Three Non-Blogs

A Brit's Take on NBC, Conan, Leno, and American Late Night TV

2010-01-26T15:23:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I've last posted, but who reads a non-blog anyway? This is ego stroking or self-indulgence, anyway, so I would only be apologizing to myself. Well, go sit and spin, Potzi! I'm not apologizing.

I regularly listen to a podcast of the hosts' banter from a radio show from Absolute Radio in London, UK. I have never listened to it over broadcast signal, so I have no frakking clue what they're frequency is, so the FCC and Ofcom (pronounced "off comm" for anyone who's never heard the name said. I had only heard it, and had to look up the spelling.) can bite my bum. It's called Geoff Lloyd's Hometime Show (The time slot we call "Drive Time" on American radio, some Brits call "Home Time", because it's time to go home, see?). Last Thursday, 1/21/10, he did what most radio shows over here were doing, and weighed in on the NBC snafu with Jay and CoCo (I won't get into how bizarre it is that the names that have come out of this are my wife's nickname for me, and our late pet bunny's name. It's like a strange Buddy Cop movie title/plot: "One's an overweight man in his mid-thirties. The other one's a stuffed rabbit. Together, they're Jay and Coco!").

Anyway, while I found it quite amusing listening to a Limey radio DJ try and explain both American Late Night TV and this specific situation to both his co-hosts and his audience, it actually made me realize something: "Anyone could manage NBC better than the people doing it right now."

For your listening pleasure, I have edited the podcast audio, and included the clip here. For more information, you can go to www.absoluteradio.co.uk. All material is the copyright of the originator, and not mine. All rights are reserved by the same.

My Status as a Celebrity (Non)Blogger

2009-07-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

I think my status as a Celebrity (Non)Blogger may have jumped up a notch: I was selected as a recipient of a pair of tickets to the Michael Jackson Memorial Service at the STAPLES Center. However, I'm still not a typical celebrity blogger. For the most part, I don't give a stuff about celebrities or their sundry and sordid activities. I'm a bit of a geek (as my other posts pretty much scream), but I'm also a fiscal Conservative, and a political Libertarian, and love the idea of a Free Market. Plus, attending will mean missing work, and driving. Now, because of this Capitalistic entrepreneurial spirit, and a dash of naivete, I expected to be able to sell the tickets through eBay or craigslist, and come out a little ahead. While I might have guessed that the more homoginized eBay would shy away from allowing auctions, but I didn't count on a communal fascism by the moderators of craigslist. I really wasn't surprised when eBay pulled my posting, and informed me they were not permitting sales of any of the various forms in which the tickets may be transacted on a secondary market. They're a corporation, and have consistently followed their own not-dissimilar precedents in previous cases. I was taken by surprise when I had an initial post taken down by craigslist first thing this morning. I assumed at first that somebody had decided I couldn't possibly have the tickets in-hand yet (which was correct), or that since I had listed a price of $1000, the posting triggered someone's anti-scalping radar. Later, after I had the tickets, and had found a dozen other postings for tickets, I tried again. Again, within 15 minutes, they pulled my posting again. This time, I decided to investigate the moderator forums to see if there another user had posted something there about having a Michael Jackson Memorial ticket posting taken down. Eventually, after wading through a surprising amount of bitching and whining by users who couldn't figure out why their posts for massage therapist services or job offers were taken down, I found a post about someone in similar circumstances. This is when I discovered that craigslist was not the anarchist's utopia. In this communal moderator's orgy was a fascism that I never would have suspected from a group of people so easily imagined as a modern hippie commune. The group doesn't allow postings that establish or imply competitions or auctions; in the recent light of the crackdown on "adult services" and singles ads that made people associate craigslist with the sleazier dregs of society, they are more sensitive about ads that might use language "suggestive" of these "adult services". One of the ads flagged for closure, and suspected of degrading of the site's reputation, had offered an extra ticket to anyone who could write a couple lines showing "what they were willing to do" to attend the memorial, despite giving examples of feats such as writing a poem, or singing a Michael Jackson song, etc.

Anyway, I have severly digressed. At this pont, I am fully planning on attending the service. The tickets are too good not to. (They're on the Club/Premiere Level, right by where I can logically presume the stage will be.) Plus, all-in-all, I still grew up on his music, and the music of several of the announced performers. But, I also still have an extra ticket, and unused wristband. I am declaring them up for bid. If there is anyone interested, please post a comment here, and we can arrange to meet at a Starbucks somewhere near STAPLES Center prior to the event tomorrow.

I thought I'd post my pirate name...

2009-06-06T22:33:00.001-07:00

My pirate name is:

Iron Morty Vane

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. You tend to blend into the background occaisionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Twittering with the Geeks

2009-05-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

I recently watched the "I Am a Geek" video put out by the Society for Geek Advancement. Since I expect my audience is intelligent (I know it is, because at this time, my audience consists of Me), I won't insult anyone's intelligence by putting links everywhere for the video. To make sure it doesn't get lost in the fathomless archives of expired content in them thar "inter-tubes" I will probably post with the video imbedded. When I do, I will include a link to Wil Wheaton's blog post about it, and the subsequent discussion by his audience. I actually found it all pretty interesting. I also found myself doing my best emotional/intellectual impression of Charlie Brown: "Yeah, that's right. The video pandered to us!" "Oh, that's a good point. We're being elitist by critcizing them." "Yeah, you're right, too: we're all geeks in our own way." "But you're right, as well: this is just publicity seeking." "OK, you've got a point. It might be genuine; who are we to judge?" ad nauseum...

