My 100th Blog / Twitter

So in honor of my 100th blog post, I decided to give everybody what they want... MORE ME!! 

As I've talked about before, a few weeks ago my cousins, uncle and I got into an online conversation about it and I decided to tweet the rest of the day to them as an ironic proof that Twitter is dumb...

And to further that point, I decided that I'd blog my tweets for a whole day just to see what my Twitter page would look like, and to make sure you get all the Andy you can handle for post 100... this is an accounting of yesterday... But I'm going to use pictures and video, cause otherwise it would be just boring as hell, even thought Twitter doesn't let you do that...

Just woke up for Le Tour - it's a flat stage so there shouldn't be too much going on until the end...

     5:45 am 

Paul and Phil are one of the great sports announcing tandems...

     6:15 am

Just got back from a wake-me-up two mile short run at 9:14 per mile average, saw Amanda heading out as I was getting back to the house - what's she doing out this early?

     7:20 am

Safeway Raisin Bran definitely tastes different than Two-Scoop Raisin Bran, whatever brand that is...

     7:32 am

Just out of the shower and true to form, nothing has changed in the flat stage, though Mark Cavendish's team is showing remarkable coordination...

 

    7:56 am

The two-man breakaway was caught with 5km to go, and Cavendish's team is still on front doing a remarkable job to lead him out...

     8:13 am

They call George Hincapie "Big" - seriously that's his nickname... he's listed at 5'11 - in what other sport is 5'11 "big?"

     8:14 am

Mark Cavendish wins his fourth stage - that dude is seriously fast... it's not even close, but he's also got the best sprint team so there ya go...

     8:16 am

Listening to ESPN podcasts on my way to work alleviates the stress of traffic - but I'm pissed that Kornheiser and Wilbon are on vacation...

     8:41 am

In Assembly Appropriations committee hearing - you wanna know why California never gets anything done? They just spent a half hour arguing about a bill that has already gone to suspense - basically retired because there's no way to pay for it... ugh...

     9:23 am

I'm pretty sure Kevin DeLeon, the approps chair, just made a joke to Sen. Kehoe that "we all look alike..." referring to hispanics...

     9:43 am

Just bought my flight to NYC to see the Yanks in their new stadium (vs. the O's) - I'm red-eyeing September 11 to see 1:05 pm games on Saturday and Sunday, then returning Sunday evening... super stoked!!

     10:56 am

BTW - this is the second time in three years that I'll be flying to NYC on September 11... F-U terrorists!

     10:56 am

@RachelLinn - SHUT IT about the new Harry Potter movie - I know you want us all to know you're like the biggest fan and whatnot, and that you wore your Gryffendore outfit to the CAPITOL yesterday, but there are some of us who haven't seen it yet, are going tonight, have not read the books and want to be surprised by what happens... so SHUT IT!

     11:03 am

Just got in from a 7-mile interval run - weather.com says it's 106 degrees outside... it felt like it, but I still hit my interval time goals... HELL YEAH!

     1:06 pm

@PaulTouchet - that's hilarious about the movie last night - but free tickets AND you get sleep AND you get a good story AND you get to see the movie tonight? Sounds like you got a pretty sweet deal...

     1:14 pm

@Chris/James Gunter - quoting Braveheart? Er?

     1:15 pm

At Subway waiting to order and the guy behind me thinks he's American Idol... 

he's singing along with the "Had a Bad Day" song... and no, he can't sing and yes, he's being loud...

     1:24 pm

And now he's singing One Republic in falsetto...

     1:26 pm

@StephBell - Jalapenos ABSOLUTELY belong on a sandwich...

     2:01 pm

@Matt, Joe and Ryan - wth? Are you not going to respond to my email about doing something manly during Kellie's baby shower tonight? Is that not customary to do?

     2:05 pm

@RickReilly - your top ten sporting events to see before you die was good, but honestly, the Idatarod? What about the Running of the Bulls? What about the Running of the Cheese Wheel? And I think it's just bragging when you talk about things the average person can't get into - like listing the UNC vs. Duke game at Cameron... that's just cruel...

     2:13 pm

This has been wearing on me - home field advantage for the World Series as determined by who wins the All-Star game... seriously? How dumb is this? The All-Star game should be frivolity and conviviality... if you want to know who should get home field advantage it's easy - whichever league wins the interleague crown... If the American League goes 137-114 (as was the case this year) then they are clearly the better league and should be rewarded with home field advantage. Period...

     2:31 pm

Californians don't know how to drive - I let a lady in, and got no courtesy wave - and what is it with people driving alone using the HOV lane? That would never happen back east - there is a freaking brick wall preventing you from getting into the HOV lane unless you have the requisite number of people in your car... drives me nuts...

