Damn You J.J. Abrams

So if you know me at all, you know that I'm a huge fan of the show LOST. Well the creator of that show, J.J. Abrams debuted a new show tonight on Fox, Fringe. Overall I think it'll be added to the weekly line up. It was a little slow in the middle (it really should have been an hour instead of an hour and a half), but it picked back up and I think that the plot has promise. I wasn't a fan of the X-files (which Fringe has been compared to), but this seems to not take itself as seriously. Plus, anything with Charlie Conway will most likely be watched by me...

Anyone else watch it? Thoughts?

Ouch

So the Tom Brady injury really sucks, I know (especially for all those fantasy owners out there who had him), but did he die or just get hurt? The way people are talking, you'd think he was just hit by a bus or something. "I loved playing with Tom, there's no bigger competitor" on and on and on. He'll be back next year guys, lighten up a little...

You know what annoys me? Fast food ads. The food NEVER looks as good when you buy it as it does it the commercial. The Big Mac looks amazing on tv. All those fresh vegetables, the big sesame seed bun sitting four inches high. In real life... you could slide the thing under a door it's so thin. The Subway commercials make those subs look scrum-didily-umpcious. But in person? Big bun, minimal amounts of meat and brown lettuce.. no thanks. That's how Jared got so thin. The sandwiches grossed him out so he just stopped eating...

Anyone else notice how much Sarah Palin looks like the stripping teacher in the Dawson football movie? I mentioned this the other day to my lovely wife, but she had no idea who I was talking about, as usual...

Greg Oden may be seven feet tall and 100 times the basketball player that I am, but at least I can sing better... slightly...

Miss Me?

So it was a really busy weekend and the days leading up to it, as I was in Boston for work for a couple of days, then we stayed in Boston for the weekend for my grandparents 60th anniversary party. Yes you read that right, 60 years together. Amazing isn't it. Ten kids.. 60 years. I've been married just about four years now and sixty just seems like an entire lifetime or two away. But I really couldn't picture life without Gramma and Papa in it to be honest. Sunday dinner at their house (that's probably what I miss most while in Maine), catching up on the latest family gossip and more importantly getting a free meal out of it :) So congratulations Gramma and Papa! Here's to sixty more years!

While in Boston, we also went to the dreaded store, Ikea. Although for the first time, it really benefited me. We bought a desk and four new bookshelves for my office. Sadly that meant that my ugly arse bookcases that I built are getting reconfigured and moved to a different room. The office looks fantastic, I really have an eye for where to put everything, it's a gift. We'll have some more pictures later this week after we move our bedroom back down from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor. The room is half painted, so it just needs to be finished and the carpet cleaned.

Also, on the exciting news front, the adoption agency has received all but one of the documents needed (and they'll get that one this week) which means we're one giant step closer to our future baby. Future baby, that's what we call it as it's not officially "ours" yet so we don't want to use that term. And since it is a future baby, I think it'll arrive in a flying car while wearing a silver shinny jumpsuit, just like people in the future will someday. So next we'll meet with an agency social worker, who will then certify that we're not crazy and will be good parents. You biological kids people really don't know how easy you have it haha..

You know, I watch Keith Olberman on a fairly regular basis, but he's starting to bug me. I'm an Obama guy, but you'd think the guy was part god the way they talk about him on Countdown (olberman's show). Is there a place to get unbiased reporting anymore? MSNBC - liberal. FOXNews - conservative. Everyone seems to have an agenda, that's just the way it works now I guess. Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of what he says and I think he's a funny guy, but sometimes it's a little too much...