Anyway, I watched the video after reading Wil's post, and all his comments. The only part I was really offended by was when someone (and if I was the "right kind" of geek, I'd have recognized him, and be able to recall who he was off the top of my head) said, in reference to D&D and Magic: The Gathering, "But they look really fun." He said it in a very condescending tone that one can only truly understand when they've heard it and been on the receiving end of it for years. That douche-nozzle really was the only part that truly bothered me. I've seen That Guy before. I've met That Guy before. I hate That Guy. I've been That Guy, and that's what makes me feel the worst: he looks at people he sees as "Geekier" than him, and thinks he's cool, even if he's only cooler than "some Geeks". Yeah, that was a cheap shot from the Jock-tionary, and I feel appropriately dirty for it. Don't worry, I'm atoning: I'm watching Reaper and Mythbusters on my DVR, while typing this post in one of two open browsers, each with multiple open tabs, and neither of which is Internet Explorer. And I will be listening to Geek-centric podcasts on my commute (things like GeekSpeak, Geek Survival Guide, All Games Considered, On Board Games, How Stuff Works, Geek Acres, etc.)

The true point of this post was to share something that I found in my Twitter feed. Wired.com published an article on their site informing people of their top 100 Geeks to follow on Twitter. I was pleased to see that I was already following at least 10 of them via my own discovery. But I was also really excited about all the others that I discovered in there. I followed everyone that was listed as Contributors of the "I Am a Geek" video, fully intending to cull the herd as I decided which ones were worth continuing to follow. Most of the contributors are in the media, but a lot of them are in the Geek Media, and are the initiators and creators of their outlets.

Anyway, here's the link to the article: Wired.com's 100 Geeks you Should Be Following On Twitter

It's not an entertaining article, so don't expect the barrel of laughs I provide here... erm - yeah. So, anyway. That's all.

Update!

2009-05-07T07:32:00.001-07:00

Well, I wouldn't be much of a "celebrity blogger", or even a "twitter blogger" if I didn't keep my fans posted on updates.

Despite my suspicions and what I felt was ironclad evidence to the contrary, Valebrity has validated Melissa Gilbert and Kirstie Alley on Twitter. Maybe the only evidence we will need in the future is if I think it's clear that someone is a fake. Heck, I thought that the original digital Laser Discs could never be replaced by something as small as a CD, and still give as good of quality. Boy, did I look like a fool a year later. With that kind of track record, if I'd been old enough, I probably would have backed Betamax. The only reason I avoided embarrassment with BluRay vs. HD-DVD, is because I never picked a side, and "Format War II: Sony's Revenge" didn't last long enough to force me to. It was partly strategic: I didn't want to pick the wrong side again, and look just as stupid as with the Laser Disc vs. DVD issue. At least that never got high enough on the radar to even be considered a format war. It was more of a brief genocide, culminating in full obliteration. None of the other formats were even aware of it. No sanctions were issued, or reprisals or reparations demanded. It was quick and clean, almost surgical. At least I wasn't in a position to buy a Laser Disc player. Then I really would have looked like an idiot. Unlike now, when I'm writing about celebrity validations on Twitter...I feel sick.

My detective hat is on!

2009-05-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

For those who like to follow celebrities on Twitter, the validity of that celebrity's identity is crucial: if it's an imposter, you're just one of the gullible masses, but if it's genuine, you feel like you're getting a secret, inside glimpse of their glamorous life. Anytime a celebrity appears on Twitter, it quickly becomes a race to find out if they're authentic. Recently, Ben Jones (@benjonesdj) was interviewing Hugh Jackman (who confirmed he's the genuine twitter article: @realhughjackman). Ben told Hugh that he was following someone called @Seth_Rogen who was pimping out Seth's latest movie Observe and Report, but Seth Rogen revealed in an interview (listen here) that he isn't using the service. The celebrity validation game is big enough that websites have popped up to help reassure people that they're not gullible losers. The most reputable is Valebrity. Their website is http://valebrity.com. They also have a Twitter profile, naturally: @valebrity.

Anyway, enough "hard journalism": during the past 24-48 hours, Kirstie Alley and Melissa Gilbert (currently listed as @KirstieAlley and @MelissaEGilbert) have been Tweeting back and forth incessantly about everything! Yesterday started with the alleged Kirstie Alley lambasting Harvey Levin (@HarveyLevinTMZ) and TMZ (@TMZ), and asking for help from her Tweeps finishing a colorful idiom: "YOU ARE NOT A LAWYER, YOU ARE A ____". The alleged Melissa chimed in with "liar" (who knows if she meant this as a reference to the similar line from the Jim Carrey movie Liar, Liar, or not). The winning entry was someone offering the "C" word. Yes, that "C" word.

Later the Alleged Miss K tweeted responses that she was genuine. She even promised updated pictures that would show her to be authentic. However, rather than posting "twitpics", she seemed to just be updating her profile pic. The current pic (you'll see it when you click on her profile link) is an obvious fake. The poor lighting and bad resolution made it obvious enough, imo, but the supposed writing on the note, when viewed larger, is clearly digital pen work in some kind of editing program like MS Paint, or Adobe PhotoShop.

