Right here."

Frozen Zen Lunch

Much like my brother, I hate making my lunch during the work week.  I absolutely hate it.  I don't know why, but my only guess is because it's a daily task requiring just enough time to be annoying.  I also hate spending money but I think I achieved something of a Zen status with lunch.

I bought a loaf of bread from the 99¢ store, and also got some bananas and peanut butter from Target.  When I got home, I cracked open the peanut butter, chopped up some bananas and took out 16 slices of bread.  I made an assembly line and cranked out 8 sandwiches rather quickly.

Ah, but don't that many sandwiches get moldy, Zen Master?  Nope.com!  I put all of the sandwiches back in the bread loaf sleeve in the freezer.  Each morning, I open up the loaf of bread and take out the next sandwich.  By the time lunch rolls around at work, it's nicely defrosted.

My coworkers teased me about eating the same thing for lunch everyday.  But then I told them about my assembly line methods and having 8 days worth of lunch ready in a short time, and they all agreed it was more smart than lazy.

With the Top Let Back and the Sunshine Shining

I don't buy clothes very often, so I was as surprised as anyone when I recently bought 4 shirts within 2 weeks.  All of them were on clearance so I ended up with good deals.  The problem I realized when I got home was that 3 of the 4 shirts are distinctly Western-style shirts - somewhat similar to the one in this photo.

This got me thinking that maybe I am going through some kind of subconscious mid-life crisis where, on some level, I want to be a cowboy.

*sigh*  Getting older kinda sucks.

Yeehaw?

A Blog Down Memory Lane

Wow.  First off, let me say I'm a fan of the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.  It's a site that archives (or attempts to archive) websites.  I don't know how they do it, but I'm thankful because it's fun to look at band websites when they were promoting older albums.  Some bands I still love have broken up and don't have a website so it's neat to jog my memory and remember those days.

So I went on the IAWM and typed in an old old blog address I had and it had archived three pages of it.  Wow, three pages!  I went back and read them and it was pretty trippy.  Talking about my first job a LOT of detail, most of which would probably be frowned on these days, if not get me fired.  Talking about love interests, concerts I was going to, movies I had seen, stuff that I'd done with my family...it was just so weird to read old old blog posts.  It almost feels like I'm reading about a different person...which in a sense, I guess I was back then.

And no, I'm not going to give out the old old blog address so you can look it up.  The past is best left in the past.

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.

Dual Dukedom

I've been trying to use Yelp on my phone more - to post reviews of restaurants we eat at, but mostly for taking / posting photos of food. One function I was fairly unaware of was the ability to "check in" when you are at any location. I don't think there is an overall goal to checking in somewhere, other than to tell Yelp where you were.

I recently discovered if you have the most check-ins at a location, you become the Duke or Duchess of that place. I'm happy to say I am currently the Duke of a sushi restaurant near our house. The place is kind of small and has become The Wife's favorite sushi place so it was pretty easy to achieve Dukedom.

The new goal I've set is to become The Duke of Ikea. The current Duke has 4 check-ins there, so it will be easy to revolt and topple his regime. We get a lot of our furniture there, and it is always our meeting spot when we see the in-laws. The running joke between The Wife and I is that we go to Ikea more often than we go to church. So keep an eye on the local Ikea page on Yelp, and remember you knew the Duke of Ikea before he held dual Dukedom.

Random Celebrity Sightings

I had two very random celebrity sightings recently. First up was Nikki Sixx at the Topanga Mall. I was 99% sure that was him I saw in the food court but when I walked by again, he'd up and gone. A few minutes later, he was standing by a kiosk so I went up and asked if it was really him. I told him I was a fan and asked for a photo, but he said he was trying to spend with his kids, so he'd rather not. No problem, Mr. Sixx! I only wish my phone would have rang at that moment since my ringtone is "Kickstart My Heart."

The other sighting was at the Natural History Museum as I spotted one Diedrich Bader, of Drew Carey Show and Office Space fame. He was hanging out in the Insect Zoo portion of the museum with his kids, as a live animal presentation was about to start. Weird and random on both counts.

