Today I present to you the pinnacle of locally produced TV. It is a short clip, as I didn’t want my readers to be overwhelmed by the wealth of information that is offered. Hopefully both PC and Apple users alike are able to view the file. Please let me know if you have any trouble. If you are on dialup, forget it. File is 10mb. Enjoy.

Gather ’round the TV…

*edited*
The link has changed so it points to a WMV file now. I have been informed that you fine Apple users can play these files, and they are WAY smaller at 1.7mb, so there you go.

I haven’t been sleeping much lately. Too much stress and too much to do. So I took advantage of my boss and his good nature and went home early today. To my bed. Had a wondrous 3 hour nap and now I feel much better.

Of course, now I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight, so the cycle will start all over again. Stupid sleep schedule…

By now, I hope you all know the drill. It’s Tuesday night. Veronica Mars. Great show. If I find out you are not watching it I’ll sneak into your house late at night and murder you in your sleep. Etc, etc, etc.

It looks like Season 1 will be released later this summer. I will of course be buying it post haste. I hereby make this challenge to those naysayers (if we can work it out logistically):

Borrow and watch Disc 1. That’s it. If you don’t like it, then I will watch a movie or the equal amount of episodes of the TV show of your choice. Which you must provide. Episodes of Will and Grace, Paulie Shore movies, generic romantic comedies, Beaches, Reality TV, whatever you choose. This is the kind of sacrifice I’m willing to make in order to expose my incredibly tiny audience to a great little TV show.

You all are so lucky to have me…

If you watched the short-lived Firefly, enjoyed Buffy and/or Angel, or just appreciate good entertainment, you should check out the trailer. I hate to get my hopes up too high, but WOW.

Watch the trailer in Quicktime here.

Ah yes, it is time for another look back to the charts of yesteryear.

April 29, 1995
1 This Is How We Do It, Montell Jordan – I likes it.
2 Red Light Special, TLC – I’ll say it again–mmmMMMmmm Chilli. D-Piddy and I used to play this song on the Crystal Lounge jukebox while we kicked back on the leather couches. Good times.
3 Freak Like Me, Adina Howard – It doesn’t hurt that she was a hometown girl from Grand Rapids, but methinks I would have grooved to this song even if she hailed from Topeka.
4 Candy Rain, Soul For Real – I STILL have no recollection of this song.
5 Run Away, Real McCoy – Another favorite from the glory days of the pseudo-techno era that I am so fond of. Though it pales in comparison to my all-time favorite Real McCoy song: Automatic Lover. Gold Jerry, Gold!
6 I Know, Dionne Farris – I remember VH1 playing the crap out of it. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt because of her Arrested Development days.
7 Big Poppa/Warning, The Notorious B.I.G. – Yes yes yes YES!! “Cause I see some ladies tonite who should be havin my ba-by,
Baybee, uh.” ‘Nuff said.
8 Strong Enough, Sheryl Crow – I’m guessing that an earlier post will make my feelings regarding this song perfectly clear.
9 Dear Mama/Old School, 2Pac – Not my favorite Pac song/songs, but ok. But I must admit that I was surprised to see it in the top 10. I remember 2Pac being popular back in the day, but I never remembered him being a big singles chart topper.
10 I Believe, Blessid Union Of Souls – Yawn.

aaand 15 Years Ago?

1 Nothing Compares 2 U, Sinead O Connor – I was a big Sinead fan back in the day. Hell, I still kinda like her. And Prince wrote this song. What more do you want?
2 Don t Wanna Fall In Love, Jane Child – I was completely fascinated with Jane Child. I was 16, the world was just opening up to me–and there she was, with a chain connecting her ear and nose piercings. And the Jane on the CD cover was upside down. UPSIDE DOWN PEOPLE! She just seemed so worldly and wise.
3 I Wanna Be Rich, Calloway – Didn’t N’Sync do a cover of this? Anywho, I think I liked it at the time, but now…notsomuch.
4 All Around The World, Lisa Stansfield – I haven’t been around the work, and I, I, I, I don’t like this song.
5 How Can We Be Lovers, Michael Bolton – This is EASILY my favorite Michael Bolton song. And I still hate it. You can extrapolate from that my opinions about the rest of his songs.
6 Whip Appeal, Babyface – Not a fan. But he did guest on 90210 once, so I guess he gets some sort of credit for that. But it was to help David, so then again maybe not.
7 Here And Now, Luther Vandross – You just gotta like this song. Like, not love.
8 Without You, Motley Crue – A means to an end. The ballads got my beloved hair bands on the charts, which in turn allowed them to make records. A small price to pay. This was the last good CD these guys cranked out, and that was 15 years ago. That said, it is good to see them together again touring. I just pray that the setlist keeps the new stuff to a minimum.
9 Whole Wide World (From “True Love”), A me Lorain – No clue. I don’t remember the movie or the song.
10 All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You, Heart – I do like me some 80′s Heart. 70′s Heart, eh. But the 80′s Heart was pretty darn ok by me.

