Havasimy

One of the other highlights of the Styx set at the concert was during a song where the band had everyone in the audience clapping along with the music. During their set, the two seats beside me were unoccupied and the two seats besides them were occupied by a couple of woman in their thirties. I started intentionally clapping on the off beat and apparently three them off too. She jokingly hollered at me as they had started clapping along with me instead of the thousands and thousands other people in attendance.

On the way to the concert last night, Tiff drove cause I had woken up early to get to work early so I could leave work early. When we got on the Ohio turnpike we decided to stop at the rest stop and have dinner at McDonald's. We drove into the parking area and Tiff drives past about thirty empty parking spaces She went for one that was right near the door but decided that it might be a handicap space so she went to another one but a car coming from the other side beat her to it so she kept going to find her self near the tractor trailor trucks. There were a couple suvs parked there but we weren't sure if they were legal parking spaces. So we went back towards the empty parking spaces we went past before, but we had to do it fast cause the parking lot was designed to only be one way driving. We manage to find a parking space after dodging a car or two going the right direction.

We each got a value meal to go and we ate it in the car. Tiff ate her sandwich and decided to eat her fries while driving. She set her fries on her crotch and poured a bunch of salt packets on top of the fries. We got super-size fries, which comes in containers with a couple holes in the bottom. So when she lifted up the fries, she had a crotchful of salt. Thus, it is my discovery that the phrase "Salty Crotch" has many, many possiblities when it comes to humor. If you want to try it, next time you see or talk to Tiff, bring up her salty crotch.

Tonight is The Clarks concert. They are one of my favorite bands. They've been spreading out from Pittsburgh more lately, so it's nice to see them come back to town.

I've seen them a few times over the years. I've seen them everywhere from a free concert at CMU to Nick's Fat City to the big first annual Rolling Rock Town Fair. One time that sticks out was when they played the Surge Fest at Star Lake Amphitheatre. Surge Fest was a day long festival featuring only local bands. There were three stages, so music was always going and Gathering Field and The Clarks headlined. That show was the last time I ever saw Bitter Delores. I had seen them a few times over the years, but haven't heard of them since. I'm wearing a t-shirt from one of their shows now. This brings me to kinda the point of this post. The shirt has a spanish sentence on the back. I never totally translated it, but I knew it had to do with supporting local music. Tiff saw the shirt and decided to try and find the translation. The phrase is "¡Apoya la musica local, huevon!". She easily got the translation for everything but the last word off the internet, but no online dictionary had the translation for the last word. Turns out the last word is slang for a woman's body part, so the translation is "Support local music, <female body part>". I'm glad I never got infront of someone who was spanish while wearing the shirt.

Okay, yesterday I left work at 1pm so I could pick Tiff up by 3pm and drive up to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio to see the Styx/REO Speedwagon/Journey concer, which was scheduled to start at 6:30.

In case you're wondering why we drove all the way up there for the concert, here's the back story. I told Tiff a while ago that if REO Speedwagon came to town, I'd take her to see them. At the time, I didn't even know if they were still alive. Turns out they were and scheduled to come to Pittsburgh on June 28th, today. This was a few months ago, but I had already bought tickets to the Clarks concert. Tiff was disappointed, so I looked up the other places in the area they were playing and the one at the Blossom center in Cuyahoga falls was the best option.

So we started off towards Ohio and making good time. We got to our exit off of the Ohio Turnpike an hour before the show was going to start. As soon as we got off the turnpike, we hit concert traffic. Eventually, we got to the entrance to the amphitheatre with about twenty minutes to spare. We just had to drive to a parking space. The road led us to the entrance gate and then back around. We took a windy road and finally ended up in a parking lot a half hour later that was surprisingly near the entrance gate. So we ended up missing a little bit of the first act, Styx, but it was a pretty good show. The only guy I knew, Tommy Shaw, I only knew because he was in Damn Yankees (the band, not the broadway show) . Shaw looks like he's the father of David Spade. The bassist for the band was wearing plaid pants. He did some singing and a couple times walked into the audience and played and sang. The fact that they only had two security guys following him and he never got hasseled by fans tells you something about their popularity. The show was pretty good with the highlight being everyone, except Tiff, singing along with "Come Sail Away".

