Goodbye 2008

Okay- time for one last blog for 2008. I thought about posting some of my new year's resolutions and starting a conversation about that, but I haven't sorted out all of my resoultions yet and something better came along.

Today at work they gave me a webcam to set up with the hopes that we can use it for future training sessions between the Milwaukee and Plymouth offices. I tried a conference with another trainer and I guess the video of me on their end looked pretty good, but the video of them on my end wasn't working as well. The pixels or gigazitz or mega-hurts were off, so they ended up looking like burn victims.

Anyway, playing with the webcam some more, I took these sweet pictures. Here's me in my cubicle. I think you can see on my wall that I have earned one Schrute buck. Probably because of my hard work setting up a webcam.

In the picture below, Batman stopped by to check on my progress. "How goes it, citizen?" "All's well Batman, thank you for asking."

Wow, a visit from Batman at work! I'm glad I came in today. There are a lot of people out on vacation, and look at all the fun they missed.

Okay, that's it for 2008. Thanks to anyone who reads my stuff. See ya in '09.

My new friend of the day

I went to the grocery store after work to get food for my guts. The checkout lines were pretty long and while we were waiting the guy in front of me turned around to face me, pointed to one of the many magazines that had Jennifer Aniston on the cover and said, "How could you stop sleeping with THAT?"

I was kinda surprised, and replied, "Ummm... I'm not Brad Pitt."

He gave a "Nyu-HYUCK!" kind of laugh and turned around. Hooray.

Then he turned back around and looked over my food, pointed at it and said, "You're like, totally organic!"

I'm not sure what item or items in my cart made him say that. Was it the Cinnamon Toast Crunch? The 2 liter of Sprite? The frozen package of chicken nuggets? I did have a can of corn, so that was probably it. I just shrugged.

There was a short pause before he pointed to his own food (2 items: a roasted chicken and a loaf of bread) and said, "I can make SIX MEALS out of this!"

I pointed to my Cinnamon Toast Crunch and said, "I can make six meals out of THIS."

He gave another "Nyu-HYUCK!" and that was the end of our exchange.

7 songs

Still thinking about the "Month Mix", but I'd like to introduce you to the "Pretty Strong Week Mix". Haha. Get it? Okay.

Thanks everyone for providing ideas. Feel free to still contribute in the comments. I think I changed the settings correctly so now I think anyone can post without a problem. I'm hoping the linking to the songs works and they'll open up in your media player okay (crossing fingers), I'm trying some new stuff here. The Tori Amos link is to a YouTube video since I don't have it as an MP3 to link.

Track 1- Sunday Sun, Beck.
Track 2- Manic Monday, Reliant K (cover)
Track 3- Ruby Tuesday, The Rolling Stones
Track 4- Wednesday, Tori Amos
Track 5- Thursday's Child, David Bowie
Track 6- Pizza Day, The Aquabats
Track 7- Saturday Night's Alright for Fightin', Elton John

I know Pizza Day is the only one that doesn't have the actual day of the week in the title, so I almost didn't go with it. But I did because (A) The Aquabats are awesome, (B) I wanted this mix to be fun, and (C) IT'S THE BEST DAY OF THE WEEK!

Long December

The other day I had the headphones on while working hard in my cube, and Pandora played "Long December" by Counting Crows. Hopefully not an ominous start to the month. But it made me think that it'd be kinda fun to make a 12-track mix of songs with one track for every month. I thought of Greend Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends", Foo Fighters' "February Stars", and, of course, Guns N' Roses' "November Rain".

That's about as far as I've taken it, but thought I'd put it out there to see if anyone has any good ideas for the "Month Mix". Or, heck, add seven tracks for the days of the week if you want: Cure's "It's Friday, I'm in Love", Orgy's "Blue Monday"... though I don't think they actually say "Monday" in that song. I wonder how many songs are out there about Tuesdays and Thursdays?

Anyway, not sure how many people actually read this blog anymore, but feel free to play along and comment with song titles if you think of any.

(to the tune of "Iron Man"): I AM A TWINS FAN!

I came across a photo gallery of pictures that Jeff Bridges took while they were making Iron Man. This one I really liked:

It's hard to tell if that's an '87 or a '91 World Series t-shirt that Robert Downey Jr. is wearing, chillin' on the couch with Gwyneth Paltrow, but it's awesome either way.

Absolutely no point to this post.

Sometimes when I get coupons from Maplewood Toyota I get the munchies.

Ben vs. the Canon ImageRunner 5570

I have recently updated my list of enemies to include the office copier. This is not your average, wimpy home computer's printer. This bad boy is huge (I found a picture of it online, but it didn't quite capture how big this sucker is, so I drew a stick figure next to it to give you all a better idea). In theory this machine can do all sorts of neat copier shit. I have discovered two pretty amazing tricks so far.

Trick #1: The stapling feature. I have 3 dozen training guides to put together. Do I have to staple all of these myself? Hells no! Canon ImageRunner 5570 can do that for me! Please print me many copies and I will walk away and come back later and everything will be great! NOT! Here's how the stapling feature really works. The copier randomly SHOOTS paper out instead of just dropping it gently on the tray (pictured below).

Then it'll staple my training guides together, but of course the projectiled pages are lying on the floor and I have to pick those up, and unstaple the guides, and put them back in order, and re-staple them. A variation of this trick is that the machine will only sort of shoot random pages, and then prints a few more pages, and then somehow sucks the aforementioned sort-of-shot pages back into the pile (this is actually kinda cool to watch, because it makes a weird SHLURP sound to suck the paper back in), and then staples them. Yes, the machine has figured out how to SHUFFLE my documents before stapling them.

Trick #2: The paper jam 8x super multiplier. If and when this trick happens again I will grab my cellphone camera and document the explosive wonder. Not since right before my car blew up on the highway have I seen so many warning lights go off at the same time. The machine has a little screen on the console with a picture of itself and it lights up where the paper jam is. It's like if you went to the doctor with a picture of yourself and you used the picture to point out where you were hurting. Somehow I managed 8 paper jams on one machine and, with the exception of it actually saying "Ow", the screen looked like this:

You'd think that after one jam it'd shut down or something. Anyway, unclogging all these jams wasn't easy. That copy machine has a bunch compartments and drawers and panels and passageways, and inside each of those are more secret hidden compartments and drawers and panels and passageways. It's like Batman's house... if it was haunted and the kids from Scooby-Doo were investigating. I pulled a candelabra which rotated the bookcase to reveal the sixth paper jam.

Moral of the story- this reminded me that Batman was on Scooby-Doo!

Election Day

I was standing in line this morning to vote and behind me was a mom with her 1 year old. The kid had a little electronic music maker and kept pushing the button that played "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" over and over and over again. I practically skipped into the voting booth. Hooray for no more W!

