"The monkey's his uncle?"

Overall, yesterday was a pretty good day once I got out of work. As you can probably tell from the pic above, I was lucky enough to get to see the Lion King Musical before it left the KC area (we saw it at the very last possible showing). If the Lion King is showing in your area, I highly suggest you go see it. It is definitely worth the price for the costumes alone if nothing else. The cast was excellent and the songs were great. There are a couple of new songs (apparently, they made a movie about the Lion King... :) that didn't appear in the cartoons and portions of the show were interpretive dance. The voices of the actors are sonorous and melifluous (fancy words...) and sound almost exactly like their cartoon counterparts.



Not only did I get to see Lion King but before I left work, I had to get gas and decided to buy a lotto ticket. Guess I got the right one.

Burton to film Alice

According to an article I just read, Tim Burton is to do a remake of Alice in Wonderland. Should be interesting. On tap to be in the movie are, of course, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonhem Carter (sp?), as well as Alan Rickman (Love Actually, Harry Potter), and some others. If you want, you can read the full article here. I just hope it's not another Willy Wonka...

Transformers 2 Trailer (2009)

It's not really about what you think it's about... :)

Mutiny on the High Plains

Andrea and I installed a flag pole to our house this weekend. In anticipation of this, we had ordered two pirate flags a couple of days before. Anywho, the flags arrived today and I'm here to post the pictures in all their glory. In case you're wondering, we got the flags from amazon.com. Two flags for $5 total. The shipping cost a little over $5. Below is one of the two flags we bought. The other's pretty much the same except without the crossed swords.

Today...

Today, I did something that I hadn't done in a REALLYY long time...I ate my first happy meal since I was about ten.


The reason I chose today to eat my first happy meal in over 18 years? Well, see from the picture below. Yup. It's freakin' awesome!

The Microsoft Trifecta

Well, it has been done. I've finally completed the Microsoft Trifecta. I use Microsoft Windows, I own a Microsoft Zune, and I, as of today, am the proud owner of a Microsoft Xbox 360. A coworker had a spare one he had been wanting to get rid of so it now resides at my place. I haven't had the chance to do much with it yet. Basically, I've had the time to plug it, synced the wireless controller, and made sure the machine worked. I'm going to wait till tomorrow to play with it (I have to buy a hard drive so it can save my profile...)

Finally here

Well, I finally made it to Evansville, IN. After waking up at 4 this morning to catch a flight that should've left at 7:10 AM (but didn't due to weather), I had the pleasure of sitting in Cincinatti's airport for 6 hours because I missed my connecting flight. Well, I'm finally here in my hotel room which, at least so far, seems pretty nice. I'd suggest staying at the Fairfield Inn East the next time you're in Evansville.

twenty years later...

It's amazing how some things stay the same after so long. Just a couple of minutes ago I popped a game into my nintendo (wii) and it didn't play. How did I fix it? I ejected it and blew on the game. Popped it back in and voila. Trick still works like a charm. If only everything were still that easy to fix...

Cuban banned for life from Olympics

My wife and I were wandering through nbcolympics.com today and I ran across a photo of a good kick to the face. I thought it was during a tae kwon do sparring match but as I looked closer, I noticed that one of the competitors had his helmet in his hand (not a good place for it to be) instead of on his face. I looked at my wife and told her, "That's a stupid place for your helmet to be, pointing to the competitor's hand. Then I said, "The helmet goes there," pointing to his head. Then I looked a little closer and noticed that the other competitor (the one that got kicked) had a tie on. So I thought to myself that's a stupid uniform to be sparring in. Then I looked at the heading. It looks like the Cuban competitor didn't quite like the way the match turned out. The other "competitor" (the one with the tie on) was actually a ref! The Cuban competitor will probably be expelled from the Olympics for life and most likely, his coach will be too. You can see the pictures and read the story here. The photo I saw was the third one shown in the gallery.

Merry Christmas

What's that in the picture you ask? Why that, my friend, is a kringle - a traditional Danish pastry. I told a couple of people that I was going to Racine and they all said that I had to go and get a kringle while I was here so that's what I did today. The one I had was cream cheese flavored. It was pretty good. Tasted like a Danish. It was HUGE! It cost me about $5 and was about the size of a serving platter. Well, that was my random post.

synth in

I get a complimentary copy of USA Today delivered to my room every morning and as I perused its contents I came across an article about photosynth, microsoft's new program. basically, what it does is it takes all the pictures you upload about a single subject and figures where the photographer is in relationship to the pictuer and basically stitches all the phots together for you. now this in itself is nothing new. what makes photosynth different is that you can zoom in on each of the components of the pictures. that's not explaining it too well so here's another description in microsoft's own words:

"First there was the snapshot, and then came video. Now there is Photosynth, a new service available at photosynth.com that will change the way you experience and share photos.