By the way, our seats were bleacher seats in the very last row of the pavillion. They were also higher than the lowest part of the lawn, so some people on the lawn got a good view of my butt all night.

The alcohol policy for the venue says they card anyone who looks under 40. Apparently look 40 because two out of three times, I did not get carded.

REO Speedwagon was second and they played the only song I knew of theirs about ten minutes into the set. The lead singer looked like a gay Rod Stewart. He told a funny story about a visit to the Playboy mansion and a playmate confusing him with the lead singer of REM. He also made a big deal in announcing they would play the whole first side of their High Infidelity album in order. I kinda knew that was their title of their best album, but I couldn't name a song on it.

Journey was the final act. The lead singer looked like a mix of ex Journey singer Steve Perry and Kenny G. They started off with a upbeat hit, Seperate Ways, and did a good mix of their fast song.

Overall it was a really good show and I advise people to go see them if they can get the tickets for free or cheap and have nothing better to do that night.

The Q is talking to me! The Q is talking to me!

Up until recently, I would say that if I could make one change to baseball it'd be to get rid of the designated hitter. I don't agree with the DH and I think both leagues should play by the same rules, but the point of this post is not to argue about the DH. It's like arguing about religion. You have your side based on what you believe and the other guy has his side based on his beliefs. Neither side will end up converting the other simply because their arguments are based on beliefs that the other side finds bogus.
But once again, I've strayed too far off point. The point of this post is that the DH wouldn't be the first thing I would change in baseball if I would be able to. It'd probably be the second, though. The first thing I would change would involve bench-clearing brawls in baseball. My new rules would eliminate almost entirely all fights and they have precedent in other sports. The changes would go: 1) if a fight breaks out, anyone in the dugout stays in the dugout. If a player leaves the dugout and even goes near the fight, he's automaticly suspended for at least the next game. No appeals, either, so he can't use the appeals process to push the suspension to a game of his choice. 2) keeping players on the bench means that when a fight breaks out, it will be nine against one (or two, three or four if there are base runners). So I say, anyone who isn't in the fight area when the fight starts, stays out of the area. Anyone who comes within 20 feet or so of a fight also gets ejected and suspended. The measurement being a judgement call on the ump. 3) third man in a fight gets ejected and ten game suspension. Same goes for the fourth man in and the fifth... Trying to break up the fight will not be an excuse to joining the fight. The umps and the coaching staffs will be charged with breaking up the fight. You don't see hockey players storming out of their bench during a fight. There's a reason for it. The penalty is just too great. Anytime there are guys playing physical sports with great passion, there'll be fights. It can't always be stopped, but they can be kept from turning into 20+ people battle royals that cause injuries, lengthen games, and just plain aren't entertaining.

The total for the number of concerts I'm gong to this summer is now up to five. This weekend tickets to Alabama went on sale. I got two tickets via Bill. I waited until we were in a public place to let Tiff know that I got two tickets to see Alabama. Although, atleast it wasn't like Terri who found out by listening to me tell Tiff about the ticket that Bill had also bought two tickets.
So this summer, I'm looking at going to see, in order Journey, Styx & REO Speedwagon, The Clarks, James Taylor, Aerosmith & Kiss, and Alabama.
So far, two of them is going to be me dragging Tiff to the concert, and two will be her dragging me. I'll probably attend the Aerosmith/Kiss show with either my brother or my cousin. I'd also go to the Rolling Rock Town Fair this year if I could find someone to go with who could hold their own in the mosh pit. I went to it the first year and it was fun, if not very organized. This year it's being held at Heinz Field which is more convenient even if it makes it less fair-like. I'd also love to go to the Bruce Springsteen concert if I could get bad tickets at a decent price or good tickets at psuedo-reasonable price.

