Down in DC. Something for everyone. Nappy Roots & Arrested Development for me, They Might Be Giants for Rick, and a bunch of bands I have never heard of for Chris.
Sports is getting ridiculous with these lists nowadays. Every morning there is a new debate over who or what should be ranked higher than someone or something else. Crazy. Anyway, with that in mind, today's ESPN debate is over Top 25 Sports Movies of the Last 25 Years with the order of the Top 3 to be revealed tonight on some Boo-yah! Stuart Scott special. Page 3 of ESPN.com has the best sports scenes in movies. Regardless of order, I gotta say, #7 is one of my favorites. Every time The Naked Gun comes on, I have to watch the entire thing.
I would like to nominate two other scenes:
OK, enough from me.
Well, here I am at 5:30. You know you're up late when Captain Planet comes on. Last I noticed, I was watching Cowboy Bebop. I've been playing a game lately called "what happens first." Basically, I see if I can fall asleep before the birds start chirping the new morning in. I usually lose. I watched Dodgeball last night, that was kinda cool, even if the credits were in French and it felt a bit edited. I have Farenheit 9/11 coming down now, 54% DLed, we'll see what that's about. From where I'm sitting I can see 9 empty cans - all various flavors of Diet Coke. And I'm a Pepsi man, what's up with that. I told Jason I'd meet him on the island tomorrow at one...and it's giving me the dreaded "get up early" feeling that likes to loom before work. Jesus, noon is early now. I spent an hour writing music...I can do it now without an instrument in my hands, just typing in notes. That's neat I guess. It's freaking hot in my freaking house. I feel like going for a ride, but I'd probably get shot if I veered a mile away from my house in either direction. I think I'll make an omelette...how do you spell omlette? And my earlier email was wrong Roy - I've now burnt 133 cds in the last ~15 hours. Is that the first tilde in TTables history? Fuck that omlette, I'm gonna swallow a couple sleeoping pills. See you all Friday at my Mom's, hopefully. Goodnight, also hopefully.
...if only by default. Ha!
Obviously I am a little late to this story, but last Tuesday, VP Dick Cheney used the "F-word." As interesting as that may be, considering the new FCC regulations and the possibility that this aired on C-SPAN, it should be noted that Bush, Cheney & Kerry have all been documented as having used the flowery word, in a venue where it was available for public consumption, before. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that the Washington Post printed the word in their newspaper. Here is a Post piece about the Post's decision to print the word. And finally, Cheney defending his use of the word. Personally, I would like to see more politicians telling each other to perform various acts upon themselves, even engage in a game of snaps, perhaps on some kind of pay C-Span channel, but that's just me.
I never thought I'd attend a Beer Festival without you guys but this past Saturday I did. It was the Mid-Atlantic Beer and Food Festival out in Sterling, VA and it was very enjoyable. This is something I think we all should do next year. It runs F/S/S until 11pm (they stop the kegs at 10pm). It costs 10 dollars to get in and you receive a 6oz glass at the entrance. Each pog costs 1 dollar and these pogs get you 6oz of gooood beer at various tents throughout the festival. There are also food tents (they had a Hard Times Cafe tent!), live music, and vendors of various apparel, jewelry, etc. I have some fave pics and several of these, I was told, are sold in the MD/DC/VA area. My faves were the Fred Red from "Blue and Gray Brewing Co.", The Strawberry Wheat beer (the guys there liked it too!) from "Lancaster Brewing Company", and The Arrogant Bastard Beer by "Stone". I was only able to get tipsy but it was fun nonetheless. I promise if we all go next year I'll get wasted!!!
Shoot me in the face.
Seriously.
I mean, what the hell.
I have a Trojan on my computer that Avast antivirus identifies as Win32:Startpage.trj. I can't find any reference to this file outside of Avast's database, and that specific file doesn't exist. It's a browser hijacker that likes to change IE start pages and, sometimes, change browser windows to its own "Search for..." page. I've tried all other scans, including virus and spyware, run things like the RAV online scan: all come up empty. FWIW, the virus/trojan doesn't cahnge files, it creates new .dlls to manipulate my settings. These .dlls are what my AV software picks up.
It stinks, I'm tired of it. Figure out how to make it go away and you win a prize.
DMX has been arrested for, allegedly, impersonating a federal officer and attempting to commandeer a vehicle at JFK because he didn't have a ride back from the airport. I'm pretty sure it's not even legal for real federal officers to commandeer vehicles - that's a movie convention - let alone tiny rappers with gruff voices.