     5:23 pm

I think I have heat exhaustion - I just fell asleep sitting up with my laptop on my lap... I have no idea how long I've been out, but I'm going to go swimming with Matt Joe and Ryan while the girls are at Kellie's baby shower...

     6:07 pm

Make that sit and talk to Tim, Kellie's father-in-law while we were unsuccessful in getting the stuff we needed to pick up before going swimming...

     6:40 pm

And now headed over to eat leftovers after the shower... fruit, candy, toffee, pastries, lemon-slice water, and seasoned bread with oil... YUM!

     7:17 pm

After hanging out for a bit, Steph and I are off to see the new Harry Potter... and aparently she thinks I'm going in my board shorts... nope! Gotta get the G's first...

     8:23 pm

We have to wait in line - are you kidding me?! Steph bought tickets online SPECIFICALLY so we didn't have to wait in line, but we have to wait in line to be let in the blasted theater... there's only one thing worse than waiting in line, and that's being the last one in the line... luckily we aren't the last ones...

     8:42 pm

The people behind us are annoying the crap out of me - the girl is saying "Oh man, I love that commercial" for the most annoying commercials that they're playing "Mini Buffalo Ranch Chicken Sandwich" type stuff... And they saw the movie at midnight last night and are seeing it again the next day! And you say we're in a recession...

     9:12 pm

Watching previews and I simply cannot tell you how excited I am about "Where the Wild Things Are" - it looks absolutely terrific... and the trailer uses one of my favorite songs in it:

     9:23 pm

Harry Potter was good, but honestly, how can the wizards and witches not do magic without their wands? If the magic is in the wand, why can't everyone do magic? And if it's not in the wands, why do they need them? This I will never understand...

     12:13 am

So that was my twitteriffic day... I know... annoying , right?? But here's hoping that the next 100 blog posts will be as fun as the first 100!!

Establish A Perimeter

So I've gotten into a nasty habit lately - I've been saying "Fail" when something funny happens or when someone does something stupid or actually does fail at something, like telling a terrible joke...  

I have no idea where this came from, but there it is... really it's just another way to say something is retarded...

At any rate, as I started thinking about things to blog about today a conversation with someone - I don't remember who (Sidenote: what's the first thing you remember? I have a memory, admittedly, that the Spaniards would describe as El Terrible and I have a hard time remembering anything, which leads me to my question... I can't remember the first thing that I remember... is there such a thing as pre-30's onset Alzheimers?) "Establishing the Perimeter."

Now, you may think one thing has nothing to do with the other, but I beg to differ... Allow me to elaborate, first with a question:

Have you ever seen a movie or TV show where establishing a perimeter allowed the cast to achieve their primary goal? Or was it just a way for more people to die and the principals look more bad-ass??

When Luke and the rest of the Rebel Force are trying to destroy the Death Star in Episode IV,

 the Red Team Leader tells the others to establish a perimeter as Luke goes in for the money shot... need I say it... FAIL!

Sometimes it comes close, but it never works... And so, I propose to we start using the phrase "Establish a Perimeter" exclusively as slang for "FAIL!" For instance:

"Wow John, you really established a perimeter last night with the ladies..."

Or, "Hey, how's Jeff doing with the drug problem? Is he establishing a perimeter with the heroine again?"

I mean really - have you noticed that no episode of 24 has ended with Jack going, "Man, thank goodness we established that perimeter - now let's all go home and get some sleep!"

FAIL!

Three Random Third Day Of The Week Thoughts

So, I hurt myself - I think that's been made clear by my injury list to the right... It's not that I'm clumsy (ok, sometimes it is) it's just that I tend to do activities that lend themselves to my getting hurt... and that's not likely to change...

At any rate, have you ever been startled and distracted simultaneously, so that your brain gets jumbled up with the wrong exclamation?? The other day I was putting together some of my recent race numbers in frames to hang on the wall, and I was using glue to keep them down because at the end of a race they're completely wrinkled... Well, forgetting that I had already glued one side of the thing, I reached out for it and my fingers immediately stuck to it like it was flypaper... If you don't know what that feels like, ask Matt...

Anyway, I wasn't expecting this, but I also wasn't fully paying attention because I was still concentrating on smoothing the thing out and, let's face it, I have a little bit of adult-onset ADD... The result of all this confusion was that I inexplicably shouted, "OW!" for no apparent reason... Thankfully no one was around, so I didn't have to explain that I was too retarded to know the difference between sticky and hurty...

-------------------------

You know what I hate?? Air blowers that they have in restrooms instead of paper towel dispensers... I don;t know anyone who DOESN'T hate them, (except for the tree-huggers and really: are they even people??) And the thing is, the manufacturer knows that people hate them... That's why they find the need to label them to justify their existence: "These damn things save natural resources and are more sanitary than paper towels, blah blah blah..." 

