Delayed Postings

Four new memes for you today to make up for the four that I couldn't publish due to wifi/time considerations.

Wacky Wall Walkers

Coming at you free: it's the ugliest read sweater known to mankind.

These sticky messes made their owner wealthy beyond imagination, but all they did for us was work for a few weeks and the everything known to mankind would start to stick to it.  I would never bother to clean it, so it pretty much just served as a great place to grow bacteria.

GI Joe

I know the new movie is coming out, but I had this theme song in my head coming home from Minneapolis and had to torture all of you with it as well.


Knowing that song is the other half of the battle.

Billy Ocean: Loverboy




How could you miss the obvious "tribue" to "Star Wars", "Planet of the Apes", and "Superman II"?  Sometimes I think Billy was actually trapped in that rotating triangle thing and that's why he hasn't produced another hit.

The Truffle Shuffle

Boy, this one just can't be missed.  I wake up in a cold sweat some nights thinking about this.

"Mr. T" Cartoon.

Remember the good old days, when all you had to do was go to school and sleep?

Those were the days.  Well at least the week days.

On Saturday, something special happened.  Suddenly, you didn't feel tired and lazy anymore.  You had something to live for ... CARTOONS!

One of my favorite cartoons was Mr. T.




There is just something about a former A-Team member joining up with a bunch of multicultural gymnasts to fight crime all over the world.  There was the "Junior Mr. T Wannabe" who looked more like Danny Bonaduce than Mr. T as well the the creepy lady that drove the bus.  We also can't forget the Mr. T dog that had a  (wait for it)  MOHAWK.

I remember that this show was the closest to Scooby Doo that the 80's could produce.  It was well done, if a bit far fetched.  The real life intros to each episode by Mr. T were priceless.  My favorite that still sticks in my head is "Stay in school fool."

As the new A-Team movie starts to slowly creep into pre production, maybe we will see the animated Mr. T series out on DVD in the next few years.  I for one could use a dose of T ...  FOOL!

Hey Look: I'm The First Person To Criticize The Olympic Coverage

This is my usual disclaimer that this review was cross posted to both my blogs on Streme of Meme as well as Really Random Reviews.  Yes, I'm that cheap when it comes to blog entries.

Oh NBC, you have failed me.

I know it's day "-2" of the Olympics, but your first soccer broadcast of the match between Germany and Brazil is about as useful as a slide show.

Late Monday night, I had a notification from my TiVo that I had magically been granted access to the NBC Olympic Soccer Channel.  This would give me access to "whistle to whistle" action of every soccer match of the Olympics.

Being the devoted soccer geek that I am, I got up this morning at 4:00 AM to watch the coverage.  I was greeted with a jerky, pixelated mess that was pretty much useless.  Even the audio wasn't coming through.  After about twenty minutes of hope that the problem would be fixed, I just grabbed my laptop and started reading RSS feeds.

Shame on NBC for promising to deliver something and then failing miserably.  A lot of people might point out that this is the first televised event, but they had FOUR YEARS to work on this.  I have never been satisfied with NBC's Olympic coverage.  They paid almost a billion dollars for the rites to the Olympics, and they have never managed to get their coverage quite right.

General Electric (which owns NBC) is very much the Six Sigma poster child.  You would think that the core focus of the televised event would be to manage down the defects in the actual broadcast to at least a five sigma level.  (For those of you that know what I'm talking about, please reward yourself with a latte and a lobotomy today).

I'll be looking forward to the day when NBC's dominance of the Olympics is over.  It's time for some fresh blood.

New Direction For Steam of Meme

I got a great response to my "random punishment videos" yesterday.

I'm thinking about finding one such video each day and writing a little more in-depth about it.  Maybe I can actually live up to the title of the blog.

It would be an interesting challenge to take a random thought in my head and add my own special (and demented) take on it.  There are so many things that have influenced us in the last 20 years.  A lot of them seem to be "flashes in the pan".  If you are in your 20's to 30's, you should remember the bulk of this stuff.