I AM A TEAM TREASURE, OMG!

Today's fun workspace initiative is called "Teamwork is in the bag!" Everyone at work got a bag with some "team treasure" coupons. If you think someone at work is a team treasure then you take one of your team treasure coupons and give that person a coupon with their name, your name, and the reason why they're a team treasure. Then they put those coupons in their bag, and when they get three coupons then they go to their manager for a piece of candy. WOW!

This is a pretty stupid plan but at least it is also poorly timed. Since we just had Halloween there's like a thousand candy buckets all over the office and I can have all the candy I want without even being a team treasure. I've printed up a bunch of extra coupons and am giving them away to my friends for "outstanding achievement in the field of excellence." Hooray for worktime fun.

I'm thinking "give me an IPod!"

I submitted my "I'm thinking Arby's" costume from 2 years ago to an online costume contest. It doesn't look like there's online voting or anything, but maybe I'll win an IPod or something. (Maybe if you go to the link and add comments like, "That costume is SO COOL" it will help my chances?) Still no idea what, if anything, I'll be this year. The website has some pretty cool costume ideas, but not sure my fabric/sewing/welding skills are on par with the creators'.

Call of the game

I just finished watching game 3 of the World Series. I don't really care who wins betwen the Rays and the Phillies, I just like watching baseball. This one was a pretty decent game, all things considered. 45-yr-old Jamie Moyer vs. former Twin Matt Garza, back-to-back dingers from Utley and Howard, plenty of baserunning shenanigans, and a bases-loaded infield single to end the game in the bottom of the 9th. I was entertained. O yeah, and there was also the head-scratching quote from Tim McCarver- one of my least favorite baseball announcers.

In the bottom of the 9th the Rays plunked the first Phillies batter and that sent Joe Buck and Tim McCarver into a tizzy over various pitching, hitting, bunting and fielding strategies. Then Grant Balfour threw a wild pitch which careened off the backstop and back to the catcher, who fired it into the outfield trying to get the runner. On that sequence the runner went all the way from first to third, and we got Tim McCarver's take:

"The best-laid plans of mice and men! (pause) And managers!"

What?!

Is that a giant pink monkey on top of a car in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

I rarely take pictures with my cellphone. Or, more accurately, I rarely take pictures with my cellphone on purpose. The little camera button is on the side of my cellphone and is inadvertently pushed whenever I lean against something or fish for loose change or walk or sit down. I have roughly a thousand cellphone pictures of the inside of my pocket.

Anyway, I found need for it the other day when I came across this in the parking garage:

Giant pink monkey. It was on the hood of that car for a couple days, but now it's gone.

Less cushion for the sumo pushin'

In Japan, if there is a big upset at a sumo event, the fans pick up and fling their seat cushions. This didn't happen at the sumo event I attended in 2004, but I saw video of it a few times when I was over there and it looks pretty cool. Essentially it's the sumo equivalent of throwing hats on the ice at a hockey game after a player scores a hat trick, or throwing hot dogs at Chuck Knoblauch or the Chicago WhiteSox during dollar dog night at the Dome.

So I was saddened to read this article about how the Japan Sumo Association is putting a stop to cushion throwing. I liked the idea of starting a little pillow fight after watching two behemoths slam, push, choke, gouge, and throw each other around. The world really is going to Hell when Japan does stuff to be less fun.

i choose not greatness

Every year at work we have a "Journey to Greatness" meeting where the President of the company talks to us about what a great year we're having and what's on the horizon for the upcoming year. They put together a video or two of people in the company answering phones and smiling and pointing at computer screens and smiling. They do a pretty good job of putting together something pretty corny.

Last year the theme was "Agent (2)007." Kinda James Bond-ish where we focused on the importance of insurance agents and they put together a video of the higher-ups running around in tuxedos on top secret missions.

This year the theme was based on the Presidential election. The President of the company entered to "Hail to the Chief" and, throwing up the double peace sign, proclaimed, "I am not a crook!" The video had lots of employees smiling and then cut to scenes and sound bites of former U.S. Presidents like Kennedy, Eisenhower, Ford... and also Martin Luther King Jr. for some reason.

We were all given campaign buttons that say "i choose greatness" on them. One of my coworkers was really annoyed that the "i" is not capitalized.

For the past three months, along with other projects, I've been working on putting together materials for an upcoming class of new hire trainees. They are scheduled to start training in about a week, so we're pretty close to having all the training materials finally done. Or so I thought. Today I was given information that sabotages a lot of the work that I had been putting together. Much of what has taken three months to work on now needs to be scrapped and hastily redone in one week.

Anyway, this is how I cope with stress at work:

A place we saw the lights turn low, the jig-saw jazz and the get-fresh flow

I saw Beck in concert last night and had a pretty good time. Beck is awesome. I can't say I'm a fan of Roy Wilkins though. The view from the balcony seating was fine but the acoustics were hit or miss at times. To be fair, it's probably easier for Beck to play there than for other artists. It's a challenge to understand all of Beck's lyrics anyway, and with his crazy techno-tronic beats and screeching guitar it's sometimes hard to tell if it was a bad venue or "normal" Beck.

The last time I saw Beck was in 2002 when he played a solo acoustic show at the Fitzgerald. That was one of the best concerts I've ever seen and seeing this Beck concert made me like that one even more. I knew these would be two completely different experiences. This one was a rock concert, that one was (as the ticket stub said) "An evening with Beck," and was a heavy dose of Mutations and Sea Change.

Going in to this concert I was looking forward to hearing some Odelay and some of Becks hits that came out between 2002 and now. The show itself seemed to go by really quickly, even though he played 25 songs: Loser, Nausea, Girl, Timebomb, Minus, Soul of a Man, Chemtrails, Mixed Bizness, Nicotine & Gravy, Que Onda Guero, Hell Yes, Clap Hands, Black Tambourine, Devil's Haircut, Orphans, Think I'm in Love, Walls, Missing, the Golden Age, Lost Cause, Where It's At, Gamma Ray, Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat (Dylan cover), Profanity Prayers, E-Pro.

Here are my thoughts, and most of them are going to compare the show to the one I caught 6 years ago. Opening with Loser was pretty awesome (I suspected he'd open with Orphans from his new CD). In the middle of the 2002 show he played the opening riff from Loser and then said "wouldn't it be weird if I came to town and didn't play my bigget hit?"... and then he went on to play something else. I thought it was actually pretty funny, but had high hopes to hear "Loser" tonight, and it was nice to get it right away.