You can share or relive a vacation destination or explore a distant museum or landmark. With a nothing more than digital camera and some inspiration, you can use Photosynth to transform regular digital photos into a three-dimensional, 360-degree experience. Anybody who sees your synth is put right in your shoes, sharing in your experience, with detail, clarity and scope impossible to achieve in conventional photos or videos.

Synths constitute an entirely new visual medium. Photosynth analyzes each photo for similarities to the others, and uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. It then re-creates the environment and uses that as a canvas on which to display the photos."

The article mentions that this is just a beta program so there are improvements on the way. Some things that they are looking into fixing:

1) privacy - right now, any 'synth' you upload can be seen by everybody

2) it takes a while to upload the pictures and when you click to zoom in, some computers may take a while for the zoomed image to come into focus.

Check out the page if you have some free time. Kinda interesting.

deadly, clean service with a smile

I think that if I were to run a ninja training school I would send initiates to be trained as hotel maids to see if they have what it takes to be a ninja. Think about it, have you ever caught a hotel maid in your room? Yet when you leave the room and come back, it's spotless. I've only caught a maid in my room once (it takes a ninja after all) since I've been in Racine. So there you go. If you're in need of a silent assassin, put a want ad out for a hotel maid. In other news, I only had to work till one today so I've been spending time wondering around town. I've made stops at Toys R Us and Barnes and Nobles (got the zombie survival guide) and am now in the hotel recuping.

Packing

Gonna be spending most of the day packing and doing fun stuff. Gotta get ready for my trip to Racine, WI tomorrow. Work's sending me there to train some of their employees so they gave me a per diem check. I call it my GPS check (that's what I'm buying with it later today...well, and food). If you're interested, you can follow me on twitter.

Twitted

Well, I've caught up with the rest of the world and joined twitter.

Experiment

Here's a fun experiment to try sometime: Walk up to somebody (preferable someone you know) and start a conversation with them in whisper then walk up to somebody else and start a conversation with them by yelling. Do they do the same? Here's an even funner thing to try: Walk up to somebody and start a conversation with them in whisper and randomly yell parts of your sentence. Let me know how that goes if you decide to try this.

NEW Discovery Channel Commericial - Boom De Yada!

kinda catchy

I like food.

I like food. Plain and simple. I like food. And not in the way that normal people like food. I like food in a way that is entirely immersive. I enjoy food with all five senses. I enjoy the way it's presented, the way it smells, the way it sounds as you chew on it, the way it feels, and especially the way it tastes as each particle of food is caressed on each taste bud. I even enjoy events where food is the main event. For instance, tonight, my wife and I are going to a dinner theatre at the local high school. The school is nationally recognized for it's cullinary program and they're supposed to have some gourmet-y food there tonight. Then tomorrow, we're going to a Japanese steakhouse with some students from Japan. So I implore you, gentle reader, do not simply devour your food. Enjoy it.

I'll see you in Hell

Yes folks, the pope, in his infinite wisdom, has deemed it worthy to spend his time devising a list of yet more sins. From the people that brought you the 10 commandments of good driving, it's the new and revised 7 new sins! Trying to lose weight? Why not participate in creating poverty? In just two months, you too, can be watching the pounds melt away in Dante's ninth circle. Join now and we'll throw in a free one hour session of one-on-one personal training with the dark prince himself. In case you're wondering, the 7 new sins are:

1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control

2. "Morally dubious'' experiments such as stem cell research

3. Drug abuse

4. Polluting the environment

5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor

6. Excessive wealth

7. Creating poverty

Happy National Grammar Day!

As I am sure that you are all aware, today is National Grammar Day so go out and have a grammarific day!

Now if only Roy would come out of retirement...

For those of you that haven't heard, the Avs have reaquired both Adam Foote and Peter Forsberg! This announcement came just several days after they reactivated Joe Sakic. You can read about it here. My master plan's all coming to fruition... Now to talk Roy into un-retiring...

15 Most Annoying Video Game Characters

Ever wonder what the 15 most annoying video game characters were? Well, we did too so we went to this link and found out. Read #1 and tell me you didn't do the same thing to that character. I know I did at least a hundred times..."Me too"(says Andrea).

Who gilded the lilies?

I was watching TV earlier today and heard the host make reference to gilding the lilies which of course, got me to thinking about where the phrase came from. I'll save you the trouble of googling it. According to takeourword.com, the phrase comes from Shakespeare's King John. "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily...is wasteful and ridiculous excess." Just a fun little phrase so I thought I'd blog it.

verbophiles unite!

