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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.