Heavy on the Guero. I expected him to play a bunch from his new CD but didn't know how Beck would tie-in all his other work. I was okay with him relying heavily on Guero as I really like E-Pro, Hell Yes, Black Tambourine and Girl. Beck and company busted out a bunch of headsets and started playing the silly noises of Hell Yes and I got really excited to see this live, but it ended up failing. Beck's headset didn't really work and we were left hearing a few beeps and boops and then "Hell Yes!" without getting any of the lyrics. They got halfway through the next song (Clap Hands) before giving Beck a mic that worked. It was a pity this didn't work better because when he busted out a little toy keyboard noisemaker thing in 2002 it was pretty entertaining.

Black Tambourine was one of the highlights of the night. I like the song but what made this was some dude they brought up on stage, dubbed as "the best tambourine player in Minnesota." I don't know if he won a contest or something, but he took full advantage of being on stage with Beck and a tambourine. Wearing a blue jumpsuit, this guy danced around, did rockstar jump kicks, and "dribbled" the tambourine between his legs like a basketball player.

Other than tambourine man, I thought the best series of songs was The Golden Age, Lost Cause, and Where It's At. Beck was ripping through the songs pretty quickly and it was nice to slow down for a second and hear a couple from Sea Change. Every one of Beck's albums has a different feel to it (He pulled songs from 7 or 8 different albums), but the two songs he played from Sea Change really stood out from the rest. You can still feel more emotion in that album than in any other Beck works, which are lyrically awesome, but a lot of times is Beck just F***in' around. I think, due in part to the 2002 concert, that if I had to pick one CD as my favorite I'd pick Sea Change. Though I wish he played Lonesome Tears and Guess I'm Doin' Fine (maybe my most favorite Beck song of them all) instead. And then... BAM! Where It's At! Possibly the funnest song in Beck's arsenal, and coming off the two slower, mellower songs, it was the rock song that rocked the most.

Beck played 6 somgs off of his latest album, Modern Guilt (Orphans, Gamma Ray, Chemtrails, Walls, Soul of a Man, Profanity Prayers). I expected a lot off of Modern Guilt. I like Orphans and Walls, Gamma Ray is fun but nothing too special for Beck. I was surprised that he didn't play the title track Modern Guilt, and a little disappointed that he didn't play Youthless, which I think is the best track on album.

It was good to hear some Nicotine & Gravy in the mix, and I thought E-Pro was a quality closing song, though I think the crowd would've interacted more with Debra as a finale. Speaking of which, Beck really didn't talk much with the crowd. It was pretty much song, song, song, song, one right after the other. This isn't terrible, because I've been to concerts that are the complete opposite. Beastie Boys kept going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yo, yo, what's up? what's up?" for SO LONG between every song. They really killed the momentum of the show and I kept screaming "Just play a song!" Beck played one cover, Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat by Bob Dylan. In 2002 he did Raspberry Beret by Prince, so he was sticking with the Minnesota thing. I liked the Price cover better, and again, much better crowd interaction.

I wish he played longer, but 25 songs is a good setlist. I was happy to hear more songs live, as only 2 songs from the 25 were played at the 2002 set. Overall, a pretty entertaining show.

What a Maroon!

People on the other side of my cubicle wall were talking about hair coloring this morning. I don't feel bad about eavesdropping because they talk LOUD.

"I got a color called 'Sangria'"
"OOoooo, pretty!"
"I swear to God I came out with maroon hair!"
"OOoooo"
"I DON'T WANT MAROON HAIR!"
"No, no. You want more of a reddish-brown."

Um. okay. Tonight I get to see Beck in concert. Right now I'm still just trying to get through the work day.

Kung Phooey

I just finished watching "The Forbidden Kingdom" - the martial arts film that came out this summer that starred both Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Essentially this film took a bunch of existing ideas, gargled them for a few seconds, and spit them out at the viewer. If you have any desire to see this film be warned, spoilers below.

The main character is a kid from Boston who likes Kung Fu movies. He has a dream about a monkey warrior fighting soldiers on top of a mountain. He wakes up and decides to buy some Kung Fu bootlegs down in China Town. He goes to little dark, dusty pawn shop, which happens to be run by an old wise man. Already this is reminding me of D-War. The kid finds some DVDs and then happens to see a magical staff that is hidden in the back of the shop. The old wise man tells him the legend:

About 500 years ago there were immortals, and they got together to have a picnic. One was a Jade warrior and one was a Monkey warrior and they didn't like each other because the Jade warrior thought the Monkey warrior was a goofball. The leader immortals were all glowing in white and said, "we think everyone's a-okay! Let's go to Heaven and pray for 500 years. Whelp, see ya later!" I don't really know what the point of those people are. The Jade warrior says, "Hey Monkey warrior, let's fight!" And Monkey warrior says, "Oooo-ooo-Aaa-aah. Okay!" And they fight. Monkey warrior weilds the magic staff, by the way.

Halfway through the fight, the Jade warrior says, "Hey, man, how about we fight without weapons or magic? " Monkey is trusting and puts down his staff. Jade guy is lying and uses magic to turn Monkey into stone, but Monkey has just enough time to fling his staff to the other side of the planet for the Prophesized one to return it someday.

Then some bullies back in Boston try to rob the pawn shop and shoot the old man and chase the kid. The kid runs away and falls off a building and wakes up in China. This kid, by the way, looks like Hayden Christensen, but isn't as good an actor (Darth Vader: "NOOOOOOO!!!). In China he quickly meets Jackie Chan, who is stumbling drunk. Some Jade soldiers start to attack and Jackie Chan does some drunken fighting. I'm pretty sure the writers were like, "Hey, let's take 'Iron Monkey' and 'Drunken Master' and make it, like, a super Kung Fu movie! Jet Li can do the 'Iron Monkey' stuff... we'll even make him a monkey! And we'll have Jackie Chan play 'Drunken Master', cuz he WAS drunken master!"

(p.s. Iron Monkey = best martial arts movie ever.)

So Jackie is drunk and then they decide to go to the palace to return the staff of destiny. Along the way they meet an orphan girl who says her villiage was destroyed by the Jade immortal and she has the only thing that can kill an immortal- her hairpin. I don't know where she got this, or why the hairpin is the only thing that can kill an immortal, but it's her mission to join the two. She also reveals that Jackie Chan is immortal and that he has to keep drinking because that's his elixir. If he doesn't drink, he won't be immortal. Every immortal has an elixir, although the other immortals just walk around and are fine, but Jackie has to drink every two seconds or he gets weak. This movie is so stupid.

Then Jet Li joins the group. He's a monk tried to steal the staff and he and Jackie Chan fight to a draw and then Jet Li says, "I am a monk and have to return the staff," and the group says, "No, we do, " and Li says, "Okay, I'll go with you," and Jackie Chan says, "We can kill each other later."