My job would be to do the visual equivalent of sneaking up behind you and rubbing them in your face again.

It's an interesting concept.  I already have my first thought.  I will work on it tonight as sort of a test post.

If you have any feedback about the slight content change, let me know in the comments section under this blog post.

Two Days And Counting

Two days left in my current job.  

Then I start the adventure of learning a job all over again.  

This will be my fourth job after college.  Not too bad.  I'm think I'm on pace with the national average.  

It's funny how many times we change jobs in our lives.  It's also amazing that we are actually able to do so.  One to two generations ago, I would have locked into working on a farm or a cattle ranch just due to my "birth rite".  

Every once and a while, I try to think about what life was like even when I was a kid.  It amazes me how far we have come.

One can only wonder what life will be like in 20 years.  

oops I missed a day....

Due to a lot of cleaning and traveling I missed a day.

So to punish myself (and all of you), here are some random videos that make absolutely no sense.  I assure you that they were totally auto generated in my brain just now.  A special thanks to YouTube for helping find substance to my madness.

Hulk Hogan Theme Song: Sung By The Chipmunks.
The cheesiest American theme song ever devised, made better by the speeded up goodness of Chipmunks.




"Gimme a Break": Show opening
Oh Nel. You were a big star. And I will leave it at that.




"Here I Go Again" -- Whitesnake
The best song about a girl denting up two cars since -- well -- EVER.  

I used to watch this video over and over for some reason. Ah the sweet '80s hair band lifestyle. I don't really miss it.

Getting A House Ready

We have a visitor coming soon and as usual, we are scrambling to get the house "clean".

It's funny.  I think everyone has this problem.  A guest is coming and the first thing you do is think "this house is a mess".  Then you spend three days before cleaning and scrubbing only to provide a place to mess it up all over again.

For some reason, I'm very neat with some things and very messy with others.  Take clothes for example.  I'll just throw all my clothes around in various states on the floor (thankfully we have a spare bedroom that's usually unoccupied).  Then we have the kitchen.  I'll spend hours making sure that my various pot, pans, tools, and implements are cleaned and put away.

A wild guess about why I do this would be that I hate to do laundry and love to cook.  That would make sense, but I don't intentionally do it.

Maybe I can get a federal grant to study it.

It also provides a great opportunity to watch my wife and I argue about the chores that we need to do.  Like my laundry and kitchen duality, we both covertly try and get the other to do the chores that we both don't like to do.  This can range from hints to subterfuge.  Usually, I triumph (does that make me a "pig"?), but end up doing most everything else to compensate (does that make me "whipped"?).

I just wish that we could train ourselves to do a little each day.  I'm going to try my best in the next week to do this.  I'll try and report back next week and see if it makes any difference.

Exercise Stress and Wine Unstress

I'm Fat

I had the unique pleasure of going out at 4:30 AM and getting my health assessment and meet with my personal trainer.

My workplace is big on employee health.  It was something that I had been putting off for a long time, but since my ankle has healed, I was out of excuses.

What did I learn? -- I'm fat!!

A shocking revelation.

The scary thing was how bad my overall health had deteriorated since I have moved back to the Midwest.  What is it about the Midwest that adds an additional 30 to 40 pounds to the middle of everyone's waist?

Well, the good news is that I can only improve on my health.  I'm going to be hitting the gym 3 times a week.

I seem more and more kids who are overweight.  I don't want that life for my daughter.  My hope is that by setting a good example now while she is in her formative years that I will help her to develop life long habits that will be worth more to her than any piece of financial or educational advice.

Maybe all of us should think about doing this for our kids or someone special to us.

We can only improve.

Take Off Your Headphones Once and a While

I was excited about this morning.

I got up early and drove to my favorite coffee spot to catch the end of a movie.  This was easily accomplished through the use of my iPod Touch.  I just compressed the movie onto my iPod and BOOM I'm finishing the movie while sipping a latte.

