Wednesday, March 29, 2006
I got the following via Joe's blog. The rule is: "Recount a one-line anecdote for each state you have visited [and then demand that others do the same]."
Now, there's been discussion on what counts as a visit to a state. I listed even the ones I drove through with nothing memorable happening. (Those would be CT, KS, IN, NC, & SC.) I just like the way the map looks with them. It'll be obvious in the anecdotes whether they belong there.
The toughest anecdotes to write were the ones where I've lived or visited office, like PA, NJ, and OH.
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
AL: Saw sign announcing entering the state and immediately couldn't stop singing "Sweet Home Alabama".
AZ: Tried calling my mom from the edge of the Grand Canyon only to find out that Nextel is the only cellular carrier that gets a signal there. Bydaway, The Grand Canyon lives up to the hype.
CA: My cousin's first husband took me and my brother to my first non-Pirate MLB game (Tigers at Angels) and first R-rated movie in a theatre (Beverly Hills Cop II).
CO: Left my brother's friend's place in Denver in the morning and arrived in Reno to see the roads outside of Denver we had driven on had over a foot of snow on them.
CT: Was on a bus from NYC to Boston and didn't realize it had gone through Connecticut until over a month later.
DC: Down there for job interview, driving around looking for the highway, I almost drove past the white house and the Washington Monument without realizing it.
FL: Have flown in and out of atleast five different Florida airports (Tampa, Miami, Ft. Myers, Tally, and Orlando) and have driven/ridden there three times.
GA: As radio broadcasters for visiting basketball team, received stats from Emory University athletic department which included their team's record when they scored more points than their opponent.
HI: Watched a Steelers playoff game at around 7am.
IL: Low on cash and unable to find an atm, I used my first credit card for the first time at Planet Hollywood in Chicago.
IN: First leg of first cross-country trip. Spent time trying to sneak country songs onto the radio without my brother forcing me to change the channel.
KS: Second leg, same as the first.
LA: When I was in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina was in South Florida. There was no sign that this would be any different than any other hurricane.
MD: Even though I was working at a company's Uniontown, PA office, my supervisor worked in the Columbia, MD office. So I had to make regular trips down there, sometimes finding he was called out of town at the last minute.
MA: Met the Boston Celtics at Brandeis University on my first visit. 0-2 on job interviews on later visits.
MS: Entered Mississippi wondering how much traffic we'd hit due to people leaving for the hurricane. A voluntary evacuation was announced the next day.
MO: My cousin and husband, who lived in St. Louis took me to my first casino and gave me four quarters to start with. I won on my second quarter, never fell behind and came out over $400 ahead. Luck would continue in Reno.
NV: Two days after St. Louis casino visit, I was playing $2 at a time on slots. Switched to only $1 and immediately hit for over a $1,000. Got my picture taken with the machine and a tiny bottle of champagne.
NJ: Is it possible to drive on the NJ turnpike without singing Springsteen's "State Trooper"? That's not really a anecdote, so I'll add this. Took visiting Bill, Terri, and Gage to a Moroccan restaurant where a co-worker moonlights as a belly dancer. She came out and Gage didn't take his eyes off of her.
NM: Went through a customs station without leaving the country.
NY: My first trip to Long Island resulted in the weird situation of the Chief Financial Officer of my company buying me a lapdance.
NC: If Bill is right about the location, this is where it was discovered that Code Red doesn't stain and the floor of my car isn't exactly liquid-proof.
OH: Met girlfriend's family, all Cleveland Browns fans, days before Browns-Steelers playoff game.
OR: Driving from San Fran to Seattle, my brother and I decided not to try and make it in one stretch and spent the night at a hotel in Portland.
PA: In a month-and-a-half stretch, made 13 one-way trips between the Pittsburgh area and Philly.
SC: I don't even remember the story Bill told about SC.
TN: The car collection and the Black & Gold TV room made the Graceland tour worth every penny. Of course, I didn't pay for the tour.
TX: Debated over stopping to see a 11-foot tall statue of a roadrunner.