If you love the english language like I do, you should check this site out. It's a radio program about language questions and grammar. You can also get podcasts from the site.

the story so far...

well things have been pretty busy since the last time I posted. where to start...well let's start with Christmas. we went to Andrea's extended family for Christmas eve. Christmas day we (Andrea and I) opened our gifts.

She got me a Roomba (we call it Roombie). after that, we went to Andrea's mom's and exchanged gifts. then we left for Garden and spent Christmas day with my family. after we got back from Christmas, we received a package.




it was our Aerogarden! we paid for most of our wedding and Christmas gifts with a credit card and we saved up enough points for it. go us! we also finally started working on our bathroom.


it looked like a tornado hit it. then a couple of days ago, my work sent me to North Carolina to train their training coordinator and some of their staff. I just got back yesterday night.

build your vocab, feed a child

I meant to post this site up awhile ago but never got around to it so I forgot all about it until today when I heard a report about it on npr.

the site is www.freerice.com

basically, you go to the site and and they give you a word and a list of options for definitions for the word. as you answer more questions correctly, the difficulty level of the word goes up. nothing new, right? well, here's where the revolutionary part comes in. for every word you get right, the site donates 10 grains of rice to help end world hunger. as the word difficulty goes up, the more grains of rice they donate per correct word. how can they afford to do this? they have sponsors that pay for ads on their site which they in turn use to pay for the rice. just yesterday alone they donated 167,077,300 grains of rice. so, if you have time, stop by their site, build your vocab, feed a hungry kid.

I give it two phones up

as some of you may know my phones been gone for about two months now. in any case, as of today, I have a new phone with a new phone company (same phone number) so you can start reaching me at my area code 785 phone number again if you need to.

866-411-SONG

ever had a song come on the radio and not know what the song is? well now you can. just punch in the above number and hold the receiver up to the radio and the phone'll tell you what the name of the song is.

alvin, simon, theodore...

yes my friends. it's true. alvin and the chipmunks are coming back from the '80s. not only them but if my sources are correct some little blue men (and maybe a blue chick or two) may be coming back with them... you can read about it here

undead ninja giant

I finally dug out my giant model a couple of days ago and this is as far as I've gotten so far. I've made a couple of conversions to the model. if you have any ideas to make it more undead-y or ninja-y, let me know.

you don't see that every day

I took the day off from work because my brother's getting married tomorrow and I have family coming in from out of town. This being the situation, I spent most of the morning cleaning up. As I was cleaning the fridge out (something I suggest doing more often than bi-annually), I heard the roar of something that sounded like cannons coming from the distance. Much to my dismay, no cannons, no pirate ships, not even an anchor anywhere in sight. Where could that sound be coming from? I thought to myself. And then the answer came marching from below the horizon (or around the corner if you prefer). The cannon roar was coming from the drum line of the marching band. Apparently, today is their homecoming parade or something. It's not every day that a marching band marches down your street and past your house.

radiohead gives away free music

yes you read it right. the band radiohead is giving away free music. I first heard the news on npr on my way home from work and decided to give it a try. apparently, the band recently broke away from its record label and as a way of protesting against big record labels and their fixed pricing, the band is "giving away" their music. well, there's a catch... they aren't really "giving" it away. when you enter their website at www.radiohead.com you'll be asked to click enter to enter their site. then you'll need to click continue. you'll then be given the option of either pre-ordering the discbox or the digital download. the discbox comes with the usual CD, an ehance CD, a vinyl, some cool artwork, and a hardback copy of the lyrics. the downside? it costs about 40 GBP or approximately $80. if, however, you click on the download option, when you check out where the price should be you'll see a question mark. you can put ANY amount you want in there...even free! I wound up putting 5 GBP in there (the equivalent of $10). as I see it it's a win-win situation for all. Radiohead gets higher profits (they get all of the profits as opposed to having to pay a percentage to the record labels) and the fans get what they want - great music at a great price. now a couple of caveats: 1)the currency is in GBP so if you have any hesitancies about ordering stuff online internationally, this deal is probably not for you. 2)the download isn't officially released until Oct 10, 2007 so you can't download the songs until then. 3)there is a 0.45 GBP (approximately $1) processing charge so the CD download officially cost me $11.14 (5 GBP donation + 0.45 GBP processing fee). so if you like good music and sticking it to big record labels give radiohead a try. if you do wind up doing this, drop me a comment about your experience on the radiohead website. peace.

