Daily Grind...

• Wow, it has been a while. Had a crazy project going on at work that took every waking moment of my life away for a week and a half. That one is done, but there is another one on the horizon.
• Speaking of horizons, I have not heard one second of the new U2 album, and I really don't think it has affected me. I have never been that big of a U2 fan, for some reason.
• Baseball tournament this weekend, which explains the picture. The weather was so bad on Saturday with the wind and cold. Then, on Sunday, the most perfect weather you could ask for. There was not a cloud in the sky, which explains the sunburn. I was wearing a hat and sunglasses. My face is all puffy and swollen. Great fun.
• Note to people who drive: If you are behind me and you are going fast, flashing your brights at me will NEVER get me to move over. In fact, if you do that, I am more likely to slow down and make you pass me. If you give me a sec, I will get out of your way, but one way to make things worse for yourself is to flash your brights.
• ExplosiveWife had her yearly "Must repaint a room in the house" weekend. It was her gym this time, but she picked really good colors and it looks great. We paid a friend of a friend to paint the room. Yes, he was hispanic. Yes, he did a fantastic job. Yes, we paid him more than he quoted.
• Mafia Wars on Facebook is strangely addicting. There really isn't much, if any, skill involved. It is just clicking. But I can't stop playing it, nor can I explain why I continue to play it.
• Martellus Bennett of the Cowboys has a twitter account which is interesting. He says a lot of things that someone in the public probably shouldn't, but that is what makes it interesting.
• If you aren't following Shaq on twitter, you need to right now. Probably the most entertaining tweets you will read.
• Son's baseball tournament this weekend was a big success for our team. We lost the first two games, so we were seeded #11 out of 15 teams. We then proceeded to beat the #6 seed in the first round, and we lost to the #1 seed by one run in the last inning. The kids were disappointed, but us coaches were elated. Our kids really stepped up and learned a lot about themselves.
• If you hadn't guessed, my face hurts. This morning, I kept on waking up and moving my face to a different part of the pillow because it was cool and it felt good.
• The concession stand at the ballfields where our tournament was held had the best chicken strips I have ever had. It was in Grand Prairie.

Hey, baby....

Visualizing One Trillion Dollars | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice

Visualizing One Trillion Dollars | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice

Some comparisons to see what exactly a trillion dollars is equivalent to.

Wow...Beatbox Extraordinaire

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Daily Grind...

• My sister yelled at me because I didn't call her ExplosiveSister.  The problem is that I have 4 sisters, and there is no way to distinguish them. At least that was my thought process at the time, but then I realized that saying "my sister" is just as ambiguous as saying ExplosiveSister, so I am stupid.
• The rain woke me up several times last night, but we have been sleeping with our windows open for the last few nights.  ExplosiveWife was all over the house at 3AM, closing windows.
• For about a year now, ExplosiveWife's treadmill has had a problem with the motor.  It sounds like a jet engine.  We finally called the repair guy to come out and put in a new motor. Whisper quiet.  It really is an amazing difference.  It is also amazing what you will get used to.
• One of the moms on ExplosiveDaughter's soccer team half recognized me last night from the band I used to be in.  That doesn't happen very often. Her boyfriend is also in a local DFW band.  I am scared that her and ExplosiveWife will have many conversations during soccer games about how bad it sucks to be in a relationship with a working musician.
• One of the big reasons I got out of the band was because I didn't want to be 35 years old and still trying to "make it".  We had our success, but I could tell we hit the glass ceiling years before others in the band realized it.  I got out while I could still salvage a normal life and career.  Too many people realize it way too late.
• One of our favorite songs to cover was "Careless Whisper" by Wham!.  Seether just released it as a single. Those bastards.  It sounds very similar to what we did.  They stole our song that we stole!  How dare they! (That isn't me playing bass in the video, by the way)
• I read that the worst bottleneck in DFW is right at Highway 820 and Highway 26 in North Richland Hills.  My wife quit her old job in no small part to that stretch of highway that she had to drive every day, to and from work.  We lived in Euless and she had to drive to Saginaw.  She was so stressed out, every single day.
• North Richland Hills is hard to say.

How to Make Coke Bomb Explosion Video – 5min.com

How to Make Coke Bomb Explosion Video – 5min.com

How to Make Coke Bomb Explosion

W. The Movie

I was able to watch W. last night on Blu-Ray.  Really thought provoking movie.  I know that when Oliver Stone said he was going to do a movie about George W. Bush, everyone said, Uh.Oh.  What kind of agenda is he going to go with?

Well, it was surprisingly non-political.  I think he tried very hard to focus on the motivation of Bush and why he did some of the things he did.  For example, the movie focuses on how W. thought his Dad messed up by not fully invading Iraq during Desert Storm. It was a very quick war, and W. thought Bush Sr. should have finished the job by going all the way to Baghdad.  Later in the movie, it shows that as his motivation for continuing the war in Iraq.

