1 Happy St

- Have you ever heard anyone use the word "preposterous" in real life? I haven’t. I’ve only heard it in movies when rich white businessmen are getting fired.

- I was walking on cloud 8 earlier this morning. As I approached cloud 9, I stopped and turned around. You know, because fuck cloud 9.

- I busted out my fall jacket for the first time and there was a $10 bill in the pocket. Normally I’d be happy, but I couldn’t help but think that with the dollar value being where it is today versus last spring, this was kind of like cashing in stock options after a market crash.

- Things are easier said than done, unless you’re an antidisestablishmentarianist.

- Someone in the neighborhood was cooking with charcoal last night. Two thoughts crossed my mind. One was "Mmm, I love that smell". The other was "who the hell still uses charcoal?" God bless them though.

- Jill and I were watching the news last week and she heard that the Bulls had lost their first preseason game. Her reaction: "wait, basketball already? Fu*king baseball just ended!" I feel for her. Really I do.

- Deep dish pizza is an insult to pizza. Nobody will convince me otherwise.

- I’m back to eating Dove ice cream bars. Oh how I missed thee. If you buy them, make sure you get them with chocolate ice cream though. I’d bathe in it if it was socially acceptable. Actually it’s just the cost that’s holding me back.

- I like Brian Billick as a football commentator, but someone needs to explain to him where the red zone is. He was attributing it to every time the offense made it past midfield.

- I could never be one of the street interviews for the E! News fact or fiction segment. When the host would say to me "Mariah Carey is trying to get pregnant, fact or fiction", I would look right into the camera and say "who gives a shit?"

- On that note, remember that crime pays if you’re good at it.

Some people ask me why I have a blog. "Oooh, I have a lot of things to say. I'm important. Let me tell you what happened to me on my way into work. I like to use the word "random". See there? I just used it. Random. I'm random. Love me. Read me."

Yeah, having a blog is a lot like that.

But it's also a place to upload the coolest pictures of all time. Like that picture up there of Kapowski wearing a White Sox hat.

The Lions just made a good trade, the Lions just made a good trade, the Lions just made a good trade, holy crap, the Loins just made a good trade, the Loins just make a goob trade, the Lions just makded a goobaded trayde!

Unreal.

They traded the talented but busted Roy Williams, who has done absolutely nothing to help his winless team so far this year, to the Cowboys for their 1st, 3rd, and 6th round picks in the 2009 NFL draft. Holy crap.

Matt Millen would have cut him.

Have you noticed that every time someone on the trading floor farts, the market jumps or lowers 500 points? I want to be optimistic about today's trading, but aren't we just setting ourselves up for tomorrow's huge losses? It's like nobody learns. I know it's been done like this for hundreds of years now, but I just hate the fact that my financial well-being is directly impacted by the greed and panic of others.

We need to get back to "something d-o-o economics. Voodoo economics."

Yeah that reference doesn't really fit here. That's too bad because it would have tied in nicely with my previous post.

Eh, I'm done for the day.

I caught the beginning of Ferris Bueller on Saturday morning*. I hadn't watched it in a while, but I think I noticed for the first time that the first 15 minutes or so of that movie is pretty stupid. I know I'm blaspheming when I type that, but consider some of the following:

- Ferris is on the phone with Cameron, who is lying in bed. Ferris's dad calls, so he clicks over and has a 30 second conversation. He hangs up the phone, then looks into the camera and says something like "I'm so disappointed in Cameron. 20 bucks says he's sitting in his car right now debating on whether or not he should go out." Cut to Cameron, who is doing exactly that. How did he get there so fast? 30 seconds earlier, he was in bed and complaining that he was about to die, and now he's fully dressed and in his car? What the?!?

