Summer of Dan

Your one opportunity to do something that no one has ever done before

It's been a while since my last CRU so I figured this would be as good a time as any to post one.

• Football season is almost here. Just a few more practices and the 2008 season will begin. I can't wait. It would be nice for us to actually scrimmage someone, but we are 0 for 2 in that arena with both teams backing out.
  
• The Niff and I have been renting movies like crazy lately. Basically one a day for the last few days. Quick recap?
  
  • 30 Days of Night – your typical trashy horror vampire movie. Everything I expected and more. Which isn't a bad thing, but not really a great thing. Was what I thought it would be so I can't say I was disappointed really in the outcome. If you hate blood, stay the hell away from this.
    
    
  • Lars and the Real Girl – quirky, funny, comedic drama. Was a bit slow at times, and a bit unrealistic here and there, but I liked it nonetheless. Even if Steve didn't do a run by Movie-ing to me I would have been happy renting it myself.
    
    
  • Rambo – Rambo could have been the best action series of all time had they stayed with it. Instead of 4, they could have had 10 of these movies. I Redboxed the latest Rambo and was expecting it to be cheesy, but the cheese was no where to be found. Bloodier than anything previously, more up close killing, and roll in the old style of John Rambo and you have a winner.
    
    
  • Kung-Fu Panda – saw it in iMax at the recommendation of Steve: easily one of the best movies of the year. In the best theater and movie setting you can see it in. Hands down. I just hope they have The Dark Knight in iMax.
    
    
• I've always been a big meat eater, as I never really ate too many veggies growing up. After watching an episode of 30 Days about animal rights and seeing some of the awful things that go on in regards to dairy cows, chickens, and pigs I've rethought about what it means to eat meat. I've always been someone that believes strongly in the sanctity of life, whether it's a person or an insect's. All life is equal in my eyes, although some will say that is foolish, it's simply what I believe. After watching that episode, and reading a couple pages in The Ethics of What We Eat, I've decided I'm going to not totally take meat out of my diet, but look for healthy alternatives when possible. I'd hate to think that I am consuming something that lived in horrendous pain for the last 20% of it's life. I'm not a PeTA person by any stretch, I just can't support places like KFC where it's acceptable for them to have 3 million chickens a year be scalded not only alive but fully aware of what is going on. If it means I eat less beef, chicken and pork in the process, so be it.
  
  
• After having lunch with my siblings and father on Father's Day I've come to this conclusion: my brother has the worst taste in movies on the planet, anything my sister likes means I will have a 50/50 shot of liking it, and my dad retains his good taste in movies.
  
  
• I went on a bike ride with my mom this past weekend around Concord. We hit up the local farmers market to check it out, and as we made our way out of it, who do I see at the lights in his truck? James. Small world. Actually, small state.
  
  
• I still cannot believe Kraig passed up that Sox game.
  
  
• Gatorade G2 is the best tasting sports drink in the world. All the flavors are awesome, and taste like either Jell-o or Fla-vor-Ice.
  
  
• I had 3 iTunes credits that I needed to use up by today. It took me literally 3 hours easily to find something I wanted to spend those credits on. Music nowadays is total shit. The music industry wonders why people go out of their way to steal music, because they fill their albums will absolute fucking garbage. Who wants to pay for that?
  
  
• It's very painful waiting for me to get a new cellphone. I'm excited on one hand, but scared there won't be a phone that is up to par with what I am looking for in the end. At which point I'll realize I should have gotten a new phone ages ago. Oh well, just a couple more months left before all the summer phones should be out…
  
  
• The Tampa Bay Rays in 1^st place in all of MLB right now at this point in the season is not as surprising to me as that sounds. They've been stockpiling young talent, both hitters and pitchers, and they collected a few cagey vets here and there and have zero pressure on them to do anything.
  
  
• I am so damn excited to get down to Washington D.C. with the Niff after my season for her marathon. I cannot wait.
  
  
• I love working out in the gym away from the Niff, only to come together when we are both finished and see that we both beat the shit out ourselves and had a great workout. There is something very satisfying about that.
  
  
• Mark asked me the other day if we were going to our 10 year high school reunion. 10 years. My reply? 10 years: all the people I want to have contact with I already do. I'm not a snob, I'm not an elitist, I'm not one of those people that gets off on attention from people I haven't seen in a decade. I don't count myself as a popular guy in the sense that quantity is better than quality. The few friends I have people would kill to have great friends like mine, even one of them. My friends are true to themselves, they are genuine, they are authentic. And that's all I need. Mark echoed my thoughts. Good man.
  
  
• I beat down Kraig in fantasy baseball last week. He has already started his fall from grace. He was in 1^st for a few weeks, and now is dropping like a rock, while I am slowly but surely moving on up. That must sting, huh?
  