You know what also saves natural resources and is more sanitary than paper towels? A big sign that says "Please wipe your hands on your pants because we're too f---ing cheap to buy paper towels..." (And don't get me started on the thin-A&*, chicken-Sh#$ little toilet paper they have...) 

Also, do you think motion-activated paper towel dispensers (the hi-tech environmentalists dream...) work for vampires? I hope so, because otherwise there are probably a lot of vampires out there who aren't washing their hands after using the bathroom... On the other hand, maybe that's why they wear capes...

-----------------------

I don't understand the system we use for deciding what foreigners are supposed to be called... Why do we have Australians, Italians and Brazilians, but not Japanians, Mexiconians or Portugalians?? 

And if Australians are from Australia, why aren't Canadians from Canadia? People from Canada should be called Canadanians... And why aren't people from Germany called Germaniums?? I mean, I know it doesn't make any sense, but it would be funny... and really, don't the Germaniums owe us that much? 

Felt Family Remodel - Part Deux

So I just wanted to show off the latest round of pictures of the progress we've made at the Felt place -

It should be noted that this work was all done over the July 4th weekend... Yup... Dedication, homes...

This is Matt taking off the old door - you can't really get a good sense of the door, but if you look at it (the old door, that is) and start thinking "Man, this door really doesn't belong on a house, yet there's something fitting and familiar about it..." that's because we've all seen them before... on portable classrooms...

This is the new door... much much improved... and that's also Paul's big fat head in the way...

We also reframed most of the windows today... we took out the ones (yes, plural) that were leaking and replaced them, re-caulked them and then expanded caulked them... This is Ryan doing what his very vast technical expertise allows him to do... scrape caulk off the old windows...

This is the result of Joe and Ryan's caulkjob - see how it's all messy and spread around - apparently they don't aim right with their caulk, they just leave it to go all over the place, which we'll have to come and clean up later... although once that caulk gets on something, it's never really the same...

And this is the expanding foam that we used to seal the windows from the inside... it's like Slimer's special caulk...

We finished replacing both the bedroom floors...

And the kitchen floors, minus the part where the plumbing has to be moved to make the new and exciting kitchen from which Kellie will cook many delicious meals for vagrant, umarried friends...

And this was all Tim (Kellie's dad) - he framed in an entire bathroom  and closet in Taylor's room all by himself - and when I say all by himself, that's exactly what I mean - according to him he's going to make sure Taylor's room is the best in the house, and I believe him...

So next steps are basically kitchen, plumbing, bathroom, then its the easy stuff like floors and sheetrock - its coming along!!

Mr. 3000

So a while ago I got this handy counter for my blog, provided by BlogStats that basically records the traffic going to and from your web site - 

The blog is scheduled to hit 3000 unique visits today (that means it records when someone goes there, but only records once, even if that IP address goes multiple times during the day) and over the past two weeks or so I'm averaging about 42 visits per day...

That's a huge jump from when I first started so I have to ask myself - where the hell are all these people coming from?

I know a very limited number of people (and like even fewer) and there are only so many dedicated readers that I have (sidenote: I will admit that the internet is like ice cream on a hot day to someone with even a mild case of ADD - I am linked on several other blog sites and when someone sees that there are more pages to surf vs. filling in their TPS reports, well... thank goodness for ADD is all I have to say...) so I have to be getting traffic from other places...

Apparently the topics that I've chosen are popular, and my BlogStats widget tells me where they're coming from... here is a smattering of search terms from Google, Yahoo and MSN that (inexblicably in some cases) lead people to my site this week:

youtube help me snorkel

          ...and please watch over Grandma, Amen...

average human pig spider

          ...what are three stupid animals in order from largest to smallest?

can i run a marathonis it painful

          ...the answer is yesyes...

porn vagina bounce bounce

          ...easy there big fella - take a breath and try again...

andy fields car accident

          ...no, andy fields drive good...

michael jackson leg bruises

          ...not anymore it doesn't...

if believe before man on the moon

          ...then doubt after woman on the earth...

what does (snip) mean after a sentance

          ...it means your mohel didn't warn you and went about business while you were talking...

ashley waddell

          ...wtf?? ash, get OUT...

where we put s in sentance

          ...my copy editing TA says put it at the beginning...

and one more for the road:

i ran bay to breakers naked

          ...two things: first WEIRDO, second - yes, I thought I knew you...

Thanks to everyone for getting me to 3000 - next step? 4000! (Logical, right...?)