Li and Jackie train Hayden (I don't know what his real name is) and the Jade immortal sends a witch after them. Hayden and the girl look at some clouds and the girl says, "That one looks like a two-headed lion" and Hayden says "That one looks like the green monster." Great. The group crosses a desert and Jackie says, "If we don't get water soon, we'll all die." The orphan girl suggests that, because he's immortal, he can create rain. Jackie says, "Yeah, that makes sense" and starts to write on a scroll. Jackie Chan then thinks that it's starting to rain and looks up happily, but really it's Jet Li peeing on his face. THAT IS GROSS! Then they look to their right and say, "O, nevermind, we're not in the desert anymore and the palace is right there." What?!

The witch finds the group says, "I'm fighting you to get the staff to trade for the Jade immortal's immortality juice," and they fight and run away and the witch shoots Jackie with an arrow. Hayden says, "it's okay, he's immortal!" But then Jackie say, "No, man, that orphan girl is crazy. I'm not immortal, I'm gonna die. But it's okay, I'd rather be mortal and truly live than to be immortal and have nothing." I think this was supposed to be some deep, meaningful message, but it didn't really make sense, much like the rest of the film.

Hayden knows that the Jade immortal has immortality juice so he goes to get that to save Jackie. Jet Li, the orphan girl, and Hayden fight the Jade immortal, the witch, and the army inside the palace. Some villagers drag Jackie up there and he gets the immortality juice and he starts to fight too. I guess his message about how he'd rather be mortal and have meaning doesn't hold true anymore. Jet Li gets stabbed mightily by the Jade immortal but manages to smash the staff into frozen-in-stone Monkey warrior. Jet Li dies and the Monkey warrior lives, and then it turns out that the monk Jet Li was actually a piece of hair from the Monkey warrior (also Jet Li).

Monkey and Jade immortals fight, the orphan girl tries to get her revenge but dies, Hayden picks up her hairpin and stabs the Jade guy and he dies, because that's the only thing that can kill him. Then the 500 years is up and the white glowing immortals show up and say, "Heyyyy.... what's up?" And Hayden says, "Can you bring orphan girl back to life?" And they say, "NO!" This was the best part of the movie! They let her die! HA!

Jackie Chan and Jet Li do not fight to the death, and are presumably buddies with the glowing immortals. The glowing immortals say to Hayden, "we can grant you anything you desire" (with the exception of saving orphan girl, I guess). Hayden gives a goofy shrug and says, "I just want to go home!" Back in Boston the pawn shop thugs find Hayden and try to beat him up, but now Hayden knows Kung Fu and wins. The old pawn shop wise man is seen being carted into an ambulance. Hayden says, "are you okay?" The old man reveals that he is also immortal. Then we see that the orphan girl works in a jewelry shop next door, and Hayden says, "Hey, baby, wassup?" Then the movie ends.

This movie was not awesomely bad like Dragon Wars, it was just bad.

Harry Potter and the Memoirs of a Gaijin

I was checking in on my book on Amazon.com and was pretty amused by the "Frequently Bought Together" section.

I wonder if since Deathly Hollows is like the biggest selling book of all time, that it just shows up regardless of what the other book is. Either way, if my book is frequently bought along with Harry Potter, I'm pretty happy.

P.S. everything written in my book is better than anything written about Cho Chang.

Who will watch The Watchmen?

I finished reading Watchmen this weekend and loved it. I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie when it comes out in March, 2009. I've watched the movie trailer about a half-dozen times since finishing the comic. I'm thinking it will do okay. After releasing Iron Man and Hulk this summer, Marvel isn't releasing anything next year, so there'll be less superhero competition. I found it interesting that the Watchmen trailer used Smashing Pumpkin's "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning"; a song originally found on the Batman and Robin soundtrack. Methinks they'll gnab a little bit of the Dark Knight love.

If you plan on reading or seeing Watchmen and want to be surprised, you might want to skip this blog- there'll be spoilers.

As I was reading it, I had been making predictions about how Watchmen would end, and I was way off. And that upset me because it was pretty obvious who the "bad guy" was. Here's a tip: if someone is decreed "The Smartest Man in the World", then he's the bad guy. Even if they don't appear to be evil at first, if they are a genius, they're an evil genius. Just to list a few: The Riddler from Batman Forever, Brain Child from The Tick, Vizzini from Princess Bride, Brain from Pinky and the Brain... pretty much if you have "Brain" in your name or have some/all of your brain exposed that's a good clue too (Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mother Brain from Metroid, etc.).

So, yeah, duh, I missed that clue. But even if I had guessed that Ozymandias was the baddie, I wouldn't have predicted the "alien" destruction twist. Overall the creators did a great job of creating characters that you loved, hated, or were indifferent to, and by doing this hid the bad guy pretty well and the surprise ending very well. I have many more thoughts about Watchmen- maybe I'll blog more, maybe I won't. Hopefully there are readers of this little blog out there who've read Watchmen as well and we can discuss further (please comment/discuss!)

Gazooks!

Once upon a time, Hulk Hogan told me to take my vitamins. More recently, my doctor told me told me to take my vitamins. Turns out I need more Niacin in my life. Anyway, Flintstones vitamins were on sale, so I am once again a Flinstones kid- strong, and growing.

Usually right before I head out the door for work I pop out a vitamin from the bottle and say, "Looks like it's going to be a (Flintstone character's name) kinda day." I don't know why I say this, I just do. I've been taking these for a little over a week now, and have so far had one "Wilma" day, one "Barney" day, and six or seven "Great Gazoo" days. What the heck? Great Gazoo? F*** Great Gazoo! He's not a caveman! He's like, the wave of the future, and I HATE the wave of the future (see old blog post). Needless to say, it's been a pretty rough week.

Today was a "Dino" day. I have found that "Dino" days are so far much better than "Great Gazoo" days. Probably because everybody except me has the day off so there's no one around to yell at me (imagine Dino; "YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP YAP!) ... and I can sit in my cube and blog. A good way to end the week before Labor Day weekend.

Kerplunk

Wow- I write about baseball stuff a lot. O well, deal with it.

I was checking out the White Sox score and saw in the game notes "Carlos Quentin set an MLB record by getting hit by a pitch in six consecutive games."

This made me think about the modern HBP (hit-by-pitch) king, Craig Biggio. Biggio recently retired having been beaned a career 285 times. I always liked Biggio. He wore a pretty baggy jersey, and had a poor head-size-to-batting-helmet-size ratio. You know those pre-game "Run around the bases" contests? 6 yr olds run to first, put on an adult batting helmet, run to second, put on a jersey, run to third, crawl into a giant pair of pants, and then hop/stumble/fall/roll their way home. Well imagine one of those kids then got lost after the contest and ended up batting leadoff for the Houston Astros. That was what Craig Biggio looked like.

