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December 21, 2006
News
Sean has appeased the Internet Gods and followed through with his tagging. Where are the rest of you guys?
Thanks for following the teeth theme, Sean.
Here are a couple more in response to Sean's:
1. I don't really drink caffeine either. For that matter, I don't drink pop (or "soda") that much either- maybe once every couple months. It's good on your wallet and your teeth to avoid it even though it tastes like gold. I shudder when I see parents serving pop for dinner every night. And why am I watching them eat dinner every night?
2. Coffee smells better than it tastes for the most part, but sometimes it's good with some foods. Really I usually only have it once a year at Perkins (not to be confused with Porkins) hanging out with Duluth friends. Along the same lines, Perkins was the #1 hangout for our group in high school. Coffee/pop, chess, and appetizers would keep us there for hours at a time.
3. I'm not sure which is worse, not using a turn signal or not turning on your lights while driving in the rain.
4. I cannot draw to save my life. Also, I cannot cut anything in a straight line or glue something without making it look like it has been glued. This is why I am terrible at crafts.
--
Another announcement: Galactic Times is now live. It's a little rough right now, but check it out and let me know what you think. It's based some gags John, Josh and I came up with for some of our animations in college.
December 19, 2006
I got tagged!
See? I got tagged. So I guess I'm supposed to list 5 things you might now know about me. Here it goes.
1. My first "real" job was at Wendy's the summer after 11th grade. They made us watch a training video, but it wasn't as cool as this one. But the techniques were exactly the same. After they showed me the video, they put me on the grill with another guy and expected me to pretty much know what I was doing. Granted, those burger grilling skills have lasted me all these years. Always press out the corners! Unless the burger is circular... then don't because you won't find them. Couple other things I remember: free pop, having to lug the huge, heavy, disgusting garbage bags to the dumpster and trying to throw it over the seemingly 10-foot high walls, and that I was assigned a "starting" time but never a time that my shift would be done. I think they just arbitrarily let me go home when they didn't need me anymore... but the shifts usually weren't too long... 4-6 hours maybe? The next summer I worked at an arcade.
2. I was a crossing guard in 6th grade. We would take turns each week: morning, afternoon, or alternate. Well, I was afternoons and I had a really sore throat. I could barely talk. I felt a little bad asking an alternate to sub for me, but I asked a kid named Bryn (*contemplates putting full name knowing Google will lead him here eventually... ah, what the heck*) Dentinger if he would sub for me. His reply was "no" and went back to talking to his cool friends. The ensuing guarding of the cross was torture. I was a bit let down by the ordeal but deep down inside I can pretend that it helped build some character. And to just stay home and watch Ducktales if I'm sick.
3. When I was probably 4 or 5 years old I was at a restaurant in Canada with my family for dinner. That's not the whole story. I saw some kids balancing between some booths or tables so I thought I would try. I ended up slipping forward and knocking my front teeth up into my gums. The restaurant was in a mall and there was a dentist's office upstairs that happened to be open (!). They rushed me up there, checked me out and said it would be ok- the teeth would just get pushed back down. And that's what happened.
4. Along similar lines of my cousin, I pushed a kid over in 5th or 6th grade. We were at a track and field day event and we were doing a three-legged race type thing. One kid kept pushing us over (probably to get laughs from his buddy). After the three legged race was over I went over and tripped him pretty good. He stopped bugging us.
5. Musical instruments I can produce notes from: piano (lessons, 2 years?), trumpet (6 years, middle school and high school), guitar (started playing around freshman year of college... almost 10 years? Still not very good...).
Ok. Time to tag more people. Five things you might not know about:
Aaron
Cody
Woodsie
Sean
Dustin
December 14, 2006
Make it so
Want to see how many IM's you've sent? Go here, sign in, and it will show you (via Digg).
6000 in 3+ or so years... not too bad. And yes, my buddy icon is Picard. I don't know why.
December 13, 2006
.002 cents
Funniest thing I've heard in a while (audio). A little more calm and collected than the cancel AOL guy.
December 11, 2006
Oxy Overload
Oxymorons Episode One
Oxymorons Episode Two
Oxymorons Episode Three
December 10, 2006
Billings and Spivey Episode One
Eh, yeah, it's rough. It's got some good moments, though.
December 07, 2006
"Beat it."
For the first time beyond me showing it to friends... Oxymorons 4.5. Let me know what you think. (Only watch it after you've seen Oxymorons 4)
Come in if you like cupcakes
Billings and Spivey Episode Two is now up, too! More to come...
(It looks pretty good if you select "Double Size")
Edit: Here it is, too:
December 06, 2006
More fun stuff
Man has appendix bursts while waiting in line for Wii. Sounds familiar.
Apple Store Genii rule (especially the Jordan Creek ones!)
Madden video game training new generation of super-smart football players (while they might know they strategy behind it, the gamers won't actually be able to run more than 20 yards at a time).
I haven't play that much Madden but I have played a lot of the best football game ever, Tecmo Super Bowl. Aaron and I played our first game in probably at least a year (he was the Cardinals, I was the Browns), and it was a close one! I won in overtime with a field goal (after missing a 45 yard field goal). There were two huge sequences that helped me win: tackling Aaron on the 1 yard-line after a 90 yard run and subsequently stopping the touchdown, and going for it and making it on 4th and 23 and going on to score to get back within a touchdown.
Also: Oxymorons Episode 4 is now up on Google video! I'm debating whether or not to upload it again at a better quality. But in the meantime, enjoy.
December 04, 2006
Fun stuff
Do you know the country? I got a 44 on my first try but I got some hard ones (like Mexico). I don't know if you get more points for being quick. (via Kottke)
Also: Journerdism. A blog for journalists and nerds. Why am I just finding this now?
Indexed is great.
(Found the last two via this list via waxy)
December 03, 2006
Amana and a womana
Aimee and I took a nice little trip to the Amana Colonies this weekend.
The Amanas are interesting. If you like German food, you'll love dining out at the Amanas. If you don't like it or if you are a vegetarian, you can probably stomach one or two meals out before you have to escape the Land of Schnitzel.
There were a lot of shops that were fun to poke around, but they all started to look the same after a while. The wineries offered free taste tests... and we found some free cider and cookies (Aimee had some useful reference guides).
It was probably as close to "Christmas storybook" as we'll get this year- snow on the ground an carolers were a couple key ingredients missing- the cold whether probably nixing the latter.
Not really any mishaps along the way, other than trying to dodge people on the small sidewalks and crowded stores. Oh, I did get a few dollars shaved off our dinner because the fried chicken dinner I got at the Ox Yoke Inn was heavy on the "fried" but light on the actual "chicken." As in there was almost no meat on it. I almost never complain (or have a reason to complain) when dining out, but I'd rather try to save some money on the bill than be tempted to stiff the service on a tip for lousy food.
It was fun to get away from Des Moines, but it's not a place I need to go back to in the next 25 years... I don't think I'm really in their demographic, anyway. Kids would probably get a kick out of the "Tannenbaum Forest" with tree decorations and Santa.
I uploaded a couple pictures to Flickr if you, the reader, are interested.
I took my old Sony digital camera, which isn't a bad little camera until you compare it to a Digital SLR like my Rebel. The colors come out pretty flat, not much depth to the picture.
I took a few minutes and went into Photoshop with some of them. Roll your mouse over the picture below to see the before and after.
I don't really know what I'm doing with Photoshop most of the time. I think for this one I added a few adjustment layers: curves, hues/saturation, levels, and selective color I think. I think it turned out okay.