Now, finally, to the reason I'm writing this: A genuine celebrity Emma Kennedy (she's a British author, but she's real, and really her: @EmmaK67) has been on top of the mad Tweeting between these two Surreal Life "Wish List" candidates. She has been urging the Alleged Miss K to validate herself with Valebrity, to no avail, so far (which I take as further evidence of her fraudulent status). She also declared that she needed a Huggy Bear to do some snooping. This is where I come in! I volunteered, and due to my geographically advantageous position (ie, I live in California, and she lives in England), she recruited me.

Let it be known, far and wide, that I am on the case! During my non-working hours, I will be doing my best to solve this case. Right now, my efforts are focused on Miss K. She seems the most likely candidate to be fake, and the easiest to confirm.

I have placed a call to her agent, Scott Henderson at William Morris. I am waiting for a return call. I am hopeful, but I'm also an incurable optimist, so we'll see. I have also placed a call to Miss M's agent, Erwin Moore (also with William Morris). OK, this was done live, and it turns out that Melissa is no longer represented by Mr. Moore. I am now calling Scott Henderson's office back.

It's ringing. Voicemail! Curses...well, now it's a waiting game. I have to get ready to go to work.

More Geekery

2009-03-05T20:16:00.000-08:00

I've decided to post a couple more pictures that I need a URL for. I play a free MMORPG called Runes of Magic. These are my characters:
Shorok, Level 7 Barbarian:

Harald Big Paw, Level 11 Warrior:

Geeky creativity, Part Deux

2009-02-28T18:56:00.001-08:00

My obsessive-compulsive mind wouldn't let the Geek Speak Magic card-thing go. Here are four more that I created:

Again, I am not going to go to the effort of explaining the inside jokes. No one actually reads this page but me, anyway, so I already get them. If, by some bizarre twist of fate, someone else reads this, and, equally bizarrely, wants to know what the jokes mean, they can contact me, or they can get hold of old episodes at http://www.geekspeakradio.us.
I use this refusal to pander to an audience (and the non-existence of the same) as evidence that this is not a blog.

My Geeky Creativity

2009-02-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

I listen to a podcast called "Geek Speak Radio". Recently they had a special episode about launching a new Magic: The Gathering(TM) card set. They asked the listeners to design cards based on aspects of the show. These are the ones that I came up with. I will not attempt to explain the inside jokes. Feel free to find old episodes in their archive at "http://www.geekspeakradio.us".

And just because I have used this space to post some form of personal artwork, it does not make this a blog.

The Worst-Written Recipe in the World

2009-01-23T10:02:00.000-08:00

This is a recipe that my wife shared with me from work. It is intended to go into a newsletter for their employees (sorry...associates). Most of them are warehouse workers by trade, relatively young, and very urban. By this I merely mean that they all live in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, or San Bernardino counties in southern California, in very densely populated areas, with all the gustatory conveniences their entire lives, and an hour-long commute every day, which tends not to skew towards a lot of home cooking, and more towards buying heat-and-eat, or ready-to-eat foods, or fast food.

Anyway, the recipe in question does not favor anyone who doesn't cook a lot, nor does it favor anyone who is used to following typical recipes. It also doesn't sound like it favors anyone with good taste, or taste buds at all.

Enough suspense. Here it is, verbatim, no edits, no alterations:

**************************************

Artichoke Dip

1 cup mayo

1 cup sour cream

1 8oz pk cream cheese

1 tall can artichoke hearts (I am not sure the ounces).

1/2 cup parmesan cheese (powdered)

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (I don't really measure this).

Garlic salt to taste

Dill to taste

1 loaf of fresh bread cut up per batch. (You can buy the baguettes at Albertsons bakery and they will slice them for you)

This will make one batch. I made two batches for the luncheon.

Mix mayo, sour cream, cream cheese together.

Chop up artichoke hearts. If whole in fours (You can find quarters at Albertson's which means less chopping).

Add artichokes to above ingredients.

Add Cheese and seasoning.

Put in un-greased baking dish add more fresh mozzarella cheese and seasoning to top. Cover with foil.

Bake 30 minutes on 400 or uncover and bake an additional 10-15 minutes until golden.

**********************************************************

I made sure to separate the recipe from my comments with the stars and to change the font so that there would be no mistaking anything in the recipe for my words. All the parenthetical statements in the ingredients were included by the author. As for the comments about Albertsons, this person is not an employee or representative of said chain. It is likely that they used to work for them, because CVS bought part of that company a few years ago. For that, I may be able to overlook that residual pseudo company loyalty. As a former Albertsons employee (sorry...associate), I can speak from experience, they were very forceful about encouraging their employees (mm-hm...sorry, again...associates - the shock-therapy sessions are very persuasive, and persistent) to be loyal to the stores, even to the detriment of their personal budgetary challenges.

I question the logic of any recipe that involves baking the dish including instructions to season "to taste". Are you supposed to know it's properly seasoned by tasting it raw? Or do they expect you to season it according to a gut feeling for what your taste buds will approve of, and then check it when it's done baking, and adjust as necessary? This presents a bit of a challenge, because the instructions tell you to put the dill and garlic salt (my comment on that to follow...) on top of the casserole with the cheese. Did the author not consider that the seasoning might not need to be "to taste" if they mixed it in to the dip? It's amazing what a little integration will do for seasoning a dish! I'd hate to try this person's lasagna or stroganoff. I bet they make an OK sandwich, though. Except for tuna, egg, or chicken salad...those would probably be a lump of protein with the mustard and mayo globbed on top, and sprinkled with salt and assorted spices. And why would you use garlic salt? Fresh garlic is not hard or expensive to acquire, or prepare, and taste a whole lot better that garlic salt. And on that vein, why would anyone choose to use powdered parmesan cheese? I guess if you were out of cheese, and you had some packets left over from the last pizza delivery, you could substitute in a pinch. I can't fault anyone for emergency substitutions. That would just be rude.