- Ferris's big plan to get Sloane out of school was to have her grandmother die. I have a couple problems with this plan. First of all, unless her grandmother was already dead, it would have been real bad karma for Ferris to fake something like that. My guess is Sloane would have had a huge problem with Ferris making light of a non-light situation. And if Sloane's grandmother was in fact already dead, there's a million things that could have gone wrong with killing her off again simply to get out of school. Somehow I doubt an expert in hyjinx like Ferris would have used it.

- Ferris asked for a car, but instead he got a computer. How's that for being born under a bad sign? Well I'm not sure what the answer is to that question, but we do know that Ferris was an accomplished computer hacker. So why did he wait until he had reached 9 absences before hacking into his attendance records? Why wouldn't he keep them permanently updated with the fake number? Better yet, why wouldn't Mr. Rooney question that the number was being changed right in front of him? Here he was watching fraud occur right in front of him and all did was yell for his assistant. This is FBI stuff, man. Your computers are being hacked. Make a phone call already.

- When Ferris called Mr. Rooney to ask if his sister could pick up his assignments, why didn't he use the sick voice that he used on his dad? Instead he sounded all chipper. Wasn't he supposed to be deathly ill?

- And finally, I'm just not buying the Ferris/Cameron friendship. If Ferris was so popular with the sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, and dickheads, how did he even end up with Cameron as a best friend? You'd think that a guy like Ferris would have a best friend whose ass wasn't so tight that it could turn a lump of coal into a diamond. I understand they were best friends since the 5th grade, but their differing personalities makes it hard for me to believe it would have lasted. Some time before H.S., Ferris would have dropped Cameron as a friend. I have no doubt.

Or course the last 90 mins or so of this movie were classic, so I suppose I can forgive the first 15. But I wish John Hughes would have addressed some of those things.

* Aren't Saturday morning's the best? They're especially great if you wake up early and have nothing planned. You can get up and make some coffee and read the paper (if the weather is nice, it's a bonus because you can do this outside), or you can lay there in bed and watch TV. Either option is a friggin awesome way to spend a morning.

I walked into a hotbox earlier today. I don't know who did it, but it was nasty and slightly stale. When I got to my floor, people were getting on the elevator just as I was getting off of it, so I have no doubt that they thought I was the culprit. You know, it's one thing to get blamed for a hotbox when it was actually yours, but getting blamed for someone else's hotbox just isn't fair.

The AP finally got their coveted interview with everyone's favorite teen-dad-to-be Levi Johnston. You can read it all here. He comes across as you might expect him to: 18 years old.

For more information on stuff that doesn't make one lick of difference, continue reading every news media outlet in existence.

I just got an email from Fidelity regarding my 401k statement. Within the email, there was a hyperlink that said "click here to view your account activity". When I clicked the link, it brought me to a page that was garbled.

I haven't yet figured out if that was a metaphor, an omen, or a reflection. I'm leaning towards reflection.

"I totally plan to go back into acting once the strike stops." - Tara Reid last week

Good luck trying to figure out what that means.

Every year for Columbus weekend when we were kids, we used to go to a campground that celebrated Halloween. There'd be a haunted trail on Friday night, a pumpkin carving contest on Saturday morning, and trick-or-treating on Saturday afternoon. It was always a good time (I think), but I also remember it always being wicked cold each year. Am I remembering that correctly? It was always insanely cold, right? Yesterday it was 80 and Saturday it was 75. You can call it a small sample size if you want, but something's not right here.

Saturday afternoon I called Greg's house and Andy answered the phone. How old is he now, 8? Yeah he's 8. So I asked Andy if his dad was around and he said "no he's on his way back from the Michigan game." I said "oh yeah? How'd they do" and Andy said "I don't wanna talk about it". He deadpanned it too. It sounded like his dog had just died. I laughed. 'Cause when a little kid's dog dies, that's what I do. No that's not true. I was laughing at his delivery in telling me that his favorite sports team had lost. He sounded legitimately hurt. Welcome to fandom, Little Buddy. Trust me, it never gets easier. I asked him to have Greg call me back when he got home and he said he'd give Greg the message. Two minutes later, Greg called me back from his cell phone, still on his way home from the game. I asked him how the game was. I promise you, in the exact same delivery as Andy had used 2 minutes earlier, Greg said "I don't wanna talk about it."