It shows how Cheney may have manipulated him, but it also showed W. as a very strong character.  Not really a puppet, per se, but someone who wanted consensus on what to do with major policy decisions.  It also goes out of its way to show that Bush loved to eat.  He is eating in practically every single scene (not kidding, check it out).

What I thought was really cool about the movie is how it showed that W. was VERY good at memorization.  He used it during hazing at Yale to his benefit, and he used it to his benefit while running for governor of Texas.  It showed his campaign manager firing question after question at him, and he would just spit back the memorized response.  It showed that he really had a talent for memorizing things, which would ultimately end up hurting his presidencey, IMO.

I enjoyed the movie for what it was worth, and so did my son.  I don't know how accurate it was, but it gave unique insight into how meetings can go down where major decisions are made.  It also showed how deferential staffers are to the president, and how they pander to his ego to get the decisions that they want.  Like I said, I don't know how accurate this truly was, but it was neat to see Condeleeza Rice put her ego in check to make the President happy.

Good movie...Josh Brolin was great, as was Richard Dreyfuss.

Also, check out the cameo by Brad Sham (yes, that Brad Sham) as the reporter that asks the very tough question at the end of the movie.  I did a double take, and then had to check the credits to be sure, but sure enough, it was him!

My long weekend...

So, this weekend was very, very long for me.  I took Friday off to celebrate ExploiveWife's 30th birthday.  We spent all day shopping for a new dress, and I surprised her with 40 of her closest friends at Pappasito's for dinner.  We intended to go to a drag show with ExplosiveBrother, but we changed our mind and went to a dueling piano bar in Downtown Fort Worth, which was cool, but not as cool as I would have hoped.

Random thoughts, in chronological order:

• Grapevine Mills at 2:00 on a Friday is a great place to be.  There is hardly anyone there, and you don't have to fight people.
• Burlington Coat Factory is the biggest mass of clothing I have ever seen.
• People pushing their JC Penney cart through the mall really piss me off.  Leave it in the store!
• One of the reasons I think men hate to shop with women is that they have to visit every single store before they make one purchase.  I always feel bad when we go into a store but don't buy anything.
• There is something about seeing my wife shop for panties that gets my motor going.
• The biggest beating of all time would be to work one of those mall kiosks where you have to ask everyone as they walk by if they want their jewelry cleaned for free.  That or those massage kiosks.
• Everyone left Pappasito's complaining about how expensive it was.  They were also horribly understaffed. I don't know if that is a common thing or just that night, but the service was very subpar, even for a large group.
• The piano bar was a neat concept, but the sound wasn't mixed very well.  You usually knew what songs were being played, but if they were talking, it was difficult to hear what they were saying.
• My sister made this point:  Why do people go to a piano club, pay cover to get in, then stand around and talk?  Why don't you just go to a free bar and talk there, without all of the loud music?
• They played "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" with an actual fiddle. That was cool.

The previous night, we went to see "One Night with Queen" at Bass Hall.  Basically, they are a Queen cover band, but their lead singer was simply brilliant in his portrayal as Freddie Mercury.  He had the look, the mannerisms, the stage presence, and, most importantly, the voice.  It was downright unbelieveable how close he was to the real thing.  The band was very good, too, except they didn't try to look like the band member they were portraying.

When they started playing "Fat Bottomed Girls", the crowd went bonkers.  I dare say that is Queen's best song.

On Saturday morning, we were back to Bass Hall for

 "The Imagination Movers".  

If you aren't familiar, this is a show on Disney about 4 guys who solve problems. The show is very well done, and it actually has just a twinge of humor in it for the older people.   ExplosiveDaughter watches it often, so I was pretty familiar with it. They put on an hour long stage show where they solve a problem (natch), but there were some really funny moments in it, one in particular.

The guys were teaching the crowd how to do a dance similar to Riverdance, you know, Michael Flatley.  As they were in the middle of the song and dancing like crazy, a miniature Stonehenge dropped from above the stage to rest in front of the drum kit.  I started laughing like crazy, and ExplosiveWife looked at me like I was crazy, because she didn't get it.  It was a reference to Spinal Tap, and it was hilarious.  The cool thing was that they didn't mention it, didn't look at it, nothing.  It was just there for the small subset of people in the audience that might get it.  If you have read this blog before, you know that is my favorite type of humor.  Don't pander to your audience.  Either they will get it or they won't.  I am still laughing at this genius move, and they gained a lot of respect in my book.

You should read their story. It is pretty interesting.

So, by the time we got home that day (after ExplosiveSon's baseball game, of which I am a coach), we were pretty exhausted.  But that weekend will go down in the history books.

Daily Grind...

