June 2006 Archives

Here's a dumb little story for you.

We went camping last weekend. On the way up and on the way back we ate lunch at Sonic in Bakersfield. On the way home I found that I wasn't really in the mood for my usual extra-long cheese coney and so, for the first time in what must be hundreds of trips to Sonic, I had a burger.

Now that is just the kind of useless trivia that belongs in a weblog.

By the way, the burger was pretty good. As was the 256 oz. cherry limeade. And yes, we tipped the carhop.

Well now.

Mister P has declared his intentions to train for the Santa Clarita marathon this fall.

He and I were involved in a little bit of a standoff - "I'll do it if you do it" - but when he sent me an email earlier this month (admittedly in a post-triathlon haze) saying there was "no frickin' way" he was going to I figured it was off.

But now it's on. To be perfectly clear, let me state that it is my intention to train for the Santa Clarita marathon along with Mister P.

This is a good thing. I needed an event to train for, a goal to focus on. I'd very much like to get the sour taste of last year's training unpleasantness out of my mouth. I could also stand to lose a few pounds. And as a bonus, the Santa Clarita marathon is literally in my back yard.

So tomorrow morning it starts once more. A simple 3 mile run.

My goals? First, to complete the marathon. Second, be ineligible to compete in the Clydesdale class. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Ok.

Back in the early 90's, there was a show that was on after Saturday Night Live in Los Angeles. It was a call-in show hosted by a psychologist. He would sit at an audio board and take calls, talking to the camera for several hours. I think it was on KNBC but I'm not really sure. It was great television.

I can see the host's sandy blonde curly hair, I can hear his voice, I can picture him sitting at the sound board. I also remember that he passed away suddenly a few years back, and that the L.A. Times did a feature about him in their Sunday magazine not long after he died. But I can not remember his name to save my life.

Help me out here - and maybe I'll ship you some "live yeast samples."

Woe! Woe!

Last summer I brewed up a big batch of hefeweizen for my 20th high school reunion. My plan was to ship a bunch of bottles to my buddy Dean's place for chilling and ground transport to the actual event.

I wrapped the bottles individually in bubble wrap and packed three boxes full. I was basically shipping water, so the price was a bit steep but it seemed worth it. I left the three boxes in the mailroom, wrote down the tracking numbers and went about planning the rest of my trip.

A couple days later I got a call from DHL:

DHL: What's in these boxes?
B: Yeast samples. (had I mentioned it's not legal to ship beer like that?)
DHL: What?
B: Live yeast samples. I am sending them to a friend who is a brewer.
DHL: Oh. Well that explains the smell.
B: What smell?
DHL: It looks like a bottle broke and your boxes smell like stale beer.
B: Boxes? As in, more than one box?
DHL: Yes, we have two damaged boxes here at our facility in Burbank.

I thought I told them to just throw the two boxes out but the next day I returned from a meeting to find this waiting for me:

Here's a close-up of the back of the tag:

Eventually I stopped weeping for long enough to cut the box open. Two of the six bottles had broken.

So, in the end, only six bottles of my precious homebrew made it to the reunion and the whole office smelled like a frat house for a few days. Oh the humanity!

If you've been watching the World Cup here in the US of A you've probably seen the Adidas commercial where the two kids pick football* dream teams to play a pickup game on a dirt field.

It turns out there is a longer version of the "picking teams" spot, and a followup spot where the teams play. I'm sure I would get more of the little in-jokes if I knew the players but they work anyway. Check 'em out:

Impossible Team Part I: Equipo

Impossible Team Part II: Partido

In the first spot one of the kids laughs when the other picks Beckenbaeur - here's why: Franz Beckenbauer played for the German national team in the 70's. Everybody looks surprised when he actually shows up. Now can somebody explain to me what's funny about the guy who gets the keeper gloves?

* My people call it soccer.

In case you hadn't noticed, the 2006 World Cup started last Friday.

I work with a True Football* Fanatic, Talin, and she has gotten me pretty interested in the whole business.

On Friday I had the Ecuador-Poland match on in my office. I was getting excited about all the scoring chances, good saves, near misses, hard tackles, and the like. Talin started to scold me for getting excited about "bad teams with bad players who can't really do anything."

So I offered to just turn it off, since they weren't any good. "Oh no," she exclaimed, "don't do that!"

Yep. That's what I thought.

Anyway, the US of A starts play in Group E tomorrow against the Czech Republic. 12 Noon EDT/9 AM PDT, ESPN2, check it out!

* My people call it soccer.

Ok. Another website review.

This time we'll be discussing the new social networking site Fo.rtuito.us.

So here's how it works. You sign up and upload a picture. Then you get randomly assigned to another member. You have four days to get to know this person. After four days you Must Decide. Is this random assignee Your Friend? Tell Me! NOW!

Regardless of your decision you will find yourself assigned a new random member. And the four-day clock begins to tick anew.

Now I am admittedly not the most outgoing guy but this sounds like absolute and pure torture. A new stranger every four days? Wanting to evaluate me as a potential friend? Welcome to hell.

Now that we've eliminated intelligent semi-introverts from the potential user list, here's a question for you. Just who is this site for? I mean, if you want to meet strangers there are undoubtedly many, many opportunities to do so in the flesh - bars, churches, sporting events, parks, the produce section of your grocery store, just to name a few. What's the point of doing it online?

I say good luck to you, Fo.rtuito.us. As far as I'm concerned, you're on your own.

A while back I realized that I don't hear new music any more. On the train I'm reading or listening to old CDs that have landed on my mp3 player, and if I happen to drive I listen to NPR most of the time. (Wow. When did I get so dang boring?)

(Do me a favor and don't answer that question.)

All this has changed though, thanks to my new bestest buddy and musical big toe, pandora.com

Pandora is an extension of the Music Genome Project. Pandora.com allows you and me to take advantage of their research. Type in an artist or a song you like, and their player will start cueing up songs that are musically similar. It's pretty cool.

If you're not careful you might hear some stuff you haven't heard before. And you might like it. Check it out!