One Weekend Closer to Home

And boy can I feel it! It seems like every time I say I'm going to stay home for awhile and lay off the travel a career opportunity pops up that I can't pass on and takes me away. This has been a VERY good career opportunity; perhaps one with big life changes in the near future. But right now my one and only concern is getting home to my wife and home. Of course, there's plenty of other concerns like our trip to Texas and Oklahoma coming up next month. And there's the house to deal with and all the associated goodness with that. But home is much needed.

This weekend I went back to the National Portrait Gallery and finished out what I had missed my previous trip. It was a good afternoon and I enjoyed getting out of the apartment. Of course, I didn some nesting too. I finished Medal Of Honor 2 on the Xbox 360 and am now working on finishing Kameo. These are video games, for those not in the know.

Anyway, not a lot to say, but I've been noticing that none of my buddies are updating their blogs with any regularity and I was just as guilty, so I thought I better get something out there.

Later.

Ostracized

You ever get the feeling that people are intentionally not talking to you? Maybe it's just me being alone over here on the east coast.

Maybe.

Anyway, on to airplanes. I understand that there are certain reasons that specific things need to happen on airplanes. Like a seatbelt, for instance. If you've ever seen the first season of Lost, there was this great scene shown over and over of a plane crash, and you could really tell who was wearing a seatbelt and who wasn't.
I would even go so far as to understand why you have your tray tables and seatbacks locked and in their upright positions. No one wants to eat a face full of upholstery or Formica in the event of an ugly landing. These things are very unlikely to happen, but it makes sense that we do them if you really strain your brain.

Then there are those other commands that you have no choice but to obey because they're all caveated with FAA REGULATIONS REQUIRE, like we all carry around a copy of the aforementioned to verify whether they're pulling our leg or not, and even if they're completely making it up, those same regs say you have to obey the "flight attendants" commands, regardless of sanity. And what ever happened to stewards/esses? The reality of the situation is that soda and a snack is the primary reason that planes are staffed. Oh sure, you hear the smartly modified announcements: "Flight attendants primary functions are to ensure your safety", like they're whipping out an Allen wrench to tighten up the rivets along the superstructure; like even one percent of these attendants are flight qualified in the event that both captain and co-pilot were incapacitated; like one of these four or so underpaid attendants is going to plunge into a carotid artery in case of a rupture.

The whole thing is a placebo. It's the illusion of some critical element that really isn't doing anything.

The pre-flight safety brief? Placebo. If you don't know how to buckle the safety belt that's God's way of thinning the herd.

In the event of a water landing your seat cushion... Placebo: they won't do anything because an airplane has fallen from out of the sky where it was previously cruising along at 500 miles per house at 40,000 feet and it just collided with the water, which resulted in a rather sudden stop.

Oxygen masks will drop from the over head; the bags may not inflate but you will still receive oxygen... placebo, and not necessarily true; unbeknownst to most people, these non-pressurized supplemental systems don't have enough pressure to provide any oxygen to your bloodstream above about 28,000 feet. Don't believe me? Check out this ABC News article. It's not pretty: most people blackout over 15000 feet altitude. If there is pressure loss at 39K feet, you have about 9 seconds to don your mask before you black out... which you will still do even if you get it on in time, because it'll take the pilot about 90 seconds to get you below 28 thousand feet where your safety cones will start giving you the oxygen you need. Is it important to get the mask on? Yes... will it save your life? Maybe; but it's still a placebo.

So what's up with these other not so sensible requirements? Say for instance you want to have your window shade closed during landing because the sun is cooking you. Nope, sorry: FAA REGULATIONS REQUIRE... Why? What possible impact will a closed window shade have on the pilot (unless of course it's his window shade.)? How about the reg that says you can't have headphones on, even if they're not plugged into anything? And really, what's wrong with an electronic device that doesn't transmit, like say an MP3 player? FAA REGULATIONS REQUIRE...
I guess it could be that I'm just overly sensitive because I travel a lot. Maybe.

Give me a Break

I'll be flying home for the Columbus day Weekend. That's going to be a nice break. I leave on Thursday the 5th and return on Tuesday the 10th. That's the good news.