Excellent. Michigan better get good again soon. Or they at least have to stop losing to MAC or D-II schools.

I'm looking for an old SNL sketch with Tom Hanks where he's part of a family where everyone tests out a squeaky chair and they all taste some sour milk and sniff foul cat litter and test a broken basement stair. I'm not sure the name of the sketch or what year it's from, but if you can find it, let me know. Google doesn't seem to know. I have a feeling it might be one of those things where I'm remembering it being better than it actually was, but I don't care.

Thanks.

Oh, and can I have your autograph? Please please please please please?

From Fox News:

Joe Son, who played the character Random Task in the first "Austin Powers" movie, has been charged by California authorities in connection with an unsolved 1990 Christmas Eve gang rape.

Son pleaded guilty in May to felony vandalism, which required him to give a DNA sample — which eventually connected him to the rape, police say.

Son, 37, was charged Oct. 1 with five felony counts of forcible rape, two felony counts of forcible sodomy, two felony counts of sodomy in concert by force, seven felony counts of forcible oral copulations, one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object by force according to an Orange County District Attorney's Office release about an arrest in the case.

A friend of the actor filed the original vandalism police report, in which the friend identified Son as an actor in the "Austin Powers" movie, Susan Kang Schroeder, public affairs counsel for the D.A.'s office, told FOXNews.com.

Wow.

EDIT: Even if it's not funny, I try to make the last line of every post some kind of quip or joke. But after reading the charges this guy faces, it was tough to come up with anything. There's nothing funny about this story whatsoever. I thought about going with "yep, it reminds me of college alright", but not only is that not funny, it's also kind of offensive. So that's why I just went with "wow". But co-worker Adam just sent me this IM: the victim was reported as saying: "that really hurts...honestly...who uses a shoe?!?" Okay that's funny.

1. Jimmy Dugan
2. Apollo 13
3. Gump
4. The Terminal
5. Carl Hanratty
6. Busom Buddy
7. Joe Versus The Volcano
8. The Green Mile
9. Woody
10. Sam Baldwin
11. The Polar Express
12. Joe Fox
13. Road to Perdition
14. Ladykiller
15. Walter Fielding
16. Turner & Hooch
17. Punchline
18. Private Ryan
19. Big
20. And last but not least… That Thing You Do!

I gotta say, today has been a good day. Sometimes it's the little things, but for some reason Youtube isn't being blocked today. We're not sure why or how long it'll last, but right now that's not important. What is important is that Don and I were able to have this IM conversation:

Brian(13:25:35): http://www.youtube.com/
Brian(13:25:36): works
Donald(13:25:46): I'm not fallin for that
Brian(13:25:59): No for real. Trust me.
Donald(13:28:12): All these weeks I was saying, wow I wish I could watch that on Youtube. Now that it works, I have no idea what to watch
Brian(13:28:43): I was thinking that exact same thing
Brian(13:28:53): I didn't use the word "wow" though
Donald(13:32:29): This is equivlant to Andy Dufresne getting the boys some beer on the top of that roof
Brian(13:33:39): "Hey Andy, thanks for getting us youtube back. I just sent you a link of a girl in a bikini washing windows. It's classic." "No thanks, I don't even watch youtube."
Donald(13:39:45): Corporate: "I don't believe it, the firewall dropped for 30 seconds and these guys were all over youtube"
Brian(13:39:52): excellent

EDIT:
Adam(13:45:39): this is the greatest day of my life
Douglas(13:45:44): i don't know if i've ever seen adam this happy before

This is an email from a friend of mine:

Go fuck yourself,
Love, Jeremy
P.S. How are things with you?