UT: Drove for over an hour with the cruise control on 80 mph and the road never turned and the mountains in the distance barely got bigger.
VA: Whitewater rafted near the VA-WV-MD border.
WA: It never rained while I was in Seattle.
WV: I've been to WV to ski, play rugby, on a church youth group trip to a lake, visit a strip club, pass-through on the way to Florida, pass-through on the way to Ohio, gamble on slots, gamble on dogs, pick up my parents when their car broke down on the way home from gambling, and simply to turn around, but I've never spent the night there.
WI: Lambeau Field is great. The atmosphere outside before the game is even better. And, word of advice, if you're travelling to a big event and all other cars suddenly exit the highway, follow them. They're likely going to the same place.
Now, there's been discussion on what counts as a visit to a state. I listed even the ones I drove through with nothing memorable happening. (Those would be CT, KS, IN, NC, & SC.) I just like the way the map looks with them. It'll be obvious in the anecdotes whether they belong there.
The toughest anecdotes to write were the ones where I've lived or visited office, like PA, NJ, and OH.
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
AL: Saw sign announcing entering the state and immediately couldn't stop singing "Sweet Home Alabama".
AZ: Tried calling my mom from the edge of the Grand Canyon only to find out that Nextel is the only cellular carrier that gets a signal there. Bydaway, The Grand Canyon lives up to the hype.
CA: My cousin's first husband took me and my brother to my first non-Pirate MLB game (Tigers at Angels) and first R-rated movie in a theatre (Beverly Hills Cop II).
CO: Left my brother's friend's place in Denver in the morning and arrived in Reno to see the roads outside of Denver we had driven on had over a foot of snow on them.
CT: Was on a bus from NYC to Boston and didn't realize it had gone through Connecticut until over a month later.
DC: Down there for job interview, driving around looking for the highway, I almost drove past the white house and the Washington Monument without realizing it.
FL: Have flown in and out of atleast five different Florida airports (Tampa, Miami, Ft. Myers, Tally, and Orlando) and have driven/ridden there three times.
GA: As radio broadcasters for visiting basketball team, received stats from Emory University athletic department which included their team's record when they scored more points than their opponent.
HI: Watched a Steelers playoff game at around 7am.
IL: Low on cash and unable to find an atm, I used my first credit card for the first time at Planet Hollywood in Chicago.
IN: First leg of first cross-country trip. Spent time trying to sneak country songs onto the radio without my brother forcing me to change the channel.
KS: Second leg, same as the first.
LA: When I was in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina was in South Florida. There was no sign that this would be any different than any other hurricane.
MD: Even though I was working at a company's Uniontown, PA office, my supervisor worked in the Columbia, MD office. So I had to make regular trips down there, sometimes finding he was called out of town at the last minute.
MA: Met the Boston Celtics at Brandeis University on my first visit. 0-2 on job interviews on later visits.
MS: Entered Mississippi wondering how much traffic we'd hit due to people leaving for the hurricane. A voluntary evacuation was announced the next day.
MO: My cousin and husband, who lived in St. Louis took me to my first casino and gave me four quarters to start with. I won on my second quarter, never fell behind and came out over $400 ahead. Luck would continue in Reno.
NV: Two days after St. Louis casino visit, I was playing $2 at a time on slots. Switched to only $1 and immediately hit for over a $1,000. Got my picture taken with the machine and a tiny bottle of champagne.
NJ: Is it possible to drive on the NJ turnpike without singing Springsteen's "State Trooper"? That's not really a anecdote, so I'll add this. Took visiting Bill, Terri, and Gage to a Moroccan restaurant where a co-worker moonlights as a belly dancer. She came out and Gage didn't take his eyes off of her.
NM: Went through a customs station without leaving the country.
NY: My first trip to Long Island resulted in the weird situation of the Chief Financial Officer of my company buying me a lapdance.
NC: If Bill is right about the location, this is where it was discovered that Code Red doesn't stain and the floor of my car isn't exactly liquid-proof.
OH: Met girlfriend's family, all Cleveland Browns fans, days before Browns-Steelers playoff game.