Now bean him 285 times.

Laundry Day*

It's laundry day, and that means two things. One: I'm down to just my SpongeBob Christmas boxers, and two: it's a good time to catch up on vacation stories as I wash my clothes.

Two weeks ago my dad and I set off for New York to catch the Twins at Yankee stadium. I bought game tickets way back in early March, because after this season Yankee stadium is being torn down. I'm a baseball nut, and I just had to boo Derek Jeter in "the house that Ruth built."

The trip started with a few days of driving. We passed Lagrange, IN (A how-how-how-how), and made our first stop in Angola, IN. They had a bunch fireworks stores, liquors stores, and cigarette shacks. One cigarette shack was called "The Butt Hut," but I unfortunately forgot to take a picture of this. That was pretty much all that Indiana had to offer.

When we finally made it to New York our first stop was Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame. The museum was pretty cool, but a lot smaller than I thought it would be. They have a ton of stuff from the Babe Ruth era on display, but not too much on display from the modern era. I expected entire wings for Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, world championships, etc. What we found was a single sports locker dedicated to each individual team to cram their entire franchise's history.

The Twins' locker had a hat from Kirby Puckett, a baseball from Jack Morris' World Series shutout, a jersey and a few bats. One of the bats was Matthew Lecroy's, who hit three consecutive pinch-hit home runs to tie a major league record.

I asked one of the Cooperstown employees if the Barry Bonds asterisk ball was there yet. I knew it was going to be added to the Hall of Fame right around the time we were there, but he said it wasn't going to arrive for a couple more days. Rats! He said it'd go in the Giants' locker. This surprised me. The ball that broke Hank Aaron's all-time home run record, a ball that someone paid $750000 for, will just sit on the bottom of a locker not 10 feet from a bat that Matthew Lecroy swung. I imagined a whole Bonds display, with the asterisk ball displayed on a podium atop a silk pillow in it's own glass case, like the Hope diamond or something.

The Hall was pretty fun, but the next day it was time to move on to the feature presentation: Yankee Stadium.

Yankee Stadium tour

We were scheduled to take the stadium tour at noon and got off the train by Yankee Stadium around 11:00.

We decided to grab a quick lunch at McDonald's, and here I got my first real experience with true New Yorkers. There was a line of a few guys outside the Men's bathroom, and they were banging their fists on the door and shouting. "There's an F'in' WOMAN in there! She's been in there forever! Hey, lady, hurry up! She's probably delivering a baby or something! Hey lady, quit flushing your babies down the toilet! COME ON!" Turns out it was just the cleaning lady, but when she finally unlocked the door she and the guys in line got into a big shouting match. Welcome to New York!

We walked over to the stadium for the tour, and I was pretty impressed. We got to check out the pressbox, sit in the Yankee's dugout, walk along the dirt on the field, and check out Monument Park. I thought it was interesting that the really good seats behind home plate and along third base were in really terrible shape. How'd you like to spend hundred, or even thousands, on baseball tickets to find your seats held together with duct tape? (no joke- duct tape).

The tour guide gave everyone plenty of time for pictures and just had a few words of warning when we went down to the field. "Do not walk on the grass, do not lie down on the grass, do not pet the grass, do not bend down and pluck a handful of grass..." Here's a picture of me behind home plate, me by Yogi Berra's number in Monument Park, and me and my dad in the outfield. We did not touch the grass.

Game On!

We had tickets to the Tuesday night and Wednesday afternoon game. Tuesday night we were right behind home plate... three decks up. Wednesday we were along the third base line, in the very top row of the third deck. I have touched the roof of Yankee stadium. That's what you get for clicking "best available" when you order tickets online. The Twins looked foolish and pretty much got their brains bashed in, but it was still pretty fun. I did indeed boo Derek Jeter everytime he came up to bat, but the 50,000+ people cheering for Jeter didn't pay any attention to me.

The grounds crew provided much more entertainment than the Twins. In the 6th inning five guys come out to sweep the dirt in the infield while "YMCA" plays. They march along the infield and pump their fists while dragging their brooms behind them, and then pause to do the Y-M-C-A hand motions before marching on. Here's a pretty choppy video.

Wednesday afternoon we sat behind Frank and his pals. It was a 1:00 game, and Frank and his five homies showed up absolutely plastered. Some memorable quotes from Frank:

said at least once an inning: "If I fall over, I'm on third base!"

after about an hour: "F*** this! I've been to Yankee stadium like 9000 times. Let's go to the f***in' bar!"

"That was a F***IN' STRIKE!! F***IN' UMPIRE!!" - after the second pitch of the game!

after Mike Mussina bounced a pitch off home plate: "That caught the F***IN' CORNER!"

Other than the Twins getting belted, it was a pretty fun trip. We left New York and spent 19 straight hours driving home. Yowza. Blogspot is acting goofy now and not letting me add more photos for some reason. O well- Fo'get about it (and yes, New Yorkers do say this. Other than the "F" word, it was the most popular expression used by the locals).

Let's get Denarded!

I intended to blog about my trip to NY today, but came across something more urgent. I've made several posts about the Minnesota Twins banners, and had a post about what should be Denard Span's group; Denard's Retards. This morning I was listening to the H.A.M.S. on 93X, and they had a bit where they played "Let's get Denarded in here" (instead of Let's get retarded in here/Let's get it started in here by the Black Eyed Peas). Looks like the Denard's Retards bandwagon is rolling! I'll check later to see if they have a download available on 93x.com. Right now I gotta get ready for doller dog night at the Dome. Yaaay, Denard, Yaaay!

Back to reality

Vacation in New York was fun. I have a few stories to share, but came back to work today and (this is the best way to describe it) got hated on. I have a big day of work and frisbee playoffs Tuesday, so mayhaps updates on Wednesday.

Late Knight

I am in my cubicle and I am tired as I went to the midnight showing of The Dark Knight last night. It was very, very good. VERY good. I'd love to chat about it, but don't want to spoil anything for anyone who has not seen it yet for some reason.

Sorry for lack of blogging lately. Been super busy wrapping up things at work before I head off for vacation in New York. I suspect I'll have many things to blog about when I return. Toodles.

Sal's Pal

I'm in a fantasy baseball league and often while away down time at work by reading up on who's hitting well, who's not, prospects, etc. The website that our league has puts little flags next to a player's name if they've added recent news. Usually it's a little yellow post-it, but sometimes it will be blue to signify a batter is cold, or orange if they're on fire. Scrolling through the list I came across the orange flag next to Cleveland's backup catcher, Sal Fasano. It read:

Yes! Any fan of Zoolander should appreciate this. That Sal Fasano is so hot right now!