So, just how big on the idiot scale is this - a high profile celeb attempting to steal a car directly from the owner. Is this bigger than, say, going to a mountain resort and banging the desk clerk?
We finally got all of our honeymoon pictures developed (no, not those kind). So, if you want to, go and take a look at them on my website:
French Polynesia Photos
The pictures from the wedding aren't all in, yet, so it'll still be a little while until they're posted. We've gotten some back from the reception, and they're pretty good.
We (Pat, Rick, John, and myself) had a pretty good time at our last little golf outing. I would love to do it again, but at the same time have folks over to see the new house. I'm thinking some weekend in mid-late July, anyone who would like to play, and it doesn't have to be limited to 4, is more than welcome to come out and knock around the lil' white ball. I'm thinking we can play around 1ish in the afternoon, and then do the whole cookout/beer/beer/beer thing at my house.
If you don't give a shit about golf you're more than welcome to come up and eat/drink with us following the round. There's plenty of room at Casa de Nate......and I'd love to have you peeps come check out the pad and hang out...
At least one cop is on our side. This is a bit late for Pat, but even at $.50 a minute he would have saved some money.
I read about this is a web interview, and they said something about eating peanuts to fool a breath test. Also, it's a rule in most states that a cop must observe you for 20 minutes prior to a breathylizer...hmmm.
So I'm at College Park Bikes today getting the handlebars wrapped on my Cross-Check, and I had parallel parked in front of the store (I would have ridden to the store, but there was no chain. Yet.) As I'm BSing with the dude that runs the place, I see a meter maid walking away from my car...and she had been stopped. So I stick my head out the door, and say, "did I just get a ticket for something?" And she goes, "Yeah, two, and they've already been written so don't even try it."
I'm thinking, try what? Then I'm like, TWO? So I go to the windshield, and I got 17.50 for not paying the meter I couldn't see because it was bolted to a damn fence 7 feet from my car, and a 30.00 because I had parked against the flow of traffic. Now, you all know where I parked - turn onto Knox, make the right just past the 7-11 entrance at the corner where CPBikes is. I was facing away from Knox, towards campus. That's a one-lane road - two cars barely fit - but is not marked as one-way, so though I'm probably technically wrong it's a crap charge.
So, if I go to court, I could talk my way out of the wrong-direction one and maybe the meter one, since I'll bring a picture of the meter that I couldn't freaking detect with a meterometer, or possibly even a frog exaggerator. But, I will have to spend a day in a stupid ass court. If I pay the fines, I'm out $47.50, but that's about an hour's pay on a weekend, and I did just get about 6 hours of extra double-time for doing a two-man job by myself. Third, I could leave the tickets in my center console to be ignored for eternity, like that DC ticket I got in February. Then I will probably get screwed down the road with some sort or registration renewal or something...I'm sure there's a record of outstanding parking tickets.
So, I'm taking a vote. You have 5 days to decide for me whether I should go to court, pay the tickets, or ignore them. If I were Rick I would have set up a vote-dealie like NoTY, but I'm no queer webdesigner. So, there you go. Decide my level of upstanding-citizenship for me.
I heard one of those Washington Post radio commercials on the way into work, so I had to look up the article regarding $15 martinis. Add another 10 bars to my "do not visit" list. Without loan paperwork, of course. 6 pack of Natural Light - $3.85.
"It'll get you drunk!" - Samuel Jackson
Since it is all the rage now-a-days, and we are playing again tonight, figured I would toss this article out there for everyone. Not everyone reads ESPN like I do, figured it appealed to others. Anyway, there is a way to buy into the Foxwoods $10,000 November tournament for only $60. And if someone figures out how much he won on his A-A hand, let me know. He just kind of stopped there. Or I am an idiot. Either way. Off to play poker at work. Brilliant!
SpaceShipOne, the civilian spaceship designed by Burt Rutan, has made it into space. It looks like Rutan's probably going to win the X-Prize, but now there're plans for an X-Prize Cup, so that there will still be some competition for all of the other teams that were competing for the X-Prize after Rutan wins it.
Irma and I got back from the honeymoon last night. For those of you that don't know, we went to Bora Bora, Moorea, and Tahiti- all islands in French Polynesia. We got back to the house at midnight last night. One more day off today, and then it's back to work tomorrow.