Heroes season 2 (september 24)

I am soooo looking forward to this...

from the market

guess what this is...

here's a hint...

yeah...I dance like this in real life...

yup. that's my sim shakin' his groove thang

it's like seeing the future

sometimes I like commuting. like today. my wife called me and wanted me to grill something for dinner and have it ready for her when she came home. I told her that it was probably not such a good idea because it was raining so hard in lawrence. sure enough about ten minutes after I reached olathe the monsoon hit. I am a genius!

happy halloween

in honor of halloween next month I thought I'd start working on some grave guards. here's one of them.

giving 1200%

what has 1200% of your daily recommended Vitamin C you ask?

Across The Universe - Trailer

when I first saw the trailer for the movie I thought to myself that there was no way I was going to go see this movie. but then again, I thought the same thing about moulin rouge. since then, they've released trailers that are a whole lot better than the first one I saw and now I can't imagine not seeing this movie. it looks like moulin rouge meets the part in forrest gump about the war demonstrations and instead of using random songs to tell the story, they use beatles songs. you can see other clips of songs at their website: http://acrosstheuniverse.com

we're expecting...

Andrea went to the farmer's market today and bought a couple of bunches of basil and mint. we found a caterpiller on one of them and figured it'd be fun to watch it grow so we're gonna keep him. we haven't given it a name yet. any ideas?

it's still so cuuuuutttteeee!

the game comes out sept 18. until then, you can do what I do. look at this picture and giggle a little.

monkey bread

yes my friend. such a thing does exist. it, unfortunately, is more bread than monkey. in fact, it has absolutely no monkey in it at all. it, according to my wife, is some sort of cinnamon roll-y thingy which actually looked pretty good.

felicitas felix?

to start off, today's pay day. then when I went in to work, one of the managers came and got me and handed me a visa gift card for $100. apparently, our company did pretty well last fiscal year so they were rewarding all of their employees. we also got a tote bag of some sort (I forgot to pick mine up). then when I got home, both of the packages that andrea and I had ordered off of ebay came today even though we ordered them on different days. isn't that strange? maybe I quaffed some of that felicitas felix.

tea'd out

Andrea and I went to a tea ceremony yesterday night at her mom's boss's house. as part of the ceremony, the lady that was doing it brought over some kimonos from japan. here's two of them. the one Andrea has on cost about $100,000 US dollars according to the lady.

guess what someone forgot...?

update

two weeks ago, I applied for a new position at my job. well, I got it and have been training for it since then. today, I found out that I was also given the second position I applied for so I actually have two positions now. so I have lots of training to do in the next couple of weeks. what am I gonna do tonight? probably just sit back, watch tv, and maybe paint.

a storm's a-coming

a storm's a-coming. you can smell it in the eastern wind. you can see it in the flashes of the cannon. you can hear it in the din of war. we, the people of the ninja isles will be ready for it when it comes.

well deserved

I just had the best sandwich I'd ever made. it had sliced beef, salami, honey ham, two slices of cheese, mustard and mayonaise on honey white bread. I'm not sure if it tasted so good because it actually was good or if I was hungry or if it felt like I earned it cause I had just gotten done mowing the lawn in 80+ degree weather. in fact, I think that's why pickle moved to minnesota. he claims it's for his job but he just didn't want to have to mow his lawn as much. lazy pickle.

friggin' awesome!

is it mr. potato head? is it optimus prime? it's both! it's optimash prime!

zombies are people too

I was at work today and the company released a revision to one of their operating procedures. apparently, as of now, donors who are deceased are to be permanently deferred from donating. apparently, we've been having problems with donors who have passed away trying to come back in to donate. do you hear that zombie donors. no more donating for you. I think it has something to do with the smell... take a shower then come back and try again.

what the futures holds for me

andrea, her mom, her sister, and I went out to dinner tonight after church. we went to a local chinese buffet. they got fortunes like "you will soon be singled out for a promotion". I kid you not. this is the fortune I got:

pics

here are a couple of pics from our honeymoon. I would've had more but my batteries ran out so I only got about fifty or so pics in total. andrea has a lot more. if you want to see more pics, you can check out my facebook page.