Whether or not I'll actually be coming home on time, i.e. the end of this trip, is in question. Rumor has me maybe staying until the 8th of December vice the 17th of November. Of course, if that's true, I'll still be flying home for Thanksgiving and on to Texas/Oklahoma. But it complicates things at least a little.

There you have it. :j

Catching up on pictures

200 lbs @ <14% body fat for 6 months

That's my goal. Reach 200 pounds, reduce to at or below 14% body fat. Maintain that status for 6 months.

If I do that, then I'm rewarding myself with one of these:
a Big Dog Motorcycle K-9 Chopper.

Just about everyone who knows me knows that I've been trying to lose weight for a long time. Today, I'm 260 pounds at 34% body fat, and that's the same place I've been for the last 6 months of "trying" to lose weight.

Well, there you have it. I'll keep you posted over time with the progress I make or don't make. But I really want that bike, so maybe this is the encouragement I need.

Oh, and for those of you who don't want me on a motorcycle: bugger off.

Calling All Cars

So, I know I just mentioned Storm and the Balls Yesterday as the band that I entered in the contest over at Engadget, but I'm really excited to tell everyone that their single "Ladylike" had made it onto iTunes! I've been trying to find Storm on iTunes for years, and searching by her name last night I had no luck; but the bands website said which single would be available on iTunes, so I searched for the song and viola! There it was!

Please please please, go and download the song! There are two versions and I will tell you that the explicit version is not for everyone. She uses the F work quite a lot, though I will defend her by saying that the context in which it's used is to express anger and angst, and it's therefore used correctly and not superfluously to merely draw attention. However, I also believe that the clean version is very acceptable replacing "what" for the f-word.

The chorus goes:
What the (f)what is Lady like if ladies like to do what they like, just like you.

where the what with the (f) in front of it is where the words are substituted.

Anyway, that's a really long way of saying, if you own an iPod, and you have 99 cents to spare, please please please give this band your support.

Also, for those friends who are interested in a pilgrimage this February, Storm and the Balls are playing an arena concert in Portland... And I'm going!

Engadget: Sociology 101

If you're a marketing exec and you happen to be reading my blog--well, what the heck are you doing wasting your 6 figure salary on my blog--but, more to the point, if you haven't been paying attention to what Engadget is up to, you're missing out on some invaluable "Free" research in their latest (and may I say much appreciated) give aways today and yesterday.

I put my two cents in on both of these contests, not because I thought I had a remote chance of winning, but because like most people, I'm more than happy to share the greatness of my favorite band and favorite TV show. For the record, my favorite song was listed as Beautiful by Storm Large--even though I think that TOOL is a better band I think Storm is a very close second, and she needs the publicity more. I threw in Numb3rs for my fav TV show and like all other ego maniacs, I started thumbing through the responses to see how many other people were as smart as me. Turns out, I'm more of an elitist... not a whole lot of people chiming in on the Numb3rs show. At least, not on the first 50 pages of responses. As I check right now, there's just under 6000 comments(yes, say it out loud: "Six Thousand Comments"--don't you wish your blog was so popular?) on today's question, which seems a realistic trend considering yesterday's question has had two days to garner comments and its sporting about 12,500 comments.

What really made me trudge all the way over here to the Caffeinated Life to discuss this subject, though, was the sheer number of fans that certain cancelled shows have. I mean, and I'm talking to you again Mr. Exec, I've looked at 50 pages of comments at 20 comments a page (that's a thousand comments for those without a calculator), and roughly 20% of respondents have cited "Firefly" as their favorite show. Firefly was cancelled after only eleven episodes, FOUR YEARS AGO. IMHO, the Engadget survey is reporting that someone at FOX had a cranial-anal inversion. Same corporation (FOX) apparently has a problem with wildly successful shows because Arrested Development is hooking about 10% of the fan base and it, too, was cancelled by none other. Fox is not alone as many weigh in with ABC's cancelled "Alias", at least a memorable amount of times, as their most favoritist show. And I'll throw X-Files and West Wing in the mix because I counted both of these about a dozen times or so.