After the graduation party sunday, me and Tiff went to see Alex and Emma. I paid extra to get reserved seating. It cost $5 more per ticket, but you get roomy leather seats that are comfortable and have double-wide armrests and plenty of legroom. They also give you coupons so that the seats only really cost $1.50 extra each. They let you take alcoholic drinks from the bar into the reserved seats area. I wished I had actually did it. Alcohol, combined with the confy seats, would have made the movie almost bearable.
Let's just say that if you put put Kate Hudson in a movie where she plays five different roles and none of them are supposed to be unattractive and none of them are attractive, you got a problem. And is there a third Wilson brother? If not, Luke Wilson's performance in this movie ensures that his brother Owen is the best actor in the family. Using the words: Owen, Wilson, best, and Actor, in a sentence might just be against federal law. Oil and water have better chemistry than Luke and Kate do in the movie. I don't recommended seeing this movie sober. The good thing coming out of seeing this movie is that it guarantees that Tiff has to go see The Hulk with me when I see it with Bill and Terri next week.

Oh yeah, at Eli's party, Tiff tried some authentic arabic food made by ladies from my church. She didn't care much for it. She tried some stuffed grape leaves. They're a acquired taste. I don't care much for them, but my brother and a couple of cousins of mine can each go through a pot of them. She also tried kibbee, which is just seasoned ground meat in a cracked wheat shell. I'm sure she'll have opportunities to try other foods and she'll find something she likes. The church ladies will make sure of it.

This weekend was a very family-oriented time. On saturday, me and Tiff went to my nephew Eli's second birthday party. It was a great time. Bill continued his streak of unoriginality by getting Eli a present that someone else also got him. It happened last year too. Next year, Bill will probably call up everybody on the guest list to see what they're getting him so he can get something different. Atleast Bill gets to put all the toys together again this year.
When Tiff and I pull up to my brother's house and she got out, Eli called her mommy. That happened once before. Later on, one of the other little kids at the party referred to her as mom. Eli got two bike-like things for his birthday, so alot of the little kid action happened down the sidewalk near the road. With all the kids running around, and being called mom twice, Tiff's biological clock was going warp speed. It increased even more the next day when me and Tiff bore sole responsibility for watching Eli as he played at the playground. I told her that she can't talk seriously about her biological clock for another ten years.
On sunday, we went to the graduation party of a guy who was my neighbor growing up. I remember when he was born. I remember when his parents were married. Him graduating made me feel old. I should be more concerned with a biological clock than Tiff. Heck, there are a couple kids from my high school class who have children of their own who are almost teenagers.

There's a search engine in town! I found this article on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website. It's about a new search engine, technically, meta search engine, that groups the results. It's called Vivisimo. It's a great idea and, the little I used it, it seemed to work great. The part that really puts a smile on my face is the fact that it's starting as a project at Carnegie Mellon University. The story of Vivisimo seems reminiscent of the start of Lycos, the search engine that saw the beginning of the careers of a number of people currently swimming in the waters of the tech industry, including myself, Bill, Mitch, Pat, & Dave. If my current job wasn't as stable a job as you can find in the tech industry, I'd consider trying to jump back into the world of queries and spider programs. But I do recommended supporting the Vivisimo project just by using it and spreading the word about it.

Now that I've gotten to see my newly painted door in the daylight and with me being awake, it would seem that they did do a bad job at it. But my door is the only one that I can see that they didn't do a good job on. All the other doors are painted well. My guess is they ran out of paint or time and my door is at the very end of the sidewalk. I wonder if they're planning on making it back to finish.

I went shopping with Tiff for a birthday present for my nephew, Eli. He's only going to be two years old, but I wanted to get him Power Wheels. But the one that is in the price range I was thinking of had a maximum rider weight of 40 lbs. Eli weighs around 38 pounds now. I can't afford to get him the next level up, but I think I'll be able to get him one for christmas. I did get him three really nice presents, though. And it will come as a shock to anyone who knows the type of gifts I buy that two of the gifts are completely quiet and one only has a little bell. In his two years, I've been notorious for buying him noisy presents. My argument is that he's noisier than any toy I could buy him. Also, I don't live with him and he's my godson so it's my job to spoil him.

One last note: if Tiff hadn't been shopping with me, I would now be the owner of a pair of big, foam, Incredible Hulk hands that makes crushing sounds when they hit stuff.