I just had to put this picture up. in case you're wondering, yes, that is a goat crossing the street and yes we are passing a car in the right hand lane (they drive on the left hand side because they're technically british)

just a fun scene from one of the restaurants we ate at

andrea and I at the italian restaraunt. it was one of the nicer restaraunts so we had to dress up. dress up meant long pants and a shirt with a collar for guys.

andrea and I on our tour of the island. the peak in the background is one of the pitons. there are two of them. that's what the island is best known for (the twin pitons). that and the saying "no pressure no problem". there's a volcano on the island so there's constantly steam coming up. as long as you see the steam, you know that pressure isn't building up and you need pressure for an eruption so "no pressure, no problem".

we're back!

as most of you that read this blog with any regularity already know, Andrea and I are now back in the states. we had a lot of fun in St. Lucia. I got sun-burnt and stung by what I can only assume are micro-jellyfish. but all i all it was a blast. we went scuba diving, hobie catting (sailing on a catamaran), and beach bumming. scuba was lots of fun. it'd been about two years since we'd been certified and we hadn't gone since then so we had to take a refresher course. as for hobie catting, they give you a five minute speech and give you a boat. that's the gist of it. your job is then to not crash into any boats larger than you (the smaller ones are ok to crash into though) and, here's the tough part, maneuvering your way back into the port from whence you came. it's a lot like kiteflying in that you spend a lot of time trying to catch the wind. I think we spent about thirty minutes actually sailing and the other hour and a half figuring out how to get back into port (there was almost no wind that day). the rest of the time there was spent going on tours of the island, eating, and just playing on the beach. we'll post pics later.

Dillons

I made my first foray into the dillons in olathe today. Yes, my new place is close to a dillons too. Even closer than the other place actually. I've gotta admit it feels kinda strange walking into another dillons. I don't know exactly what the feeling is but it's a feeling of knowing that it isn't your dillons. nothing's where it's supposed to be and they don't have all the produce they're supposed to have. I suppose I'll just have to get used to it. well, I'm off to cook my very first meal at the new place (rigatoni with sausage and a salad..mmmmm...food...)

thar be pirates!

one of my friends works at the movie theatre in lawrence and last night, they had an advanced screening of the new pirates of the caribbean movie and I was lucky enough to go. in short, I think that overall the movie is better than the other two. there is quite a bit more humor with several plot twists involved. that is not to say, however, that action is lacking. there are several fight sequences and explosions. there are also several cameos scattered throughout the movie. my only semi-complaint about the movie is about the soundtrack. true, it is better than the second movie but nowhere near as good as the first one. unfortunately, they brought Hans Zimmerman back for the third installment of the pirates trilogy instead of Klaus Baudelt. although Zimmerman's music is usually great, it felt like for the pirate trilogy he just did variations on Baudelt's previous score. overall, I'd give the movie a 9 1/2 stars out of ten. see it for yourself and be your own judge.

7.50

what can you get for $7.50? the answer is Mirrormask. if you don't own a copy of it yet, you can get one at Best Buy. you can also get a little over two gallons of gas at the local gas-o-mart. so how much did it cost me to fill my tank? a little over five mirrormasks worth. yup. $39.50 for a full tank of gas. that's ridiculous! well, enough of my gas rant. off to relax.

beds are soooo much softer than floors

I've been sleeping in the new house for the past couple of nights and we hadn't gotten our new bed in yet so the obvious alternative is the floor which would be fine if, like most newer homes, the living room was carpeted. our house, was built in the 1920s. everything is hardwood. well in any case, we finally got the bed in and I finally purchased the frame tonight and put everything together. it is soooo much nicer than hardwood floor. it's probably even nicer than my full-sized bed. well, off I go to enjoy the bed.

hooked up

it's official! I now have cable and cable internet in the new house. yea!

update

what've I been up to? well, we closed on the house on thursday and we finally got access to our house on saturday so basically I've been busy cleaning. we haven't gotten very far in the process yet. as of saturday and sunday we've only been able to clean about three of the fifteen or so storm windows, changed one set of locks on the door, painted one door, and puttied all the holes in the wall. we're gonna try to paint the living room sometime later this week.

yea! I'm back!

well, for the past two weeks, I've been trying to get back onto blogger. as many of you bloggerites know, they recently merged with google which means that you now must bow down to the google gods to use your blogger accounts. well, I being the weak and lowly mortal that I am, did such bowing and in said process was required to enter a new user name and password. well, long story short, I was cleaning out the computer registry and cleaned out the cookies that had the password and user id stored in it and couldn't for the life of me figure out what they were. well, just today (not two minutes ago), after much trial and tribulation, I was finally able to deduce my user id (go me). and much like a lowly mortal begging at his god's feet for a boon, I had to send a request to have my password reset. all this to say I'm back! and, like Kratos, google gods I say to you, beware! for your reign of tyranny is over!

clearance granted

great news! you have been granted security clearance to get a rare glimpse of the war room. you may notice holes in the ceiling but don't mistake this as a weakness in the impenetrable fortress that is my war room. it is simply a defensive tactic used to lure enemy nations into thinking that we have a weakness.

the creative process

sometimes I'm just in awe of the creative process. I was bored this evening and thought I'd try a little doodling (which I hadn't done in a while). this mishapened mutant is what I came up with:

after much more doodling and many revisions, I came up with this semi-decent drawing:

cowabunga dude!

