While listening to an online seminar about .NET application deployment and sipping water from my Fuck Off mug, I was doing a little searching for Mad Hatter hats.

Now, I'm particular about exactly what color, etc., a Mad Hatter hat should be if it wants to rest atop my hallowed head. It must be green with a dark green band. It must look absolutely identical to the Mad Hatter's hat in the Walt Disney version of Alice in Wonderland. Not "American McGee's" Alice. Not some psychedelic wannabe Alice. Walt Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland. Accept no substitutes.

I can't find any that fit the description.

I know I saw them when I was at Disneyland umpteen years ago. They were there, and they were perfect. I just can't find them now.

I found many, many sites selling these psychedelic pot smoker druggie hats that are generally shaped like the Mad Hatter's hat, but none of them actually is the One True Hat.

I did see one on auction at eBay, but it's already sold and I don't even know if it'd fit me.

I looked for a pattern online (could the McCall's site be any slower?), but no luck.

I did find this costume from BadPlanet.com that is under the "Officially Licensed Disney" section, but... "one size fits most" sort of rules it out for tall, long-armed folks. $49 isn't a bad price, though. (They also have an Alice costume, by the way. Did I not tell you Alice is a hottie?) I'm not big on the satin thing, but it's an option. (BadPlanet also has a "spicy women" section in their "Adult Costumes" category. Well worth a look.)

What that amounts to is that it may be easier (and cheaper) to go ninja than it will be to go Mad Hatter for Halloween. Somewhat disappointing, but not surprising.

Something I forgot to mention earlier: The Alias premiere was last night and it rocked. I can only hope they keep up the good work.

Plus, it doesn't hurt that Jennifer Garner is hot.

First things first: Kristy Swanson is in this month's Playboy, and she is so fine. I've always had a thing for her, so this day has been a long time coming.

Now that's out of the way...

I did a little woodworking this weekend. I am making a frame to put my latest art project in. It has to be deep, almost like a shadow box, and 8.5" by 11", so after looking around, I figured it would be better to just make the stupid thing than it would be to try to find one that size or have one made.

Basically, what I've got going on is that I've scanned this piece of Mucha art, took it into Photoshop, separated it out into layers, and printed the whole thing out on transparencies. Then I took the transparencies, mounted them 0.5" apart (there are three transparencies, for a total of 1" of depth - one sheet on the bottom, one sheet 0.5" above that, and one sheet 0.5" above that), and got glass and backing board to finish it off with. All told, I need about 1.5" of depth to work with.

Anyway, I routed out these poplar boards that I bought at Home Depot to make the frame proper, then took them over to my parents' house to cut the 45° angles on my dad's table saw.

I am not a carpenter by any means. I can do little stuff - like with a Dremel tool - but I can't make, like, furniture or anything. Not that I don't think I ever could, I just don't have any experience.

That said, I got my dad to come out and show me how the saw works, and maybe do the cuts so that next time I'd know how to do it myself. There were only eight cuts to make, so I figured it'd take us like 20 minutes tops to cut all that out.

I forgot how perfectionistic my dad is.

It took us probably a good two hours to get those cuts made. The big problem was that the wood I bought wasn't perfectly square (I paid like $3 a pop for it; I didn't expect precision furniture-quality), and even though I told him so, I think it bugged him that the final cuts didn't fit precisely together like a machined product. It's good enough for me, but he puzzled over that forever, trying to make it square.

Don't get me wrong - I totally appreciate what he was doing, and had I purchased better wood, it would have come out squared up and perfect down to the nanometer. But I bought shitty wood, so it didn't. Anyway, it was entertaining to watch, if maybe just a tiny bit frustrating.

Jenn and I went to the Winter Hawks games on Friday and Saturday nights. Friday night we lost to Kelowna 2 to 1, but Saturday we wasted Vancouver 4 to 1. I was slightly disappointed by Friday's game, except one of our players, Matt Fetzner, got into this terrific fight and totally just drilled this Kelowna guy in the face. No great fights on Saturday, but I was proud of our goalie, Lanny Ramage, who seemed to be off his game most of last season. Hopefully he can return to his previous glory this season.

During the game on Saturday night, I thought of a cool idea. (Yes, another idea like my Venetian Blinds Idea from a while back.) You know how you watch a hockey game on TV and they put a little light or something on the puck so it's sort of outlined against the background and you can see it better? Okay, hold that thought for a sec.

Now, you know how they have access cards to get into buildings where you just sort of move the card in front of the sensor and it reads the card? Right.

Well, you put whatever is in those cards inside the puck and you put sensors under the ice. When the puck slides around on the ice, have whatever sensors detect the puck light up and it should simulate the "light" on the puck that you see on TV. Take it a step further and you could do that with the blades on the skates, too, to have a disco-style effect. Throw in some black lights or whatever and you've got a much more entertaining environment in which to skate.

Taking that back a notch, back to the original puck-light idea... I think that could work. It might not be allowed in regulation play, but for beginners or for recreational games, it would be great.