I came home from work last night and my front door was painted. I had left work kinda late and stopped by GEagle on the way, so it was almost dark outside. I had a couple grocery bags in each hands and as I rounded the corner, the first thign I notice is a piece of paper in front of my door. I walk towards it and start to bend down to pick it up and then I looked up and realize my door was black! (The Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black" immediately went through my head.) I stood up and double checked to see if I was standing in front of the right apartment. I was. Turns out the paper lying on the ground said "Wet Paint". This morning, when I left for work, I notice that the door wasn't black, but a dark green. And it needs another coat. I called the office this morning and they said that they knew the painter was supposed to start but they didn't know they had started yet. It must have been nice that they had some warning, though. I didn't.

I went on a rant on Bill's blog recently about tv shows made into movies. Now I hear that they're trying to make a movie out of the fall guy with George Clooney starring and one out of Dallas with Bruce Willis as JR. Now I can see Clooney playing the Lee Majors role, although I don't think he'd be my first choice. I haven't figured out who my first choice would be, though. For the Jody Banks character, played on tv by Heather Thomas, I have a suggestion. For Jody Banks, you need a blonde who doesn't need to talk much or act smart but needs to look good in a bikini. Willis is one of my favorite actors, but I just can't picture him as JR. My first choice for JR would be Michael Douglas. He's always played a great evil millionaire. I know Bill disagrees with atleast one of my suggestions. Anybody has any casting suggestions for either movie?

Also, a question I posed on Bill's blog: has there been any really good movies based on a tv show? And movies based on superheroes don't count cause in those cases, the movie and tv show are based from the same source. I'm looking for where the movie is based on the tv show. I think my leading candidates for best made-from-tv movie would be The beverly hillbillies and the first Mission Impossible. That's scary.

A good time seemed to be had by all friday night as we went out to celebrate Chuck's birthday at Dave and Busters. I tried a couple games I hadn't tried before. The most interesting of them was the boxing simulation game. There are pics of it on both Tiff and Chuck's sites so I won't bother describing it, but it uses motion detector to tell where you're standing and where your punches are going. Although the "gloves" aren't heavy, even a light weight seems to get heavy if you're doing all sorts of motion with it. So, in essence, it's the most tiring arcade game I've ever played. And there are points where who have to throw 30+ punches consecutively and, for some reason, seemed to have a hard time registering my right punches, so I did a lot of punching with my left arm, which is my weaker arm. I found out late in the game that if you just kinda way your arms in big motions, it counts as a punch. Interesting workout. Of course, if you played it drunk, you're liable to hit yourself in the head with the gloves.

I'm kinda bum that the steer wrestling game has been removed. The steer wrestling game was simply a bull's head attached to a vertical panel and when the buzzer rang, you had to turn the head as fast as possible upside down. It was a nice break from the normal video game for a short period, although you couldn't play it all day.

I'm also sorry that we didn't get a chance to put Chuck in the electric chair, which is a big chair with metal handholds. When it gets started, it starts vibrating really fast. The object is to try and hold on and at first it starts getting really hard to hold and then it actually gets to a point where it's almost hard to let go. Chuck was more than a little buzzed at the end of the night, so sticking him the chair would have provided an interesting reaction.


We closed down D&B and went to Steak and Shake. The speed of service was down there with the worst of the late night at the squirrel hill Eat 'n'park, but the waitress was nice and apologized and explained that a few people had quit/been fired that night so they were understaffed. We watched a few groups of people sit down, wait, then get up and leave without even ordering drinks, but we stayed cause we didn't have anyplace else we needed to be and after 2am, the choices for food in that area was pretty much limited.

I have a few comments about movies I've seen recently, but I'll save them for another day.

For a couple years now, I've always considered the "creation" of little sister Dawn on Buffy as the point the show "jumped the shark". Now that I've been watching the season four dvd, the introduction of the Initiative and the government in general was, if not jumping the shark, then at least the point where the tone of the series changed. It was more pessimistic and dark. I believe the show jumped the shark there, but there was still a possibility to recover. The introduction of Dawn, however, was a point from which there was no real chance for recovering. It caused the show to center around the home instead of around a school and it just changed the whole direction of the show to a more straight-forward drama. Plus Dawn was just a whiny annoying character.

An interesting tidbit that I've never heard anyone point out is that for two straight seasons, a major Buffy enemy was played by an actress who was in the movie Bring It On. Eliza Dushku, as Faith, and Clare Kramer, as Glory, are also two of my favorite villians on the show.

