Collateral Bloggage

On Halloween, I went to Insomnia Coffee Company with E, J, and J for post-Indian-food-coffee.  Okay, so let me just take a moment to inform you that Insomnia is awesome.  Go there.  It’s just so much better than Starbuck’s.  No comparison.

And if you don’t like coffee, try an Aldretea.  It’s like a latte, but with brewed tea instead of coffee.  Add a little honey to it and it’s an absolute treat.  Plus, the owners are awesome.  Support the local guy (and guy and gal).  Seriously.  Go!

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Anyway, it was Halloween.  Thus, one of the main coffee-jerkers was dressed up.  We couldn’t place his outfit.  He had on white overalls and big-ole-shop-goggles, looking for all the world like a butcher or crime-scene-cleaner-upper.  He informed us he was Dr. Horrible.  One of our group was familiar with the character and sent out a link for our viewing pleasure.

Dr. Horrible is hilarious and surprisingly good (who knew Neil Patrick Harris could sing that well?).  The full name is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and it was created by Joss Whedon during the Writer’s Strike.  All I can say is, I want more!  That’s the trouble with it.  If you go watch the video, it’s three fourteen-minute “episodes.”  And then it’s done.  And now I’m sad.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention it’s not rated G, but it’s clean enough for American TV.  Make of that what you will.

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I’m fairly certain my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning.  I, however, went on sleeping.  I guess I thought it was Sunday.  Didn’t get in to work until about 10am.  Nice.

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I spend a good deal of time reading.  When I commented some time ago about the fact that I average about a book per week (my currently reading and recently finished lists are somewhere over on the right side of this page), someone asked me, “How much time do you spend reading every day?”  I had no reply.  Reading is such a part of my day that I generally don’t pay much attention to how much I do it.  So I’ve started taking note.  Last Wednesday, I decided to pay attention.  The breakdown was this:

Before work:

• 15 minutes in Jeremiah (5 chapters)
• 10 minutes in The Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment (finished a chapter)

At work:

• 20 minutes in The Elements of Style (at a Blood drive - more on that later - while a needle hung out of my arm - and on the walk to it and back - yes, I read while walking)
• 10 minutes in The Elements of Style (while eating lunch - finally finished the book)

Back home:

• 10 minutes in 50 Physics Ideas You Really Need to Know (probably would’ve read more, but we stayed up late watching John Adams on DVD - more on that later)

That only adds up to 65 minutes, which seems a bit low to me.  If I hadn’t finished Style, and I’d had something more engrossing than Origin (don’t get me wrong, it’s really good in its way!), I might have read for another half-hour or so.  I figure I tend toward 90 minutes during the week, maybe 30 minutes on the weekend.  Is that a lot?

I seriously doubt I’ve gone a whole day without reading something in a very, very long time.

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Speaking of Blood Drives, have you donated lately?  Not to brag or anything, but my blood is very popular (since I’m O+, anybody with the RH factor can use mine).  They basically call me every eight weeks, and I’m in the habit of donating.  I have no great love of needles, but I have great veins and they’ve only missed mine three times in my 39 donations (Wednesday being #3).  I’m one pint away from my fifth gallon, and I’m unreasonably excited about reaching that milestone.

Seriously, it’s really not that bad, even if you’re averse to needles.  It’s a good thing to do, and they give you cookies!  Plus, how often do you consider questions like “Have you ever had Chagas’ Disease?” or “In the past eight weeks, have you donated a double unit of red blood cells on an apheresis machine?” (Yes, I have that question memorized.  It’s on my long list of “No” responses.)

I like shaming my coworkers after donating, with my nice little arm wrap and the beautiful iodine stain on my arm.  I go around telling them that I had some ill humors drained.  And they don’t even use leeches anymore!

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I love TV on DVD.  I got John Adams from the library, and it’s well worth the overdue fee I’ll be paying for it.  The performances are uniformly brilliant, and it’s just one of those shows that makes you want to read.  At least, it makes me want to read more about that period.  Since I haven’t had a U.S. History course since 10th grade (yeah…1989), it’s something I’d like to become more familiar with.  Look for my book list to include some early American history books next year.

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Ethan and I are enjoying the MLB Playoffs right now.  Ethan seems to think that since the Rays were terrible last year and yet really good this year, and since the Mariners were terrible this year…(ah, the hopes of a young lad)

I don’t want to burst his bubble.  The Mariner could be substantially better next year if the organization starts paying attention to what the USSMariner guys say.

Oh, and I can’t believe the Cubs lost.  That, my friends, is why they play the game.