  
• A couple hours a weekend spent at Borders with the Niff? Priceless. I love it. A massive amount of reading material we get to scour, talk about and share, and it's free. We grab a coffee or drink, and just hang tight for a bit. Can't beat that.
  
  
• You also can't beat calling maintenance to fix the pole in your closet that holds your clothes with their hangers because it fell down and coming without telling you. There is nothing like the Sea of Clothes that fell down when it snapped that they absolutely had to step on to fix it. Not awkward at all. These guys are usually not the cleanest folk (not calling maintenance men dirty, not even mine, I'm just saying…) because they are hard at work fixing everything that breaks in these apartments, so it would have been nice to at least know when they were coming so I could have moved the Sea for them.
  
  
• Riddle me this: Ray hates the fan. Lola loves it. WTF?
  
  
• Kevin Garnett should play receiver, right next to Randy Moss. Absolutely.

Time to sleep. For sure.

Rest in Peace, George

The passing of George Carlin to me was very sad and shocking. When most celebrities die I normally have almost no reaction. Mostly because I don't feel like I have anything in common with them.

But George was different. Very different.

George reminds me in many ways (all good) of my father. He likes to buck the system, think outside the box, and question things that just don't seem right. Most people go about their everyday lives without doing this, but not George, and not my dad.

I'm a lot like my father, and in turn, I guess we're both like George. My father isn't the foul-mouthed curmudgeon that many thought George was. And although I'm not old (well, 28 is up there I guess) I supposed the foul mouth skipped my father's generation and landed with me.

A little less than 10 years ago my father and I saw George at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom, arguably the best place in New Hampshire to catch any show, artist, or comedic act when you crave an intimate setting, and need a beach across the street to walk on when it's over.

We sat up in the corporate box that was available to us because of my aunt's company at the time, and enjoyed the first couple acts. They were good, but they weren't George. In fact, who is like George? I won't sit here and try to compare anyone to him, because they would never measure up. Ever. I love Jerry Seinfeld and Dane Cook and Steve Martin and Robin Williams, but all have a unique style. No one was safe with George, whether it was children, the wealthy and privileged, or religion.

When George hit the stage, the place went wild, long enough to let George know we appreciated him being there, but not too long so that he could begin to display his craft. The opening acts went about 20 minutes each, and George went for over 3 hours. It was amazing. I've never seen my father laugh so hard in his entire life, and a couple times I felt like I was going to pass out from lack of oxygen.

At the end of the night, I went down to the booth and bought this shirt:

It was my favorite shirt. I outgrew it (size wise) and turned it over to my sister. I have no idea where it is now, but in honor of George maybe I'll buy another. I wore it everywhere from the mall to the movies to food shopping and always got amazing shock value out of it. But that wasn't why I wore it. I wore it because it reminded me of that night with my dad. It reminded me of what George was all about. It's an iconic shirt. Five simple words, a few meanings, and a lot of dialogue that would follow whenever I wore it.

George loved the English language. He loved hyperbole, loved hypocrisy, he loved oxymorons, he loved our lazy language. He loved it all. Nothing was off-limits to him, and I think that is why he was so endearing to me. From his thoughts on helping the homeless to religion to things you hear when you're on a plane. We laugh because we can relate to it. Probably the most resonating joke he ever told in my eyes is when he talked about people driving.

"Did you ever notice that everyone that drives slower than you is an idiot, and everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?"

It's much like his "stuff" observation.

"Have you ever noticed their stuff is shit, and your shit is stuff?"

It's so funny because it's true. It's all about how you look at things. That's George.

In an interview in 1997 someone asked him if he exercises. His reply was truthful, gave a glimpse into his life and a little of how he thinks and feels, and had a point, much like everything else he would comment on. And it was filled with a little wit to boot. "I use a treadmill because I've had three heart attacks. My father died at 57. His first symptom of heart trouble was a trip to St. Raymond's Cemetery."

It's sad to me that George exercised to improve his health and still died from a heart attack. It's sad because even at 71 he had so much more to offer the world.

Rest in peace, George. I'm sure you're keeping everyone laughing up there, especially when you break out the religion bits.

Support your Nation…Red Sox Nation

This year's MLB All-Star game is in Yankee Stadium. It's a fitting tribute and sendoff to a great stadium, as the Yankees say goodbye to it after this season and hello to their new stadium next year.

Now, what better way to say goodbye than to fill it with Red Sox players. Vote for the Sox! Don't be stupid. Just do it. Once you fill out the form, it remembers your entries so you can vote over and over again, you just need to do the verification box thing and you're golden.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2008/ballot_reg.html

Vote 25 times a day. You'll know when you did because you'll see this:

 

 

I did my part, now go do yours!

Share and share alike

I'm a geek. I love techie shit way too much, especially anything that I think is unique and fresh.