This week I got season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. When I bought it at Suncoast, I was informed by the guy at the counter that I get the movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer free when I bought season 4. As far as I could see, there were no signs saying I was entitled to the free movie. Considering the retail price for the movie was over half of what I was paying for the DVD, I found it was unusual that they wouldn't advertise it. Also, in my mind, I don't connect the movie with the series. The series is a sequel to the original script of the movie. When the movie was made, Buffy creator Joss Whedon didn't have much clout. They took his script and tried to make it a comedy and make it campy. It wasn't until Joss became a hot screenwriter and script doctor that he got the clout to make a WB sitcom. I would love to see what the Buffy movie would have been like if Joss could have made the movie his way. Unfortunately, that won't happen. If a new Buffy movie is to be made, it will be lilkely be a sequel to the series.

Another Buffy note. Included in the DVD was a note from Joss stating that he's a big fan of movies being released on widescreen format, but that the Buffy DVDs wasn't in widescreen cause it was made for television. I am also a fan of widescreen. I just found it logical that Buffy would be in tv picture ratio because it was made for tv. The fact that he put the note in makes me believe that he must have gotten comments or complaints about not having widescreen version of the first three seasons DVDs. That leads me to the theory that there are people who preach the widescreen gospel not because they understand why widescreen is better for movies made for the big screen but that widescreen is always better but they don't understand why it is better.

I took my car in for the yearly inspection. Tiff came along and we looked at some new cars while we waited. I have no intention of getting a new car anytime soon. Tiff is trying to change my mind. When it comes to car, I think the only thing that me and Tiff agree on is that I shouldn't get a Ford Focus. My reasoning is the Focus is built for midgets. I drove it as a rental for a couple days a couple months ago and it wasn't a good fit. Tiff's reasoning was she doesn't like the way it looks. But hey, atleast we agree on something.

Okay, I haven't written here in a while because I've been getting blogger's block. When I'm away from the computer, I think of stuff that would go great on the blog, but then I forget about it when I'm logged into blogger.

One thing in the news made me happy yesterday. They're bringing back "V". Even before I got the symbolism and the whole Visitors=Nazis thing, the images of humans (or human looking things) eating live mice and the skin getting pulled back to uncover the lizard skin just amazed me. A few years later, when I saw it again, it was like watching it for the first time cause I got the multiple levels of the story.

Oh, and if Jane Badler and Faye Grant look half as good as they did in '83, then they should definitely bring Diana and Dr. Julie back. And I can't remember if Ham Tyler died in the second miniseries or the series, but there's room in any movie for Michael Ironside playing a bad ass.

Some friends of Tiff are coming down to Pittsburgh to celebrate one of their birthdays. It should be interesting meeting her friends cause so far she's been avoiding having me meet any of her friends. It'll be the third time I can remember that I celebrated a birthday on friday the thirteenth. The first two times were my friend Jim's birthday, including his 13th birthday. Is a 13th birthday occurring on a friday the thirteenth a good thing? It always seemed to me like a scenario just asking for a serial murderer.

I watched the movie Spiderman today. Does the end scene, with Spiderman with his mask torn, remind anyone of the end scene of Batman Returns. It will probably be the only time you'll ever see Tobey Maguire compared to Michelle Pfeiffer.

One thing I forgot to mention, last week I heard two songs back to back on two different radio stations that have nothing in common except they are over ten years old and that I never hear them on the radio. I was driving in the car and had a country station on and the song "Coward of the County" by Kenny Rogers. Then, when it was over, I turned to one of the two Top 40 stations in Pittsburgh and almost immediately hear the song "Do Anything" by Natural Selection.

I can kind of explain "Coward of the County" being on the radio as it's theme fits the conservative attitudes about the war. I can't explain why "Do Anything" would even get played. I find it a really good pop song and hearing it brought back memories of singing along with it in the car when I was in high school, but I thought everybody else had forgotten about it.

The funniest part was the radio station followed it with a small promo saying how it played "today's music" or something to that effect.

On that theme, I'm expecting to here 2nu's "This is Ponderous" on a radio station any day now.