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Pushing Daisies is just a complete delight.  When I first heard about the show (long before it came out), I figured it would be morbid and gothic, for some reason.  It’s more like the Wizard of Oz.  Hmm.  I was going to go with a couple more comparisons here, but none of them really work.  Because Daisies is just different.  The show totally does not work without the narrator, Jim Dale, who should get an Emmy.

The cast is awesome, and what’s not to love about characters named Ned, Chuck (female), Olive Snook, and Emerson Cod?  I have a man crush on Emerson, if for nothing else, his tirade in last week’s episode about men not being allowed to cry.  The finger wag made the whole thing.

Oh, hey, I just found out what the show is…it’s a forensic fairy-tale.  That’s perfect.  Found it on Wikipedia, and I believe it because I found it online.

My favorite line from the narrator?  Sorry, slight bad wordage: “Harold Hundin was, indeed, a damn polygamist.”  It was funny when Emerson said it; funnier when done in Jim Dale’s whimsical voiceover.

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I still have more things about which to muse.  I guess I should save them for next week since I’m now at nearly 900 words.

I’m not what you’d call a Reality TV junkie.  But I’m not a Reality-Hater either.  I enjoy Survivor sometimes, American Idol occasionally (although there’s less and less to enjoy every year), So You Think You Can Dance due to its superiority, and The Amazing Race immensely.  It’s on again, and it’s still just incredibly awesome.  Why is it awesome?  Well, because, unlike Survivor, it’s a show I’d actually like to be on.  Who wouldn’t want to race around the world for a million bucks?

And I love watching the teams melt down after weeks of constant stress.  My favorite team thus far is one where the guy (it’s a couple) keeps talking about how he just wants to be held, and how it bothers him that the girl keeps talking other teams.  They’re hilariously strange.

Unfortunately, the Oregon Connection (beekeepers who look like they just escaped Woodstock) were the first team to go.  Bummer.

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Robert Crais writes good crime fiction.  Just lettin’ you know.  I’m reading Chasing Darkness, and it’s just incredibly readable and engrossing.  Some language, and the subject matter is crime, so be forewarned.  But if you’re into private-detective-type-stuff, Crais is a good choice.

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I’ve been having a great time bike-commuting to work.  But evidently I’m just too fat, and one of my spokes is now broken.  So I must get it fixed.  Bummer, that.

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My Subbatical has ended.  Eight weeks flew by, and the guy I was covering for is now back.  Fortunately, he doesn’t really want to take back over the stuff he handed off, so I get to keep doing his job.  Which is okay as jobs go.

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The baseball season is over.  Unless you’re a Twins or White Sox fan.  The awesome thing is, Twins fans still have a reason to watch baseball, and the Twins have already played their 162 games.  But the White Sox have only played 161, and they have one fewer win than the Twins (which means, Jill, that they’re a half-game back).  Since they’re both in the A.L. Central, the Sox have to play a makeup game today (making up a rainout).  If they win, they tie the Twins for the Central Title.  And then they’ll have to play a one-game-playoff to decide who wins the division.  But if they lose the game today, the Twins take the division without the playoff.  Clear?

Ethan was surprisingly unbummed about the Mariners’ season being over.  He just said, “now we’ll have to watch the Cubs and the Dodgers and the Angels.”  Yeah, he knew those three teams were in the postseason, just off the top of his head.  That’s my boy!

I’m a big fan of cucumbers.  Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever met one I didn’t like.  I like cukes sliced, speared, pickled (sweet pickles aren’t a favorite), shredded…you get the picture.  I don’t think I’d be crazy about them cooked, but just about any fresh application is attractive to me.

The latest way I’ve found I like them?  Armenian.  A while back, Ethan and I were perusing the vegetable section of New Seasons (something one does when one is mostly Veg), and we spotted something new.  Being a fan of nearly all vegetables (I can’t claim to hold great affection for okra), I moved in to check it out.  Turns out, it was an Armenian Cucumber.

Ethan liked it so much that he now eschews the other kind (although on the whole, he’s cooled on cukes in general).  They’re not as seedy, and the seeds aren’t as slimy as your garden-variety cuke.  The skin is a bit thicker, and they’re just crunchier than average.  The mouth feel is somewhere between kohlrabi and raw potato (both of which are awesome).

Mmm...cukes

Just thought I’d share.

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I admit I like award shows. Especially ones that show actual clips of the nominees. So, I DVR’d the Emmys and watched it on FFWD (that way I could skip all the scripted banter and just see the winners). I have no idea how Michael Emerson didn’t win for his work on Lost (or how he didn’t win last year…oh, Terry O’Quinn won. Ok.).

But for me, the highlight was Josh Groban’s medley of TV theme songs.  The guy just obviously takes himself too seriously.