I'm going to a costume party at my friends Jason and Tracy's house for Halloween, but that means I have to come up with a costume. Jenn is thinking of going as Alice from Alice in Wonderland (hey, Alice is a total hottie), but I'm not sure what I should be. I thought maybe I could be The Mad Hatter, but I'd need to find the hat and a suit like that. I also thought I might be a ninja, since I've actually always wanted a ninja costume, but then I wouldn't match Jenn. I'm still thinking about it.

The American Idol Greatest Moments CD comes out tomorrow. For some reason I thought it was next month. Hmmm. Guess I'll be hitting the store for that one in the morning.

A while ago I applied for a volunteer movie reviewer position at YouBored.com. I didn't get it. I've read some of the latest reviews, presumedly from the guy who did get the position, and I can't stand them. It's not that the new guy can't write, it's that he writes reviews from that "greater-than-thou" platform that other movie critics write from, expecting high art and ultimate innovation from any movie they go to see. In fact, it's probably more accurate to say they go see films, not movies. I disagree with nearly every movie critic out there specifically for that reason. I go see movies to be entertained, to have fun, to enjoy myself. If I came out smiling or feeling justified in spending the money to see it, I consider it good.

In fact, I have a sort of different five-star scale by which I rate movies:

• 5 Stars: See it for full price in the theater
• 4 Stars: See it during the matinee price in the theater; it's good, but not worth full price
• 3 Stars: Rent it when it's a new release; it's not good enough for the theater, but you'll want to see it when it's out on video
• 2 Stars: Rent it once it's off "new release" status; you might want to see it, but it's worth closer to $0.99/week than $3.49/day
• 1 Star: Don't bother. Not even worth the rental.

Most movies fit into the 3- or 4-Star range if I bother to see them. But the movies I put into the 5 Star range are never the movies that critics rate highly. Know why? Because I enjoy movies for the entertainment value regardless of whether they have any artistic value to them. Art's good, but hey, sometimes a good formula shoot-em-up is just as fun.

The only critic I really agree with (and less these days than I used to) is The Self-Made Critic. Usually he likes the movies I like and doesn't like the ones I don't like. Lately he's gotten a little more on the high-critic scale than he used to be. I wonder if that comes with having seen so many movies? I dunno; I've seen more movies than the average person, I'm sure, and I still enjoy them for the entertainment value. When I become too art-oriented and stop enjoying them for what they are - entertainment - someone just come over and shoot me.

And now, for the first time in the 2002-2003 season, Portland...

LET'S...

PLAY...

HAWKEY!

Tonight is the season opener game for Portland Winter Hawks hockey, and I am stoked. I've got my jersey on, I've got the hockey music playing... I'm ready to drive the Zamboni.

It's been a long time coming, and I'm glad to see it here. I just hope that I don't feel as busy as I did last season - it seemed like I spent most of my waking hours at the Memorial Coliseum watching hockey and not, you know, doing anything productive.

Whatever. It's hockey night, and I'm down with that. I hear this new guy we've got, CJ Jackson, is quite the bruiser. 6'3", 242 lbs... Hey, if he can fuck shit up like Eric Bowen did, I'm going to be having a rockin' season. Fast skatin', chuckin' pucks, and blood on the ice. That's what it's all about.

On a side note, I found out what the two $600 charges were for on my medical insurance: The 10 bottles of allergy antigen that got mixed up for my allergy immunization shots. They mix all the bottles up at once and bill you in one chunk rather than mixing the stuff up as you need it. I feel much better now - I couldn't figure out what I did that day that cost me $1200 at the doctor. Now I know.

Call me Attilla, for I am the King of the Huns.

Or something like that.

Yeah, I know I'm just sort of spewing out historical mishmash without regard to what really happened, but let me tell you, when it comes to Dynasty Warriors 3, I am one bad mamma jamma. Don't mess with me, heathens. I will cut you down.

And I've only played like three levels in it.

I called Magnolia Hi-Fi today and it seems my TV has been delayed until the end of this month, so I've gotta call back again next week to find out when it gets there.

I was looking at the insurance statement for some allergy doctor appointments I had last month. All on one day, I have two charges for $600 each, both marked "Miscellaneous." I'm having a hard time figuring out what I did that day that could possibly have cost $1200. I called the billing department three hours ago and they have yet to call me back. That figures.

I've known it for a while, but I continue to rediscover that I am in a much better mood when I have a gob of caffeine in me. I took some Excedrin Migraine this morning for my headache and I was in a great mood by the time I got to work. Also, if I drink one of those Red Bull or Amp beverages, I'm lovin' life. Maybe I'm just tired all the time and that stuff wakes me up enough to have fun.

I watched the season premiere to Buffy the Vampire Slayer last night, and I have to say I'm glad they're starting to get back to their roots - good humor, good dialogue, good enemies. I hope they can keep it up. If so, we're in for a great season.

I started playing Virtua Fighter 4 last night and discovered it's way more complicated than I thought it would be. I'm used to more button-masher style controls in a fighting game (a la DOA3) so when I started playing VF4 I sort of assumed you could play that way.

Not so.

