Is This a Blog?

Dreamboat

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:30:55 GMT

Last night I dreamed that I was playing a computer adventure game, but I was also the main character in the game. You know how dreams are.

At one point in the game I had to assemble a large fishing net, but the handle was too big for me to carry across the water to where the other parts of the net were. There was a boat right there in front of me with a key in the ignition, so it was clear that I was supposed to take the boat to the other side of the river, which I started to do... but then I realized that the boat didn't belong to me, so that would be stealing, and that would be wrong. So I left the boat where it was.

Sheesh. Even in a video game inside a dream, I'm a total wimp.

Spelling bee

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:15:19 GMT

I sent an e-mail to a recent customer yesterday, and today I got his response:

"Thank you, I will defiantly use you again"

That's right, he's going to call us for his future AV needs... no matter what anyone else says!

Comic geniuses who can't read

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:13:14 GMT

Little kids are hilarious, aren't they? Today at the post office, there was a woman with a little girl, and the girl asked what they were doing. The mom said, "We're going to fill out this label, and put this stuff in the box, and send it to Grandpa." And the little girl added: "And then we'll jump up!" illustrating as she exclaimed.

Yes! You'll jump up! That's brilliant! The mom replied absent-mindedly, something like, "We'll jump, sure." She didn't even appreciate the hilarity of the tiny human accompanying her, but then, I guess she's used to it.

The rest of the story?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:41:44 GMT

So, this week has marked my third anniversary of living in New York. Way back in the fall of 2006, I posted this LiveJournal entry right here, in which I began recounting the epic saga of my cross-country moving journey, in which my brother and I drove a Penske truck all the way from San Antonio to Brooklyn in three days.* I posted an entry for "Day 0," about the packing and preparation the night before the trip started... and then I never posted Day 1.

But now it's been three years, so I might as well get around to it. Of course, I've forgotten a lot of the specifics, but my brother was here visiting NYC recently, and between the two of us, we were able to reconstruct a lot of those remarkable, rearview-mirror-free hours on the road.

So I'll post it soon. No, really, I will.

*How did we do that?!

Fraudulent activity: priceless

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:29:12 GMT

The bookkeeper tells me that MasterCard has cancelled our card and will be issuing us a new one, all due to fraudulent activity. The MasterCard lady would not tell her what the charges in question were, only that they were so far outside our "pattern of activity" that they knew they must be bogus.

I'm the one who does most of the purchasing, and I can't imagine who could have gotten our card information. I'm really curious as to what these charges were that were so obviously fraudulent, but I guess we'll never know. I'm just glad the fraud prevention department is doing their job.

And I guess I should stop using the company credit cards to buy guns and porn.

A message to the post office lady in Maspeth, Queens

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:25:24 GMT

Hi, post office lady in Maspeth, Queens. I'm the guy who showed up today looking for his package from Amazon. They sent me an e-mail saying your post office attempted delivery on Saturday, but no one was there, so they left a notice and I should pick up my package today. Of course, your post office did not actually leave a notice, but that was no surprise. In my experience, postal carriers don't really care that much whether their customers receive their packages or not.

So on the advice of Amazon, I went to your post office, and you were the only one there. I explained what happened, showed you my ID, and gave you the delivery address, and you said there were no packages there for me. That would have been fine -- It's not your fault our carrier sucks -- but then you said, "You really shouldn't have things delivered to your work."

Oh yeah?! Let me tell you why I have things delivered to my work: Because the post office in my neighborhood is a nightmare. For one thing, why would I give my home address, when I'm never home during weekdays. If a package is mailed to my home, it'll go to the post office, and I'll have to stand in an endless line on a Saturday morning to attempt to retrieve it. There's no air conditioning in that place!

And even if I were at home, my neighborhood post office never even tries to deliver packages! I still remember with absolutely no fondness at all the time they left a "Sorry we missed you notice" in my mailbox on a day that I never left my apartment, and then somehow managed to misplace my package for about two months.

And so, post office lady in Maspeth, Queens, that is why I should, in fact have things delivered to my work. But now I see that even that is not a foolproof plan. Congratulations to you and all your USPS cohorts! You've prevented me from getting a package yet again! Well played.

EW and Captain Planet's Righteous Indignation

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:08:43 GMT

Entertainment Weekly sent me a letter pointing out that if I renew my subscription TODAY, I'll save trees by reducing renewal notices.

They're trying to convince me that sending them money is the morally right thing to do for the environment, and that if I don't send them money right away, I'll be responsible for their killing of countless hapless trees to print their annoying notices! What the heck is that?