for those of you not in the know, nintendo releases new virutal console games for the wii on mondays. I just checked today's list of games and on it was TMNT the original game! I so totally downloaded it and will be spending the next couple of hours blissfully reliving my childhood. totally gnarly!

we have a house!

well, after countering the seller's offer, we have a house! we just got the news tonight that they accepted it so that's good. we're paying full asking price but they'r paying $2500 in closing cost. I have to sign paperwork tomorrow and set up a home inspection so still lots of work but I should not be homeless when my lease runs out.

newgen hut

andrea and I went out looking at houses again today. it's our second trip in as many weeks and I think we found one that we both really like. it cost a little bit more than I was prequalified for but upon calling the bank, I found out that it was actually in our price range. we actually could've gone up a little higher if we had to. well, in any case, we're probably gonna put in an offer on it in a couple of days. it's a pretty nice starter home. 2 bed, 1 bath, with an optional bed room in the attic. 2 car garage with an unfinished basement (finally, a place to put my air hockey table...). its about a five minute walk from downtown olathe and is close to her family and about half an hour east of lawrence so not too bad. it also has a pretty large covered front porch which will be really nice when it rains outside. it needs a little bit of work but other than that, it's pretty much ready to be moved in to. well, that's it for now. we'll see if they accept the offer.

thar be pirates!

but not yet. the trailer doesn't come out till March 19th.

a blast from the past

I was cleaning out the file cabinet tonight to make some more room and came across something some of you may remember:

Boyabus kissabus pretti galorum
Girlabus likabus, wanta somorum!
Poppabus hearabus bigga smakorum,
Kickabus boyabus outta backdorum.
Boyabus limpabus alway homorum.
Swearibus kissabus girli nomorum!

:)

weekend plans

I've got the next three days off and andrea's out of town so what am I gonna do? clean, clean, clean, clean, paint, wii/ what a wonderful life for me.

food pills: way in the future or here today?

what could this be?

let's add water and find out...



it's a ball of tea with a flower wrapped inside!

Pirates of the Great Salt Lake Trailer

"it's that damn Johnny Depp"

Spiders On Drugs

poke Jesus!

well, I finally joined the 21st century and started a facebook page and myspace page. it doesn't have anything on it yet but I'll work on it eventually. anyways, I was looking at pickle's facebook and saw that jesus hernandez was on there and I just couldn't help it. I just had to poke Jesus.

stop kicking the copier...

you just never know...

Wii Sims

it was just too cute. I just had to...and it's coming to the wii!!!

evil monkey

I was in a nostalgic mood tonight so I popped in my transformers movie dvd. after the movie, I had to do some research about the live-action movie they were doing to see who they got to do the voices for optimus and megatron. if you'll look it up in imdb.com, you'll find that Frank Welker, the guy who voiced megatron in the old cartoons and is supposedly voicing megatron in the new movie also did the voice of George (the monkey) in the movie "Curious George" thus proving my theory that monkeys are pure evil. that is all.

I love fresh ingredients

andrea's coming down to lawrence tonight so I thought I'd make us dinner. didn't really know what to make so I thought I'd throw a couple of ingredients together and see what I get. apparently, we're having bowtie spaghetti with italian sausage and bacon in a four cheese sauce. of course, I'm cooking so that means that I'm snacking on the ingredients as well. just got to say raw fresh basil is the best. also, you might want to try raw minced garlic too if you haven't done that before. it tastes totally different when it's not mixed with anything else. there's a peppery/citrusy taste to it. also, asiago cheese and regiano parmeggiono are good. that is all. next time you cook, you should try the ingredients by themselves. well, enough babbling. on to see if anything's burned on the stovetop.

don't mess with optimus

G'Nockthar foolishly rushes the mighty Optimus Prime...




Unfortunately for G'Nockthar, the end result was inevitable...

Narnia? II

just got back inside from being outdoors. here's a little poem I wrote to commemorate the event:

little pellets of ice
falling from the sky
sharp as razor blades
slicing skin from bone
ouch!

on another note. when I got back inside, the power was out...for the second time today (it's back on now). I'm off now to find some candles and matches in case I need them for tonight.

Narnia?

yes, like other Kansas cities within the past month, Lawrence, being the petulant child-city that it is, is also getting its own winter storm (hopefully nowhere near as bad as the ones in western kansas). I think it's supposed to be in the mid 20s today so for my last day of "vacation", I'm gonna be staying indoors, painting, having some sweet fruit tea, cleaning, and playing gladius on the pre-wii (gamecube). if you have to go outside, bundle up.

did you know...?

well, I have my week off this week so I'm here doing laundry and watching the food network. there's a show on right now called world's freakiest food and they're having a segment on muskrats. apparently, according to the show, the catholic church allows you to substitute muskrat for fish on meatless days (i.e. lent). ahhh....it's good to be catholic.