There are actually very complicated combos that you can execute with the characters in this game. The thing about doing that is that you have to sort of queue up a chain of moves for your character to perform. For example, in DOA3, when I do the sequence "Punch, Kick, Punch" on the controller, the character executes the moves "Punch, Kick, Punch" as I push the buttons. If I try to push "Kick" while the "Punch" is still executing, it ignores the "Kick" command. In VF4, if you push "Punch, Kick, Punch," it acts more like a move queue. If I push "Kick" while the character is punching, that kick command will actually modify the way the current punch is being executed (maybe the character will do some fancy flip or something in that case). If I push four or five buttons in rapid succession, the character will combine several fancy moves and execute a chain of commands that will probably last a couple of seconds after I've finished pressing buttons.

It's interesting, but it's harder than I thought it would be. I suppose that's kind of good; it requires that I expand my abilities as a gamer. But it's not something you can just casually sit down and play with. You have to train on it. Pretty intense.

I found this really cool free DJ software called CD Scratch. It provides two virtual turntables on your screen that you can use to mix and "scratch" on CDs via your computer. Just slip in a CD and away you go. It will let you play two different tracks from the same CD and mix them, or, if you have two CD drives, play two different tracks from two different CDs and mix those. Loads of fun, waiting to happen. And it's free! Who could ask for anything more?

Friday being Fred Meyer employee double-discount day, a few purchases were made:

• Dremel router table
  
• Dremel tile cutting kit
  
• Shanghai Noon on DVD
  
• Toshiba SD-3750 DVD player
  
• Dynasty Warriors 3 for PS2

I got the Dremel attachments so that I can finally finish the Mucha project I've been working on - I need to make a frame for the whole thing to fit in, and the router will do well for that. (The project is that I scanned a piece of Mucha work, separated it out into layers, put each layer on transparency, and I'm putting it all back together again but with about a half-inch space between each layer. That will give the piece some nice dimension while still retaining the original beauty. I saw something similar on our trip to Vegas.)

Shanghai Noon, well... that was just a fun movie, and for 20% off, I couldn't not get it.

The Toshiba DVD player replaces our old Sony player, which I've had for like four or five years now. The Sony is a good player, but I think the sound is starting to go on it because the center channel fades in and out. I did a test on my amp, but it works fine, so I have to blame the DVD player. I moved the Sony into our bedroom (where the TV is mono) and put this new progressive-scan Toshiba in its place in the living room. It has all sorts of keen features like picture zoom, dialogue enhancing, and chapter scan, so I couldn't pass it up. For the money, it seemed the best buy available. At least from Freddy's.

Dynasty Warriors 3 is another story entirely.

As previously noted, I was in a dilemma on whether to get Dynasty Warriors 3 or Virtua Fighter 4 from Game Crazy with my store credit. Well, I made the decision to get DW3 so I could play cooperatively with my dad - father and son against the heathen masses, right?

So I went back to Game Crazy and they had already sold their copy of DW3. They didn't have it used or new. Which fucking figures. So then I got all wigged out about it because I had built up my hopes on playing DW3 on Saturday with my dad, so I ended up getting nothing at all.

Friday night, thus, I decided to pick it up from Fred Meyer because there was a special "additional 10% off video games" coupon, so I got the thing new for 30% off, which is what it would have cost me used. (And Dad did come over on Saturday, and we did stomp several hundred asses.)

That actually worked out for the best because Saturday we were in Hollywood Video and I found these coupons for "20% off any used game" and "$2 additional trade-in value on any game" at Game Crazy. Hell, yeah. I went in today, traded in The Adventures of Cookie and Cream for $8 plus the $2 coupon (for a total of $10), and, with the 20% off coupon, I got Virtua Fighter 4 for $4. Not too shabby.

Why did I trade in Cookie and Cream? Poor planning, I think.

The original idea was to find a game that Jenn and I could play together cooperatively rather than fight against each other. Jenn doesn't play PS2 very often, so with my additional practice I usually end up winning - not to be cocky, that's just the truth. I saw Cookie and Cream and thought, "Problem solved! Here's a game where we both have to work together to accomplish a common goal!" That was the idea anyway.

It turns out, there's a pretty strict time limit in Cookie and Cream during which you have to get several semi-complex puzzles solved. When I solve puzzles, I see the answer and just go for it. It's sort of like osmosis - I don't know how I solved the puzzle, I just did. Common sense. For Jenn, she works through it like a math problem and wants to understand all the steps. (At least, that's what I gather.) Which means that while we're running under this time limit, I'm saying, "Hey, go jump over on that button!" And she's more like, "Why do I need to do that?" Of course, if I take the time to explain the rationale behind it, we've run out of time, but if I don't explain it, she won't do what needs to be done.

The Plan: Play a cooperative game where we both work together and have fun together.

The Execution: I try to strangle Jenn with the controller cord while she tries to shove her controller up my ass.

That's why I traded the game in. (Interestingly enough, Jenn asked me this morning, "Are you sure we're not going to play that again?" Yeah, I'm sure. It just makes me hate you. And vice versa.)

In other news, I found a new beverage called Fuze that I'm liking. It's sort of like Snapple, but it has more vitamins and stuff in it that's good for you. Right now I'm drinking the "Grape & Aronia Punch" flavor. It's pretty good, and I'm not usually one for grape stuff. I bought one of each flavor to try them all.

Yesterday started out great but long about 4:00p turned into the $2 sucky-sucky.