Anyway, since I missed the post about my wedding, I'll start there. My highlights were watching Irma and Alex walk down the aisle, plus actually getting married. And the lasso and coins were pretty neat, too. BTW, those were what the minister was talking about when he said he'd never done this before.
The reception was a lot of fun. Irma downed a glass of wine like a shot as soon as we got to the table (she was a little stressed). Rick- great job on the toast. Thanks to whoever got that picture of Alex running around in her dress. I thought she looked cute as hell doing that. Just to let you know, there was still a keg left by the time most of the guests had left (I don't remember what time), and it still got finished. So good job, guys. I noticed that by the end of the reception, it was basically Maryland alumni sticking around.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and thanks to everyone who came out to the wedding, or who sent gifts even though they couldn't make it. Irma and I really appreciated it.
On to the honeymoon- there was actually a little bit of a delay between the wedding and the actual honeymoon. The next morning, me and Irma came back to the house, met up with a bunch of family/friends to say goodbye, and packed for the trip. We went down to Ft. Worth to see Alex one last time before we left (she was staying with Irma's sister). As we drove away, me and Irma were getting all watery-eyed and missing Alex, but when we asked Irma's sister about it, Alex didn't care at all- she just went back to playing. We spend the night in Dallas at a pretty good hotel- they advertise in the elevator that room service will deliver pizza and beer to your room. Nice. Then, the next day buying a few more things for the trip, and then leaving.
We had to go to L.A. to transfer to the Air Tahiti flight to Tahiti. The Air Tahiti flight was partnered with Quantas, and went on to Auckland after that. So, of course, my luggage also went on to Auckland. It took them a day and a half to get it back to me. Luckily, I had a change of clothes from the hotel the night before, so I wasn't completely screwed. From Tahiti, we took a puddle jumper straight to Bora Bora. Our view from our room in Bora Bora was awesome. We were in a bungalow right on the beach, looking out over the lagoon. We could see the small islands that encircle the main island, and then another big island off in the distance. And we got the sea breeze every day so we didn't need air conditioning. Awesome. Probably the highlight from Bora Bora was taking a snorkeling trip to go feed sharks and sting rays, swimming right in the water with them. One of Irma's highlights was watching me get pulled into a Tiki show and having to dance and pick up a big rock (180 lbs)
From Bora Bora we flew to Moorea. Even though the hotel was supposed to be better, we didn't like it as much. The hotel had its own mini lagoon, and our room was on the inner side of it, so our view was other rooms on the other side of the lagoon. Plus, the hotel on Bora Bora was smaller, so it felt a little cozer, and you got to know everybody. The highlight on Moorea was going to a Tiki village, and watching a real tiki show (as opposed to the hotel tiki show in Bora Bora).
We left Moorea in the morning so that we could spend a day in Tahiti before our flight left. We rented a car and drove around the island. We went to a big market, and got to see some really tall waterfalls.
One random comment- food is expensive as hell over there. Even at grocery stores, the cheapest beer was over a dollar a can/bottle. Bars were even worse. So, we went to a little grocery store each morning to buy a loaf of bread, some fresh fruit, and some cheese, and that was our breakfast and lunch most every day. We thought ahead enough to take over some liquor with us, so we had rum and cokes in our hotel room instead of going to the hotel bar every night. (A bottle of jack was $40 over there.)
Anyway, it was a hell of a lot of fun. I'll have pictures up once we get them all developed.
Remember that Star Wars kid video that was all over the net? Some nerd bastard pretending to be Darth Maul or something? Well, this guy may have topped him in the "nerdy" and "gay" departments.
I will say no more except, "safe for work."
Hey Everybody- I just wanted to let you know that Bryan has a weblog going at www.grza.com in case you are interested in seeing how his adventures in Togo are going. The page is certainly not up tp Terrapin Tables level, but it seems that it will serve its purpose for us. Enjoy reading it- I am sure it will get interesting over the next two years!
Goddamn I had a blast. Sucks to be you guys. Ninety-plus bands, some of my favorite musicians (MMW, Buckethead, Primus, Gomez, the Bad Plus) and some all-time kings (Dylan, Dead, David Byrne). Couple that with the bizarre hippie socail order where laws do not exist yet everyone is friendly, and I had 5 days of hippie utopia bliss. There's something to be said for walking past a Public Safety offical with a bowl in your hand (okay, mouth) and 4 bottles - each - of Guinness and Harp in your shorts so you can stand in a muddy field later making half-and-halfs while watching a favorite band play.