Ii is also left to the assumption of the attempted cook that the cream cheese should be softened first, but no effort to inform them. Why waste time doing anyone any favors? I mean, what did this recipe-leeching mooch do for the person who wrote it? And it is inexcusable to not give the can size for the artichoke hearts. I am sure their co-worker would have been fine waiting a day to get the recipe in order to get it accurately, and not so vague.

Now, the baking instructions: can you tell me what size of baking dish? I have at least three completely differently-sized baking dishes. It would be nice to know ahead of time which one I need to make sure is clean and ready to go. And if someone followed these instructions, as written, and decided to bake theirs uncovered, they would bake it for 40-45 minutes, uncovered. That "or" is very poorly placed.

Finally, "this will make one batch". Really? One batch? You don't say. How many batches does any recipe make? By definition, any recipe followed as-written will produce one batch of whatever is being made! That's what a batch is. What most people need to know is How big is the batch?

Phew I feel better.

Christmas Book Wishlist

2008-12-03T08:47:00.000-08:00

For the benefit of my family (and fans...? Hint hint), here is a list of books that I would enjoy receiving for my birthday or Christmas:

Quirkology by Richard Wiseman (it turns out there are two editions, either is fine)

If..., If... Volume 2, and If... Volume 3, by Evelyn McFarlane and James Saywell

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Mistakes Were Made, but Not by Me by Carol Tavris

Navelgazers Dictionary by Charles Hodgson

Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg

Brainiac by Ken Jennings

Why We Suck by Denis Leary

Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity by John Stossel

Spoiled Rotten America by Larry Miller

He Talk Like a White Boy by Joseph C. Phillips

Also, anything from thinkgeek.com, especially books or T-shirts, or T-shirts from mentalfloss.com would also be super-groovy.

And don't worry, just because I'm using this space to promote my own personal agenda does not mean this is turning into a blog...I refer you to the name of this page as evidence.

Some Recent Pictures from My Life

2008-06-01T10:22:00.001-07:00

We've had an interesting week of late. Last weekend being Memorial Day Weekend, my wife and I did our usual thing of celebrating our wedding anniversary in the usual way: in honor of the events around our wedding, we return to a couple of places that were a significant part of those days. Our Wedding Night dinner was at a local fast-food chain called Tommy's, (aka "Tommy Burgers"). This was because we had gone straight from the wedding reception to the hotel we'd gotten for the night (our actual honeymoon wasn't starting for a couple of days), and we didn't think ahead to things like dinner when we were getting ready that morning. So, we got to our hotel in our wedding clothes, with our sleepwear, and the shorts and T-shirts we were wearing when we drove to the church that morning. We weren't exactly decked out appropriately for dinner at anywhere nice. Yes, in hindsight, we could have gone anywhere in our tux-and-gown motif, but at the time we both felt self-conscious about that, and we worried about getting food on her dress. So, we knew we had to choose somewhere that our shorts and T-shirts wouldn't have been innappropriate. Luckily enough, next-door to the hotel was a Tommy's. So, for our Wedding Night dinner, we had chili cheeseburgers, chili-cheese dogs, and chili-cheese fries. Also, the next day, my family was still in town from Idaho, so we decided to take them somewhere fun and tourist-y. We settled on the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Across the street is the local outlet of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., so we shared someone's "After the Storm Bucket of Boat Trash" while we stood in line for tickets. In honor of all of this, every year we've gone back to Long Beach to have lunch at Bubba Gump's and go to the aquarium. On the way home, we stop off for some Tommy's to take home and scarf down in the privacy of our own home. We also but some cupcakes from the Albertsons bakery that made our wedding cake (which was actually just an arrangement of custom-frosted Albertsons cupcakes).
This year, we were headed for Tommy's and had gotten on the 405 to head to Fountain Valley. Just before the Euclid exit, I saw a piece of cardboard airborne about 15 feet up ahead sort of above the lane divider, but it started falling, rapidly (an instant flash of realization, too late to act, that it was falling too quickly for cardboard), listing toward our side. The next thing we knew, it had struck our windshield and shattered the entire driver's side. I maintained our speed, and kept driving until I was past the panic stage and knew it was safe to pull over on a wide shoulder. Since we'd been out being tourists all day, we had the camera with us, so we have some great pictures from right after the event.
After that, we knew we had to take surface streets home, but we still needed our Tommy's, and some comfort food. We stopped at Tommy's, and then wended our way homeward, making one other stop at Bev'Mo, and then home. We threw the Tommy's in the oven to reheat, and got comfy to try and relax. We had our dinner, and then crashed out on the couch for the rest of the evening. We fell asleep, but about 1 am, I became aware that the Tommy's had gone bad in the time it took us to get home. I threw up 3 more times during the course of the next morning, and Patti started feeling pretty rotten as well.
So, we've declared our anniversary celebrations a do-over this year. We'll be going back to the aquarium in a couple weeks when their new display is out, and we'll try again.
One of the positive things from the day, though, was that we found this awesome little hat shop in Long Beach. I found a great hat that I've been wearing as often as I can (I'm wearing it as I'm typing this, in fact). It's an old British Bobby's hat! They sold it to us for only $10, because the sizing band was almost completely unglued. I fixed that with almost no effort, and now it's good as new. I'm including a link to pictures from the windshield and of me in the hat for your enjoyment. And don't give me any of that nonsense about this being a blog. Just because I've now posted information about my personal life in a public forum and included pictures, this is not a blog!