OR: Driving from San Fran to Seattle, my brother and I decided not to try and make it in one stretch and spent the night at a hotel in Portland.
PA: In a month-and-a-half stretch, made 13 one-way trips between the Pittsburgh area and Philly.
SC: I don't even remember the story Bill told about SC.
TN: The car collection and the Black & Gold TV room made the Graceland tour worth every penny. Of course, I didn't pay for the tour.
TX: Debated over stopping to see a 11-foot tall statue of a roadrunner.
UT: Drove for over an hour with the cruise control on 80 mph and the road never turned and the mountains in the distance barely got bigger.
VA: Whitewater rafted near the VA-WV-MD border.
WA: It never rained while I was in Seattle.
WV: I've been to WV to ski, play rugby, on a church youth group trip to a lake, visit a strip club, pass-through on the way to Florida, pass-through on the way to Ohio, gamble on slots, gamble on dogs, pick up my parents when their car broke down on the way home from gambling, and simply to turn around, but I've never spent the night there.
WI: Lambeau Field is great. The atmosphere outside before the game is even better. And, word of advice, if you're travelling to a big event and all other cars suddenly exit the highway, follow them. They're likely going to the same place.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
I just recently got the first season of Entourage on DVD. It has only eight episodes, so I watched it rather quick. I also listen to the director's commentary on the first episode. The commentary points out that in one scene one of the characters, who grew up in New York and just recently moved to LA, drinks water out of the faucet and that was supposed to be a touch of realism that shows he's from NYC since people in Hollywood don't drink water from the faucet. At first I thought he meant the guy had leaned over and drank straight from the faucet, which I had missed. Then I realized that he meant that he had filled a glass with water from a faucet and drank it as opposed to drinking bottled water.
This got me thinking. Were the Hollywood-types that watch that show stunned when they saw that? Were they in awe at the concept of drinking tap water? It was no big deal for me. It was such an ordinary move that I totally missed it. When we were growing up, there was just water from the faucet, except in the summertime when there was also water from a hose.
This got me thinking. Were the Hollywood-types that watch that show stunned when they saw that? Were they in awe at the concept of drinking tap water? It was no big deal for me. It was such an ordinary move that I totally missed it. When we were growing up, there was just water from the faucet, except in the summertime when there was also water from a hose.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Okay, it's late and I just got home from a night where I probably had too many beers. I'm not drunk cause I stuck to beers that fill my stomach up to the point that I can't drink no more before I get to the point where I'm drunk. Anyway, I went to the movies today then went to a bar for a late dinner and to watch the ncaa tournament.
Anyway, I went to see V for Vendetta. I chose this because the other movie that interested me was less than 90 minutes long. If I'm going to pay full price for a movie nowadays, I want it to be atleast longer than the commercials and trailers that run before it.
Anyway, the movie was really good. It was, in some ways, what I expected and in others, not so much. Of course, the heros are Natalie Portman and a guy in a mask, but at some point middle, I started wondering if the guy in the mask could really be considered a good guy. The bad guy, though, is definitely the government. Some people see parallels between the movie and today's situation, but I don't think that was intentional. Rather, I think the movie played towards a more general "1984" theme that some people to see similarity to today's goverment. Anyway, the movie has it's standard action sequences, including well-done but nothing-you've-haven't-seen-before fight scenes involving martial arts and swords. Some of the ending imagery works better if you think of it as symbolic instead of realistic. It didn't quite fully explain some facts, but I'm not sure if it's a bad thing. Anyway, I liked it. I'm not sorry I saw it in the theatre at full price, but I didn't like it enough to go see it again in the theatre.
I also recently got Monster-in-law from netflix. It had potential and it was watchable, but it's not a movie to pay money to see. It's definitely a cable/netflix movie. I think the problem with it is that I could see the mother's action actually happening to someone in real-life. The engaged couple are so likeable that I actually felt bad for all the acts of sabotage by the future mother-in-law that I didn't find them funny. Anyway, if you find this movie on cable and nothing else is on, watch it. But I don't recommend buying the dvd or renting at a rental store.