Hey, Entertainment Weekly: You know what would save trees? If you stopped sending me unsolicited renewal notices and offers to subscribe to TIME and Sports Illustrated every two weeks! My subscription doesn't even expire until APRIL OF 2010! Screw you, Entertainment Weekly. Captain Planet would be ashamed of you.

Not cool, not clever

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:11:03 GMT

I know it's no longer considered cool or clever to come up with silly "definitions" for those words you have to type on websites to prove you're a human. But I was just on Craigslist, and I had to type

the Colleens

and my first thought was, "Hey, that's my very favorite 1960s girl group!"

I'm a paleontologist

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:40:30 GMT

I went today to the free ($3 suggested donation) "family-friendly" They Might Be Giants concert at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn. It was a good show... Probably the best I've ever heard them do the song "Clap Your Hands," and I think it was the first time I've heard them do "813 Mile Car Trip," which is the best song from their 123s album.

But man, there were a lot of restless kids there. Most of the kids had no idea who They Might Be Giants were... They were brought there by parents looking for a cheap way to get out of the house for the afternoon. Sometimes I think I'd like to have kids someday... I'd like to read them bedtime stories, and watch them delighting in things like learning to tie their shoes. But witnessing those kids at the concert today, I was reminded that taking care of kids must be exhausting.

In a show of spectacularly bad planning, the concert was announced as starting at 4 PM, but things didn't get going until at least 4:20. Then they had about ten minutes of announcements about the sponsors of the concert series, and then a full-body puppet character named Zozo came out to talk to the kids which was actually pretty cool, and then a lady from the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation came out and talked about how they were passing around a petition for a Keats postage stamp and how very important their efforts are.

Guess what? Five-year-old children DO NOT CARE about petitions or postage stamps. The girl sitting in front of me was whining about everything as her attention span evaporated... I thought about moving, but eventually it became a hilarious entertainment to see what she would complain about next. How do parents even stand that? Do the cute moments really outweigh those incredibly annoying moments? Maybe if I had kids I would suddenly understand, but as it is I'm amazed at parents' ability to tolerate fussy kids. They're just... completely unreasonable.

And THEN a lady from WFUV came out and read two (two!) Ezra Jack Keats books, and she tried showing the illustrations, which really, really, really doesn't work when you have an amphitheater full of people, with some audience members out on the lawn and beyond.

So I question intelligence of the Celebrate Brooklyn planners, and I marvel at the saintliness of parents, but most of all I'm glad it didn't rain during the concert.

Title plus title plus title

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:17:21 GMT

There's an indie movie that came out this year called The Best Laid Plans. There have been a few film adaptations of John Steinbeck's book Of Mice and Men. I've decided to produce a motion picture called Oft Go Awry, for no other reason than the opportunity of having a triple-feature that would look cool when listed on a marquee.

New on YouTube: Lizzy Lou's Awful Life

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 04:53:00 GMT

I'm the dragon.

Kentucky Fried Words

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:13:16 GMT

This is the exact text of the sign I saw on the cash register at KFC yesterday:

"Sorry we don't have no more wedge. Please replace it by an other side thank you"

I was surprised that they remembered the apostrophe in the word "don't."

Remember-y things about Michael Jackson

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:59:24 GMT

I was thinking maybe I was a few days too late for this post, but the fact is I've had "Man in the Mirror" stuck in my head since Thursday, so what the heck.

-When I was about five years old, I tagged along on a church youth group trip that my dad was chaperoning. I distinctly remember one of the teenagers had a tape recorder, and she instructed me to say, "Michael Jackson is the greatest singer in the world" so she could record it. I'm not entirely sure why.

-In our elementary school days, my friends and I would usually say Michael Jackson was our favorite singer, even though we had probably only heard two or three of his songs. But when I read in a magazine article that he had working replica of a "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" car AT HIS HOUSE, I was really jealous.

-One time a guy at school said he knew Michael Jackson was gay, because he had seen him "kissing a guy on TV."

-When I was around 11, my friend Daniel and I tried to write a parody of "Heal the World" called "Eat the World." We were not exactly a couple of Weird Al Yankovics... All I remember is "Eat the world/Give it a better taste/For you and for me, add some custard paste." Custard paste? Is that even a real thing?

-I think I may have seen the world premiere of the "You Rock My World" video from the "Invincible" album in 2001, with its Chris Tucker and its random, pointless Marlon Brando cameo. At the time, I seriously believed that it would lead to a huge comeback, but that didn't pan out.