Yeah it made me laugh.

The Columbus Dispatch is running a poll with the following question:

If there were a guarantee that the Dow would be at 13,000 on Monday, Nov. 24, if Ohio State loses to Michigan on Nov. 22, would you make that deal?

I voted 'yes' just so I could see the results, and this is what it gave me:

Yes 42%
No 58%

Now to be fair, where the Dow is at probably doesn't affect most people's day-to-day lives all that much (unless of course they're invested in a Dow company). But it is an indicator of how our stock market is doing. So yes, these results are quite interesting.

Nice to see fans of The Ohio State University have their priorities in order.

h/t Craig C.

How many times do you think someone had to try to give someone else a cup of tea before the response actually became a common colloquialism?

My delusions of grandeur are worse than anyone else's.

I worry about insomnia, but I try not to let it keep me up nights.

I have lot of feelings toward people that are vague.

I can remember a time time long ago when I was really into nostalgia.

When I was in school, I plagiarized an article on copyright law.

I'll bet you $100 I can overcome my addiction to gambling.

I just know that everyone is talking behind my back about how paranoid I am.

I had a friend that was schizophrenic... 2 friends, actually.

Guy 1: "Have you seen the financial markets today? 2oo points, 300 points, now 700 points. When does it end?"

Guy 2: "Don't worry, the market is just weeding out the marginal investors."

Guy 1: "No it's just bleeping me in the bleep."
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He didn't use bleeps.

The White Sox asked their fans to dress in all black again Sunday. According to the Sun-Times, some fans are going to wear all black from now on, even next year. A fan quote:

"It makes a nice community, builds camaraderie," said Christine Swiderski, of the Garfield Ridge neighborhood. Swiderski was wearing black eyeliner and face paint, a black headband, a black Sox pullover, black pants and black skivvies. "Everyone was so into the game."

What a fan, huh? She really takes her fandom seriously. Wait, black skivvies? How do we...who got that...how did the reporter...wait, seriously? Black skivvies? Where's the picture of Christine in the article? She must have been an uggo. You can bet that if she wasn't, there'd be a picture accompanying that article.

In 4 or 5 more hours, we'll know if the season is over or if it'll last for at least another game. Let's hope for the latter. I'll be at home later this evening watching from my couch in my black skivvies.

Sorry no pics.

LGWS!

Now they tell us. I hear that we cried when Herman died, but the whole time Herman was trying to kill us.

I find it interesting that Joe Biden is a liar for his inaccurate spending figures in Afghanistan, but Sarah Palin isn't a liar for saying Obama "pals around with terrorists who would target their own country".

I haven't seen a stretch that far since seeing [something that stretched really far].

For you "Princess Bride" fans.

h/t JoePo

$29 million dollars.

Frigging $29 million. That's the amount of money that busted movie brought in over the weekend.

I'm not sure how many tickets it takes to reach $29 million, but I know $29 million is a lot of money.

Are people insane?

Yes they are. If this doesn't prove that the American public isn't qualified to vote, then I don't know what will.

See what I did there?

God Bless you, Rachael Ray. You dirty girl, you.

h/t Extra Mustard

Do you know what today is?
It's October 3rd. Get a calendar. Jeez.
Do you know what else today is?
It's Friday. How is this hard?
But do you know what movie gets released today?
This one.

3 months of anticipation and it's finally out. I realize that the White Sox begin Game 2 tonight, but I can't possibly wait until later in the weekend to see this masterpiece, can I?

Ohhhhh Chihuahua!

My observation after hearing a lot of other people's thoughts on last night's debate: Those who lean to the right think Palin won while those who lean to the left think Biden won.

Shocking.

I could have spent the evening watching something entirely different and I would have known what everyone's thoughts on the debates would have been. And let's be honest; people who actually watched last night have probably made up their minds already. One such person who has made up his mind is my co-worker Sam. He leans so far to the left that he looks like a backslash. He doesn't have a blog, but he certainly has some feelings on what went down. So I agreed to allow him to post them here.