The movie was just about over when I was annoyed to find that an old man was sitting next to me and (gasp) trying to talk to me.  I smiled politely and nodded, trying to block him out while the movie ended.  Then it hit me.  All day I see people walking back and forth lost in their own internal world.  Maybe it was time to get out of mine.

I pulled off the headphones and we chatted for over forty minutes.  We shared stories and got to know a little bit about each other.  It's strange to say, but I had missed that contact.  For all that podcasts make me feel like I'm having an intelligent discussion, it's still a one way discussion.

I'm challenging all of you to chat with someone that you don't know at least once after reading this.  Maybe you will find something that you have lost.

At least I did.

Future of the House

Ha ha.  Bet you thought this was a post about the House of Representatives.

Nope, just a quick note about the future of life here in the casa del Sundsbak.

My wife and I are both going through job transitions right now.  I'm hoping that we will both find something better suited to our particular talents.

I wanted to leave a bit of an archive of what I was thinking at the time, so next year I can come back and revisit my expectations for our new jobs.

1.  We want a job where we can think about things.  No more boring zombie work.
2.  We want to work in a friendly environment where people can solve things as adults, not spoiled kids.
3.  We want to be challenged.
4.  We want the ability for advancement based on our work.
5.  We want to be compensated with flexible schedules rather than bonuses or gigantic raises.
6.  We want to wake up every day and be excited about our jobs rather than stressed about having to put in eight hours.

Quite a simple list right?  (;  The funny thing virtually anyone in this country can go out and with a tiny sum of money buy most anything that will make us happy.  For some reason, however, we find it really difficult go out and find a job that truly makes us happy.  Funny huh?

I wish all of you the courage and good fortune to find the job of your dreams.  Once you have it, don't think that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.  Most of the time the grass is full of cow shit and weed killer.

Ok, that was metaphorically icky, but pungently good.

I better quit while I'm ahead.

Hit Me Baby -- Never Again!!!

I rarely come across an old vestige of Web 1.0 design.  For the most part, the sites that I now patronize are very Web 2.0.  What this means is actually open to a lot of interpretation.  I look at Web 1.0 design like I look at an old episode of the '60s "Star Trek": good for its time and still relevant today. 

There is of course always an exception to this rule. 

I was cruzing around the 'net today and stumbled upon the greatist travesty known to webkind, a ***king HIT COUNTER in the website!

Understand, this was a totally new Web 2.0 website.  It looked great.  As I scrolled to the bottom, I noticed the bastard counter hiding in the bottom right hand corner of the site.  As I dug deeper into the site, the damn hit counter showed up everywhere, even in the comments.  I'll empahsize this again for you web designers our there.  Each comment had its OWN hit counter!   

I'm a great fan of creativity, but the designer of this "not to be named" site should at least understand that there are a lot of other alternatives to just placing a hit counter in every page of your site.  He or she should be put on trial in the court of ancient web technology and sentenced to 5-10 years of Mechanical Turk service.

Most people will charge me with "Web snobbery", and I'll gladly plead guilty. 

Dude Pets.com called and wants their Flooz back.

Talking Animals Must Go!!!

So I went to see "Wall E" today (I'll have a review on that later this week).  What I really want to talk about it how we need to focus our resources and work toward getting away from making animals look like they are talking.

Before the movie started, I was treated to a fine example of why Disney needed to buy Pixar.  All of their non-Pixar productions just suck!  The finest example of this was the upcoming "Beverly Hills Chiwawa".  

Yep, Disney once again pulled a whole lot of nothing out of it's corporate ass and decided to put talented CG people to work on -- making dogs talk?  I was no fan of the "Phantom Menace" but at least the CG people did some really cool stuff.  I can't imaging being a Disney employee that has to take the time to digitally move a dog's mouth up and down to some dead headed script for eight hours a day.  

I find talking animals really damn creepy.  I don't want to know that my dog or cat can magically move its mouth and speak in the voice of a famous actor or actress.  It's chills my bones to the core.  All I think about is possessed animals that will vomit pea soup while their heads are rotating around.

