Friday, August 31, 2007

I try to stay current on the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the hips and hops. But where in the heck did this High School Musical come from? That was all my campers would talk about a month ago at camp. I felt like a retard because I never even heard of the blasted thing before. To top it off, it's a musical, so all my campers were singing it all day long. All . . . day . . . long. Then just a few weeks ago I heard that High School Musical 2 was premiering. Still, never heard of the first one! My curiosity was truly peeked when I heard what a hugely gigantic foobar this was going to be when it premiered. What was it, like the largest audience ever for a cable TV show? Something like that. I just don't understand the hype. What I do understand is this:
  • Kids are like one ginormous cult. Once the leader gets into something, so will all the rest of the little buggers.
  • TV shows can be addicting. Shoot I'm addicted to The Office and can just about quote every episode.
  • Kids love TV shows about kids. Remember Saved By The Bell? Yeah you do! Only one of the best TV shows ever. And as a plus, there was no singing, and a dude name Screech!
So in the end, I guess I can understand why this High School Musical is so popular. I may not understand the musical aspect of it (mainly because the whole musical thing is just down right weird. I mean honestly, when was the last time you were at a grocery store and burst into song and dance because you couldn't find where they moved to cereal to?) but hey, if kids these days prefer watching that over Sex in the City and Sponge Bob Poopie Pants, then hey, whatever floats their boats. Although just keep the singing down. Especially if you're a 13 year old girl. Honestly I've said this before but screaming is is no way, shape or form singing.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

In one hand we hold our lives as they are now. And in the other we hold a possible future. If we decide to continue living our current lives we can, yet if we dare to unlock the doors of the unknown with the key in our other hand, we can do that as well. But we eventually have to choose one or the other; and once we choose there is no going back. For once we pick the life uncharted, we become strangers in a foreign land and the only hope we have to return, is to become at peace with our new destination. And at that point, our old lives have vanished behind our new selves.

It's a hard choice sometimes. A choice consisting of more that one right answer. Of course the easy choice is to always pick the hand that holds the most happiness. But sometimes the happiness is unknown within the hand that lies the keys. So we drop the keys and opt to continue living our current lives. But sometimes we need to take that step of faith. We need to be curious and find out what Life potentially has in store for us. In the end, can we truly be happy with a hand that holds certainty, contingency, and apathy? There are times in our lives when I think we can, yes. But there are also times when we need to venture out of our comfort zones and into the shadows of ambivalence. And guaranteed, down that road lies turmoil, emotion, hesitation, zeal, fear and utter confusion and discontentment. But ultimately is that not what makes our lives real? Is that not what makes our lives worth living?

What hand will you pick? What hand will I pick??

Monday, August 20, 2007

It was the best baseball game ever!! Saturday evening I went out to see the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Philadelphia Phillies at PNC Park. First of all, let me start by saying that if you haven't been to PNC Park in Pittsburgh, PA you should really get out there. It is probably one of the nicest major league ball parks in the MLB. It's also one of the smallest so you won't feel overwhelmed. Now I usually go to at least one Pirates game a year at PNC. And it has been about 10 years since I've been to a game where the Buccos actually won. So I've gotten into the habit of not really expecting much. Especially this game since the Phils are about 1.5 games behind the leader in their division. Now The Brother-In-Law was one of the people that went to the game with me and he's a bigPhillies fan. I don't hold that against him though. He's still a good guy. I knew there would be a fair amount of Phillies fans there at the game though. There are always a decent amount of non-Pirates fans at Pirates game. Good luck finding a non-Steelers at a Steelers football game, but not the case for Pittsburgh baseball. In fact one time I went to a St. Louis-Pittsburgh game and there was more red in the stadium than black and gold.Anywho, we all got our food and made it to our seats just a few batters into the game. With two outs down, the Phillies just started cranking shot after shot into the outfield. Suddenly it was 4-0 in the top of the 1st and the crowd was going crazy! Why were they going crazy? Because like The Brother-In-Law, they were allPhillies fans! We're sitting in flippin' season ticket seats and there are Phillies fans all around us! I was jacked! I peered to my left to stare down at the other 3 people that had gone with me to the game and told them we were leaving. I wasn't sticking around for a game like that. Of course I was kidding because I'm a sarcastic fellow. Finally a half bucket of chicken wings later the top of the inning was over, and the damage was done. Honestly, when had I ever seen a 0-4 comeback by theBucs ? Never that's when. I had seen them blow a 7-2 lead before to lose the game, but not the other way around. At least not since the early 90s anyway.

Suddenly, in the bottom of the 1st (yes I said 1st) it was hit after hit! Before I knew it, the Pirates had tied the game at 4 and wentthru their entire lineup in just one inning. I was standing, I was cheering, I was doing the pelvic thrust in The Brother-In-Law's face. Okay, so I wasn't quite doing that, but I was terrifically impressed as suddenly the Pirates fans came to life in a presentation rarely seen atPNC Park, even during bobble head night. Even more rare was the sellout crowd there that day. I have never ever been to a sellout crowd since the park was built years ago and the stadium only seats about 38,500 people. Try fitting Cubs fans into a stadium that size. Yeah, ain't gonna happen.