-When I lived off-campus during college, I went through a cable news phase (I've since been cured). One evening I took a nap, and I set my TV's alarm mode to turn itself on to CNN at exactly 6:00 or whatever... When it came on, I was startled to see a breaking news story about police surrounding some guy's home and raiding it, as the anchor breathlessly spoke about allegations and search warrants. I was thinking, "Wow, who is this dangerous, notorious criminal? Did they track down a serial killer, and now they're searching his house for bodies of his victims?" And then it was Michael Jackson, and it was that second lawsuit, and I just thought, Man, the news is REALLY DRAMATIC.

-I happened to be walking through Times Square on the night Jackson's death was announced. There were crowds gathering around the huge TV screen to watch the news, people crying... and one drunk lady who was either mourning him or making fun of him. She was saying things like "This is not a THRILLER! BILLIE JEAN has left the building! We miss you, Michael -- You didn't have to BEAT IT!" People are weird. But then, Michael Jackson was pretty weird himself.

WGR in NYC

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:19:47 GMT

So, my dad was here visiting from last Tuesday night to this Tuesday morning. We did a lot of stuff.

We went to three Broadway shows -- 9 to 5 (pleasant), The 39 Steps (terrific), and In the Heights (I had seen it once before, and once again it was very entertaining) -- and one Off-Broadway show, Coraline (Pretty good for a tiny, low-tech production).

We went to the South Street Seaport, Madison Square Park, the New York Public Library (where we saw exhibits about the Nazi occupation of France and the Stonewall riots), and Grand Central Terminal.

We went to church at Riverside Church, where it was Pride Sunday. We went to Coney Island, where we walked the boardwalk, glanced at the beach, rode the Wonder Wheel, and saw the Ringling Brothers circus.

We got caught in an amazing, sudden but brief downpour at Times Square.

And we ate. We ate at local pizza places, the original Nathan's Famous, the Shake Shack, Tom's Restaurant (as seen on Seinfeld), and... Burger King! And I made lasagna and cinnamon rolls.

It was fun. It was the first time Dad has visited me in all the time I've lived here, and I hope he doesn't take another 2 1/2 years for his next visit. And now my mom and my sister are talking about making a visit here in July! Woo-hoo!

CAPTAIN GOOGLE!!!

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:18:13 GMT

The latest from AppleJuiceDance. This may be the silliest video we've ever made.

Gators

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:50:59 GMT

I used to think that leather was made from the skin of alligators, rather than cows. I held this misconception until probably sometime in my teens. Where in the world did I get that idea?

Teenage Ryan's Star Wars spoof on YouTube

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 00:19:08 GMT

This is from approximately 1996... I'm probably about 15. It's pretty bad. Co-stars include my brother Jason, my sister Erin, and my friend Molly.

Does time heal all wounds?

Tue, 26 May 2009 16:42:40 GMT

Perhaps it does. But that doesn't mean there won't be some scar tissue left over.

(I wonder if I'm the first to make that profound, poetic observation. Probably not.)

A true story from Kingsland, Texas

Tue, 12 May 2009 02:15:56 GMT

Think about this: What's the scariest, most surprising thing that could happen while you're brushing your teeth?

Well, here's what happened while I was brushing my teeth this morning in the upstairs bathroom at my parents' house. I was standing brushing up and down and side to side, when I saw something moving in the overflow drain at the top of the sink. I could tell immediately, that it was a part of a living thing, and it soon revealed the rest of itself: It was a scorpion!

I shouted, "Ho-O-O-O-LY CRAP!" just like that, as the scorpion emerged from the drain and started moseying around the sink. Now, I know all animals are God's creatures, and we share the Earth with them and blah blah blah, but a scorpion in the sink while I'm brushing my teeth is evil and malicious and horrible and deserves to die.

So I splashed water on it until it fell down the drain at the bottom of the sink, and then I ran the water at full blast for a full minute. I think that took care of it.

Don't mess with me, scorpions.

Celebrity on the subway!

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:19:46 GMT

On Saturday night I went to the Minerva company party at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. It was awesome. But just as awesome: Guess who I was sharing a subway train with on the way there?

SPIDER-MAN!

A guy in a Spider-Man costume got on the L train at Bedford Avenue, then Spider-Man and I both transferred to the R train uptown, and we both got off at Times Square. On the train, he received a few second glances, but mostly people just ignored him. "Huh. Guy dressed as Spider-Man. Okay. Back to Sudoku." But once he got above ground, he was immediately surrounded by tourists and people taking his picture. I suppose that's how you tell the difference between real New Yorkers and out-of-towners.

At one street corner, a very large man got right up in his face (right up in his mask?) and said, "Yo, Spider-Man, I got a beef with you. I seen you in those movies -- you make it look so easy."

Spider-Man chuckled nervously and said, "Yeah?"

The very large man said, "So let's see you shoot a web!"

Spider-Man said, "Not right now! There's no supervillains around!"