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On the subject of watching spectacles, I also watched the last game to be played at the current Yankee Stadium.  Very cool history there, and it was a cool thing to watch.  Even cooler?  The Yankees not making the playoffs.  It just proves that you can’t buy a World Series.  Unless you can.  Becuz the Red Sox are still in it.  Me?  I’m going for the Cubbies this year, though I’d be happy to see the Rays take it and then move to Portland (maybe we’d actually fill the stadium?).

Somehow, I failed to get swept away by “The Office.”  Indeed, I actually watched part of the first segment of the pilot.  I changed channels.  There was something just disturbing about Steve Carrell’s smarmy, narcissistic boss that completely turned me off.

Fast-forward four years.  I haven’t looked back, and yet I know so many people who just adore the show.  So, I decided to try it on again.  Summer is the time for TV-on-DVD, so I put in a hold request at the library for Season One.

Well, The Fair Elaine and I watched the entire six episode season on Saturday Night.  It’s still disturbing.  I’ll admit I laughed very hard quite a number of times.  There were also a lot of Borat moments, where I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or be uncomfortable.

Honestly, I felt like I was laughing at someone’s severe mental illness.  The Carrell character is such a multifaceted monster that it’s hard to laugh for very long.  I feel really badly for him, because he’s just so deluded.  The documentary style of the show makes it seem real somehow.  Actually, the writing is so brilliant that it seems unscripted.  How do you write this stuff?

Anyhow, I’m still disturbed by it.  I can’t imagine tuning into it when it comes back this fall.  First, I’ll have to catch up on the intervening seasons.  I’ve already put a hold request in for season two.

I really, really wanted to like Food Detectives.  I figured it’d be a nice combination of two of my favorite shows, Good Eats and Mythbusters.  Alas, it just doesn’t make it for me.

The problem?  The host. I expected Ted Allen to be a much more natural host (I like it when he’s a judge on Iron Chef America), but he was just awkward and stiff, and looked as if he wasn’t sure if the camera was rolling.  Did you ever have a substitute in like sixth grade who obviously was used to teaching Kindergarten?  That’s kind of the way Ted seemed.

With Mythbusters, you’ve got a voiceover narrator who carries much of the, well, narrative load.  The actual Mythbusters don’t even really interact with the camera much.  They’re mostly there to interact with each other, and the camera just happens to be rolling.  It’s quite informal.

On the other hand, on Good Eats, Alton brown does the narration and the hosting, but he pulls it off with a quirky, geeky and-yet-somehow-cool flair.

Oh well.  It’s not like I needed to add another Food Network show to my list.

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Ethan and I attended the last couple of hours of the Oregon Air Show yesterday.  I principally wanted to attend in order to see a new air-demonstration team.  Growing up near an Air Force Base (Elmendorf), I’ve seen the Blue Angels several times (I remember when they flew A-4s), the Thunderbirds, and even the Snow Birds (Canadian team).  So I was delighted to break in a new team.

This time, it was a civilian team, the U.S. Patriots.  They did not disappoint.  Although it’s a civilian team, that just means that the pilots are not currently active members of the military.  But the makeup of the team is still top-notch, with one of the pilots being a former member of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds.

The aircraft they fly, the L-39, is not as high-performing as the Thunderbirds’ F-16 or the Blue Angels’ F-18, but there was a nice side-effect of this:  They aren’t quite so loud.

We still got a nice mix of group maneuvers and close fly-bys.  Very good show.

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Yesterday, during the 9am service at which I sang, most of the musicians were in the greenroom.  There, we were treated to a delightful example of videos which may come under subpoena during the inevitable trial, The United States v. White Men With Video Cameras.  I speak of Tyler’s Techno dancing video.  I particularly like the part where Tyler collapses to the couch, then starts doing an arm-only dance, then pops back up with an unexpected burst of energy.

I toyed with the idea of posting this for Too Funny Tuesday, but couldn’t wait.

(video embedded)

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I’ve got a great memory.  It’s a gift and, sometimes, a curse.  Like when I read the “quotes” page on IMDB and think, “Those quotes are wrong.”  My son seems to be blessed with the same affliction.  It’s not just movie quotes.   I also remember basically everything I learned in Survey of Art and Concepts of Lifetime Fitness, in spite of my desire to lose some of those memories.  I found out on Friday that I also have a pretty good Olympic Memory.  As the torch relay was concluding, I mused (aloud) to The Fair Elaine (paraphrased), “I wonder if that gymnast from the L.A. Games will get in here.  What was his name?  Li Ning, right?”  Ding!  I have no idea where I pulled the name out of, but five seconds later they handed the torch off to him, and he proceeded to go all Neo on the Bird’s Nest.  That was cool.