Sam, the floor is yours:
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1. I thought Gwen Ifill was terrible. I am not sure if she cowed to the Republican’s attacks on her based on her upcoming book about the African American politicians or because of the format. One thing is clear, she flopped big time. She could have made sure there were follow-up questions and/or she could have let the candidates address each other.
2. Sarah Palin didn't "screw up". Talk about the audacity of low expectations. She can actually repeat talking points. WOW. If this is the threshold a VP should pass, we're in deep sh*t as a nation. Tell me it ain't so Joe!!! What's also amazing to me is the similarity between George Bush and Sarah Palin's style and substance (or lack thereof). They both come across as likable, next door neighbor-types that you might consider having a beer with. But it's frustrating to me that they think that they are ready to lead this country. Thank god Bush's record is in full display. Hopefully, the folks that voted for him will not make the same mistake again. But then again, you never know. That's why I believe that voting should only be cast by folks with an IQ over 100.
3. Joe Biden came off a little bit shaky at the start. He didn't know how to address Sarah Palin. But as the interview dragged on, he became more comfortable and really showed his command of the subject matter. On substance, he won the debate hands down.
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Is there a guest-poster who would like to offer counterpoints?

Have's
-The Axe commercial where the dude turns into chocolate. This commercial proves that you don't have to be funny to make me laugh. It just made me feel all warm inside, like when I was a kid and my uncle would pin me down on the ground and fart in my face, only the exact opposite of that. Yeah, the Axe commercial is the exact opposite of a fart in my face. A+

-The Verizon (?) commercial where the father says "uh, drag, dude" to his daughter. Gets me every time. I think it's because the dad reminds me of Will Ferrell. Look for it next time you see it. I think you'll agree.

Do without's
-Anything and everything Frank Caliendo. He's funny, but not in a 'ha ha that was funny' kind of way. It's more of a 'yeah that was pretty good' kind of way. The point is I don't need to see it 50 times a night. Frank Caliendo is like the guy at weddings who is a really good dancer. At first you're all "wow, that guy's a really good dancer". But by 11 or so, you're all "I wish that guy would take a bathroom break and wipe the sweat from his forehead already. I mean jeez, he's getting the floor all wet. And look at his shirt. He's a mess." Yeah, Frank is like that. Or maybe something more accurate than that.

-The busted Viagra commercial. How much money is Viagra paying TBS to play that stupid spot over and over and over and oveur and ovary and oh-ver and 0-for and ovar again? If I'm not tempted to buy a product after seeing it advertised 899 times, why would I be tempted on the 900th? And what the hell is the commercial supposed to be about? It's just an old guy dancing with his wife for 3 minutes. What does that have to do with erectile dysfunction? "Hey Honey, it's finally working. Let's dance." Is that how it works? I always thought it would be more like "Hey Honey, it's finally working. We're already having sex right now even though I haven't yet taken off my pants". Just a ridiculous commercial shown a ridiculous number of times.

The good (bad) news is that we're only through with 1 day. I'm sure both lists will get longer.

I think Bossypants would be an unfortunate last name. Especially for an unmarried female.

When predicting the World Series, anyone can pick teams that are still in it. But it takes real balls to pick teams that aren’t. That’s why I’m going out on a limb and saying this year’s World Series is gonna be Indians/Astros. Book it.

That Michigan commercial with Tim Allen makes me want to hop in a car and go there. I want to fish, hike, and see something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I want to see….pure Michigan.

Mommy, why isn’t The Office on tonight? Well Honey, because tonight we get to watch a debate between that guy we haven’t seen in a couple weeks who admits that he may not be the right person for the job and that woman who looks like Tina Fey who answers interview questions the same way I answered essay questions back in High School when I didn’t know the answer.

Too bad the White Sox play during the day.

Go White Sox!!!