I've been getting up early lately since Jenn's gone back to school to become a pharmacy technician and her classes start early. That's not too bad, since getting up 15 minutes earlier means I'm on the road 15 minutes earlier, which, therefore, also means that I beat the bad traffic I normally hit when I leave at my normal time.

Around noon I took off to go to the local Game Crazy to sell back a couple of PS2 controllers. There wasn't anything functionally wrong with them, but the pad that sat on top of the left analog stick wasn't glued down anymore and would spin around while you moved the stick. I can't handle that. It doesn't bug Jenn, but my thumb just seems to slip off if that's the case. So I traded in the two controllers for a total of $18 of store credit. That's a good portion of the cost of a used game, so I started looking at those. I narrowed the decision down to Dynasty Warriors 3 or Virtua Fighter 4. I'm still sort of torn, but I'm thinking I'll go with DW3. I already have Dead or Alive 2 for a fighting game, and while I wouldn't mind picking up VF4, I think I should get something Jenn and I can play cooperatively so there's less of a competition going on. Besides, my dad loves the DW thing, so he'll come over and play.

Then around 4:00p, I decided to try to do some work on an upcoming project - you know, to maybe get a head start. So I opened up Office XP Developer and... it wouldn't open my project file. I know it was a valid project, because I created the framework for it, then closed it. Done. But now it gives this "Store Type Not Valid" message which means pretty much jack squat as far as I'm concerned.

I figured it was maybe a problem with the Office XP Developer program, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled it. No go. So I uninstalled and reinstalled again. Still no go. Noticed that there were some patches available for it, so I patched it. Uh uh. Tried to uninstall again, but this time it wouldn't uninstall. Tried to do the "reinstall/repair" thing, that didn't work either. Decided maybe I could just delete the thing manually then run the repair, so I deleted the files and registry keys for it and ran the repair utility... and it failed.

Something was definitely hosed on my laptop, so now I'm in the process of totally reinstalling Windows and all my apps. Crap.

I did, however, get my records from GEMM, and I'm stoked. I've been listening to PWEI remixes all morning long (on my good computer). Yay, me.

Today is Fred Meyer employee double-discount day. That means Fred Meyer employees (my mom) and their families (me) get 20% off everything in the store but food. I'm going to pick up some attachments for my Dremel tool and a new DVD player since ours is, I believe, heading out the door. (The sound on it is sort of dicey anymore; the center channel fades in and out.)

I still haven't heard from Magnolia Hi-Fi on the television I am planning on purchasing, but hopefully I will soon. I may give them a call today and see if it's in and they just forgot to call me.

Went to my parents' house to watch Survivor last night, and let me say I was a little less than impressed. Maybe the show isn't living up to the hype, or maybe I'm just burned out on it. Either way, I guess I expected a little something more but I didn't quite get it. I don't know exactly what I was hoping for, but whatever it was, it wasn't there. Hopefully it'll get better.

I continue to research large screen televisions. The biggest problem I was having for a while there is that, frankly, I'm a cheapskate. If I don't need it and it costs over, say, $20, I probably won't buy it. So when I started getting jazzed about the possibility of a plasma screen, that excitement carried over into the big screen TVs. We really don't need a new TV, but we've been looking at them for a while, so I've moved over to the "gonna buy a TV" realm, especially after having seen the Sony KV-40XBR700 (last year's version of the TV I'm looking at, the KV-40XBR800).

Now my big issue is: Where do I put it?

My current entertainment center isn't remotely big enough to hold the TV, but it holds the rest of the components well. The TV comes with a stand, but the stand it comes with isn't big enough to hold the components. So I'm going to have to deal with the sales guy and see if he'll throw in a larger stand.

I was talking about this with my friend Mike at work this morning and he was all, "You're one of those people who gets buyer's remorse after making large purchases, aren't you?" Yes, I am. Unless I research it and I'm sure that I'm getting exactly what I want for the price I'm willing to pay. I'm working on doing that research and whatnot so when the sets come in to the shop, I'll be ready.

In the meantime, I'm actually losing a little sleep over how I'm going to make the TV stand thing work. Which, in the scale of things, is the small stuff. I know you're not supposed to sweat the small stuff, but I do. I think it's hereditary; my parents sweat the small stuff, too.

The thing that keeps me on track with this thing, come hell or high water, is the thought that on October 22 I should be receiving a package in the mail containing Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and that bad boy needs to be on a better television than what I have right now. Plus the fact that we watch a lot of movies, and a nicer set is definitely called for.

So.

Aside from that, not much going on. Survivor: Thailand starts Thursday, and while I'm not the hugest Survivor fan out there, Jenn and I have a good time going over and watching it with my parents. My dad gets really into it. We'll be going over there Thursday to hang with them and play the Survivor board game, which I got for my birthday but haven't yet had a chance to play. Then we'll watch the show, followed closely by CSI.

Hey, we're saving money, right? Watching TV at my parents' house is free. Chalk one up for Frugal Trav.

The new Kelly Clarkson single is out: Before Your Love and A Moment Like This, the songs she sang on the last American Idol show. I'm not a big fan of the songs, but I love Kelly, so I picked one up. Besides, Jenn would've killed me if I didn't. I got it fresh out of the shipment box first thing this morning at Fred Meyer.