And to wrap up the radio talk, I flip radio stations constantly on my ~45 minute drive to work. The two top 40 stations in Pittsburgh in are having a competition to see which can have the most annoying morning show. The long-time top 40 station had a established annoying morning team, and they haven't hesitated in allowing the producer and the interns to get in on the annoyance. The only non-annoying guy, thankfully, has left the show for a morning show on a different station. He has made that show so much better. The just-recently-turned top 40 station has brought what I'm 95% sure is a national syndicated morning show. The main guy has a voice that would be annoying if I could stand to listen to it for any length of time longer than it takes for me to turn the station. Imagine the male equivalent of The Nanny coming through your car speakers. Of course, what really annoys me is that you're lucky if they play two songs per hour. I listen to most types of music and I constantly flip stations because I'm looking for a good song, no matter the genre. I like mixing in the top 40 with my Rock and Country. Also, since two of my programmed stations actually have all-talk morning shows, a full third of my programmed FM stations don't have music on them when I'm driving to work.

My steps to a less annoying morning show:
1) Get someone involved who is experienced writing comedy. That's one great thing about DVE's morning show. Jim Krenn has stand-up comedy experience. The jokes on there sound professional and not like a group of college kids sitting in a living room being goofy.
2) Don't sing along with songs. You probably sound bad in person but you definitely sound bad over the radio.
3) Don't let your producer or intern have a main part in your show. If they were any good, they'd wouldn't be a producer or intern, they'd have their own radio show.
4) You can never play too much music.
5) If you have a live phone interview with a celebrity, you shouldn't talk more than the celebrity. Recently, I heard a phone interview where the first question was long and included an anecdote. A celebrities time is valuable. Don't waste it by having him/her listen to a story about something that happened to you.

I just realize that a couple of these steps I actually stolen from WRCT's broadcast guidelines. I've actually dj'd on that station, was on it's exec staph and am still involved in their sports department. Now if you want to listen to a station that plays every type of music, including blues, jazz, rock, techno, noise, local, jungle, middle eastern, etc..., they're an excellent station and the dj's will almost always play request. You can also listen to it on the net.

Since Ross thought enough of me to put a link to this site on the side of his site before Tiff put it on the side of her site, I'm adding him to the side of this site.

The Pirate game last night was rained out. The umpire refused to start the game even though it was basically a mist. But they say it was the umpires' call and I believe them cause the ballclubs have more to lose if the game wasn't played. So I sat for two-plus hours getting insulted by Bill, Joed, and Tiff about bringing them to the ballpark and sit. I can exchange the tickets for any game this year, but we're not going to the games tonight or tomorrow so we won't be seeing the Red Sox play.

By the way, I got a link to a picture of Me and Tiff from last friday night. Interesting enough, Tiff always hates the pictures she takes of the two of us until I get tired of posing and make a funny face and that's the one she keeps. Here's the picture.

I have more to write about but I have to leave. I'm going with Tiff to the Over-Priced furniture store to buy bookshelves. Apparently, I'm just a pack mule to her. She wants me to buy a SUV just so she can go for the really big stuff there.

And just two more notes.

A friend sent me this link for an interesting Honda ad. It's amusing, even if you don't like Hondas.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the Pittsburgh Pirates game with Tiff, Bill and my brother. It's turn back the clock night. They're playing the Boston Red Sox for the first time in about a century. The teams played against each other in the first world series. The players will be dressed in old time uniforms and there will be other thow backs events, like, if I heard right, there will be no music playing when a batter is introduced or in between innings. I doubt, though, that food and beer prices will be at 1903 prices.

I saw the movie The Italian Job. It was pretty good. It was a good summer movie. It didn't require much thinking but it was more intelligent than most movies that will be released this summer.

I actually have come to think of Mark Wahlberg as a real actor not as a singer-turned-actor, probably because I never really thought of him as a singer. Has Donald Sutherland ever played a character that didn't give you the feeling that he knows alot more than any other character but he's not telling. And anyone who knows me knows I never have a complaint about Charlize Theron.

All the mini coopers scenes they show in the commercials where the cars seem to do impossible stuff? Well, the plot makes sure to show that the cars in the stunts have been modified so they could do all the stuff they do. So the movie is not as realistic as one might think.

And the scenes involving how Napster was really created will probably end up being the best comic relief scenes this summer.