http://picasaweb.google.com/JRadimus/CarAccident

I think I'm sick

2007-06-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I've always suspected. After all, if I am, it's mental, in which case, I'm pretty sure almost anyone who knows me would have thought it was pretty much a given.
The saddest part is that I only just realized it. In the last hour, I mean. But I've had the warning signs right there in front of my face for many months. Literally in front of my face. On the computer screen. Now, in my defense, the symptoms were dormant for all the time I didn't have a computer at home. But now that I've re-connected, and now that I've seen the signs, I don't know if I'll be able to deny the truth any longer.
Here's the situation: a little over a year ago, I "discovered" MySpace for the first time, and created a profile about my wife and me (http://www.myspace.com/trishandjay). I thought how fun it would be to connect/reconnect with new friends, old friends, all that silliness, y'know? I had seen the profiles with dozens and hundreds of friends, thousands and tens of thousands of profile views. My first foray into the waters was promising: I had a couple of initial hits and got a nice note from another member who had liked what I'd posted in a comedy forum. Our profile sat dormant for a while until we got wired here at home. Then I started looking around more, doing more searches for old classmates, even making friends with a co-worker.
Now, I know we don't spend enough time online, specifically not enough time on MySpace to really have the kind of network others have, but it was only after looking around a little today that I realized that, for some reason, I was thinking that I was cooler than I was in high school! I went to a small school. Small enough that, for those people, I will never outlive that reputation. And even though my wife went to a much-larger school, and had a more realistic outlook on who she wants to be connected with now, she just isn't into the internet thing enough to have spent more than a little time looking around. And I've got no problems with who I am, and where I fit into the world now. I know that who people thought I was in high school is not true, nor is it who I am now. Pretty healthy, I'd say.
Here's where the sickness comes in: even though I now know not to expect anything unrealistic, I can't stop checking the profile!
Like I said, I think I'm sick. And even though I am posting personal revelations, and self-diagnosing my own psychoses, this is not a blog!

An Open Letter to My Wife

2007-05-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

***WARNING*** Extreme Cheeze Content ***WARNING***

Readers of weak or sensitive constitutions, consider yourselves duly warned.

And despite the public publishing of highly personal feelings, this is not a blog.

Dear Baby-doll,
I want to tell you all the things I forget to say that you deserve to hear every day. I love you. Yeah, I know we say it at the end of nearly every phone call (all 500 calls per month), almost every time one of us leaves the house somewhere without the other for longer than a trip to the dumpster, garage, or mailbox, and any time we’re lucky enough to go to bed at the same time. But I don’t take you by the hand, look you in the eye and really say it. I love you. I had a frightening number of über-cheezy song references popping into my head that I will spare both of us from enduring. We’re connected enough that I’m sure you could guess many of them. But that just brings around another of the qualities about you, us, our relationship that I love that I want to say in this letter: our near-psychic connection. And, of course, this reminds me of the phrase “get out of my head”. I love our secret language, and inside jokes. While you may try to pass the psychic mind-meld off on me, I give you all the credit for this one. I’m going to start calling this language and such “Trishish” in your honor. I don’t care if we still haven’t gotten around to listening to the Gaelic language CDs. I love that we still want to learn an actual language that no one we know can speak so that we can really mess with their heads, and openly vent about them and slag them off behind their backs, right in front of their faces. I attribute this to our amazing chemistry. Remember that our chemistry was strong enough, just over the phone, that we were drawn to each other from over 1,000 miles away. After we got to meet in person for the first time, do you remember the ache we felt forever after that each time one of us had to return the other to their lonely home? I’m afraid to admit that there are times I forget. But all I have to do is think about it, and the emotions come back easily. I love that these memories are also part of a love story that no one else can tell. How many people can say they were proposed to three different times by the same person, with three different rings, and accepted all three of them, but only the last one counted? I love that everywhere we go we have wacky misadventures that would send most couples these days straight to a divorce attorney. And I love that we share the same views and morals on, I think, every subject that has come up. And, as that brings to mind, I love that we’ve discussed just about every possible subject out there. I love that we can so easily entertain ourselves just on normal, everyday trips to Vons, Albertsons, or Target. I love your passion. I love your fierce loyalty, tenacity, and stubbornness. I love your refusal to accept anything but my best from me. I love your co-dependence on me, chocolate, beer, and Coco Bunny, in that order. J I love that you’re a coffee snob and caffeine fiend, but, despite all the coffee you drink (and as strong as you like it) still can’t have coffee any later than Noon or 1 o’clock or it will keep you up at bedtime. I also love that you’re a beer snob. I think these both come about to the fact that you have high standards. I love that and respect you for it. Along with your high standards and stubbornness, you demonstrate an inner strength that is hard to deny. I love that, as well. I know that this will be out of sequence, and it’s somewhat repetitive, but I love our stories, like “Packy the Pack Mule Goes to San Francisco” and “Mission: Nearly-Impossible-but-We-Pulled-It-Off-without-a-Hitch-Somehow: ‘Bunny Rescue’”. I love that we have matching clothes/outfits (or coordinating, at the very least). I love our little rituals and secret guilty pleasures. I love that we can talk about anything. And I love that we’re best friends.
Along with all these things that I love, I want to take this chance to confess a couple things. As a supplemental to the original warning, I will advise that this section is primarily what I was warning about. This is where most of my cheeze will be doled out: First, I am biased. I know I try to deny it when you call me on it, but I admit it: I’m biased. I am unabashedly, shamelessly biased towards you. But in my mind, that’s as it should be. Every woman should know what it feels like to have a man so crazy for her. I will do anything for you. I am also not ashamed of the fact that I don’t recognize any flaws you point out. I refuse to even acknowledge them, unless I can turn them into a positive. It doesn’t mean I’m not honest. I don’t lie to you. But it’s not dishonest to put things in a positive light. I’m like a cross between one of those really hyper-happy, yipping lapdogs, an annoyingly perky cheerleader, and a ruthless spin-doctor. It’s my job, and I take it very seriously! Second, I love you. I know I started out with that, but it seemed a fairly significant point, so I figured it was OK to repeat it, and most appropriate to end this letter with it. This is where so many of those cheesy love song references have been threatening to come out. Say all you want, but it’s true. I love you. I am passionately, supremely in love with you, head-over-heels, ass-over-teakettle in love with you. Truly, simply, plainly: I love you.