Actors vs. Characters

So last night we went to see Public Enemies at midnight - TOTALLY worth it - I won't do a whole movie review thing, suffice it to say that it was awesome, and, as Matt was saying last night and I can't agree with more, it was nice to take a break from the special effects-laden summer blockbusters... The thing was amazingly acted (Batman's weak southern accent aside) and I really can't even describe how phenominal Johnny Depp was... GO SEE IT...

Anyway, that bring me to today's point - you may have noticed that I used "Batman" in place of Christian Bale and actually used Johnny Depp's name...

Every movie we go to we play a little game called "Dude, that's the guy from..." Sometimes we remember the actor's name, but more often than not (unless Steph is around, the freaking walking IMDB) we just remember where we've seen him/her or the roles she's played...

So, in that vane, there are now four types of movie actors:

1. The movie actors you call by their christian names

Now this category is going to be relatively small, and it has nothing to do with how big a star they are, but more to do with personality - have they been as big in things they've done OFF screen as ON screen? Were they famous before they started doing movies? Etc...

For example, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are who they are - they are bigger than the movies they're in, and have been in so many interviews, tabloids, tv appearances, etc that when you see Brad you don't say "Hey, there's Joe Black" - you say "Dude, that's Brad Pitt" or even "Dude, that's the dude that dated (and dumped) two of the hottest women on the planet..." (the whole calling actors by terms used to describe their personal life could be a whole other category, ie "Dude, that's the guy who's holding Katie Holmes hostage..." but we won't go into that one...

The second part of this category is people who were famous before movies, such as Will Smith.  Will will (nice...) be forever known as either, simply, Will Smith, or The Fresh Prince... granted, part of this is due to his being named "Will" on his TV show, but come on... Do you even remember any other character name that he's played besides Ali? You remember the roles, sure... but what about the names?? Didn't think so...

2. Actors Who's Names You Know, But Who Have Played In Such Iconic Movies As to Immediately Conjure Up the Name of Said Iconic Character

While it should be noted that most of these people can fit into the first category, this is a thing unto itself... Three actors immediately come to mind:

Tom Cruise - he has one role for which he is so immediately identifiable that it can easily trump even his own name (I say easily because I think the two can be interchanged and no one would bat an eye) - and that, of course... is Maverick...  Ole Tommy Boy is bigger than any movie he's ever been in, so much so in fact that I have a hard time looking at him in movies and going "Oh man, that Nazi is going to overthrow Hitler..." It's more like "Dude, Maverick is going to overthrow Hitler..."

I will say this, in preparing this blog I think I may be able to remember more iconic names from Maverick's characters than any other: Cole Trickle, Ethan Hunt, Rainman's Sleazy Brother, etc... But he'll always just be Maverick, who feels the need for speed... and desperately seeks the advice of his dead navigator (who fits so into our third category it's ridiculous...)

Sean Connery - This is more an interesting one though because of all the things he's done, there are actually three roles that you can immediately come to mind, with a possible fourth: Bond (he will always be the person someone is talking about when referring to Bond, unless they say "New Bond" which is Danielle Craig, another 

third category-er...), Indy's Dad, and the old dude who got jiggy with Catherine Zeta Jones in that one movie...

Harrison Ford - Like Bond (yup...), there are two here that you can use, and if they aren't obvious to you, then you're no friend of mine...

Others would possibly be Captain Jack, Braveheart, The Terminator, John McClain, Neo, etc...

3. Actors Who Will Only Be Referred To By Character Names

This is actually the crux of what I wanted to talk about, it just took me a little while to get here... This includes the dude we saw a preview for last night "Obi Wan," "Batman," "The Dad From Family Matters," "Morpheus," etc..

Almost every actor that we've ever seen can fit into this category - I mean really, these guys and gals get paid to pretend they're other people, so why shouldn't we treat them like it?  The guys who are genuine celebrities with genuine celeb personas will fit into one other the two top categories and everyone else we can forget their names and get immersed in their acting.

It's these people who actually make a great movie - it's the bit characters who lend strong support and make you believe the bullhooey that's happening on the screen.  Not to say the guys in the first two categories aren't great actors - they truly are, but more oftentimes than not if you get a movie with too many of those guys, it doesn't work - 

Take last night's Public Enemies - it had Captain Jack and Batman as the two lead guys, who wouldn't seem to mesh well but it didn't matter because they were only one screen together for two scenes, and their characters were in bitter contrast to each other so it worked - but it wouldn't have if it wasn't for third category actors "Blue Dong from Watchmen," "Phoebe's Brother," "Hurk from the Wire," "The Dad from 16 Candles," "The Main Dancer From Step Up," (who BTW is starring in a movie called "Parkour" based on free-running that I can't wait for...), etc...  

4. Actors Who Are Terrible And Should Never Be Remembered Even If They Are In Some Amazing Movies

Population: Nick Cage...