“Cats do not provide milk or wool or meat.” – Dwight K. Schrute. I love The Office. That line from last night’s season four premiere is so funny, but it’s also the perfect nonsense response to people who ask you if you like cats. Just a couple of weeks ago, Em asked me that very question, and I wish I could go back in time with that line in mind. For the record, I do like cats, I just do not want to own one.
I have not written in a while, but not for lack of things to write about I’m sure. Foremost, Amy and I are finally in our new house. All the boxes are unpacked and things are put away, and it really does feel like home. That’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of projects to take care of, namely repainting the Spongebob room or the stucco-on-interior-walls bathroom. But doing those projects should be fun and enlightening, while making the place even more ours.
While unable to quickly sell, we found a great tenant for the condo, and he moves in this weekend. I probably should have listed it for more rent than we are charging, but I’m not disappointed. Within three days of posting it on craigslist, I had shown the place 10 times, turned others away, had three definite offers to rent it, and could have had more. Landlordism is not a mentality I thought I’d take to, but so far so good. Fingers crossed!
I’ll try to post more frequently now that we’re less busy, but if I don’t, you know where to find me.
I finally had the pleasure of a Fountains of Wayne concert on Sunday. Originally slated to open for Joan Jett at the State Fair, they ended up playing a free show when she canceled. They’ve been one of my favorite bands since the first time I heard they’re infections “Radiation Vibe.”
They played a very tight set featuring almost all my favorite songs (“Girl I Can’t Forget” was probably wishful thinking anyway). Unfortunately, there were quite a few silly frat boys in the party who knew nothing of FoW except for their huge hit single, “Stacy’s Mom” – a great 80s/The Cars tribute. They kept yelling “Stacy’s Mom” throughout the show, going so far as to chant en masse.
Eventually, they played it, and the crowd went nuts in a big pogo party. It was actually a really cool scene, very excited crowd, great music, my sweet sugar on my arm. It was then I noticed the American flag waving through the smoke machine in the distance behind the stage. It cemented it all together for me.
Anyway, the moment the song ended, about 30 of these plaid short/Abercrombie wearing dudes just filed out, missing the best song of the night – “Radiation Vibe” with a medley of 80s classic over the guitar solo. What a bunch of lame-os. I was immediately a reminded of the Homer Simpson moment below, which you know I love especially at tcob.com.
Thanks again to Scott Adams for another great laugh. His post today introduced his readers to a great web comic, Basic Instructions by the soon-to-be-famous Scott Meyer. In particular, he directs readers to this incredibly funny strip about disguising a yawn.
I have this problem all the time. I think it started in college where I was very frequently too tired for my 8:00 AM classes. Lecturing became a mental cue for me to yawn. Now whenever I’m in a situation involving someone talking to me at length, I’ll have the uncontrollable urge to yawn. It’s a frequent problem in meetings.
I must be terrible at hiding it, because Amy always catches me trying and says, “Just let it out; you look ridiculous!” I feel just like the guy in the strip.
Update: He must be getting more traffic than he’s used to, so the site is slow. Wait for it; it’s worth it.
Check out the video below to take your mind off of yesterday’s disaster.
It’s surreal to hear things like, “Hey Nick, did your friend Kevin just win a texting contest?” But that’s exactly what I heard on our recent vacation to Lake Kjostad. Swinging in my hammock, I was awfully confused. But the report in the Star Tribune was true! We got home today, and it turns out the talent many of you heard singing at our wedding is also a competition texter. He always does reply to my messages awfully quickly.
Check out the great clip from Kare 11 that demonstrates both of his talents:
2007-09-12 9:00:00 GMT-05:00
I found this recipe for iced coffee in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, and I threw it together last night in preparation for today’s heat. It makes fantastic coffee, and it’s been just the thing as I suffer with no air conditioning.
And I’m wide awake!
Am I still dreaming? Did April Fool’s Day move to July 5? Did The Onion buy Reuters? I can’t otherwise explain this headline.
Ozzy Osbourne to help Taiwan in U.N. membership quest
Here’s an interesting article in the Strib confirming my long-held and not-at-all researched belief that bottled water is one of the biggest scams there is.
It states that Minneapolis water, which I drink and enjoy daily straight from the tap, no filter, frequently wins taste tests against the major bottled waters. Even our local radio gourmet (whom I love) thought Evian to be the tap water.