Disappointment

• So back in the day, I'll admit it, I was a 90210 fan. In fact, back in high school some friends and I did a 90210 parody video for French class, in french (it was an amazing piece of cinematography I swear). Anyway, so the wife and I figured we'd give the new version a try... yeah, so far not so impressed. Sex, drugs, bitchiness, cliques.. it's nothing like the old original. It's like a normal show about normal kids is impossible to make now. Back in the day, the episodes were just about about normal high school stuff with the occasional "very special" episode thrown in. Now, every episode is a "very special" episode, only because that's all they deal with. Ten minutes into the show, we got to see a character getting some special time in the car before school, another buys a bunch of pills, the main female lead obviously hasn't eaten in years (for the love of god girl, go get a BigMac), and they introduce the bitchy mean girl who everyone wants to be.. huh? Yeah, I grew up in a nice town where everyone mostly got along, but not in a bubble or under a rock. No one was getting happy time before school. There were no extreme cliques, with all the guys dying to be an athlete and all the girls begging to be popular. And in the old 90210 the parents were just part of the background, here the show is about them as much as its about the kids. Not to mention the fact that they've introduced so many new characters I've lost count. Ok so far.. drugs (along with being in debt to the drug dealer which is never good), sex, relationship abuse(girl slapping guy), lots of underage drinking, adoption, a fight involving the new kid, the party of the year, cheating in school, a kid with a private jet, porn("her father is the district attorney!" if you watched the 2003 baseball playoffs you'd get that line), movie audition, school prank, a car accident, and an old flame coming between the parents. Did I miss anything? Back in the day, that would cover two seasons, now it's just the premier episode. Do I give it another shot? Do I not bother anymore? Before dvr's this question had an easy answer. House is on opposite it, so House would win. Now with two drv's in the house we can record pretty much everything and just watch it later. This show just makes me feel old...
• For all of you fellow lactose intolerant folks out there, I made a new discovery. Soy ice cream sandwiches. Not quite as good as real ice cream sandwiches of course, but for those of us that can't partake in the cream part of ice cream, they'll do...
• So this morning before work, I'm watching Sportscenter and I hit the "guide" button on the remote... low and behold, but what's on? Side Out! Only the best 80's movie made in the 90's about beach volleyball! Yeah, it's actually not very good at all, but it's so bad it's good. I almost went to work late, but decided against it...
• With all this talk lately about the V.P. search and choice and all that I got to thinking. When else does the word "vetted" get used this much? Is there any other situation or event when you hear it? I can't think of one...
• Why is it that I can't translate my Wii golf dominance to actual golf? I might be the best Wii golfer ever, but I'm less than average on the links.

Book Review

Just finished reading 13 Things That Don't Make Sense. If you're the least bit curious about things that no one, except Mensa scienticians, ever thinks about, then you should read this book. Each chapter is on a different subject, the universe, cold fusion, life, death, free will, etc. and I found each one totally engrossing. It's very well written, as the author speaks in layman's terms, but doesn't dumb it down too much.

The book only took me about two and a half days to fly through, which means it was a good book, but now I have to find another book.

Ohh What A Weekend

I feel like I haven't stopped moving the entire weekend. Aren't' you supposed to relax from time to time during these long weekends? Oy...

So Friday night we didn't do much (see earlier post for the evenings synopsis), Saturday was kind of quiet too. Well if by quiet I mean noise free, then sure, but it sure wasn't quiet otherwise. The dirt we ordered arrived during the week (five yards of it) so it had to be moved from the pile in the driveway to the new planter that I built. 64 wheelbarrow loads (at 14 shovels of dirt a piece) later, the planter was filled. It's two days later, and I'm finally regaining the feeling in my arms...
Again, you can't really see much here, so you'll have to just trust me, its pretty darn impressive. Next spring there will be all sorts of veggies there and we're even talking about constructing some sort of green house so we can start the seeds earlier...

While I spent the day doing that stuff, my lovely wife was laboriously working (is that repetitive? laboriously workin?) towards finishing up our bedroom walls. Hopefully by this time next week, they'll be all primed and painted and we'll be able to move back into that room..