Then the very large man said something like, "Yeah? Well, maybe you want to see me shoot what I got!" Fortunately, that's when the "walk" sign lit up, and Spider-Man crossed the street, leaving the guy on the corner.

Being Spider-Man is dangerous!

Major league potty

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:14:24 GMT

I went to a Mets game tonight, and using the restroom at Citi Field brought to mind an odd old memory of a previous trip to a baseball stadium.

I'm pretty sure that the first time I ever used a public men's room by myself was at a Texas Rangers baseball game. I would have been about five years old, I guess... It was during one summer when I was staying with my aunt in Dallas for a week, and she took me to what was also undoubtedly my first professional baseball game.

I guess said aunt didn't know that it's okay to take a five-year-old boy into a women's restroom, so I had to brave the men's room alone while she waited outside, and I was pretty terrified. Here I was, a tiny guy, surrounded by all these giant men. Sports fans, no less. Too short to reach a urinal, I locked myself in a stall, where I felt momentarily safe. I specifically remember one of them saying, "Don't fall in, kid!" He thought it was hilarious, I'm sure, but to me it was a horrifying threat of a very real possibility.

And to this day, I'm afraid of toilets. Well, that's not true at all, but how else am I supposed to conclude such a random and pointless anecdote?

Happy media

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:06:54 GMT

I just ordered my ticket for the This American Life Live event which will be beamed to movie theaters across the country on April 23rd, and it occurred to me: I'm going to a movie theater to see a live stage version of a radio show show (which is also a TV show), which I usually listen to via internet podcast.

What a strange world we live in.

Stupid

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:02:04 GMT

Man, sports sure are stupid.

I just decided that I would watch David Letterman's show for the first time in months, so I went in the living room, and turned on the TV, and changed the channel to CBS... and college basketball was on. At 11:30 PM. And the game was in the second quarter, and it will be followed by half an hour of local news, and THEN Letterman. But I'm going to stay up that late.

Can't they relegate these things to the cable sports channels? Sports are stupid.

Post-concert thought

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 17:58:57 GMT

As I mentioned in last night's post, I went to a They Might Be Giants concert on Saturday night, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

There's something thing I've been thinking about since then, and it's the same thought I had the last time I went to a big TMBG show, last year at the Beacon Theater. This is my favorite band, ever, in the world, on this Earth. I love them more than I've loved any other musical artist, and probably more than I ever will love any other artist. I'm so grateful I've gotten to see them live so many times, but at the same time, it seems a little sad to know that I'll never discover another band I'll like as much... I'll never find another band whose whole catalog I know so well, and whose every new project I anticpate so giddily.

I mean, I don't actually feel sad about it. But it's true.

Happy Me-day

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 04:04:02 GMT

I had an excellent birthday weekend.

Friday was my actual birthday... I went with everyone else from work to a fitness club for which we installed the entire AV system. My job was to order equipment, so it was like a trip down memory lane for me. ("Ah, yes... That's the 42" Sharp Aquos I ordered for $20 less on CDW than it was at Dale Pro Audio.... Good times.") My boss bought lunch for everyone at a local sports-themed restaurant, where I had the "Kournikova burger," which was a very sexy burger, though not particularly good at tennis.

When we got back to the office, the bookkeeper had a chocolate eclair cake waiting for me. Score! It occurred to me that this time last year, I was working at a temp job, and nobody knew it was my birthday. It makes such a huge difference when everyone at work wishes you a happy day.

On Saturday, I went to FAO Schwarz's Muppet Whatnot Workshop with Tough Pigs friends to use the gift card I got for Christmas. After some careful deliberating, I ended up with a Whatnot that I'm pretty pleased with. He has a yellow nose.

From FAO we went to Hill Country Barbecue, which is modeled after a barbecue joint in Lockhart, Texas. I had some delicious brisket, some awesome homemade-style macaroni and cheese, and some flavorful beans. And my friends paid! Score again! And guess who else was eating there? That's right: Saved by the Bell's Mr. Belding, Dennis Haskins. I watched him eat a salad!

Then I went with Michal to a They Might Be Giants concert, where they played all the way through their platinum album Flood in sequence. That's the album that got me into them in the first place, so that was pretty fantastic. They did the best version of "Istanbul" I've seen them do.

And today, on a whim, I went to a double feature at the Film Forum: Footlight Parade and Gold Diggers of 1933, playing as part of a series of Great Depression-era films. Both are musicals choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with his trademark ridiculously extravagant musical numbers. A double feature meant two movies for the usual price of one movie - score yet again! I now have a crush on 1930s musical star and dancer Ruby Keeler.

So, yeah. Good times on the anniversary of my birth.