Urban Ninja

This guys is my hero.

Like Scrubs? Like A Charlie Brown Christmas?

Well my friend, this is the video for you. A Charlie Brown Christmas voiced over by the cast of Scrubs.

teavana

I'm back in lawrence now. been busy cleaning up the apartment and putting the christmas tree up for its annual siesta so I thought a nice hot cup of tea sounded good. here's a picture. the tea is sweet fruit garden from teavana. the red stuff is the actual tea diffusing from the tea ball. its fruity and sweet and full of mmmmm-mmmmmm-goodness.

why couldn't the coal worker go into the bar?

because he was just a miner...



here's a pic of my warriors.
well off to keep on painting.

a pirate's life for me

that's right. they make a pirate version of the life game. andrea and I had some people over last night and we played it. not as fun as the original life game but interesting nonetheless.

it's like youtube...but for music lovers

like youtube? like music videos? try out singingfool at www.singingfool.com

happiness

what is happiness? happiness is coming in from the bitter cold to a nice warm apartment, changing into a pair of pajama pants and a hoodie, eating sushi orange rolls, drinking hot apple cider and knowing that your night class that is a forty-five minute's drive away is cancelled.

Who rocks the casbah?

I rock the casbah! "why," you ask? I just got my test back from my first responder class and I got a whoppin' 97% on it. boo-yah! we also practiced scenarios tonight and guess what? yeah, I rocked that too. it's all starting to make sense. well. enough gloating now though. back to my old humble quiet self...until the next time I rock the casbah...:)

what if you could live forever?

I've been seeing trailers for The Fountain for a couple of weeks now and it looks like it's gonna be really really good and thought-provoking. basically, there are three story lines that weave together involving the same two characters in different time-lines. it's supposed to be about life, love, death, and immortality. I'm probably gonna go see it soon but if you've seen it, let me know what you think. the trailer can be seen here.

my weekend in numbers

Tow truck #1: $90
Fuel filter and labor: $200
Tow truck #2: $140
Hotel for the night: $50
Taxi to auto shop: $10
Fuel pump and labor: $500
Going home for thanksgiving: Priceless

the weirdest dream

I had the weirdest dream last night. for some reason, I had to climb down this narrow cave-ish shaft carrying two kids. one was a real kid, probably four-ish or so. the other was a mannikin baby which somehow or other had become animated. so I was there carrying the two kids down the shaft and when we got down the shaft, I noticed that the mannikin baby was no longer breathing so I gave it two breaths which didn't go in so, being the good first responder that I am, I started into 5 backslaps and 5 chest thrusts. well, I kept on working on it for what seemed like half an hour and just as I was about to give up, the mannikin baby spewed this liquid and vomit and started breathing again. I had never been so happy as when it started breathing. so, long story short, I think I'm spending way too much time doing stuff for my first responder class. now that I think about it, the mannikin baby did look a lot like the baby mannikins we used for cpr for the class...

a cullinery delight

move over pepperjax. get out of the way subway. I just found a new favorite place to get philly cheese steaks in lawrence. the place just opened up recently and the only reason I noticed it was because it was on the way to jimmy john's yesterday. it's called jersey mike's subs or something like that. the cheese just oozes out of the cheese steak and the peppers and onions are delish. so the next time you're in lawrence and feel like having something good, give them a try.

coolest liscense plate. ever.

I was on my way to class yesterday and I saw a SUV with the coolest liscense plate. I would've taken a picture but I didn't have my camera on me. it read simply:
AHOY 2U

maybe you've been poisoined too

shannon, nicole, and nette came down yesterday on their way to st.louis this morning. as per tradition, we went out to eat. we decided that bbq sounded interesting so we stopped by buffalo bob's downtown. the food tasted ok but when I got home, my stomach started hurting and it was still hurting this morning. I've also developed a bit of a fever so there's a chance that food poisoning was involved. well, I'm off to take a nap now.

turning of the leaves

well, here I am at panera having probably the three best things they make here - french onion soup, lemon artichoke chicken panini, and an iced chai latte with an apple for the side. what've I been up to today? well, I can tell you that today's been a lot more productive than yesterday. I went to the bank this morning, got my laundry done, and got a dvd shelf at target. on my way back, I noticed that the leaves were starting to turn colors so I thought I'd stop by campus and take some pictures. only problem is that it's a saturday and there's a home football game today. so instead of a nice, quiet stroll, I was greeted by a bunch of college football fans. that's all right though. I still managed to get a couple of good pictures in. and that brings me to now with me sitting...here...in panera...where I will be...until my laundry is done drying. on another note, if you like hugh grant movies like 'love actually', I'd suggest picking up 'mickey blue eyes'. I started watching it before I dropped my laundry off. what's on tap for the rest of the day? the finishing of my laundry, the finishing of watching 'mickey blue eyes', the reading of my first responder book, the cleaning of the apartment, and whatever andrea and I decide to do tonight.