Now I'm waiting for the techno dance remixes. I guarantee they'll be better than the originals. :)

This weekend was... wow. Too much happened and not enough got done.

Friday night, as mentioned, I went to Jenn's ten-year high school reunion. It was at McMenamins Kennedy School and I'm not sure that was the best place to have it.

For the uninitiated, McMenamins is a local brewery that buys up historic buildings and converts them into brewpubs and/or hotels. They do a dynamite job, too. Kennedy School is an old grade school that now houses rooms you can stay in, a theater, and a restaurant. It's a nice place to visit and hang out, so you'd think that would make it a good place for a reunion. Not so.

They stuck us in the old gym, which wouldn't have been too bad except the lighting was exactly wrong. They needed to either turn it up to be light enough to see by, or turn it down so it would be closer to a school dance. Instead, it was this sort of pseudo-twilight that made it just dark enough to be unable to read name tags but light enough for everyone to watch you squint at them and wonder who they are.

I hung out most of that time with Tony, Jenn's friend Apryl's husband. Tony is the bomb. He told me some stories about his high school reunions in Springfield, OR. Too funny. Anyway, that was the only real redeeming factor. I hope my reunion is not as lame as that, but I'm sure it will be.

I think my expectations were set slightly high. After seeing Romy and Michele's High School Reunion more times than I care to count, I guess I expected things to go down like that. Trust me, that's not what happened. It was just sort of lame. Like a bad high school dance.

So that was Friday night.

Saturday morning Jenn and I were at my parents' house by 7:30a so we could have a garage sale. We went through all of our stuff, combined it with my parents' stuff, and came up with actually quite a decent sized sale. We ran it until around 3:00p. My mom was sort of disappointed with the turnout for it; I guess more people usually show up. We choose to blame it on Oktoberfest - too many people out eating wienerschnitzel and not enough garage saling. Oh well. I came out $41.15 ahead and a lot lighter on the junk, Jenn got $9.00 and didn't get rid of as much junk. My parents did all right with somewhere around $285 of garage sale proceeds. I wonder what it would have been like if we had a better turnout.

Saturday night at 6:00p Jenn and I went to Jenn's grandma's house for dinner in celebration of Jenn's parents' anniversary. We had chicken cordon bleu, twice-baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. It was a very good, quite tasty dinner, but, man, it was heavy. I haven't eaten like that for a while.

Sunday Jenn and I had planned to do the laundry and clean the house - the stuff that didn't get done during the week.

I should never answer the phone.

Jenn's dad called up at like 8:45a and asked if we wanted to go to breakfast. Sure. He said they'd be at our place at 10:00a to pick us up. Cool beans, right?

10:30a they showed up. Four hours later, we were in Issaquah, WA, eating Krispy Kreme donuts.

Now, I love Krispy Kreme as much as the next guy - probably more, actually - but I really didn't plan on being gone all day long in the name of donuts. We got home at 6:00p that night, exhausted, overloaded with sugar, and nothing done.

I should never answer the phone.

So today's Jenn's birthday and she's at home on her day off doing the cleaning that we never got done yesterday. Happy birthday, baby! :)

I did see, while at the Issaquah, WA, Fred Meyer, that they now carry plasma televisions. I've wanted a new TV for a long time, especially one of those, but I haven't gotten around to it, mostly due to price. They're so exorbitantly expensive! But they had a pretty decent deal on a Panasonic 42" one, so I got motivated to research them since this Friday is employee double-discount day and I could potentially get 20% off the already low $5500 price tag.

After researching the sets, though, they don't look like they're all I thought they were cracked up to be. Most are just monitors, which means you have to get a separate tuner box for them. All of them have fans, which it seems, according to the reviews I've read, can be noisy. Not all of them are HDTV compatible, which I feel is a load of shit because if you're going to pay that much for a TV, it'd better be HDTV compatible and maybe even serve you a drink while you're watching the crystal clear picture. Not so.

Thus, I've continued on my quest and discovered the Sony KV-40XBR800 - a 40" beauty that is HDTV compatible. Love it. It's a tube TV, though, so it's not going to be hanging on my wall any time soon, but it's just awesome. I wanna see it in person, and I'm sure I'll be forced to buy it. I'm going to see what Fred Meyer can do for me on THAT set.

Tonight's Jenn's 10-year high school reunion, and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I'm stoked to go. I'm not. I didn't like my high school experience, so I'm not expecting to love hanging out and discussing other peoples' experiences.

There is a redeeming factor, however.

See, Jenn's got this high school friend, Apryl. Apryl's cool and all, but she's not the point here. (Not to belittle Apryl or anything; love her to death and all, but that's not where I'm going here.) The point is, Apryl married this guy, Tony, who is a total kick in the pants. We've hung out with them and I just have the greatest time talking with this guy. I think we just work on the same wavelength or something. He's just really cool and fun.

So I'm doing my best to look at this less as "Jenn's High School Reunion" and more "Trav and Tony Hang-Out Time." Maybe we can ditch and go home and play PS2. Heh.