I get a lot of my news/world happenings/articles I read through Google Reader. Forever I've marked articles and things I've read through it as "shared". I was never really sure what that meant until just the other day and clicked through, and found that it was a great way for me to share the stuff I like with my friends, while personalizing it a bit.

If you're bored check it out, I update it daily with random stuff I like.

Youk, Sox, Goodwill and Red Sox Nation

For a great many reason, the Niff offered up her Sox ticket to the game today to anyone that would want it. I tried for almost a full day to find someone that would want to go, someone that could go. Through no one's fault at all, no one could go.

In the end I made the right move and told Mark to see if he could get someone to go and he did.

Awesome game, and I'm sure everyone that missed out (whether they wanted to or not) is kicking themselves for not being able to go:

Long fucking game. Started at 2:25pm after a rain delay, didn't get over until almost 7pm. 13 innings, 29 total hits, 96 at bats, 47 guys left on base between both teams. Youk hit a walk-off HR. All 15,000 of us that were left went crazy. Fuckin awesome.

I felt like this guy in the Boston commercial trying to hunt someone down to go to the game:

Who knew it would be so hard?

In the end, a good time was had by myself, Mark, Steve, and Chad. It was a very long ass day, not one most people could handle, especially with typical fucked up New England weather: one second it was downpouring, then immediately sunny, then humid, then cool and breezy, then dark but no rain, then bright but raining, then extremely windy.

There was a kid there selling ponchos as it started to drizzle. I thought he was selling nachos (they do sound alike) and figured it was odd he was swinging around a box of nachos. When I asked what he was selling and I balked at his ponchos he laughed at me that I would regret it later and walked off. I wish he came back, because it never rained anything at all since then. We all spent the remainder of the afternoon "regretting not buying ponchos". Yeah, like I'd ever regret not dropping a small fortune on anything at Fenway.

It was so long at one point half our row was falling asleep. And Fenway is not exactly a quiet place. Even after 11 or 12 innings. I thought it was The Happening all over again.

After Youk cranked it, we celebrated for a couple minutes as Fenway emptied, and then we bolted out of Fenway. We needed to make good time, we were there almost all day. As soon as we got into the Kenmore T-station things started crawling. The air was heavy, sweaty, humid, just nasty. We were all moving like sheep. Barely crawling. Typical for after a game, but with the total time we spent there are the game it was just time to GTFO of there stat. I started groaning and saying I wanted to eat brains, like we were all zombies. Laughter ensued. For about 10 seconds. Then we all realized we were still smelly, hot, and just nasty.

Steve and I felt like we were on the Amazing Race, as we lost Mark and Chad on the train at one point, got off when the train we did make it onto made it's last service stop and hopped onto another, only to find our buddies sitting right there.

"And like that, we caught up to them!"

I so can see why people on the Amazing Race would be pissed, thinking they ditched a team only to see them catch up to them.

I'll be dehydrated for the next few days, as I was only willing to pay for one soda at $4.50 for a 20-ounce bottle. Slowly I'll recover.

Big thanks to the Niff for sacrificing her ticket so someone else could go. It's not every day that someone does that, especially for a Sox game. That's what makes that commercial there so damn funny.

Updates to come and then some…

I've been too busy lately to update this as often as I want, but I should have some time soon to take care of that. Just a couple posts I need to put up are our trip to Boston a few weeks ago and our trip to Baltimore.

I'm also in the process of a redesign of the site. I'm awful at coding but I have a very specific idea of what I want and I'll plug away at it until I get it right.

And stay tuned as well, I've been thinking about changing the name of the site for a while but nothing as really stayed with me. Other than Flackisagirl.com.

Ticketbastard

I had a shot to get some tickets to see Coldplay in August at the Garden in Boston. Because I'm a Best Buy Rewards Zone member, I get presale codes to some concerts. Not all, not even a lot, but sometimes its worth it. It's how the Niff and I got to see The Police last summer at Fenway.

Today was a tad less successful then:

See, I got there when I needed to, I put in my code, and as you can see below I wanted 2 tickets at the cheapest price (before all the insane charges they tack on) at a certain location in the building.

I thought I was being pretty straightforward.

So I hit submit, and I get to the human verification part if it and was like WTF does that say?

 

I tried my best (inland obevs – inland ob-ys – inland ocevs), but failed, so it spit out another.

I have a pretty good idea of what the first word is. If you think the second is obvious, and it's OBVIOUSLY the word "exercises" well you would have guessed what I did and been just as stupid as me.

Ok that changes the fuckin rules. A fraction? Not only a fraction, but a fake one??

"Man, remember when gas was only $1.37 ½ a gallon?" WTF IS THAT??

So I typed it in just the way I see it and it's like "Dude, OBVIOUSLY you're an idiot" and was insulting enough to give me this lovely message:

I was just so happy with the way this was going. It gave me another one. I should have clicked the vision impaired button to the right but I probably would have had someone that sounds like Stephen Hawking talking through the mic and then I would have really been fucked.