I decided to read up on Sal, and found some interesting stuff. First and foremost, he has a sweet moustache. Second, he had an awesome fan club. Loyal readers of my blog know how I take notice of the Twins' groups like Cuddy's Buddies and Morneau's Mounties. In 2006 Sal played for the Phillies and there was a Sal Fasano fan club called "Sal's Pals." These guys would all dress up like Sal, and during one game Sal sent 20 large pizzas to his 40 fans in the stands. This is why I love baseball.

Later, Fasano went to the hated New York Yankees. The Yankees have some strict policies about haircuts and facial hair, so Fasano had to trim his 'stache. Sal's Pals were sad, and Fasano said he thought it made him look like Borat. I also found a blog about Sal written by some guys pretending to be Sal Fasano. I'm pretty sure I'll spend most of next week enjoying sifting through the archives.

Hooray for America

Every 4th of July I try to make it up to my family's cabin in Cumberland, Wisconsin. (A coworker of mine claims that everyone in Wisconsin calls cabins "cottages," drinking fountains "bubblers," docks "piers" and bar-b-ques "cookouts." I don't believe any of that.) Basically I just sit by the lake enjoying the weather while I eat meat and cheese and drink beer. It's pretty much the best time ever.

On the 4th all the boats on the lake are decorated with red, white and blue paraphernalia (flags, pin-wheels, streamers, etc.) and we have a parade. Our family adds a pirate flag to our pontoon for the occasion.

Afterwards we all pull up onto someone's property and have a potluck picnic. Meat, cheese, cake, brownies, chips, and little weenies wrapped in bacon. Meat wrapped in more meat- yes! At this function I tend to just find a table with my sister and her husband and avoid any socializing with anyone else on the lake. We had fun laughing at the little kids running around.

This one kid was wearing some wrap-around shades, and he'd be pretty happy for awhile, but if his shades came off he'd start whining. We called him "Whiny." Then there was another kid who had like seven pieces of cake, and then his mom informed him that he had had enough cake, so he went to all the forks, knives and spatulas that had frosting/cake crumbs/brownie remnants on them and stuck those in his mouth. We called him "Chewie."

After licking those clean, Chewie then put all the forks, knives and spatulas back in their respective cake/brownie pans and went off to find more things to put in his mouth. He went over to the ladder game and put the golf balls in his mouth. Then he'd take them out and throw them, run to pick them up, and put them in his mouth again. He did that like 100 times.

Then I went back to our cabin, took a nap, and woke up for a fish-fry.

Good Wood (movie review)

Last night I watched the movie Ed Wood, and I have to give it high marks. It wasn't at all what I expected - I thought I was throwing in a comedy, but this could just as easily be categorized under Drama.

The back of the box says the movie is supposed to be about Ed Wood, Hollywood's worst director of all time. Really it seems to be more about the original Dracula, Bela Lugosi, played by Martin Landau. Landau won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor with this performance, and deservedly so. His story takes up probably 3/4 of the film, and it isn't until Legosi dies that it really feels like a story about Ed Wood. That wasn't a spoiler, by the way. Legosi is introduced in the film trying out coffins and tells Wood that he'll die soon.

Landau beautifully depicts the the aging actor's comedic and tragic lifestyle. Legosi is bitter, lonely, and pathetic. He only wants to make another film, but in joining a low-budget venture his unemployment ends and he can no longer pay the rent or feed his morphine addiction. In one chilling scene he's screaming in a rehab clinic, in another scene he's declaring, "Let's shoot this fucker!" before jumping in a lake to wrestle a giant plastic octopus.

The rest of the film (the first 15 minutes and last half hour) is less dramatic, more comedic and more about Ed Wood. I really like Wood's character, played by Johnny Depp. He has a "Gee-Golly, Aw Shucks" persona, and a great attitude about his film-making passion. He sees the star potential in everyone, from the washed-up Legosi to a heavyweight wrestler to his girlfriend's chiropracter. I really love his love for film. It reminds me that even bad movies can be good or hold special meaning. Also, he cross-dresses, and it's funny seeing Johnny Depp in a blond wig.

The whole movie is in black-and-white and is so ridiculous that I felt many times like I was watching MST3K, except without the robots sitting in the corner of the screen making comments- I wonder if MST3K has done any of Ed Wood's actual films. He's supposedly the worst director of all time, so probably.

The film does drag in spots, but there's plenty of fun concepts that make the film worth viewing. Johnny Depp tries to raise money for his film "Graverobbers from Outer Space" by shmoozing a Baptist who wants to make movies about the 12 apostles. Sarah Jessica Parker's character gets a bad play review and exclaims, "Do I really have a face like a horse?" Also, if there are any Scrubs fans out there, THIS is where the "Dr. Acula" joke came from.

Ed Wood is a Tim Burton film, and if you like Tim Burton films you should like this- it really is a combination of Big Fish and Mars Attacks. 4 stars.

Cereal Aisle

I was at the grocery store the other day. Needed mayo for my sammich. I like the grocery store, especially the cereal aisle. Read my book and you'll know why.

It appears Lucky Charms has introduced yet another new marshmallow- the Hourglass. Why is this a lucky charm? Have you ever had a really good string of luck and had someone say, "Wow, you must have an hourglass or something!" No.

Come to think of it, I've never heard that said about red balloons either. They should remove the balloons and hourglasses from Lucky Charms. The red balloons they could use to make a no-nutrition/all-marshmallow cereal called 99 Red Balloons.

I actually remember back to when I was like 4 years old, watching morning cartoons and seeing when the purple horseshoe was first introduced to Lucky Charms. I didn't witness the moon landing, but I witnissed this. Anyway, the horseshoe is a legit lucky charm. As is the four-leaf clover.

Things like hearts, stars and moons I can go either way on. Those I wouldn't necessarily consider charms, but I can at least see the argument with the idea of luck tied in with astrology or being lucky with love. They should take all the stars and moons and stuff and invent Pagan Charms cereal. "They're always after me Pagan Charms!"

I also remember when they had yellow moons and blue diamonds, which merged to form blue moons. I think they should make a Lucky Charms Vegas-style. They have hearts and clovers (clubs), could bring back the diamonds, and add spades. Perfect. They could also have other Lucky Vegas Charms like an ace up the sleeve, dice, lucky sevens, etc.

What's in a name? Part 2

Just a quick post for the heck of it. Last night I was sitting at Biff's, enjoying a well-deserved brew with my team after our come from behind victory. We decided everyone needed nicknames, and came up with some solid ones. I'm still "Little B" (or LB, or something along those lines), but we christened the rest of the team with names like Doc, Chief, Stacks, Abacus, The Firm, Ball, Chain, Slut aka Nun aka Cloister, The Assassin, and Midnight Cowboy (or Tex or something). What an awesome team.