Sunday, we went to the Blue Hill Fair! My aunt and uncle couldn't go due to a sick horse, so the wife and I went with my two cousins. Gotta say, I'm a huge fan of fairs. Well, mostly just a huge fan of the food at fairs. Hot dogs, onion rings, fresh donuts and funnel cake were on the menu for me. I was going to buy a fresh blueberry pie and take it home, but due to my food coma, I forgot. Besides the food, there's also a lot of rides (which we didn't go near) and a lot of animals. See these pigs...
Or these ones? (the pig races are my favorite part of the fair)
When they're born, they're only a pound and a half, at three months they're 200 lbs and assuming they live long enough (by not ending up in our bellies, which most do) they can get up to...

1100 pounds! Can you believe how big that is?!?!? Assuming all your guests ate half a pound each, that's enough pork/bacon/ham for 2200 people! Mmmmm bacon...

While at the fair, we also saw some... minny horses...
Actually, they're not miniature, everyone else is just a giant!

They also had llamas.. two "L"s, not one...

The world's worst shoes (according to my judgemental wife at least)..

And the most unfortunate placing of a sign and animal..

Well after a couple of hours at the fair, we headed home for an uneventful night. So we thought. The wife and I went out to do some errands, I needed a new basketball, she just wanted to go to Target. Well on the way home, as we're driving down the main road home I see a car pulled over in an empty parking lot with three girls on cell phones standing by it. The wife and I thought that they had a flat tire, and we both agreed we'd feel waaay too guilty if we just kept driving, so we turned around to see if they needed a hand. Turns out we were right and it was a flat tire. And these three girls were clueless (well one of them thought she knew what she was doing, but she really didn't. And she wouldn't get out of my way and let me change the tire, she kept grabbing the tools and trying to do everything herself even though she wasn't strong enough to budge the lug nuts), so I did it for them while the wife joked around with them. It's funny, if I pull up alone to help, I'm a creepy guy helping out three college girls, but since the wife was with me, it totally took away all the creepiness. At least hopefully it did. The last thing I need is for these girls to be telling the story to their friends and they describe us as the fun, talkative girl and her creepy husband. After we got the tire changed, I'm lowering the car back down and all of a sudden the spring in the jack snapped off and the car crashed to the ground. Thankfully it was only 3 or 4 inches off the ground, but still it scared the bejesus out of us.

Today, I spent the day turning pieces of my uncles old horse pen fence into a compost box. I took the seven feet tall posts and cut them down to five feet, took the sixteen feet long boards and cut them to four and five foot pieces and built a box. Pretty simple stuff, time consuming though. I would have posted pictures, but I forgot to take them, so I'll have to remember to do that later. Keep in mind though, it's just a box so it's not all that exciting.. The wood that I'm using has decided that it wants to live on in my hands, as I must have pulled 20 splitters out of myself so far. Not fun..

Tonight is also my fantasy football draft, which will most likely take up the entire evening. Starts at 730, but these things usually take hours and hours. The best part of these leagues used to be the draft, we'd all get together at someones house, hang out, drinks some beers and make fun of each others stupid draft picks. Problem is though, getting eight guys together is now impossible, so we have to hold the draft online now. Not as much fun, but I guess that's what happens when you get old...

Post Script: The draft is already over. One hour. That's it. Very disappointing. And to top it off, I hate my team...

Interesting Company

So tonight, the wife and I decided to go get some dinner at one of the local establishments, Christophers. Because it's so nice out, we decided to take the one remaining outdoor table and sit outside and eat. While we were sitting there enjoying our drinks and appetizers waiting for dinner, the woman sitting at the table adjacent to ours struck up a conversation with us. After chatting for a few minutes, our dinner arrived, so since she was dining alone, we invited her to sit with us. At first she gave us the, "no, I wouldn't want to interrupt" line, but we insisted (cuz lets be honest, the wife and i talk to each other enough so its always nice to have someone new to talk to). Turns out, she's from Santa Monica and is in the area for the month with her husband and child visiting his parents. She was dining alone because he was flying into Boston then taking the bus up to Bangor so she had to go pick him up at the bus station after dinner. After two or so hours of very pleasant conversation, she left to pick him up and we headed home.

It's always funny how those random encounters end up making for fun nights. By the time she left, she was showing us pics of her husband and child and all that. It really made for a fun night.