Come on people.  There are so many great creative things that have changed the face of movies for decades to come.  Do we really need more talking animals.  Did Benji or Lassie have to talk?  I think "Wall E" was a great example of that.  There didn't need to be dialog to show emotion or action.  If Wall E had a little animated mouth, it would have shot the whole show to hell.  

Please, I'm begging every animation studio on the face of the Earth to get away from the talking live action animals.  Just stop it!!  I don't want the next dog I pass on the street to look at me and as where the nearest fire hydrant is.  

X-Files Movie: Could Have Been Better

(Cross posted as part of my review series on Really Random Reviews)

I had a lot reseverations about the new X-files movie.

Realize that as the parent of a picky three year old, I'm actually prevented from seeing many movies until they reach DVD.

So I decided that my loyalty this summer would be to Chris Carter who kept me entertained for more than a decade with "The X-files."

I finally found an excuse to go the movies by taking a day off for my birthday and ran right out.

I had really tried to keep off of many of the internet sites that might have given spoilers to the movie. I was shocked that a lot of the rumor sites had nothing on the movie. Most of the plot details were kept pretty close to the vest.

Things I did know going into it.
1. The movie would not be a "mythology" movie. It would be more like one of the stand alone episodes.
2. It took place in a lot of snow.
3. It co-starred Billy Connolly last known to me as Howard Hessman's replacement on "Head of the Class."

As loyal readers to my reviews know, I never give spoilers. So I'll do my usual vague job reviewing the movie.

A lot of the plot centers around an abduction that "no longer so special agents" Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are called in to investigate. With the aid of an apparent psychic with a dark past (Connelly) our heros proceed to uncover a "shocking" truth about the abductor's motives. This truth seems something that author Thomas Harris would have thought about and rejected from "Silence of the Lambs". In fact, this movie almost tried to be a bad parody of "Lambs".

The movie tried to put Scully and Mulder's relationship under the microscope but it just left me feeling confused. I didn't get any clear indication of anything until the end (which felt contrived and -- gasp -- badly acted). To add insult to injury, stay after the credits and really get confused by something that happens in a rowboat.

Speaking of the credits, I think that they were visually the most stunning portion of the movie. I loved them!!!! If the movie would have been composed of the end title shots the movie would have rated high for me.

The return of one of the series regulars about 3/4 through the movie was the high point for me. (ok, had to throw an "almost spoiler" in there somewhere.

Maybe it's the decade since the show was last on the air, but a lot of the "shock and awe" that kept me glued to the TV has fizzled in the wake of such shows as "Lost", "Heros", and the newly resurgent (and soon once again dormant) "Doctor Who". The writers of this movie seem to have clung to a once original formula that has been copied so many times that it no longer feels "fresh".

I would have been happier of Fox would have commissioned one of these a year to be shown on TV. I think that I would have been more than happy with the movie if it had been shown on the small screen.

Despite this review, I think die hard fans will still like the movie. There was a lot of stuff (which you had to REALLY pay attention to) that set up future movies.

Maybe the next one will be better.

Going back to school soon?

I was thinking about writing a college advice blog entry, but I just remembered an classic "Ask a Ninja" episode that probably does a better job than I can.

For more helpful stuff on all things Ninja go to the Ask a Ninja website.

1976

Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday tidings on Tuesday.  It's great to know that I have such great friends all over the place.

From time to time, I like to look at different sites that help me fire up those dormant neurons in my brain.  I did a search for "1976" on eBay and and YouTube found some cool stuff that totally brought me back to my childhood.

The Gas Crisis Was On, But Everyone Still Wanted a Cadillac.

I think this would hold my current car in the trunk.  If you want to let your inner pimp out, I would suggest this ride.

There were some people who were worried about the crisis

Yep, this baby has no engine, but what's stopping you?  Every time I see a Gremlin, I think about that strange Vampire pizza delivery kid in the X-files episode "Bad Blood."