Also, spotless Porto-potties, amazingly good food (ever had an Arepa or Sweet Leaf brand tea?), a trailer full of beer, readily available Things Different From Beer Of a Very Good Quality, free water - remember that at next year's HFStival - showers, and a guy selling the best hats ever. In related news, I have a new hat.
On top of that there was a comedy tent (Louis CK, Todd Barry, Jim Norton, and others), a cinema tent where I watched three straight hours of Chapelle's show on a theater screen, then checked out some Dukes of Hazzard before they ran such films as Fear and Loathing, Friday the 13th, Stripes, UHF, Elf, and in the grandaddy of all movie tent maneuvers, they ran the complete Lord of the Rings trilogy starting at 9pm Saturday night through to 6am Sunday.
So, rather than detail a highlight/lowlight list since most of you wouldn't have had fun anyway, I figured I'd drop a few details. John would have enjoyed it for the novelty of the social structure and the general air of respect for other people, Rick would have enjoyed the encouraged public intoxication and the rampant nudity. Roy would have been disappointed in the unabashed public drug use and because, on the surface, Buffett would seem like a good fit for this festival (but don't worry, he's not). Pat would have been drunk and asleep rather than deal with the 100 degree weather - that makes him smarter than me. Chad would have, I believe, turned into the Incredible Hulk and smashed thousands of hippies into little patchouli-scented fragments.
Bottom Line: some of my all-time favorite musicians, 5 days of partying, 90,000 other people and, as far as I know, not one incident of violence or theft. No place I would have rather spent 5 days. Hope you had fun at work. Ha!
Much to the dismay of webmasters who had countdown pages, the Olsen twins are now legal. How did they get this old? Add that to the fact that it's now been 10 years since O.J. some guy killed Nicole Simpson, and I'm feeling pretty old this week.
This guy, apparently, was NOT loving it.
Is Kevlar on the dollar menu?
So, since we got nothing new, and that post about Fatty is about to go away, figured I would post a sort of "follow-up" about Thunderstix. I hated them and now they are gone. Seems the ACC is just following the trend of other conferences and banning them. If you ask me, and of course you didn't, but if you have to use those stupid things to make noise, well, you suck. Drink 20 beers and yell like college students are supposed to.
In other football related news, Maryland is ranked 25th in the nation in terms of strength of schedule. Not bad. They are also a Top 15 team in alot of pre-season polls. Heres hoping it plays out that way...
So Fatty got hitched this weekend in Texas. Since we're now stealing ideas from H-Town crew, I'll just get the H/L list:
Highlights
We are decidedly uncool - mostly, drunken nerds. But, there are glimmers of hope. The last one, however, was stifled and smothered like Rick's mouth must be around Judy's parents.
What was it? My wanting to set up dodgeball games like a year ago. I figured it was a natural extension of the youthful fun of WAKA and would, by itself, be a ton of fun. I was summarily dismissed. Now, however, there is that Ben Stiller movie coming out and this show.
See, we could have been heroes. We could have sold the rights to GSN - we could be rich. Above all, we could have been cool.
Moral of the Story - all my ideas are good ones.
I know not many of you play golf, but those that do (Rick, Pat, John, Mike, whoever else) I was wondering if you'd like to get together next week sometime and play Willow Springs . It seems pretty cheap and small for us hackers....Let me know if/when you guys can do it, and I'll set us up.
This is a great story. My roommates and I have been watching Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO, which is very funny. Anywho, it turns out that while HBO was shooting a scene at Dodger stadium, they got some crowd shots of a Mr. Juan Catalan. Mr. Catalan was later charged with a murder -- which took place the same night as the Dodgers game. The police, claiming they had a witness to the murder, did not believe Mr. Catalan went to the game, despite his ticket stubs. After being jailed for 6 months while awaiting trial, his lawyer was able to review HBO's footage for the show, and Mr. Catalan was present in one of the scenes, so he has since been cleared of the charges. More info in this article. This story will be on Fark in 5... 4... 3...
Date: 2004-05-30, 10:36AM EDT
1 very healthy Cicada for sale ($20). Has already metamorphasised and has 2 wings. Red eyes and 6 legs. Rare X strand female. I only have one.. so don't wait.
this is in or around Arlington