I found a cool volunteer job that I totally would dig on over at YouBored.com - they are currently in need of a movie reviewer. I think I could fill those shoes, no problem. Hey, you've seen the work right here on this site. No problemo for the old Trav, if you know what I mean. And maybe I could get a little extra traffic in here, too. The only issue is that they want one person to do ALL the movies, and I don't have time to do that. So I'll drop 'em a line and see if they might want a person on the side. Maybe they can split the job into two pieces. Can't hurt to ask.

I'm reading this book Nymphomation by Jeff Noon, and I must say I'm sucked in.

I'm not sure what it is about Noon's writing that gets me. Honestly, the first time I read his stuff, I was irritated that it was so confusing and difficult. He writes in sort of a weird, future dialect. He uses words that aren't really even words... or he'll use words in different contexts, making adjectives into nouns (in the book, a "puny" is a form of currency). It's sort of hard to follow until you really immerse yourself in it and almost start thinking like you're part of the culture he's writing about. Then it somehow just makes sense.

I got sucked in by Vurt, which is a book I think everyone should read because it's just so cool, and then Pollen, the sequel to Vurt. My understanding is that Nymphomation is sort of a prequel to Vurt. I know they've already referred to stuff in Nymphomation that has a certain significance in Vurt, and I'm only about 80 pages in, so I'll have to assume that it is, in fact, a prequel.

I'm thinking the whole Vurt thing would make a good movie, but it would have to be directed by Terry Gilliam. I can't imagine it otherwise. Very British, and very fucked up.

Speaking of Terry Gilliam, I see in his filmography on IMDb that he's making a movie of Good Omens, a favorite book of mine. Hopefully he can do it justice, but, thinking about it, that sort of book seems perfectly fit to him. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Jenn and I are going to have a garage sale at my parents' house this Saturday, so we're going over there tonight to help set things up, price items, and get things ready. Tomorrow night is Jenn's high school reunion, so we have to finish it all tonight. I'm sort of used to the garage sale ritual - I've done it a bazillion times before. Hopefully we can just get rid of some of our stuff we don't want and maybe make some money at the same time. If you're in the area, stop in and buy something.

I was very bad just now.

I'm really not in a position to be buying anything, but after writing up my diatribe on wondering what ever happened to The Shamen and Pop Will Eat Itself, I went searching around and came up with a place called the Global Electronic Music Marketplace. It's sort of like half.com where sellers from all over can unite in one big marketplace, but the beauty of GEMM is that it focuses specifically on the music part of things. I did a couple of cursory searches and found so many things I wanted that I couldn't contain myself. I ended up buying a couple of PWEI CD singles that I've been looking for forever and a couple of 12" vinyl singles for stuff I didn't even know existed but really hoped did. (I'll convert those to CD later.)

Maybe now I should start looking at DJ turntables.

Maybe I should just quit while I'm ahead.

I'm going to start right off and be the overly insensitive asshole that I probably am.

I am beyond tired of hearing about the September 11th attacks.

This in no way implies that I don't respect the efforts of the people involved with the rescue and cleanup, that I don't feel bad for the losses that occurred, or that I don't understand the impact or the magnitude of the event. What it implies is that I'm the kind of person who would rather continue on with life and fight for improvement than continually regress and mourn.

The media today is eating this up. The radio's talking about it, the TV's talking about it, it's in the newspapers, on web sites...

Have you ever said a word so many times, over and over, that eventually the word sounds funny to you and you almost forget what it means? That's September 11 to me. It's lost all meaning in the larger context because I've been so bombarded with it, so beaten with it, that I really just don't give a rat's ass anymore.

So, I'm pissed off. I'm pissed off that no matter where I go, I can't escape it. And just as folks should definitely have the right to mourn their losses, I should have the same right not to have to listen to the whining.

All right, I'm done. For now.

Went to see Stealing Harvard last night on sneak preview. Eh. It was pretty funny. I laughed in parts. It's not as funny as I'd hoped it would be, but it was good. Jason Lee totally carried the movie - Tom Green was sort of funny but ended up just coming off as irritating in many parts. Leslie Mann is hot, so that was an upside, and, of course, Megan Mullally is always entertaining (and hot, even when she plays white trash). In the end, though, I was glad to have gone to see it for free. It's a rental at best in my book.

And another band I'm curious to know what happened to: Pop Will Eat Itself. Loved these guys before, still love 'em. What happened?

The longer I do this whole "blog" thing, the more I realize several things:

1. I can type what I'm thinking faster than I can write it
2. I can write what I'm thinking faster than I can say it
3. I think more clearly in my head than I am able to convey in a verbal fashion, yet
4. I seem to be reasonably able to put down what I'm thinking in a written format

The reason I think this is somewhat important is my ongoing nagging at how much better and more well-rounded this whole blog would be if I had a voice-activated recorder. I'm beginning to think that's almost entirely incorrect for many reasons, the least of which is probably that I would be too damn lazy to actually transcribe the ramblings of the voice on the tape. I am given to this because I've tried lately to use my iPaq PocketPC to record my thoughts while driving, and later when I sit and listen to the recordings I realize not only how stupid I must sound to those of you out there, but also that the complete, coherent thought that I believed I was capturing - once transferred to audio - became utter trash.

Which leads me to believe that my lack of interaction with others on a personal level during my workday is starting to contribute to a sort of verbal atrophy. Eventually my entire vocabulary on an audible basis will consist of base grunts and vast hand gestures, all entirely incomprehensible.