Forever Yours,

Infinity plus one,

Your Confidante,

Your Cheerleader,

Your Lover,

Your Friend,

Your Husband

I'm more unique than I thought

2006-11-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

I saw a recent posting of my sister's in her blog, (http://notesfrombedlam.blogspot.com/) about how unique she is, based on how many people share her name.
She had found a website that can tell you.
I knew that I shared my first name ('Jared') with enough of people (106,849 - according to "How Many of Me - Census Search"), and even more when you take into account all the different spellings. (It's just like me to not be able to actually say how many this would be, just to say that it's so. It's what I do...) And everyone knows that the last name 'Miller' is plenty common. (With 1,271,867 people, which makes it the 7th most common last name.) But it seems that the idea of pairing 'Jared' with 'Miller' didn't occur to as many Mr. and/or Mrs. Millers as I would have thought. There are only 452 of us "Jared Miller"s - but we're tenacious! I have no evidence to back up that statement, besides my own conviction of my and my fellow-namists' positive qualities. And 'tenacity' seems a more positive attribute than 'stubborness'. And I think it shows a great deal of tenacity to continue to assert the non-blogness of this page, despite all the nay-sayers that say "Nay. It is a blog!"

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
452
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

My View on Superheroes

2006-10-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

A while back (probably in June or July...) Yahoo! Answers had a question posted by movie director John Woo. Now, although I was only mildly awed by this fact (because I think the only movies of his I ever saw were Face/Off and MI:2. I'm not even certain that those were John Woo movies. That's how unaware I am of who he is besides that I'd heard of him, and knew that he includes doves, and mismatched handguns in all his movies.), I did want to answer his question. It was a great question: "Our fascination with comic superheroes is time-tested. Why do we continue to relate to them?"
I was amazed when it was all over how many people had answered along one of these lines: they didn't think that we are fascinated by them, that we don't relate to them, or that our fascination was not that time-tested. My amazement at this was first that if they disagreed, why did they bother sharing this opinion (other than the free points for answering), and by the time that it was done, 2500 people had posted their opinions on the subject. I think that says that, especially to the population that likes superheroes, there's a fairly strong sense of relating to them somehow. I'm rambling along a tangent here, and, in my opinion, that's best done on a long car ride, not on the internet, so to my original purpose:
After it was done, I realized that I had no idea which answer number I was, so I had no idea which page my answer would be found on. And I realized that that posting was the only record of what I felt had been a brilliant impromptu exposition on superheroes and what they mean to us. And I'm ignorrant enough of Yahoo! Answers that if there's a way to find a specific answer wihtin a question, I don't know about it. So, I found myself copying and pasting into Word for the first 10 pages, and then saving the complete web pages for the next 10 (pages 11 -20). I left it for awhile, then today saved pages 21-30, then jumped ahead and saved pages 51-70. I then started at page 51 of my saved page documents, and started looking for my post.
Now look here, if you can't keep from calling me names, you're welcome to leave, now. I know it's a bit (OK, a lot) obsessive, but there were at least a few months between the first phase and today's venture back into the abyss of my insanity.
Ahem - now where was I? OK, so on page 52 (see? I only had to look in 2 pages!) I found it. And I had promised myself that when I finally found it, I would post it here for easy future reference. Unfortunately, my own insanity still has me wanting to eventually get all the answers into one document so that I can read them all eventually. There were some really good ones and some really bad ones! Now you know that I wasn't just being dramatic when I referred to my insanity as an abyss, huh?
As you read this answer of mine that I thought was so amazing to be worth the headache and annoyance of all that searching and saving, keep in mind that other than casually thinking about the question for a day or so before I actually answered it, this answer came out as it is extemporaneously. I did not work through it in drafts, or work on it a little at a time over a day or more. I cranked this out over about an hour or two between tasks at work. With all that being said, here is my original post, as I originally posted it:
"It goes to the basic need we all have for hope, purpose, escape and familiarity.
"We need to be able to hope for something better. Something bigger. We face a world of despair and sorrow, especially if we look in the right (or wrong, if you will) places. Superheroes, the ones who are moral constants, provide an icon of hope for peace, order, idealism, good triumphing over evil. In those worlds, you can always count on a superhero to set things right when the rest of the world has failed to do so. They usually face unimaginable odds, and yet still triumph. There is always hope.
"With hope comes purpose. If we can hope for greatness, then there is an inherent challenge to be the one to meet that challenge and be that hope. Superheroes, with their causes, mantras, senses of duty, etc., provide us with solid examples of people living their lives with a purpose, and fulfilling that purpose, again while facing great odds. By following their lives, and watching them act because of a greater calling, we gain a sense that we, too, can live life with a purpose, with a sense of a calling, and have greater meaning in our own lives for it.
"But sometimes, life is just too much. As I stated earlier, it's full of despair, failure, anger, sorrow, pain, death, some very ugly and nasty things and all other manner of unpleasantness. When we're down, or overwhelmed by it all, it's unspeakably nice to be able to visit, even if only temporarily until our mom calls us to take out the trash, a world that, no matter how many people wish it would, cannot possibly ever exist. These completely fantastical worlds are similar enough to ring familiar, yet exotic, bizarre, just a little bent enough that we can pretend to be there rather than here. And what makes it even more comforting is the presence of old friends, doing amazingly impossible things, that, even long after we've been called back into our real world, we fantasize about what it would be like if we could do them here. I don't think there's a child out there who has enjoyed superhero comics and books, who didn't think about being able to fly, have super strength, be invisible, and how this would help him or her conquer a bully, impress their friends, or just make taking out the trash easier. This escapism also provides great fuel to fire the hope I spoke of earlier.
"But beyond the fantastic and impossible, there is an element of reality and familiarity. If the worlds and characters are too unfamiliar, they can't inspire us. They can't touch us. While we want to hope, need a purpose, desire to escape reality, in all of that, there is an undeniable reality to these characters. They still have weaknesses. They still struggle. This familiarity is founded on a sympathy, an empathy, an emotional bond that comes from understanding how they feel. And those "super-anti-heroes", the ones who are a little more flawed, a bit more fractured, than the rest, offer some a glimpse into a darker world, but one that they can say to themselves "Yeah, I know what you mean. I've been there." They haven't literally wrestled with demons or monsters, but emotionally or psychologically they have. And they can look at this familiar theme, and feel that, through it all, despite it all, they are somehow not completely alone. Even if only fictionally, someone out there knows how they feel.
"And these disparate reasons explain why there are so many superheroes, and why there is such a wide variety and diversity amongst them. Depending on which of these four needs resonates most strongly with us, depending on what reality we live in, we will be drawn to different superheroes that most thoroughly fulfill that need, that most strongly connects to us.
"The imperfection of our world brings about these needs, but it is the genesis that creates the fulfillment of those needs. Strife and struggle may make life suck at times, but it's that 'suckiness' that motivates some to improve, and others to just make it easier to deal with. If we actually lived in a perfect world, we would have no need or desire for these stories of superheroes. How boring would life be if everything went right all the time? And as nice as that world might be, I can't help but feel that I wouldn't want to live there. Not without superheroes."
You're free to leave your comments, thoughts, opinions, etc. Just remember that I have a fragile ego, and too many negative vibes may drive me to suicide. Or worse: to write a Sit-Com!