Ironically, Friends made the list only once (in the 50 pages I looked at). Other shows that one would think appeal to this particular demographic but were only mentioned, on average, once: Star Trek, That 70's Show, South Park (to be fair, more than once, but less than 10 times), The OC, Orange County Choppers, CSI (> 1 | < 10), American Idol, WWE/WWF, Sopranos (though Deadwood [slated for cancellation] and Entourage made strong showings for HBO), Will and Grace, King of the Hill (first mention on page 68), Pimp My Ride was the only MTV show mentioned and only once; (Magnum P.I. got more mentions than The Real World), Saturday Night Live... these are shows that are thought to be the juggernauts of TV? Not according to Engadget readers.

There's plenty of insight on successful shows still in production: LOST is seemingly taking the lion's share, but Battlestar Galactica is doing very respectable, as is House, Scrubs, Grey's Anatomy, 24, Family Guy, Smallville, The Office, and of course still holding strong after all these years: The Simpsons. My Name is Earl, The Entourage, and Prison Break get honorable mentions, as does the Myth Busters (Discover) and Eureka (a new favorite of mine on SCIFI) and Stargate SG-1/Alantis.

That's my shpeel: Engadget, one of the hottest internet news commodities when it comes to electronics and gadgets is offering up one smorgasbord of collective marketing goodness, free o' charge. Is anyone listening? Because if it get's Firefly or Arrested Development back on the air, itsaboutfreakingtime; the nerve of some people cancelling these shows in an effort to force feed me more reality TV carp. That's right, I might have mis-spelled it, but you know what I mean.

Happy Anniversary to Our Troxel Parents!

Thanks to Jenna...

I was reading Jenna’s Blog today and Wow, what a punch to the old nostalgia button!!!

Sure I remember Sesame Street! And I remember The Electric Company and The Muppet Show--the grumpy old guys in the the opera seats were my favorite along with A N I M A L!.

My 13 inch, black and white (well, not all of it... but a good portion), cable-free childhood was not so much "You can't do that on Television" as it was a show called ZOOM on PBS, ...
Box three Five Oh, Boston, MASS, 0-2-1--3-4... Send it to ZOOM! ...
That was their sign-off jingle where you could Mail letters to the show; That address will stick with me forever. They did cool things like show you how to build a boat out of sticks and and plastic trash bags, or how to make a tripod bike... all kinds of stuff like you'd find in Mother Earth Magazine, but for kids. Greatest show ever.

Come to think, though, those episodes of Fraggle Rock I was able to catch on HBO over at Grandma's house were as influential as any public television show that I can remember. Dun dun! Down At Fraggle Rock!

I also remember evening shows like "That's Incredible!" and "Real People" that were these spin offs of "Candid Camera" style shows. And HEE HAW! There's nothing like Hee Haw.
Well, I searched the world over and thought I found true love, YOU met another and THBBBB! you were gone!

Thn there were Flipper, Skippy, Gentle Ben, Airwolf, Knight Rider, MASH, All in the Family, Buck Rogers and the 25th Century, BJ and the Bear, CHiPS, the Dukes of Hazzard, Simon and Simon, 21 Jump Street, Fantasy Island, Hardcastle and McCormick, Incredible Hulk, MacGyver, Quantum Leap, Magnum PI, Newhart... Some real favorites here.

And how about Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom! Dun dun dun, Da--Da, Dun dun dun dun, da-da, da-da, da-da-DA! Does anyone even remember Mutual of Omaha?

Then there was the not-so-good side: with only three channels on the TV, sometimes you got stuck with yuckie stuff like The Lawerence Welk Show or Donnie and Marie Osmond. Sunday mornings didn't have Cartoons, only church, or politics, or news about farms and plants.

But Saturday mornings?!? Now that's pure nostalgia... Fog Horn Leg Horn, Peppy Le Pew, Porky Pig, Felix the Cat, Mr. Magoo, HeMan, The Flinstones... Every Saturday morning from 6am until noon... cartoons. Ah, the good old days.

East Coast Fun