Havasimy

I've updated the McDonald's Monopoly contest "hard to find" pieces list, based on some pieces I had at my place. I've added Kentucky. I also have two Pacific Avenues, so the green is one of the other two. I still have yet to get a single Violet or Railroad piece. Of course I don't eat at McDonald's as much lately as I did back when there was one next door to where I worked.

Purple: Mediterranean Ave.
Light Blue: Vermont Ave.
Violet: ?
Orange: Tennessee Ave.
Red: Kentucky Ave.
Yellow: Ventnor Ave.
Green: ? (Pennsylvania or North Carolina)
Dark Blue: Boardwalk
Railroads: ?

On behalf of everyone like me who drives the section of Route 51 just south of the Liberty Tunnels, I'd just like to say this can't come soon enough. I can't believe they started planning this ten years ago and construction still haven't started. Wait, I've worked for PennDot, so I can completely believe it.

Speaking of McDonald's, I have gotten some pieces for the Monopoly game and these are, as near as I can figure, the hard-to-find pieces:

Purple: Mediterranean Ave.
Light Blue: Vermont Ave.
Violet: ?
Orange: Tennessee Ave.
Red: ?
Yellow: Ventnor Ave.
Green: ?
Dark Blue: Boardwalk
Railroads: ?

I'm a fan of commercials. The creative ones, I've always thought of as short movies. When technologies, like tivo, eventually mark the end of commercials as we know it, I will be a little sad. They will be replaced by more embedded advertising like extreme product placement or ads on a small area of the screen like on soccer broadcast. They will be more obnoxious and harder to ignore and less creative. I'll also miss the race to hit the bathroom and getting food and drink in that couple minutes of commercials. Over all the contributions to pop culture (which I am a avid follower of) by commercials have more than made up for their negatives. The product never mattered. Nike and Coors Light (and other light beers) have had some of the most creative commercials, even though they are products I actively avoid. I like the way that the formula of DOG + BEER = HOT WOMEN is true one way in commercials and another way in real life. I still laugh at the Easy Mac commercial where the teacher gives the class the one question test: "1 + 1 = ?" and the one kid yells "YES!". I even admire the guy who figured out that you can make a STD medicine commercial watchable by having a attractive woman talking about her herpes over shots of her swimming and having fun. I've owned Spuds Mackenzie and "Where's the beef?" t-shirts and I've had my picture taken with Alex from Stroh's.

On that note, I'd just like to say that I HATE the new McDonald's ad campaign "I'm Lovin' It". I hate the way the phrase is used in the commercial. I hate the song. I hate the fact that it's used in conjunction with the McDonald's Monopoly contest which is my favorite contest that I'll never win unless I find a friend in the company that rigs it for me I simply hate "I'm Lovin' It". I can't explain it, but it's strikes a nerve. If I was in whatever focus group they showed it too before they started airing it, not only would it not have aired, but the ad company would have lost the account and the ad exec would now be working for McDonald's at a hourly wage.

Okay, I added the Meme Tracker to my site. Now see if it works. I got it via Joe's site who apparently got it from Dwight. If it works, thanks to all. If it doesn't, well, hell, I guess you get what you pay for.

Okay, I don't think I'll ever get to the other movie reviews I mentioned, so I'll do quick reviews:
The Sleeping Dictionary: Only if you're a Jessica Alba fan.
Punch-Drunk Love: Only if you're a Paul Thomas Anderson or MAYBE a Adam Sandler fan who likes art house films.
The second season of 24: The writing was even better than before. It had to be, though, because it couldn't rely on the novelty of the real-time gimmick. It no longer feels like a gimmick. The different scenarios feel less contrived than in the first season and it's still well acted. The Jack's-family-in-danger storyline is once again the weak point as Kim's adventures seem totally removed from anything else, but atleast they don't seem straight out of a soap opera like the whole insomnia storyline did in season 1. I highly recommend the first and second seasons of 24 and I look forward to the third season which starts next week.

I picked up Logan's Run on DVD. It wasn't until today that it occurred to me that it might be appropriate that I never saw the movie before I turned twenty-nine years old.

I have a little bit of free time, so I decided to do a quick movie review for Matchstick Men. It stars Nicholas Cage and Sam Rockwell as a pair of conmen. Rockwell's character is your standard slick-talking conman while Cage's is a psychological mess of tics and obsessive-compulsiveness. Rockwell wants to do the big con while Cage wants to keep making a decent living on small-time scams. With his troubles, he's not even sure if he can pull off the big con. Then, a daughter he didn't know he had comes into his life. He also decides to do the big con. The three storylines are handled as well as can be and the acting is top notch. Sam Rockwell has been great in everything I've seen him in. (I tend to not acknowledge one movie entirely.) He was good in supporting roles in The Green Mile and Galaxy Quest and now he has moved up to bigger roles. Nicholas Cage was essentially Nicholas Cage. And the ending doesn't cheat. I definitely recommend it.

Also, as Tiff was nice enough to post on her blog within seconds of me telling her and within minutes of me finding out myself, I was a winner in the CBS Late Show Top Ten Contest. I also won it four years ago. Back then, I got a t-shirt. This time I only get a mouse pad, but still it's cool to get my name on a major media website. It's the third time I've accomplished that. The other two was the first late show contest win I mentioned earlier and this on the Espn Page 2 site.

Okay, I've been busy at work this week. There's a big meeting in our local office, so the second half of last week, there must have been thirty or so people in the office when there are usually six. The meeting are being held yesterday and today at a local off-site, but the demos that accompany the meetings are being held here and last week was all about getting those demos ready. With all the commotion, including my desk phone becoming the main phone for all the visiting people, work has been hard to accomplish. The only good thing that has come from it is they seem to be learning. We're in a secondary local office, just extra space that the company is leasing until we can move into our new building next year. The main local office has a receptionist, but since there are usually just six of us at our office and we don't get many calls or visitors, we answers phones ourselves. Well, the last time there was a big to-do at the office, the six of us answered phones constantly for the guys who were visiting our office from other offices and we didn't get any of our work done. This time, they temporarily moved the receptionist from the primary local office down to our office so I haven't had to answer a phone much this past week. I hate answering phones. By the end of this week, it'll be back to just the six of us and most incoming calls will be wrong numbers.

Saturday was the heart walk. Thanks to all who donated. It was a success attendance wise. There was a lot of people despite the rain. They had trouble parking because they had planned to park everyone in grass fields that became instant mud. I ended up parking at a Ponderosa steak house across the street. The path, like everything in Western PA, was half downhill and half uphill. The first two and a half laps weren't too bad, but halfway through the third, the rain got harder and colder and a lot of people quit, but I trudged on. The weather changed back down to just a constant rain by the last lap. Afterwards, they had snacks, vegetable trays, fruit cocktails and pizzas for the walker. Any guess which snacks I had? Actually, I did have a carrot. And four pieces of pizza.

After the walk, I had to go to work for a little bit, so I sat at my desk and did my programming with a dry shirt I had brought with me, wet jeans and no socks or shoes. Surprisingly nobody noticed.

Sunday, I slept in and went to a tailgate party with my brother and some of his college friends. I ate kielbasa, drank beer, and played the best game of euchre ever. The rest of the day is a blank.

Yesterday, I took Tiff out to Outback steakhouse steakhouse for her birthday. I had a 22oz porterhouse steak. I also had cheese fries. So much for the heartwalk. Hey, I also had some carrots.

One of my favorite headlines in a while: "Rocker defends Limbaugh comments". Doesn't it just bring a smile to your face?