Now, at this point I've been through at least a dozen of these hieroglyphics and I FINALLY get it right. And I see this:

 

Oh no SHIT!!! How about "This probably occurred because you have a snowballs chance in hell in figuring out WTF we are putting in these boxes. In fact, it's so tricky, it tricks computer programs AND real people! Much like the cats, only this makes you think you have a SHOT at getting it right!"

For those that don't know what the cats are, it's the same thinking: looking at a picture and inputting the image into the box to verify that you are a person. Here are the lovely famous cats:

Much like how many others have pointed out, I actually on see 3 things I would call a "letter". Maybe in their world the number 8 is a letter, but not in mine.

Anyway, I digress.

Finally, I get in. Sweet, I'll have a shot to get a pair of tickets to see Coldplay for around $100.

Wrong. This is what Ticketbastard kicked back to me:

 

Oh. That's nice. So tickets there were not in the price range I wanted. Awesome. With the extra charges and the charges to get them printed it would be over $200. Not quite what I was thinking.

And not what the Niff was thinking either, as indicated by a quick chat:

Me: Yeah, funny stuff. So I tell it to select UPPER SECTION and ONLY SHOW ME $45 TICKETS. And it spits back $75 tickets up to.

The Niff: LOL

Me: So do this math - $75, plus $15.70, plus $5, plus $2.50.

The Niff: equals…fuck you very much, Ticketmaster

Me: LOL

It's beyond pulling teeth from a sleeping dragon. You have zero chance to begin with. And they just make it oh so much easier on you. Gotta love a monopoly like Ticketbastard.

Are we that self absorbed?

When September 11^th happened, there was a lot of support thrown our way from all over the world. You can sense the sympathy from all the countries around the globe. Almost 3000 people died.

But why has there been a fraction of the media coverage for the earthquake in China? Is it because they are a communist nation? Because of their differing view on human rights? Or is it because America was attacked by terrorists, and it could happen to any country?

Regardless of the reason, almost 25 times more people died in China because of this earthquake. 70,000 people. 5 million homeless.

That's insane. Because of one natural disaster. I've tried to find what we've done as a country to help them out and I've found very little. And that makes me sad.

Why I don't live down south

It's 90-something degrees today. Humidity is through the roof. My work is air-conditioned, and I feel like I am still going to pass out.

I think I need to bring in an industrial fan to sit in front of my cube.

If this is any indication of how this summer will be, I'm going to be in trouble. Especially with football.

Eeesh. I'll have no problem shedding 50 lbs. within the next week.

Take a hike buddy

It's the beginning of June. It's insanely hot and humid. 95 degrees in New Hampshire is a whole lotta ick for me. Fat kids don't like extreme heat or humidity. Or exertion in said circumstances.

So how did I get talked into going on a hike with the Niff in the White Mountains today?

Two words: no idea.

Maybe it was the extreme appeal to hike in the woods with about 1000 feet in elevation for over an hour in Sahara Desert like temperatures, sweat my balls off and lose half my body weight in sweat, be constantly attacked my bugs, and have a shot at being the only 28 year old in the entire history of the State of New Hampshire to die hiking what most avid hikers would normally amount to as a hill.

Or, it could have been a combination of the fact that it's something the Niff really wanted to do and there was a lake at the area of the mountain where we could swim at before going back down the mountain. Who knows.

The Niff was so stoke to be going on this little excursion she offered to drive. Which I had no problem with. At all.

Which you probably can tell.

The Niff started really getting excited when we hit this point on our trip to the mountain, since it's fairly close to where we were here.

This is right before I got down to about 125 lbs. This is one of three points during the day when I was happy to be a mountaineer.

It was a pretty steep hike for me for the most part, which meant I took very few photos on the way up. When I finish setting up my photo albums I'll upload them all into an album just for this hike. This is the view at the lake, not sure what mountains those are in the distance, but it was a beautiful lake nestled on part of the mountain. Being high up and having all sorts of snow-melt and whatnot, and having cold springs feed it, the lake was pretty damn cold but it was perfect. We warmed up in a few minutes and we both agreed it was warmer than the ocean so who could complain. Add on the fact that we were sweaty and ready to cool off and it was the perfect treat for our hike.

The Niff and I changed at the hut near the lake before heading back down the mountain. Going down the mountain is where I excel as it uses mostly muscle and very little endurance which is a good thing for a big boned fellow like myself.

We got down to the bottom in no time at all it seemed, and we were both happy with the outcome of the day: get in a good workout, take in some nature, get in a good swim, and just enjoy our time together in the hills of New Hampshire.

Look at those mountaineers! Same pose and everything!

Hiking is like anything: do it only in moderation. Because you could die from it.