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This morning, on my way to work, I approached the traffic light at 10th and Oak.  A green light.  Were cars moving?  Not the left lane.  The right lane was attempting to move, but the truck over there came to a screeching halt, too.  Ambulance?  Police?  Family of geese?  Nope.

It was a moron.  Specifically, a teenaged girl, strolling across the street against the light.  Nice.  Well, I hope she learned her lesson from all those big, nasty cars sitting there, watching her illegally and dangerously crossing the road.  Um, folks in those cars, got a horn? Seriously, this is exactly the kind of situation in which some actual teaching should be going on.  And by teaching, I mean thoughts along this line: “Sorry about blowing your eardrums out, but you could be getting killed right now, so I think you’ll understand and maybe not do this kind of stupid stuff again, like ever.”

Problem is, people are afraid to use the horn.  We don’t want to be thought of as (gasp) aggressive drivers!!!  (visualize - with your ears - a blood-curdling scream).  So, the road is ruled by idiots who either drive dangerously or like 110-year-old women (BTW, I’m criticizing those who drive like old ladies, not the ladies themselves).  I’m not sure what the solution is here.  There’s no acceptable way for people who actually want, you know, to do 45 (or even 48) in a 45-zone, to communicate to the lady doing her makeup while driving 32-ish that we’d really like to go just a bit faster.  Can’t tailgate (not that it stops me), can’t flash our lights (see previous), because that’d be like mean and stuff.

One day I’m going to write a lengthy, 200-word essay titled “In Defense of Tailgating.”  It’ll be my magnum opus.

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Last minute addition…a new word for the Heasley lexicon.

stinkumference - the radial expression of body odor centered around a smelly person.  Decreases with increased distance.  Alternately, a measure of a person’s level of B.O.  (Example: “Wow, Tim has a serious stinkumference going today.”)

I’ve been thinking about coming up with a word for this for some time.  This morning, on my way back to my cubicle from the lab, I ventured dangerously close to the event horizon of such a phenomenon.  Dude…

If you’ve ever spent any time dealing with nerds, working at a major corporation, or if you’re a fan of Britcoms at all, you’ll probably find The IT Crowd hilarious.  Unfortunately, the show is difficult to find in the U.S.  So, as part of my odd conception of civic duty, I’m fixin’ to hook y’all up with some of it up in hya (I’m not sure where that last phrase came from.  It’s not even slightly British.).

I’d like to jump right to the funniest scene from any of the episodes I’ve seen, but I’ll start with one from episode #1.  To set it up, I’ll give a slight recap.  Jen is the new IT manager.  She works under the slight disadvantage of having no knowledge whatsoever of computers, and she’s saddled with two “Standard Nerds” (Roy and Moss) who see right through her.  They decide they don’t need a manager, and the following scene is them getting ready to report her to their scatterbrained boss, Denholm Reynholm.

Next week, it’s Denholm’s approach to dealing with STRESS!!!!

Day off from work…day off from blogging (to go along with the weekend off).  Not much about which to muse about (that’s for you, Katie), but I *did* happen to notice a happening that’s coming up on the telly.  “Band of Brothers” is going to be going marathon on the History Channel on June 1st (starting at 8am).

I’ve never been a WWII buff, or really even a buff of anything (I’m more of a flabby than a buff), but “Band of Brothers” is simply an amazing television experience.  It just brings home again the remarkable things that generation of people did.  Given all the pain they went through, I figure watching the series is my way of honoring their sacrifice.  I’ve already got the DVR set up to record the whole shebang.

I’ll be surprised if Cook wins, and I actually think he’ll do better post-Idol if he grabs the Silver Medal. David “Golly gee oh my heck I’m so overwhelmed” Archuleta seemed to win handily last night, and I think he’ll take the title.

I don’t feel the need to go song by song for my recap, but I’ll give some general impressions. First, I must address the “average people submitted dreadful songs for our finalists, because, like, how can it be worse than ‘This is My Now’?” thing. The whole thing reminds me of a passage from 1984:

This is pretty much the task of the AI Finalist…make the dreadful rubbish sound almost pleasant. Is there any question about that? Didn’t think so.

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Since the contestants sang three songs this week, I went with “Triple Play” for the title of my recap. Also, because Asdrubal Cabrera of the Cleveland Indians pulled off an unassisted triple play two nights ago. That’s only happened fourteen times in the history of the Major Leagues. Go watch the video (but read my recap first…mkay?). Baseball is awesome.

Like last week, I’ll just group the reviews by singer. I’ll also give my ranking for each performance, then average them out for my combined rankings.

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