I thought about that yesterday. Continuing that thought process, I started getting sort of philosophical with myself about the destiny of the human race, the end of the world, and the origin of the universe. (Keep in mind the entire thought process lasted only around 30 minutes, or the length of my commute from home to work.) I wonder if all humanity will migrate towards a more visual means of communication (a la the World Wide Web) based on the increased usage of such means of communication in these latter days.

Around the end of my commute, I finally realized that the whole thought process Re: Evolution was most likely spawned by the fact I was listening to the Shamen album, Boss Drum, most of which is sort of a mystical wandering about the metaphysical. On the forefront, the songs themselves sound fairly commercial and pretentious, but if you're not paying attention, it'll suck you in.

Speaking of which, whatever happened to The Shamen? I mean, they had that En-Tact album with the single Move Any Mountain on it, then Boss Drum, then...? They sort of fell out of the spotlight. Looking at their CD listing on Amazon, it looks like they had a couple more albums since then, but what happened?

That sort of reminds me of my other train of thought yesterday. I've started to realize that my world view is just slightly me-centric. Okay, maybe more than slightly, but that's not the point here. The point is, when I'm "into" something, I somehow just assume that thing is popular. When I'm not into it, I assume it's not (or no longer) popular. I guess the question that leads is: Do I get into (and, subsequently out of) something because of its relative popularity level at the time, or do I make these self-centered views and then impose them on the world? I suppose another option there is that I get into and/or out of things on their respective popularity cusps - I get into something I think is cool, and simultaneously several other people get into that same thing and, by proxy, it becomes cool. The same process in reverse for things becoming uncool.

I suppose that's something to ponder on. From a philosophical standpoint, I guess that, pending on the outcome of that thought process, I may find that I, too, am merely a sheep manipulated by the media and its agents. Then again, I may decide that I, myself, am an agent of said media and perform my own manipulations on others. Somehow I think it's probably a good combination of the two.

Topic change: I've got sneak preview tickets for tonight's showing of Stealing Harvard, which looks like a pretty dumb movie, but since it's free I guess I'll go. I hope it's good. I don't feel like Tom Green can carry a movie on his own, though, so I think I'm going to be hard-pressed to like it. Maybe if I go in with reduced expectations I can emerge from the theater pleasantly surprised.

For some reason I'm on a huge Sir Mix-A-Lot kick lately. I've got the Mack Daddy album in my car, bumpin' away. I suppose it could be worse. I could have old NWA cranked.

No, I don't even think I could stand that. Mix-A-Lot's my limit.

I finally got my copy of The Bourne Identity (the 80's TV miniseries) and I watched the first half last night.

I think it's a toss-up between this version and the movie. The movie was much faster-paced and had action like nobody's business, but it wasn't too deep, didn't let you really care about the characters, and didn't remotely hold true to the book. The miniseries, so far, has been way more faithful to the book and has given me time to get to know the characters. I like that. The problem I'm seeing is that stuff isn't explained too well. It's sort of glossed over quickly and assumed that you picked it up, or they make subtle points that are actually very important to the plot but almost impossible to catch... almost like you have to have read the book prior to watching the movie.

Having read the book, I am liking the TV miniseries quite a bit. I'm not sure if it's keeping Jenn's attention too well, though, due to it's substitution of intrigue for action. Also, since it was 80's TV, you really don't get too much in the way of good fight scenes, nor do they show any skin. (In the sex scene, the guy has his shirt off - and that's it - and the girl has a full body briefer and a slip on. What's that all about?)

I think if they were to remake the miniseries today, it would be the best of all worlds. Unfortunately, since we have the movie, I don't think that's going to happen. I suppose you can't win 'em all.

Here's something that's bugged me already this morning: At work I participate in the employee stock purchase plan, where you can buy shares of the company stock for a discounted price. I figure why not; as soon as the market goes back up, it could be really good for me. Anyway, the way we do it, once you've bought your shares, they go directly into an E*Trade OptionsLink account. Note that this account is substantially different than your standard E*Trade account. I already have a brokerage account with a local firm, Bidwell & Co., which I am very happy with (thank you very much). The problem is, I can't specify that, rather than go to the OptionsLink account, I'd like my shares to go to my Bidwell account. I can't tell OptionsLink, via an online method, to transfer my shares to Bidwell.

Instead, I have to first attempt to remember my fucking OptionsLink login information, which I use only once every six months when the stock purchase plan shares get deposited in my account. I never remember it because I never use it. Then I have to figure out exactly how many shares are in the account. Then I have to get in this fax war with E*Trade to manually tell them to ship my shares over to Bidwell. Finally, I have to go to Bidwell every day to check to see if the shares were transferred, because God forbid someone call me or send me some sort of notification that the transaction was completed.

I hate E*Trade. I suppose it's great for the investor who's been in the market for a while, knows how it all works, and knows what they want done. I'm not that guy. I own shares in, like, two companies, and only because I was (or am) employed there. I need the dude/chick on the phone to walk me through the transaction process when I make a trade so that I know I didn't mess it up.

Maybe someday I should take the time to figure all that out. Now, though, is not that time.