Anyway, I happen to be going to the Twins game on Friday and I just now checked out the scheduled pitching matchup. Pitching for Arizona: Randy Johnson. Also known as: "The Big Unit."

I'm pretty stoked. I've always been a fan of Randy Johnson. Here's why he rules:

He's like 9 feet tall, has a mullet and is ugly as sin.

He once threw a fastball that hit a bird flying by and the bird exploded. Not that killing birds is cool or anything, but Holy Crap! It exploded!

185 beaned batters in his career.

And ... he's The Big Unit! How could you NOT have a good time cheering/heckling this guy?

What's in a name?

I've been super busy at work lately, so haven't hit up the ol' blog in a while. But I just finished up with a big project and I'm taking tomorrow off (my first full day off since January!), so I'm back to "sneak through the work day without actually working" mode. Sweet. I'm going to drive over to Milwaukee to see my sister and brother-in-law, and catch a Twins/Brewers game. I hope for fun times.

I usually pick up some new music for the road trip, so tonight I'm going to pick up the Foxboro Hot Tubs "Stop, Drop and Roll." This is actually just the new Green Day cd, but for some reason they decided to go under a different name for this release. I usually keep my music all in order, so for cataloguing purposes these things can be a bit annoying (Side note: does anyone have Ben Folds Five under the "Bs" and Ben Folds under the "Fs"?).

I've noticed that a lot of bands and musicians do the name change/pseudonym thing. Just a few that I know of: Foxboro Hot Tubs = Green Day, Prince = that love symbol thing, Box Car Racer = Blink 182, Fort Minor = Linkin Park, Chris Gaines = Garth Brooks, Chuck Norris = Walker, Texas Ranger.

I don't know. I have to imagine that the same Hot Tubs cd would sell much better under the Green Day name, but whatever. I guess I shouldn't point fingers. I've changed my Blog's name about a dozen times, and I'm known in most frisbee circles as "Little B." Feel free to post your thoughts or comment on your favorite altered-ego bands.

Wii Fit

Recently there have been a few new things of interest in the world of Wii. I have a couple things to say about this, so I'll break it up into two posts. Wii Fit was released and the balance board looks like it could be a fun addition to the Wii interactive body movin' game play. I'd be interested to try the We Ski game with this, for example. Anyway, the idea behind Wii Fit is to get exercise in a fun way. Stretching, flexibility, strength training, cardio, and even yoga are some of the draws. What I found funny was that there's a whole bunch of exercises and menus but then there's also "unlockable" exercises.

I don't necessarily mind unlockables; it adds a small sense of accomplishment when you do well enough in a game to get some bonus fun. But there are plenty of times when I would rather just have all the game features available from the get-go. Plenty of fighting games make you work to unlock all the fighters, and I'd rather have those up front. Karaoke Revolution or Guitar Hero games give you both the good and the bad- I'd rather have ALL the songs available up front, but I like unlocking crazy items based on my "good work" (funny hats or costumes, new characters, new guitars, etc.). These kind of unlockables are just icing on the cake and don't take anything away from the actual playable game, whereas not being able to immediately play Sweet Child of Mine on Guitar Hero II definitely bugged me.

Anyway, the main point is that Wii Fit has unlockables and I find it amusing that the game would make you drop and do 20 pushups before you could do yoga or something.

Wii Not Fit

The other new thing that I wanted to talk about from the Wii is WiiWare. It's just downloading games on the Wii like they do for XBox 360. The overall majority of the initial games look pretty ho-hum, and I think I'd rather just have more original Nintendo games available (Castlevania I, II, and IV are available on the Virtual Console, but no Castlevania III. WTF!)

Anyway, I was reading up on the releases and a few notable titles stand out. I'm excited to try the souped-up Dr. Mario game (hopefully they have one and two player classic versions as part of this and you can opt to use classic controls), and I'll probably give in and download Star Soldier R too. Star Soldier was just one of those fly around in space and shoot EVERYTHING games, but it was fun and it looks like the only changes they've made to this new verison is updated graphics with big explosions.

Then I came across "Major League Eating: The Game." Really? From the review I saw: "Major League Eating" simulates the art of stuffing hundreds of hot dogs into your gullet. Flick various consumables into your mouth with the Wiimote and mash on a button to chew, but watch out for choking, vomiting and teeth grinding. Oh, and you can also exude various bodily gases to distract your opponent.

I think I'll save my money for Star Soldier R.

I was actually talking with someone about those eating contests a few days ago before I saw this. I asked what food you think you could out-eat anyone at. This version wasn't based on how much you could quickly eat in 5-10 minutes, but more along the lines of what you could eat over a longer timeframe, like a few hours (Over the course of a SuperBowl, or something- a good day for gorging in front of the TV). This might not be your favorite food, mind you, just the food that you think you could eat the most of if you had mentally and physically prepared for the event.

I think I could take any one of you down with Pizza Rolls (pepperoni/suasage combination) on the menu. If those came out of the oven at about 20 at a time, perfectly cooked and cooled (not cold, but also not "scald your face with lava meat goo" hot either), I would win. Under those conditions, I know I could take down at least two of those 90-count bags during the game. What would your food choice be? Please post comments- I'm interested.

I Feel Like I'm Taking Crazy Pills!

I handed out a quiz for underwriters to take today. All the answers they can find by accessing the product memo and workflows on the homepage, or with a little visio handout that I gave to them with the quiz. It's not intended to be anything super difficult, we mainly just want people to read the updates on the homepage.

The first question says, "What form do you always need?" The second question asks, "What form do you sometimes need?" About half the class put the same answer for question 1 and 2. This type of stuff hurts my brain. If you always need a form, then you can't sometimes need the same form!

This was my favorite, though. One question on the quiz asks: "What are the four questions every underwriter should remember? (See handout for help)" One person answered: "See handout." Thank you.

Not Dead Yet

Second blog of the day. Must be slow at work or something. It's soooo nice outside.

Anyway, I was mucking about on Facebook trying to kill time and I added an application called "Before I Die." It's a little checklist you can put together of things you want to do/see/accomplish before you croak. It's nothing exciting really but, uh, slow day at work.

I don't have much I need to get done before I die. I've done a lot so far. I've lived and travelled in Europe and Asia. I've caught a homerun at a baseball game. I've written a book. I've caught a Callahan. I've painted a self portrait. I've climbed a mountain. All good stuff I think.

So not having too many ideas for what I need to do, I clicked on a "suggest stuff" type link. I thought it'd give me a list of ideas or something, but I guess it just automatically sent an email to a couple dozen of my Facebook friends just asking them to post suggestions. I hate that! I think it's fun if people willingly want to participate in the little checklist discussion, but I'm not a fan of the auto-send. Plus, Facebook just randomly picks these people from my large Friend list. It goes to people who I might be close friends with, people I'm just kinda aquaintences with, and even relatives who I might see pretty much just around holidays. They don't hear from Ben since Christmas and then out of the blue get an email from him saying, "Hey, just curious, what should I get done before I die?" Wow, thanks Ben, that's random!