good intentions

I meant to read nine chapters for my First Responder class today. instead, I went to Best Buy, bought the original three star wars movies (eps. IV-VI. it was on sale for a little over $30 ), all three riddick chronicle movies (for a whoppin' $15 dollars total), and Ultimate Alliance (a ps2 game with spidey and the x-men) which I then proceeded to spend about 10 hours playing. guess what I get to do tomorrow. it starts with an 'f' and ends with a 'irst responder reading'.

what've I been up to?

well, the answer to that question is threefold. numero uno: work. numero dos: first responder class. numero tres: sleeping. rinse, lather, repeat, add fooding in there at some point and you have my life the past three days. oh yeah, and battling a cold. the first responder class has been lots of fun. you get to learn medical stuff and you get to work with mannequins. the second day of class (yesterday), we learned about how blood circulates from the heart to the rest of the body (we spent a week on that in biology). that's how quick-paced the class is. I'm about nine chapters behind on my reading now but when your days consist of working 8-5 and then driving from 5-6:30 and then class from 6:30 to 10:00 and then driving from 10:00 to 10:45 to get home and then being in bed by 11:30, that doesn't leave much room for reading or much of anything else especially if you want to have dinner at 10:45-ish. it's been fun though. I'm glad I don't have class again till monday though. it'll give me time to catch up on my reading. what's even better is that I have friday, saturday, and sunday off from work so I might actually get ahead on my reading. so, quick recap of how my week goes: monday through wednesday: work, drive, class, drive, dinner. thursday through saturday: work, read, read, read. sunday: work, read, marriage prep class. so yeah, I've been busy. off I go to bed so I can wake up early enough to hopefully get a spot in the EMT class for next semester. they go fast and the first day of open enrollment is tomorrow at 8:00 AM. over half of the EMT class is already filled up so we'll see...

avs update

like the Avs? like stories of selflessness? this is the story for you Liles Gives No. 26 To Stastny

Alvin, Simon, Theodore...

so I'm sick again (it's been awhile) and I have this routine I go through everytime I'm sick. first off, I toss kleenexes everywhere and then pick them up the next day (kinda disgusting, I know but it's therapeutic). secondly, I watch a movie from my childhood. usually, it's one of my favorite movies of all time, the Transformers movie (the original). for some reason I decided on a different movie today. I had picked up the Chipmunks Adventure about a week ago in Target so I thought I'd give it a try. anyways, watching the movie got another chipmunks song into my head. I don't know if any of you saw this episode but it's the one where alvin has a dream that the berlin wall falls down ("let the wall fall down/ tumble to the ground"). unfortunately, those are the only lyrics I can remember but it's stuck in my head now. anyways, the third part of my sick regimen involves possibly the best invention...ever, Nyquil, and then to bed so off I go.

notice to pirate islands

dear peaceful nations of the pirate islands,

this notice is to inform you that the nation previously known as futontopia has been taken over and will henceforth be known as ninja isle of death. along with the managerial change comes other changes. we will no longer be using ice blue as our dominant color in the flag. it will be replaced with dark angel green. here is a picture of futontopia's national hero whom we easily captured since he was wearing ice blue and was trying to hide in a dark green forest.
he will summarily be brainwashed and, after re-education, will be released back into the general population. we will also be changing our motto from "love and peace for all" to "death to all". thank you for your cooperation during this difficult transition. we know that change can be difficult and will be more than happy to assist in any way possible during this transitional period.

sincerely,

overlord of ninja isle of death

ahhh...that hit the spot

I went for another jog today. this time, for 20 mins (a record for me). afterwards, I felt thirsty, and rightfully so. therefore, I headed off to my favorite drink spot. what sounded good? an orange cool breeze. I had never had one before but let me tell you, if you enjoy refreshing, citrus-y goodness, then this is the drink for you. I give it four out of five ninja throwing stars of death. one word of caution though. at the bottom of the drink, there are chunks of pineapple. I didn't expect that when I ordered it and almost spit it back out. that's also the reason why I only gave it four ninja throwing stars of death instead of five. when I order a drink, I shouldn't have to chew it. so there you have it. go out and get yourself an orange cool breeze today.