And I stubbornly maintain that this random posting of a personal opinion and self-serving publication of a piece of my writing only further enforces the fact that this is not a blog.

Just cause

2006-08-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

I tried to log in the other day, just to play with my profile and such, but couldn't remember my Blogger.com username! I gave up, because I wasn't that motivated.
But it kept bugging me, and bugging me, so I found myself thinking about it this morning. Obsessing, really. I kept asking myself which names I had tried, and what it could possibly be. Then I checked my sister's blog (It's pretty good, check it out: [warning! dropped name, dropped name!] notesfrombedlam.blogspot.com ), and decided I wanted to respond to her latest post. Actually, I was hoping that where my computer had failed me before, this time it might actually already have my username in place. Nope. It had been that long since I'd logged in, that there was no trace of the username in my internet history files. But hey, I've got an image to maintain that this isn't really a blog!
Anywhen, I tried a couple of them to no avail (probably the ones I had tried the other day. Whattaya know? They still didn't work. I finally remembered that I might have been unimaginative enough to use my Yahoo ID name. Yup. I was. For my own future reference, my username is "jmskinny", but I'm not worried about this coming back to bite me. You have to have the kind of identity worth stealing for anyone to actually go to the effort of stealing it. I imagine that there have been a few attempts on my identity, but the hackers get one look at what their getting, and decide to slither off to more fertile climes.
I will also take this moment to mention my new favorite guilty pleasure: Yahoo! Answers (answers.yahoo.com). Most of the time, the questions are stupid, inflammatory, or someone trying to get people to help them with their homework. I typically avoid the Religion & Philosophy sections, as well as some of the political areas. I enjoy the Math & Science, Comics & Animation, Trivia, Cooking, and Food & Dining sections. Since I noticed that my profile has had five more hits in the past week, (let me first say "Hi!" to my new fans :) ) I will just ask any of you who happen upon this, to check out Yahoo! Answers, look up 'jmskinny' and try to vote for any of my answers that are up for vote. I'm more than happy to give any tip-offs to which ones they are, since they remove the user ID of the answerers for voting.
Anywhy, I think I may start including some of my favorite questions, and my answers here. Elaborating on them, and such. I've got a few 'Best Answers' that I'm pretty pleased with, because the asker of the question liked it, not because the citizenry of Yahoo! Answers liked it best.

Poetry...Hey! It' my non-blog to do with as I please!

2006-07-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

And if you're going to read it, then I've got a captive audience for my crap poetry.
DON'T PANIC: it's not as bad as Vogon poetry!