I think I might use the application to list super mundane everyday things. Like, "Before I die, I want to sharpen this pencil." Then I'd go sharpen it, and go back and check it off my list and feel like I've accomplished something pretty significant with my day.


If you have any suggestions, be it really good stuff to do before I die, or mundane things too, please comment here or on Facebook.

Kersplash

Wow, it's gonna be a slow day at work today. It's only 9:00am and I'm already blogging. Work has been icky as usual. Last week 73 people were let go from the company. This has left a few things in disarray. I'm currently working on quite a few things for training right now, but let me sum up how the company's "restructuring" has completely doinked one project. Since talking about work and how someone was taking complex visio flows for a new workflow process and translating them into step-by-step online documentation can be boring and/or difficult to describe, I shall use pirate metaphors.

Captain: Yarrr! We are sailing on a journey to greatness! But I wish to enjoy a greater share of the plunder. I shall make several members of my crew walk the plank... Yarrr!

Splash, splash, splash, splash (that's people falling into the water after walking the plank). Several days later...

Pirate 1: Having sailed through those treacherous seas, let us resume our pirate work and get the buried treasure! Hand me the treasure map!

Pirate 2 (checking pockets): Um...

Pirate 1: The trasure map, man! Yarrr!

Pirate 2: Methinks we tossed the holder of the map overboard.

Pirate 1: Then get me the map holder's immediate supervisor!

Pirate 2: Yarrr! He walked the plank as well.

Pirate 1: Yarrr (this is a sad yarrr). THE END

Super Bloggio-ing

Sometimes, like today, I change the title of my blog. Originally this was just called "Ben's Blog," but I've changed it about a half-dozen times just for kicks. One time I changed the title of my blog without actually adding a new blog, and that annoyed someone. I don't have much to add today, I really just felt like I wanted to change my blog's title again.

Last night I played poker at the bar and won a $10 gift certificate for 3rd place in the first game and then saw a bar fight near the end of the second game. I was at the final table again and was just playing cards and then there was a big crowd around the door trying to separate two guys. I got knocked out of the game shortly after (6th place, I think. The grand prize for the second game was Bryan Adams tickets. BRYAN ADAMS! WOOOO! I was trying to get 2nd place- more gift certificates to the bar).

Anyway, as I was walking out one of the fighters (inside the bar) was mopping booze off himself and saying, "What's he thinking? I've fought him tens of times!" I guess that's more accurate than fighting someone tons of times, but it sounded weird. Then I went out the doors and there was the other fighter who had a bloody, busted nose and was all, "I don't care how long I've known him. No! I don't care!" and someone who sounded like a mutual friend of the the two scrappers was holding him back and saying "Dude!"

Ocho-Cinco

Just a quick blog about this week's cafeteria menu.

In case you can't read it clearly: Monday- Cinco de Mayo Beef Chimichanga, Tuesday- Country Fried Steak, Wednesday- Meatloaf Dinner, Thursday- Cinco de Mayo Made to Order Burrito, Friday- Fish Fry.

Que? Cinco De Mayo on Monday AND Thursday! Excuse me, but Thursday is OCHO de Mayo! Even Chad Johnson knows that. The work week is long enough, I don't need to go backwards. Also, if they're gonna double-dip on the Fiesta food week, why not have a Taco Tuesday?

ADIOS!

Nerd pants

Lunch time is usually a happy time. It's a time to escape the cubicle, rant about work, talk about the weekend, and dare others to eat something gross (Frosty Floats from Wendy's made with Mello Yello and chocolate ice cream, for example). These are all fun activities. But some of my lunch time pals are big World of Warcraft players and will often go off on dungeon-sword-magic-critter discussions. I usually respond by calling them nerds.

They argue that it isn't nerdy because over 10 million people play the game. "How can something that's popular be nerdy?" I disagree with this logic. Harry Potter, Star Wars, and video games in general are popular, but they're nerdy. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal above them by saying this, mind you. I like Star Wars and Harry Potter and video games, and yes, I consider myself a nerd. That's okay. But I don't care if everyone in the whole world is playing this game, it's still nerdy. My coworkers have said, "Well, William Shatner and Mr. T play W.O.W." Well then I have a news flash for ya: William Shatner and Mr. T are nerds.

(I found the Mr. T Muppet Magazine pic while typing this. If you can't read it, the teaser on the cover says, "How tough is Mr. T? Scooter finds out!" If you have to send in a bad-ass like Scooter for the interview, then you know the guy is tough. There's also the caption, "Be a Halloween look-alike: Boy George, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson." Oooohh. I feel sorry for those kids.)

Name-calling aside, my coworker Dave has tried to convice me to sign up and play. If it was just a good game that everyone liked I might give it a try, but what irks me about the whole thing is that there's a monthly charge to play W.O.W. You buy the game and then it costs $15 a month to play it! Sounds like a scam to me. Dave has the game and some gaming guides, has been playing for 2 1/2 years, and his wife plays too, so they've shelled out like $1000 playing this game. I'd prefer saving my money by playing other games. Like blackjack... in Vegas.

Anyway, I told Dave I wouldn't mind playing if he paid for the game and monthly subscription. He wants me to join them on quests of killing and plunder or something. Sounds like a lot of work. I asked him what kind of stuff I could do if I just wanted to play in half-hour increments. The following is our nerd conversation.

"Well, when I get home I usually do some herbing." "Herbing?" "Yeah, I dig around for herbs, which I can then sell to buy cool things, like pants." "So you spend $15 a month so you can dig for herbs to buy pants?" "Yeah! And other cool things, like hats and necklaces!" "You spend your time digging for herbs to buy hats and necklaces?" "Well the necklaces can help you. Like, if you're a mage you want necklaces to give you extra intelligence and stamina." "Do they have necklaces that give you other stuff, like strength?" "Yeah, but the mage can't use those." "If you're a mage, wouldn't you already have intelligence? Why wouldn't you be able to buy the stuff you don't have? Why wouldn't you get necklaces that give you strength?" "Well, you can buy them, but they wouldn't work for the mage. The warrior needs strength so it'd work for him." "But the warrior is already strong!" (And why are warriors wearing necklaces?)

So, you spend your money to dig to get money and buy necklaces and pants, and the necklaces may or may not actually help you gain strength or intelligence for your herb-digging missions. I guess you also start the game without pants... hmm, maybe that's why the game is so popular. At any rate, for $15 a month I can buy myself some real pants.