Anyway, all the petroleum, plastic and waste that accompany bottled water is ridiculous when we have perfectly good pipes under our feet. I’ll happily continue refilling my Sigg water bottle.
I hope that during our inspection tonight the guy checks for every possible detail. We don’t want company at breakfast!
It’s strangely gratifying to know that when we say, “traffic sucks,” we’re absolutely right. Minnesota is proud to feature some of the worst congestion in the nation, second only to California. Woo-hoo! Way to go!
Any fan of The Office should subscribe to Creed Thoughts, which you will not actually find at www.creedthoughts.gov.www\creedthoughts. There you will find gems like
They should rename the Virgin Islands. That was an expensive mistake.
If you aren’t down with The Office, I highly recommend you rent/Netflix season 2 immediately. You’ll thank me.
Along with the move to WordPress, I’ve broken TCOB’s RSS and Atom feeds. I tried a couple of mod_rewrite additions to fix that to no avail. So if you’re using the excellent Google Reader or any other RSS aggregator to read TCOB, you’ll want to update your subscription.
The irony of this post is that the intended audience will not see this article, as it alerts them in a way they probably won’t read. Fortunately, I’m sure “they” refers to one person.
While I’m mixing things up, I’ve decided to experiment with the WordPress “personal publishing platform”. MovableType had served me well, but WordPress seems tighter and more versatile. It’s certainly a lot shinier.
I also like that it’s Open Source. I try to use Open Source software as much as possible, but I only do so when it reaches the same level of polish found in comparable commercial versions. This is rare, but WordPress seems to exceed that standard.
Anyway, you’ll see various pre-built themes here until I can figure out how to implement the one I designed myself, at which point you’ll barely see the difference.
Update: back to my theme. Woot! Still a bit of updating left on some pages and posts, but I’ll get to that eventually.
tcob.com now resides at GoDaddy after a sadly frustrating experience at its former host. Dominet had been fine for a couple of years, and I even recommended it to friends. The uptime was never great, and in comparison, they offered fewer services, space and features for the price than my other providers. The last straw was when they decided to upgrade my server’s OS in the middle of the day without warning. That wasn’t resolved by the time I went to bed. Once it was up, it took another day and a half to get my CGI working.
GoDaddy seems pretty sweet so far. Before starting, I had a couple of questions in email that were answered very quickly, and the one phone call I made found a human at the other end of the line with no waiting. Setup was very smooth, and I had easy access to all the CNAME, MX, and SRV records I wanted to change before the transition (I use a lot of the Google Apps for your Domain services). Adding a MySQL database, installing MovableType, and importing all of my blog entries was a piece of cake.
While I’ll miss the shell access I had with Dominet as well as their online file editor, I don’t think I’ll miss them for long. So far so good with GoDaddy.
What in the hell were they thinking? That logo is so bad that I’m certain it will be discarded and completely redesigned before the London games. If it doesn’t, it will have to be remembered as one of the worst logos ever created.
Why is it that each new driver’s license I get reveals a man ten pounds heavier than his younger self? I’ll grant you that I’m glad I no longer weigh the 135 I enjoyed in high school, but I’m hoping this trend will end now.
Mostly to celebrate Amy’s transition to oldness (aka turning 30), but also in honor of my 33rd birthday and six months of wedded bliss, we spent the weekend climbing at Devil’s Lake State Park in Wisconsin. The highlight of the weekend might have been her fantastic progress on the rock (she’s starting to kick my ass) if it weren’t for the amazing bed and breakfast we employed.
The Inn at Wawanissee Point was my first experience with B & Bs, and it will the one against which all others are measured. It’s a recently-built gorgeous mansion in Baraboo, Wisconsin with four gorgeous guest rooms, comfort in every corner, and an amazingly impressive view of Lake Wisconsin.
The proprietors, Trudy and Dave Holdener, were great and really took care of us with delicious breakfast every morning, wine and cheese each evening, and fulfilling our special requests perfectly. Their inn has to be experienced to be believed, and we only got to enjoy half of it, not having time to explore the hiking trails through the 42-acre estate. If you’re looking for a romantic getaway, the Inn at Wawanissee Point would be hard to beat.
My mother has to be one of the last people to carry on using the term “doggie bag.” Combined with her thick Colombian accent, it sounds hilarious. I have yet to witness a waiter understand exactly what she’s asking for. It was especially funny last Saturday night, when she made the request of our very Indian waiter. Ah, when worlds collide.