The Frederick's catalog came in the mail yesterday and there are some pretty nice tops in there. Jenn says she'll be more interested in wearing them once she has abs. (Note: The definition of "abs," at least as far as I'm concerned, is "the lack of non-ab material." That is, the donut you see around my waist is "non-ab." When I have successfully tamed that beast, I will have "abs." This does not imply that I will be "cut" or have a "six-pack.") I totally encourage the ab-making effort and am very much looking forward to that day. I love a chick with good abs.

(I also like big butts, and I cannot lie... I think I have another Mix-A-Lot blast coming on...)

I thought of the greatest idea just now while I was taking a leak.

So, you know how your standard Venetian blinds have all these little blades that rotate in order to close and open the blinds, right? You can twist the little stick to make it so you can see out (or not).

Well, they make blinds in different colors, right?

And I have seen "rainbow" blinds with different colors of "blades" in a rainbow pattern...

So how come you can't buy blinds that have pictures painted/printed on the blades? So like, if I close my blinds, I could see a tropical forest, or a beach, or even just a sunny day in the city?

I think that's actually a marketable thing. You could have any number of things printed on the blinds. Classic artwork, scenery, family photos (if you're that into the family thing), etc. The possibilities are endless. You could even take pictures people submit and print up blinds based on their photos, if you really wanted to get into it. You could also make it so that when you close the blinds, you see a picture on BOTH SIDES. That might be cool, too.

Does that already exist? If not, maybe I just found my way to retire...

Our room was hot and stuffy last night. So while I was laying in bed, I kicked one leg out of the blankets - sort of a way to regulate my temperature. Shortly after, Jenn decided she needed to pull up the sheet. God only knows why, since that would just make you HOT, but she needed the sheet. I, of course, had them pinched between my legs. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

"Trav, what's the sheet stuck on?"

"My legs."

"Huh?"

"My legs. I have one leg in and one leg out."

"Oh, so you have, like, a sheet sandwich."

"I guess so."

"And your legs are the bread."

At this point I started laughing way too hard for my own good. For some reason, the Sheet Sandwich was as funny as Turd Ferguson. Besides which, it sort of sounds like "shit sandwich," a phrase Jenn had apparently never heard before. Anyway, it was funny.

Speaking of Turd Ferguson, I'm thinking of throwing together some Turd Ferguson t-shirts. Anyone interested in buying?

Now that all the Turd talk is out of the way, let me get to the latest thoughts and maybe even the weekend... Prepare for the non sequiturs of a lifetime.

I'm on the Frederick's of Hollywood mailing list. What self respecting, heterosexual guy isn't, right? Anyway, I've decided I need a chick who shops almost exclusively at Frederick's. Don't even give me this crap about how you think it's trashy or whatever - a little 'trashy' never hurt anyone. I mean, where else can you get a corset top like this? (Yes, I'm a corset lover, so sue me.) I keep trying to convince Jenn, but no dice. Grrrrr...

This weekend, as the US readers are aware, was Labor Day weekend. Which basically means three days off instead of the standard two. What did I do?

Pretty much nothing, and it was all I thought it could be.

Friday night - nothing. Saturday we went to dinner for Jenn's grandpa's birthday. At least I think it was Saturday; I really don't remember if it was Saturday or Sunday. I think it was Saturday. Anyway, that was that. I had some shrimp, which were pretty good, and Jenn had a ham and cheese omelette. Sunday we rented Birthday Girl, The Sweetest Thing (Unrated), and Showtime.

Birthday Girl was decent, but I guess I went into it thinking it was a spy movie of some nature, so I was disappointed when it wasn't. I did figure out while watching, though, that if you could get women like Nicole Kidman off of Russian mail-order bride services, those things would be a lot more popular.

The Sweetest Thing was iffy. I think Jenn liked it more than I did. It felt to me like they tried to get the raunchy American Pie style humor but tried too hard and, thus, failed. The plot itself was pretty weak, and the dialogue was passable at best. Eh.

Showtime was funny if formulaic. I'm glad we rented it, but I'm also glad we didn't pay full price for it in the theater.

Monday we didn't really do anything. My mom had given me a disposable camera with some black and white film in it, so we ran around taking pictures of stuff, sort of like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Most of them actually turned out pretty well, including this picture of my baby Xev cat. I think I like black and white film better because it gives things sort of an old, mysterious look.

The whole reason we did that, I think, is actually because we were watching Rain Man the night before on TV.

During the show, I saw a commercial that Time Life is offering old episodes of The Muppet Show on DVD now. Amazon has a couple, too, but you get a better deal if you buy the whole set from Time Life all at once. I want them.

For those who watch it, Red Dwarf looks like it will be coming out with DVDs in November of this year. I'll be picking those up, too, when they emerge.

At work, I'm discovering quickly that Microsoft Exchange workflow is a bitch to set up and really isn't worth the effort. I can see now why companies make add-on tools and helper apps to assist in the setup of this beast.

There are lots of PS2 games I'm looking forward to, including Hitman 2, Auto Modellista, and The Getaway. But none come close to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I'm so stoked for it, I can't even explain.

Oh, I saw yesterday's Dilbert comic and it was so me I had to print it out and tape it to my cube. Maybe people will get the hint.