The events that followed can only be described as shear miraculous and joyous. After another two runs by the Phillies in a later inning, the Bucs responded with another 7 runs. On top of that, 2 strike outs were dealt to the 2006 home derby winner, Ryan Howard. Whatever Maholm ate after the second inning worked like talking marriage on a date. The Pirates pitcher effectively shut down the Phillies offense for the rest of the game. Come the 9th inning, the game was over; Pirates win 11-6.

The icing on the cake came after the game because in the mists of the shouting and excitement during the game, we discovered that there was going to be fireworks after the game. Not because the Pirates won a game (although that right there was worth fireworks), but because that was what was on the schedule. So while the grounds crew was hauling out gear at the end of the game we learned that not only were there fireworks, but there was also a freakin' concert! Insert here the Poverty Neck Hillbillies. Never heard of them an ounce before in my life. But buddy could they rock the country socks off a dead canine! And after every song, a gigantically large fireworks show. It was like a grand finale ever 5 minutes. Crap we even left because we thought it was over, but oh no. As we were leaving the stadium, KAA BOOOOM!! Another round of fireworks. Flippin' awesome! Flippin' awesome. Like I said, "Best baseball game ever!!"

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Wondering what the weather is going to be like tomorrow? Well fear not my little paranoid meteorological psychopath. I've got that forecast for you right here, right now. Mostly sunny with a 30% chance of thunderstorms. BAM!! Wondering how I knew that? Oh it's simple my friends. That has been the weather forecast every day for last month and a half! Every flippin' day! And does it actually ever storm? No! Well, okay, maybe 30% of the time. But honestly why even bother to tell me the day-by-day forecast? Why not just give me a monthly forecast instead?

For the month of August, the days will be mostly sunny with 30% of those days having thunderstorms.

Done. No more attempts at weather needed. I mean being a weather person in PA right now has got to be about as easy as it comes. Except of course for the weather people in San Diego, CA. Honestly how can that even be a real job? All you need to do is have some dope stand in front of a blank map of California and say, "The weather today; 70 degrees and nice." I guarantee no matter who they are they'll get the weather correct way more than 30% of the time.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Love it, or hate it? That's the name of this game. Care to read on? Yeah you do.

HDTV - Love it! Even after months and months of viewing the same movies over and over, HDTV never gets tired, ugly, or old! Shoot I even watched In Her Shoes just because it was in HD.

Sirius Radio - Love it! My only complaint: when driving thru a wooded road in the summer, I lose the signal a lot. That and I also wish the music was less compressed. But hey, those are two small things a universe of greatness!

The Singing Bee - Hate it! The show has such great potential, but fails because it contains about 4 seconds worth of pure thought. The set looks like it took about 2 hours to put together and the way they chose contestants is just plain ridiculous. Good idea, bad planning. And honestly, can Mr. Backstreet be any more fake as a host?

The Weather - Hate it! It's hot, humid, and just down right miserable. If you're trying to get me to move south, you better come up with more of a conversation starter than, "Wow it's really hot here!" I'll take the mountains any day.

Guitar Hero - Love it! I haven't tried Rockin' the 80's yet mainly because the set list didn't look that great to me, but even after a month of playing Hard and still not being able to get thru all the songs, I'm still rockin' it like your parent's honeymoon night.

Lindsay Lohan's Arrest - Hate it! What truly baffles me is why Lindsay Lohan continues to drink her life away out in California when she could do the same here, with less consequences and be with me. It's just one of those things that will never make sense to me.

Campbell Brown's Move to CNN - Hate it! NBC really screwed up when they failed to make her the co-anchor on the weekday Today show. She's 10 times the news lady Katie Couric ever was and 10 times what Meredith Vieria ever will be. I wouldn't re-sign if I were her either. The up side here is that CNN may be giving Campbell her own show. Could this potentially be what gets me to watch CNN? The magic 8 ball says, "You know it bi-atch."

Possible X-Files 2 Movie - Love it! Come on now. Scully and Mulder back again on the big screen? What isn't to love there? So maybe it wouldn't be about The Conspiracy, but frankly I've been waiting for this since that last movie came out in 1998. I can't get enough of that show. Thank goodness it comes on everyday at 5PM. The only thing that could possibly be better is a Stargate 2 movie. But it would have to star Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter and MacGyver or else it's not really worth watching.

Monday, August 06, 2007

So I was getting all excited a few months ago because the spam in my email inbox had all but disappeared. Ironically it seemed to coincide with the arrest of Robert 'King of Spam' Soloway just a few months ago. But now, my spam count is back up, and climbing like a tape worm gasping for air. The biggest culprit of the spam? A phisher! Someone apparently thinks they are just too cleaver. Well guess what, they are not, and it will never be Jimmy Season.

For those of you who don't know what phishing is, it's when someone sends you an email asking for information or luring you to a website, pretending to be a legit company. My current phishermen love to pretend they are from an online greeting company.

So far I have received emails from 123greeting.com, greetingCard.org, VintagePostcards.com, 2000greetings.com, freewebcards.com and Greeting-Cards.com. Sadly the subjects are all quite lame. "You received an ecard from a Neighbor," "You received a postcard from a Class mate," "You received an ecard from a Mate," "from a Family member," "from a Partner," "a School friend." Wow! Clever clever! This has got to be the equivalent of dangling a rubber ball in front of a fish. Entertaining, a little. Luring? Definitely not. Highly annoying? Absolutely!