Majestic thunderheads
loom over the mountains,
poised frozen in air waiting to break
upon us as passive-aggressive waves,
threatening to drown us
in ephereal marshmallow cream,
with flanks of cotton anvils
and wisps of geyser plumes
blooming from their crowns.

I know, cheesy, cliche, and unoriginal. But I looked out the window at work while waiting for a fax, and saw it, and came up with almost all of this on the spot. The rest took me 12 days, but you know how it goes...

And here's a Haiku I did awhile back about soccer. I like Haiku, but I hate soccer. I only remember this because I found it when I was trying to find one I did about clouds, but I can't find. Oh, well. It's not like I want to become known as the Cloud Guy...

Anyway, the Haiku:

Grunt, Run, Kick, Run, Dive
Warriors clash in pitched battle
Game Over, Nil-Nil

I did it while listening to The Geoff Show on Virgin radio. (Listen here: www.virginradio.co.uk/djsshows/shows/geoff/index.html) They hosted a World Cup Haiku contest and then phoned up the Japanese Embassy to get someone to judge them. I think they still have the audio clips of the phone call. Oh, mine didn't make it. I just thought up the poem because I like Haiku. And I mention it because I reminded myself of it, and I'm just that ADD.

But just because I've posted my own poetry, it's still not a blog.

It's not a blog...

2006-07-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

...because I'm not trendy. Blogging is trendy. I know this because Rick Romero did a thing on the evening news that talked about how it was so popular, "and so easy to do."
My wife and I are not trendy, therefore we don't Blog.
I was not trendy in school, either. I was the obnoxious/creepy/pervy geek in school. I dressed to avoid being noticed. My fashion weakness, however has always been hats. I liked hats. But I could never find one that looked good on me. I usually just looked lurpy. Of course, when you're looking for hats in small-town Idaho, it's hard to find anything but cowboy hats. So, I stuck with baseball caps. They worked. Then I had a favorite baseball cap (that I really liked!) stolen from my locker. I realize now that it was actually a sign of future trend-setting.
I continued to like hats after high school. While on my mission, I found a Stetson felt Derby at a thrift store. It didn't have a price tag, so the clerk sold it to me for something like $4. I left it behind one day at church, and never saw it again.
After I started college at Boise State, I developed a habit of finding the hat section of the store (any store that had a hat section was open territory), and just putting on hats for the fun of it. I used to think I wanted a Fedora. Cool people wore Fedoras: Jazz musicians, ecclectics, avante-garde-ists, Free spirits, Nick Fouch, and Sam Spade. People that I knew I could never truly be, who somehow managed to have that elusive quality of not caring what others thought, and social aplomb in the face of ridicule for being different. Most of the time, I tried on the hats knowing that they weren't going to look good. I did it for the entertainment factor, and desperately grasping on to that slim hope of one day, one day, finding the perfect hat.
And then it happened... I was in Burlington Coat Factory, and found myself migrating towards the hats. I had been there before. I'd seen their hats. I already knew that this place held only amusement in how stupid the hats looked, and how stupid I looked in them. I saw some of those funny-looking hats that certain old men and golfers might wear (especially old golfers). You know the kind? Molded felt, no brim, short bill that blended into the crown tapering down front to the bill. Well, I saw that, and I was in one of those moods. I just had to see how stupid I was going to look in one of those! I grabbed a kind of olive drab khaki-colored one in my size, tugged it on my head, and jumped triumphantly in front of the mirror to enjoy my moment of hilarity. I was stunned. I stood there in shock for a moment. Then I double-checked just to make sure it wasn't some kind of trick of the light or my eyes. No, it really was true. I looked good in the hat. No, I mean it! I looked good. I even asked my brother, Thom, who was with me. He confirmed that I didn't look ridiculous. Well, coming from an older brother, that was confirmation enough for me! I bought it, and walked out of the store with it on my head. No, sir, there was no need for a bag, thank you very much, my good man. I will be wearing it out. It was like a new pair of sneakers for my head. This was sometime in 1999 or 2000. I can't remember exactly, and I haven't gone back through photos to confirm it, but it's been several years.
Now, we fast forward. I've bought 4, and lost 2 of these hats. One each in the olive color and in black. Thankfully, I can always count on Burlington to have them in stock.
Unfortunately, right now, it's because they became trendy about 2 years ago, and have kind of hung on, ebbing and surging in a way that says they're going to stay around for awhile longer, never being extremely popular, but never really being totally uncool. This sucks. Why? Because I used to be unique because of my hat. Nobody else had a hat like mine. Nobody that wore them out in public on a regular basis. People recognized me for my hat, and recognized my hat as well.
Now that I'm living in California, I see them, or ones like them, way too often. I started seeing them in commercials. The wrong kind of commercials, populated by the trendiest of young hipsters, wearing the "it" clothes, listening to the "it" music, and driving the "it" cars, and doing it all, only with the "it" friends. I saw a random guy at The Block wearing my hat. In black! (my current color choice, thanks to my lovely wife. Hi, honey!) I've seen Britney wearing a hat like mine.
I have vowed not to stop wearing my hat, though. I've found my look, and I'm going to stick with it, even if it means going through a social spectrum that will range from being trendy, to following the trend a little too long, to being the guy who caught on way too late, to being the guy who's going for the neuvo-retro/newer old-school look, to not being noticed again because the trend is so old that no one remembers it as a trend anymore. I can't wait until that happens; yeah, next year will be a good year.

But this is not a blog.