Free Food

I don't know what is wrong with me but I cannot pass up free food. This is something that developed in my recent adult years but if there is free food in the office or if we're at Trader Joe's, I cannot refuse free food. It's not like we were poor growing up and were hurting for food. Heck, it's not like I'm poor now and am hurting for food. Maybe it's because it combines two of my favorite things: food + free = awesome. Anyway, if you want to get me to show up to any event whatsoever, just tell me there's going to be free food and I'll be there in a Dallas second.

Divergent Paths

After viewing Zombieland recently, I was reading up about its star, Woody Harrelson, who has to be one of the...more unique actors in Hollywood. The most fascinating thing I read about him from his Wikipedia article is the fact that his father, Charles Harrelson, was a freelance hitman who went to jail for the murder of a federal judge.

Wha-wha-what....?! Wait, it gets better. He also hinted at one point that he might have been involved in the JFK assassination. Wait, it gets even better as he once also attempted to escape from prison at the age of 58.

Wow. I mean, WOW. Find me any other parent / child combination in Hollywood (or anywhere else) with such divergent paths.

Captain America

So, they announced the casting of Chris Evans in the role of Captain America for his upcoming movie. I know that my loyal blog readers (both of you) are just dying to know my thoughts, so let's discuss.

Overall, I'm okay with it. Ideally, my first choice to play Cap would be Bruce Willis, or perhaps Kiefer Sutherland. But both of those actors are probably too old for the part. This is going to be a period film, set during World War II and they need someone on the younger side. Chris Evans has played serious roles before - even though I didn't like the movie, he did a really good job in Sunshine.

What I'm more irritated by has been the backlash from the fans who are complaining that because he played Human Torch in the Fantastic Four films, he can't also be Captain America. I have been reading some outrage on Marvel's Facebook page who say this casting crushes the hopes of a Fantastic Four / Avengers movie...which was never going to happen in all honesty. 20th Century Fox owns the film rights to FF, Marvel Studios is producing Avengers and Captain America. The only way their could be a crossover is if Fox lets the film rights expire and Marvel picks them back up, at which point, they would maybe consider a crossover 10-15 years from now when the actors would be too old and they would probably re-cast anyway. So who cares.

And as far as him playing another comic book character, Ryan Reynolds did it first when he played Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity and then Deadpool in the Wolverine movie. Did people complain about this killing the chances of a Blade / X-Men crossover? No. Halle Berry has been both Storm and Catwoman. Ray Stevenson was the Punisher and now he's in the Thor movie. Rebecca Rojmin was in The Punisher and X-Men. Again, so who cares.

I honestly didn't know if Robert Downey Jr. was the right choice to play Iron Man, but once I saw the trailers and the finished product, there's no doubt they did an awesome casting job. I'm cool with Chris Evans for now and will wait to reserve judgment until I see the final product, which is very un-fanboy like of me.

Not-Quite-Friendbook

Facebook is weird. I'm Facebook friends with probably 10 people that I went to high school with - I sent a request to some of them, and some requested me. I wonder about the ones that request me, what their criteria is. Do they have good memories of me and want to get back in touch? Are they just trying to add old friends from high school in hopes of scoring some drugs? I got a friend request last week from a guy who peed on my shoe in 7th grade. Yes, you read that correctly. He peed on my shoe in 7th grade in the bathroom before gym class. We were never friends in junior or high school, and I think we only had a handful of classes together. I declined his friend request, only to have him send another one two days later. Bizarre, but the point is I have no desire to be friends with the guy that peed on my shoe in 7th grade.

Naive?

In my lifetime, I've been in maybe...3 situations where an illegal drug was being used and/or offered to me. I've never tried them and I absolutely don't regret this fact of my life. So I was thinking about it, and if I really, really, wanted to try them, I would have zero idea where to start. Perhaps I am being naive about it, but I don't think any of my friends use drugs. I'll even go as far to say, I think I would be surprised if they did. (If you do, for the record, don't tell me - ignorance is bliss.) So I was just thinking about where someone like me, who has no knowledge of drugs, how much they cost or where to obtain them, would even start looking for drugs. Do people still deal on street corners? Can one find them on Craigslist?

Mind you, I'm not looking for suggestions but it just occurred to me that if I ever wanted to become a junkie, I wouldn't have the foggiest notion where to start.

