He's got my vote.

I know this may be old news, but this is some gal-darn new age campaigning right here. In case you don't like to read more than a few sentences at a time, I'll summarize:

A reporter in Georgia was macking on a news intern at a Barack Obama press conference, when he stood up to ask a question and was mistaken for a college journalism student by the presidential hopeful, and told he had a "babyface," causing uproarious laughter throughout the room. Naturally, the reporter was not too happy about having his flavor wasted in front of such a large audience, and publicly voiced his spite for Obama.

So what does Obama do when he hears about this? He calls the journalist personally to apologize for "messing up his game." That's a direct quote. If you'd like to hear it for yourself, download the 11/19/2006 podcast of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me (a very funny news quiz show from NPR) and fast forward to about 10 minutes in.

Awesome.

This is why I shop at Sam's Club.

While dashing to the very back of the store to grab my obscene amounts of bottled liquid, I came upon (what I can only assume) was a single mother and her two children, in the middle of a scolding session. And this is what I hear:

"How did you get syrup on the back of your head?"

I wish I was good at basketball!

"Iverson has been in exile for the past 11 days, languishing on the Sixers' inactive list while still accruing his per-game earnings of $156,218."

Your eyes might have immediately focused on the large dollar amount at the end of the above sentence. $156,218 would be a very comfortable salary, you might be thinking. But read the sentence again. Mr. "We're talking about practice" is making ONE HUNDRED FIFTY SIX THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTEEN dollars per 48 minutes of basketball he plays, and he plays that 82 times a year...

Completely ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is that he's not even the highest paid player, currently or in the history of the NBA. No, my friends, that honor belonged to our own Michael Jordan. Who, at his peak made $10,000 per minute of court time (according to that website from the DARPANET days).

Wow.

Just, wow.

Wow because the GDP of this virtual world is $64 million, which ranks it second to last in the world. A place that doesn't even exist is ranked above a real country. I figured it was merely the volume of people spending $2 here, $5 there, but boy was I wrong...

It seems there are quite a few users in the game who have put in nearly HALF A MILLION DOLLARS. I'm probably about 45% nerd, 45% hunk and 10% beard, but that nerd part in me can't sympathize with the people operating that way in this game. Granted, there is an opportunity to make a significant amount of money as well, but who has $500,000 to invest in a startup company in a non-existent world? Not me.

Hmmm...

So while I was soaping my well-defined pectorals in the shower this morning, a commonly used exclamation from SportsCenter popped into my head.

"He's country strong."

Now, in and of itself, that doesn't tell us very much, other than that said player is probably capable of lifting large amounts of weight. But let's delve deeper.

Are Stuart Scott, Neil Everett, Dan Patrick, etc... saying he's strong because he worked on a farm and ate corn while growing up? Or are they saying (I think this is probably it), that said player is as strong as entire nation? That's one hell of an exclamation.

Are they going to start identifying which country? And if a player is bad, are they going to shout, "He is weak like Ukraine!" ??? I sure hope so.

And maybe, just maybe, they will reference a newly formed country in such an exclamation and say, "Adam Dunn, like the newly formed nation of [insert Eastern European country here], shows the World what sovereignty means as he crushes a curveball into the seats in left field."

Wow, this was much funnier in my head...

I just got all warm and fuzzy inside.

The reason.

Nope, it's not the theater.

Ok, I saw Stranger Than Fiction last night, in the theater I lovingly refer to as the "pee theater," and loved it. So, it can be concluded that I don't hate the theater, and that the Prestige and Flags of our Fathers must have actually sucked balls.

Also...

“A couple of ex-students hopped over the school fence on a weekend and went unnoticed by guards.

They managed to get on the roof of the Friary building and somehow mark on the willy. They also burnt a manhood into the grass.”

This is unnerving

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16110298/

Maybe I'll use the rest of my sick days...

It's official

Denzel Washington + Tony Scott = The Balls.

Do I hate the theater? Or do movies just suck now?

I've seen four movies at the theater in the last few weeks:

The Departed
The Prestige
Casino Royale
Flags of Our Fathers

Now, I really liked The Departed and Casino Royale, but I absolutely HATED The Prestige and Flags. My percentage used to be so much higher than 50% positive. Both movies that I could not stand have been getting decent reviews and people that I know and (for the most part) respect their opinions about movies liked both.

So, that got me to thinking... is the act of seeing a movie at the theater sullying my experience? Or were the movies just bad and everyone else is stupid? We all have our opinions, so I can't give an iron clad answer, but right now I'm going for the second one.

There were no real disturbances in the theater when I saw The Prestige, and I really wanted to like it, having loved Nolan's earlier movies. And I did, up until about the last 45 minutes. At that point in the movie I can just imagine the writers table whence they were constructing this pile of crap:

[SPOILER]
"Oh noes! I've constructed this engaging plot but have no way of getting out of it cleanly."
"I know! Clones! Yeah, let's have clones all up in this piece."
"AWESOME. AWESOME TO THE MAX. And then we can end the movie without explaining anything, so that people have discussions about what happened, which will make them think they liked it because it was a mind bender."
[/SPOILER]

As for Flags, I did have a bevy of jickwad assfaces around me putting their feet on MY row and commenting on the movie, but even if I had been alone in the theater, that movie still would have sucked. Let us count the ways:

1. Incredibly bad acting for such a big budget/acclaimed movie, and as a result I felt no connection to any of the characters and could care less if/when they died. Ryan Phillipe was the medic in this movie, and more or less the main character, but Giovanni Ribissi (sp?) was so much better in that role in Saving Private Ryan.
   