• I just noticed that my 2-liter of Diet Dr. Pepper has a warning on it:  Caution:  Contents under pressure.  Cap may blow off causing eye injury.  Point away from face and people, especially while opening.  Have you ever known anyone injured while opening a 2-liter?  Even if you shook it really, really, really hard, would there be enough pressure to cause injury?
• All of the networks are fighting to have the first game of the new Cowboys stadium on their network.  Never underestimate the power of the Cowboys on television.
• I think this year will be a good one for the 'Boys.  They got rid of a major distraction, and they will have tons to prove this year.  That is always a good combination.
• Why do we abbreviate "combination" with "combo"?  Where did the "o" come from?
• Why is it when someone has a problem with alcohol, they are called an alcoholic, but if someone has a problem with shopping, they are a shopoholic? Shouldn't they be a shopic?
• I saw the movie "W" last night.  Look for a separate movie review later today.
• Did you know that the CEO of the big company in "Terminator:Sarah Connor Chronicles" is also the lead singer of Garbage (Stupid Gril, I'm only happy when it rains)?  She is the red-headed Scottish chick.
• I am really struggling with a decision:  Whether to buy a Kindle or not.  I don't read near as much as I used to, but that is because books are a pain.  I love my books, but I just haven't found much that interests me, and I need to jump start my reading prowess again.  I keep going back and forth about if I really need one, but I really want one. I have the need fairy on my left shoulder scowling at me (for some reason, she looks just like ExplosiveWife) and the want fairy on my right shoulder, pleading with me.  I just can't seem to come to a solid decison.  Oh yeah, there is that $360 price tag waiting to kick me in the nuts.

Comparisons

I saw an article today comparing Hulu and YouTube.  Can I make a request?  STOP IT!!

Hulu and YouTube couldn't be more different.  Just because they show moving pictures does not mean that they are even comparable.  Hulu is very selective of the content that is put on their site. YouTube is not.  To say that YouTube is 6x bigger than Hulu is a flawed argument.  I do not go to YouTube to see the latest episode of Family Guy.  Conversely, I do not go to Hulu to see what might be the funniest video I have ever seen:

Please stop it.  There is no comparison. People use the sites for different things.

My other least favorite comparison is used a lot by sports radio talk show hosts.  Please, please stop using Michael Jordan as a comparison to other sports figures.  Jordan was other worldly.  He has no comparison.  When you are complaining that Tony Romo doesn't have leadership ability, do NOT compare him to Jordan.  Jordan is on his own plane.  You cannot include him in discussions of every day athletes.  Do not use the phrase "Jordan came to every practice to win".  Yes, we know that.  But do not use that as the measuring stick for all other athletes.  It is unrealistic to expect that.

Carry on.

The house I grew up in...

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Daily Grind...

• There is a growing subset of people who pronounce the word "milk" with a weird "i" sound.  It comes out sounding more like "melk" than "milk".  There is a radio commercial I heard this morning where an entire family says "melk".  Craig Miller of the Ticket also says "melk".  That has always bugged me.
• Like when ExplosiveWife says "toelet" instead of "toilet".  I always remind her that there is an "i" in toilet.
• ExplosiveDaughter always says "sawlet" instead of "saw it" as in, "Where is my hat?  I sawlet on the hat rack".  This is a southern drawl thing that kids seem to pick up from being around other kids.  This is the number one thing I have to correct her on in her speech. I feel like the dude in My Fair Lady.
• ExplosiveDaughter is in kindergarten.  She wrote an essay yesterday about the official food of Texas, which is apparently meat.  She wrote "used to" as "yoosto".  That was cute.
• My state representative just got a twitter page.  $10,000 says he doesn't have any idea what Twitter is about, and a staffer is doing it for him.  But, at least he is trying.
• Kanye West said that his greatest regret is that he will never get to see himself play live.  I used to have thoughts similar to that (not that it is my greatest regret).  I used to lament that I would never know what the band sounded like as an audience member with me playing.  I would never know what they hear or what they see.  You can't recreate the live experience with video, and that always used to bug me.  
• Geeding on bagofnothing.com mentioned that he ran into someone that didn't know the old joke of "La Quinta" meaning "Behind Denny's" in Spanish.  I told this to my son, who now gets the humor, but still makes it his life's mission to point out every La Quinta that doesn't have a Denny's behind it.  He has trouble with things that don't involve logic.
• If you ask a normal person what time they get up in the morning, they usually round off and say "7:30" or "6:15".  Not my son. He will tell you that he gets up at 6:52.  That is just the kind of person he is.
• He has also gotten up to an alarm clock on his own since he was 4 years old.  I have never once had to drag him out of the bed in the morning. 
• I feel sorry for those parents that have to fight their kids to get them out of bed every day.  I made myself a promise that I would never be one of those parents, and taught my kids to use an alarm clock every day.  I am so glad that I don't have to do that.