Celebrities of 1976

Thanks to several strange people that sell every episode of TV guide on eBay, I got a great look at who was popular in the days of my birth.  Is it just me or was TV better back then?  I probably think that becuase I didn't have the internet to keep me occupied.

Wow, celebs were really stylin' back then.  Ah Burt, I miss the stash.  Look at the young John Travolta under the "new superstars".  Make sure not to miss hit recording starts "Captain and Tennille" as well.  

Maybe some things are best forgotten.

TV

Everything was a commercial to me when I was a kid.  TV always amazed me (even from an early age).  The sad thing is that I remember most of these commercials.  

Olympics

Who could forget the single best moment in the Olympics happened in '76 as well.

Politics--bicentenial and election

I was born 18 days after the bicentenial, so I will feel that I was ripped off the rest of my life.  No big fireworks or celebarations for me.  At the same time I missed out on "Billy Beer". Oh and wasn't there something about a peanut farmer/nuclear engineer/diplomat guy becoming President?

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same

In looking at all this stuff, I think we are repeating elements of 1976 again.  

1. From the hair to the clothes, we are staring to look like we are from the '70's again.  
   
2. Variety shows are coming back in the form of "Reality TV" 
   
3. Cars are starting to become smaller again in response to a gas crisis.
   
4. The most important political election of our generation is going on right now.
   
5. The Olympics will be held in the fall.
   
6. Commercials still suck, but are later looked back on with fondness.  
   

This exercise was intended to bring up old memories, but I think it did something even more. It reminded me that all the things that I have been exposed to in my 32 years on this Earth has made me the person I am today.  

Remembering all of this has been the best birthday present I could have ever had.  

Go and check out some of your memories on Youtube or via Google.  Who knows what you will find?

Dear People Wearing Strange Sunglasses: Stop It!!!

I have had it with people’s choices of eye-ware recently.

Not to be too Andy Rooneyish about it, but it’s really starting to get to me.
There are two types of these sun shading monstrosities that really bother me.

The “Jackie O” sunglasses. 
What you think they say about you:  ”I’m rich and sophisticated”. 
What they really say: “Hey look, I can get Direct TV on these”
The only times they are appropriate:

• Having a highball before lunch
• Your time machine left you in the 60’s
• You are shopping at Tiffany’s with Hannibal from the A-Team.
  

Any bright white sunglasses
What you think they say about you:  ”I’m cool and hip, everyone look at me”
What they really say:  ”I have a large pice of expensive plastic on my head that can be seen from orbit”.
The only time they are appropriate:

• Winter warfare
• Signaling a ship to be rescued from a deserted island
• Getting married on the sun

What it really comes down to is choice.  You should choose not to wear these abominations so I can sit down and enjoy my latte without having to be distracted by every Holly Go Lightly imitator in the tri-state area.
I run-on because I care.
Now go back to work.

Happy Blogging To Me

Hey, it’s my birthday.

Why do you care (good question)?

It is my goal to write one blog entry every day for a year.

The blog may evolve in the year, or it might just get flushed down the already clogged internet toilet, but I’m going to try.

I love the ‘net.  I have created several sites that reflect my love of the internet (no plugs here) but I have never just taken time to write down something that is personal to me.

I think the key to the success that has eluded me on the ‘net so far is that you have to be totally original and I’m going to do that with this blog.

I’m going to take you on a very scary journey inside my head.  I’m going to try and give you a sneak peak of the random stuff that wanders through my head all day.  People always say that my brain “is full of useless facts”.  We are going to put that to the test.

So here’s to 364 days of random fun.  I’ll be installing Disqus into the comment area of this blog so feel free to post anything that crosses your mind as well.  By using the excellent Seesmic plugin, you can share video comments as well.  I’m looking forward to meeting a lot of new people out there on the web.

Welcome to the site

This site has moved from its original tumblr domain.  So that means that the dates for the first week of posts are a little messy.  Rest assured that I did to these once a day, but due to the moving, they appear to be all posted in one day.

Just want to keep my reputation intact.