2. The war scenes were edited terribly. They showed the same shot over and over and over again, and it wasn't even a cool shot.
   
3. Tear jerking moments that would fail to draw a tear from anyone except people who were actually on Iwojima. I've never seen so many attempts at an emotional moment fall so flat. At least Titanic did that right.
   
4. And their main foul up was the gross misuse of Barry Pepper in a WWII movie. I'm sure there's a rule somewhere stating that whether or not he dies, he should be the coolest character in the movie.

So I don't know what to think. After putting all my thoughts down, I think I hate The Prestige a little less than Flags, if only because I could only come up with one reason to hate it. Even if it was the prestige of the movie (the third act/reveal, i.e. the most important part).

Maybe a little Tony Scott seizure material will right the ship. Anyone up for Deja Vu?

I've never thought about it like this...

"While I suppose that most of the carbon in America's favorite fossil fuel is botanical in origin, it's easier to get a gut feel for unrenewability by considering dinosaurs."

This is funny.

If I were on the phone with TBS asking if this was funny, I think they'd say, "Yeah, kinda."

High security as Pope arrives in Turkey

P.S. I mean only the headline, not the actual article. Because, obviously, it's not about the Pope arriving inside of a turkey, as the headline might imply.

Oh holiday sales, how I loath thee...

Well, I'm not normally one to gripe about spending money, but I've gotta say, I kinda wish I could have saved close to $800 on my new TV. Is that much money worth the price haggling demons that cruise these sales on Black Friday? Can't say for sure as I've never been, but I could use another TV for my living room...

Almost got me there...

Dear Lost,

Nice fake-out. You honestly had me thinking that you were going to do something new. Silly me.

I should know better. I might be spoiling a few things by saying this, but I was really feeling Kate's helplessness at that recent climactic moment. Now, had you actually gone through with it, I might have continued seeing you. Since you're now on Holiday Vacation, maybe that will give me time to get you out of my head. I just think we need to take a break or I might do something stupid like watch the Nine, and neither of us want that. (Honestly, does anyone really like that show?). Perhaps we'll meet again down the road when your storyline has matured.

Waiting patiently,
Nick

So sick...

I've had a debilitating cough for over a week now. That's normal right?

Nerd Alert. Population - me.

I had a "pow-wow" with my boss today, and as a side note, he made me aware of a presentation about video conferencing over the internet that I could/should attend. We then went on to discuss how Star-Trekian it would be to talk to clients this way.

Strike 1.

Me: "Yeah, now all we need is to be able to teleport."

My Boss: "I'm working on it, Coldfusion [can do amazing things]."

Me: "cfteleport*, value=me."

Glorious laughter.

Strike 2.

And now blogging about it.

Steeeerike 3! Nerd out!

* Coldfusion is a tag based server-side web programming language, where all the tags start with the prefix of "cf," hence the laughter. Yikes, I think I just put the next batter in an 0-1 hole with this addendum.

Lost? Yeah, me too.

During nearly the entire second season of Lost, I repeatedly told anyone who would listen that there was, "NOTHING HAPPENING, EVER!" Well, my feelings haven't changed that much, with the start of the new season. I'm especially put off at the "we promise something will happen in the next two episode" promos that have been airing.

I bet something will happen, and I bet it won't advance a story that's been going in circles for over a year now. Well, it turns out that someone finally agrees with me. Feel free to comment/argue that the show is going somewhere, I'd love to have another reason (besides Evangeline Lilly) to keep watching.

A feeling of dread from what I can only assume is a retirement community

As I was leaving work today, and I glanced up at the third floor balcony of an apartment in a complex that I could possibly be living in next year, and an immense feeling of dread came over me. Was it because of the freezing gust of wind? The fact that I'd actually be on my own soon? Or just the fact that I'm pretty sure the place is chock full of old people, who I (see below) don't agree with on many issues.

It was odd though, looking at a balcony and then thinking to myself, "There's no way I'll be living there. Absolutely not."

Senior learning permit required

If not for the sheer amount of fatalities that would undoubtedly occur, I would argue that a "Senior Learning Permit" type be issued to all drivers over the age of 70.

At such a time, the elder would have to enlist the help of a willing child or grandchild to record 25 hours of safe driving time. I realize that needlessly putting someone's life in danger like this is extreme, but it would go a long way towards curbing my ever-increasing road rage. I don't want to punch an old woman in the face anymore than you, believe me.

The reasoning behind this "new age" type of thinking? After buying a totally sweet hoodie on my lunch break, I was almost t-boned by an old woman who couldn't decide if she wanted to turn right or go straight. She had her right turn signal on, yet went straight, defying the very rules that govern our road, or our "Rules of the Road."

WTF?