DR

For some bizarre reason, my doctor's office has never gotten my last name name right. For the sake of this story (and my own privacy), let's say my last name is Lieber. I showed up for my first appointment with them, handed them my ID and health card, and they put me in the system as Lieberg. I have told them twice to change it and both times, they told me they changed it.

Last week, I got a letter in the mail from them addressed to Chris Lieberg. *sigh*

It's really weird because each time I call for an appointment, I spell out my last name L-I-E-B-E-R, and they find me in the system. I never mention the G but it's always f'ing there on my record.

The last time I called, I spelled out my last name L-I-E-B as in Bob, E-R and the woman was like, "Okay, and your first name is Bob?" So clearly they don't hire the most intelligent people at this health group.

Earthquake Stories

Last week, there was a mild earthquake at 1:25 on a Thursday, so during the work day. I was in my car at the time and felt my car sway a bit. It honestly felt like a strong Santa Anita breeze - it was no big deal. I had to clock back in so I walked back to find people from my office standing outside. Was there an order to evacuate? I decided to take my chances since I'm new and I wanted to clock back in, at least. I walked back to my desk and sure enough, my least favorite thing about earthquakes started - earthquake stories.

Without fail, whenever an earthquake happens on work time, you can expect the following scenario to happen: 1. mild earthquake happens; 2. people freak out; 3. everyone spends the next 20-30 minutes standing around talking about the earthquake and sharing earthquake stories. This. Annoys. The. Crap. Out. Of. Me.

Why? Because there is no story. Unless something actually falls and breaks, there is no story worth telling. This was a 4.2 and the building barely shook. There is nothing to talk about. Anytime someone came back from lunch, the first thing someone would ask is, "Did you feel the earthquake?" Then they'd talk about the magnitude of this earthquake, what it felt like, where they were when it hit and any other irrelevant stories barely related to earthquakes just so they could kill time. Get back to work, you assholes!

Goodnight Moon

Do you remember this book from your childhood - Goodnight Moon? I came across an interesting article the other day regarding this book. Apparently, the author, Margaret Wise Brown, signed away the royalties to that book to Albert Clarke, her neighbor's 9 year old son. And what became of Mr. Clarke? He basically squandered $5 million in royalties and had about $27,000 left to his name in 2000.

On one hand, that's kind of cool she would give some of the royalties to a child. On the other hand, it probably helped ruin his life. He was kind of a problem child to begin with, and he didn't get any money from it until the age of 21. But if you had hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties coming in every year and never had to find a real job, that would sure as hell change your life. And thanks to Bill Clinton, he and his children will have royalties coming in from that book until 2043. That article is kind of interesting.

At least it's better than leaving everything in your will to your pet.

Allison Mack. Connected.

So I was reading up on Smallville the other day, which is an awesome show, by the way. We're watching it on Netflix and have 1 disc left in Season 4. (Anyone that posts spoilers in the comments and ruins something for me will have Deathstroke the Terminator sent after you.)

I digress.

So I'm reading up on Wikipedia and clicking around to some of the actors' names, and I come across Allison Mack's entry on Wikipedia. It's a normal page until you get to the bottom and see that she is on every single social networking site. Seriously. You can get in touch with Allison Mack on her official website, via Sodahead, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Bebo, Orkut, Friendster (sidebar: people still use Friendster?) and hi5.

I've never even heard of most of these sites, but holy smack! I guess, on one hand, it might be smart because she's protecting her name and preventing impostors from posing as Allison Mack. On the other hand, how in the heck does she keep up with all of them? Probably has a personal assistant. "Hey, make sure you check my Sodahead account first, then my Facebook before you get me coffee."

Songs I Never Need to Hear Again

As big of a music fan as I am, I can happily live the rest of my life if I never hear "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and "You Oughta Know" by Alanis Morissette. I feel like I've heard them on the radio, seen it performed live (in Alanis' case), seen the video on TV and have heard it on my iPod that I know every nook and cranny of the song. I know every beat, lyric and note, and while they're both great songs, I'm done with them. Sorry.

So for the last time ever*, I present these two songs.





* - Probably not, since I haven't taken over the world yet.

What songs could you live without ever hearing again?

This Just In...

French toast rules.

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.

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.