Anyway, I went to see V for Vendetta. I chose this because the other movie that interested me was less than 90 minutes long. If I'm going to pay full price for a movie nowadays, I want it to be atleast longer than the commercials and trailers that run before it.
Anyway, the movie was really good. It was, in some ways, what I expected and in others, not so much. Of course, the heros are Natalie Portman and a guy in a mask, but at some point middle, I started wondering if the guy in the mask could really be considered a good guy. The bad guy, though, is definitely the government. Some people see parallels between the movie and today's situation, but I don't think that was intentional. Rather, I think the movie played towards a more general "1984" theme that some people to see similarity to today's goverment. Anyway, the movie has it's standard action sequences, including well-done but nothing-you've-haven't-seen-before fight scenes involving martial arts and swords. Some of the ending imagery works better if you think of it as symbolic instead of realistic. It didn't quite fully explain some facts, but I'm not sure if it's a bad thing. Anyway, I liked it. I'm not sorry I saw it in the theatre at full price, but I didn't like it enough to go see it again in the theatre.
I also recently got Monster-in-law from netflix. It had potential and it was watchable, but it's not a movie to pay money to see. It's definitely a cable/netflix movie. I think the problem with it is that I could see the mother's action actually happening to someone in real-life. The engaged couple are so likeable that I actually felt bad for all the acts of sabotage by the future mother-in-law that I didn't find them funny. Anyway, if you find this movie on cable and nothing else is on, watch it. But I don't recommend buying the dvd or renting at a rental store.
Monday, March 20, 2006
So I was in suncoast at the going out of business sale and I saw a cheap movie that looked like one of those cheesy romantic thriller movies. It had Angel Boris, who I'm kinda am a fan of just because of being born on the exact same day. It's called Lost Lake.
Anyway, there are a man and a woman on the front cover and a man's name and a woman's name. The woman's name and image were both Angel's. I assumed the man's name was for the man pictured. The man's name is Mark Collie, a name I recognized but couldn't place. Since I didn't recognize the man pictured, I figured he was a soap opera actor I had heard of. It wasn't until a couple days later when I read the box back and it said that Mark Collie was a country singer and I placed it. That wasn't his picture on the box and a good country singer I hadn't heard of in a while was in a cheesy straight-to-video movie starring a playboy playmate. Weird.
Anyway, there are a man and a woman on the front cover and a man's name and a woman's name. The woman's name and image were both Angel's. I assumed the man's name was for the man pictured. The man's name is Mark Collie, a name I recognized but couldn't place. Since I didn't recognize the man pictured, I figured he was a soap opera actor I had heard of. It wasn't until a couple days later when I read the box back and it said that Mark Collie was a country singer and I placed it. That wasn't his picture on the box and a good country singer I hadn't heard of in a while was in a cheesy straight-to-video movie starring a playboy playmate. Weird.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
I'm watching The Sopranos right now. It's on against Desperate Housewives. This would be a no-brainer decision on which to watch. Sopranos is simply a better show and there's been such a break since the last new episode. The thing is, though, there's a re-broadcast of The Sopranos later tonight, so, in theory, you could watch both without taping either. But since this is the first season of the Sopranos that I'm actually caught up on the show, not to mention that the other show just isn't as good this year, I'm watching The Sopranos.
HBO is premiering Big Love after The Sopranos. If they were smart they would start the show immediately after The Sopranos ends, before 10pm to try and get people interested in it before they are tempted to turn over to Grey's Anatomy.
Bydaway, I forgot to mention it last week, but I saw 16 Blocks last weekend. Great movie. Unlike some action movie stars, Bruce Willis plays his character like a guy his age. In fact, Willis might be the only actor in a action movie to act older than he really is. He did the same thing in Sin City. Only this time, there's no heart problem, just old age. Also, once again, Mos Def gives a great performance. I have yet to see him in anything that he wasn't great in. Anyway, the movie was definitely worth the full price admission on my rating scale. I wouldn't even mind paying to see it again.
HBO is premiering Big Love after The Sopranos. If they were smart they would start the show immediately after The Sopranos ends, before 10pm to try and get people interested in it before they are tempted to turn over to Grey's Anatomy.
Bydaway, I forgot to mention it last week, but I saw 16 Blocks last weekend. Great movie. Unlike some action movie stars, Bruce Willis plays his character like a guy his age. In fact, Willis might be the only actor in a action movie to act older than he really is. He did the same thing in Sin City. Only this time, there's no heart problem, just old age. Also, once again, Mos Def gives a great performance. I have yet to see him in anything that he wasn't great in. Anyway, the movie was definitely worth the full price admission on my rating scale. I wouldn't even mind paying to see it again.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Just a quick post. I've been busy at work helping my group prepare for a big presentation for our customers. That got done with on Friday. Sunday I had planned to catch up on stuff on my computer, but, of course, the internet was down. Actually, it wasn't completely down as it usually is when there's a problem at the ISP. There was a connection, but very little went through. I basically could access AIM and any google webpage. But I couldn't read my hotmail or almost every other site.
Since it wasn't the usual problem with the ISP and since my ISP doesn't have a operator on duty on weekends (you call and leave a message), I decided it could be spyware slowing it down and I made use of the Dell customer support for the first time. They were fast (which they should be since I got the express support) and they were friendly, but basically all they did was eliminate all the non-ISP possible problems, so I was stuck waiting for the weekend to end and Monday morning when I woke up, the internet was back to normal, so it must have been an ISP thing.
Nothing much else new. I watched some Ultimate Fighting Championship on tv at a bar Saturday night. I found it boring. It was like a bad boxing match where neither boxer takes any chances.
Anyone want to start a pool to determine the next regular cast member to die on 24? They killed off one tonight and the previews imply another might have to sacrifice him/herself. I hope my guess is wrong since it would be getting rid of my favorite character still on the show not named Jack. And when Keifer Sutherland finally wants to leave the show, I hope they hand the show off to another star by simply bringing in the new guy in the middle of the season and a couple episodes later, kill off Jack. Has a show ever killed off the main star in the middle of a season when a real-life death or contract dispute wasn't involved? It would be especially extreme since not only is Jack the main character, there's a severe dropoff before anyone you could name the #2 star of the show. The only constant things in the five seasons have been Jack, the digital clock, and the ability to make huge plot holes forgivable.
One more thing. I currently have Where the Truth Lies out from Netflix. I often use Netflix for movies I was curious about but I don't want to pay to buy them. This movie fit that description. Let's just say that, if you're a Colin Firth fan, this is a movie of his you might want to avoid.
Since it wasn't the usual problem with the ISP and since my ISP doesn't have a operator on duty on weekends (you call and leave a message), I decided it could be spyware slowing it down and I made use of the Dell customer support for the first time. They were fast (which they should be since I got the express support) and they were friendly, but basically all they did was eliminate all the non-ISP possible problems, so I was stuck waiting for the weekend to end and Monday morning when I woke up, the internet was back to normal, so it must have been an ISP thing.
Nothing much else new. I watched some Ultimate Fighting Championship on tv at a bar Saturday night. I found it boring. It was like a bad boxing match where neither boxer takes any chances.
Anyone want to start a pool to determine the next regular cast member to die on 24? They killed off one tonight and the previews imply another might have to sacrifice him/herself. I hope my guess is wrong since it would be getting rid of my favorite character still on the show not named Jack. And when Keifer Sutherland finally wants to leave the show, I hope they hand the show off to another star by simply bringing in the new guy in the middle of the season and a couple episodes later, kill off Jack. Has a show ever killed off the main star in the middle of a season when a real-life death or contract dispute wasn't involved? It would be especially extreme since not only is Jack the main character, there's a severe dropoff before anyone you could name the #2 star of the show. The only constant things in the five seasons have been Jack, the digital clock, and the ability to make huge plot holes forgivable.
One more thing. I currently have Where the Truth Lies out from Netflix. I often use Netflix for movies I was curious about but I don't want to pay to buy them. This movie fit that description. Let's just say that, if you're a Colin Firth fan, this is a movie of his you might want to avoid.