Thoughts?

Just finished watching Tori Amos on the (ick) Leno show. Let me preface my upcoming feelings with a little history of Tori in my life. I was totally mesmerized when I first heard Crucify way back when. I devoured Little Earthquakes, totally in love with it and her. I remember going to a record show (this was back in the day with no internet to assist in looking for songs) to search out a bootleg cassette of Y Kant Tori Read. Which incidentally is kind of good. Under the Pink was a much anticipated arrival several years later. My love still burned strong, but had waned a bit. Boys for Pele was interesting and sometimes quite good, but uneven to say the least. My interest waned even further. Everything since has been kind of a mess with some excellent songs mixed in from time to time. I’ve kind of rekindled my love with the new CD, The Beekeeper. It isn’t nearly as good as her first couple CD’s, but for my tastes is much better than the mess that followed. All of that is basically a disclaimer to show that I’m not saying this out of spite.

Tori Amos looks totally creepy.

I’m pretty sure that she has been a recent and regular patient at the Nicole Kidman Botox Treatment Center. My god, her face looks like someone pulled the skin off and ironed it. Creepy creepy creepy. On Leno, she sang Sleeps with Butterflies. Several times she opened her eyes REALLY big as if to try and emote. Nothing. Her face didn’t move a bit. Eyebrows, forehead, cheeks–nothing. She looked like an animatronic porcelain doll. A creepy porcelain doll.

Moral of the story: from now on, Tori is better heard than seen. I prefer to use my mind’s eye and not my real eyes. You get the point. Dear Tori, Botox BAD…

My answer is a resounding YES. For you see, that is a picture of Mel Kiper Jr.–Draft Expert. One of my personal heroes and a legend in the coverage of the NFL Draft. There are few things in this world that I love more than the Draft. It is better than Christmas, Thanksgiving and the 4th of July put together. And no, I can’t explain it in the slightest. Like all true love it can’t be explained, you just know.

I will never forgive my sister for having her wedding on the weekend of the draft 10 years ago. I remember slipping away from family so that I could listen to the draft on the car radio, all the while yearning to be in front of the TV enjoying the full experience. Then, the following year a friend got married that very same weekend, causing me to miss it for the second consecutive year. I remember catching bits and pieces of it in the hotel between festivities, but I wasn’t able to give it the attention that I wanted to. Sad times indeed. From then on, I have done my very best to make up for these dark dismal years by watching the entire draft. For those who aren’t in the know, that entails coverage scheduled from noon -10pm on Saturday, and 11am – 6pm on Sunday. That is a big TV watching commitment, even for me. But it is an undertaking that I do willingly, even joyfully every year.

So while you are out and about enjoying your weekends, I’ll be spending my holiday weekend with ESPN’s NFL Draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. And I couldn’t be happier.

Go to hell pollen.

I’m sick of everything in Chattanooga being covered in your disgusting yellow dust. I’m sick of spending the every day sneezing and dealing with runny nose and having massive allergy fits. I’m sick of having to take Benadryl and walking around like a zombie because of it. And I’m sick of staying inside to try and avoid all of these things when it is an otherwise beautiful day.

I can’t believe that I am actually anxious for summer and it’s hot humid horrid days. But at least I won’t be sneezing…

I made another offer on a house today. It’s kind of like haggling at a garage sale, but with a lot more money at stake. Which in turn makes it way more stressful. I don’t like being stressed. But I am. Stressed. Plus, the sellers agent is a total Tennessean in that deadlines and contracts have no real meaning to her. The last counteroffer I got was faxed over five hours AFTER it expired. Gotta love that southern work ethic. So dealing with her adds to my stress level.

After looking at lots of houses in my price range, I’ve begun to see a vision of the future. I see me, holding a paint roller, surrounded by bags from the Home Depot. In other words–there is work to be done. Hopefully the excitement of owning my own home will fuel my drive to get things spruced up. Hopefully…

New single from the Gorillaz is ever so good. The rest of the CD is pretty good, and growing on me with each listen. But Feel Good Inc…just too good.

Sample it in one of the following formats:

Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Video
Real Audio
Real Video

Comic they wrote about the new CD

Besides, Noodle is such a cutie, how can you resist?

Any opinions on the new blog theme / layout? I like it better than the default (otherwise I wouldn’t have changed it, right?) but I’m curious as to what everyone thinks.

I’m sick of my customers that want to complain about what I bill them just because they don’t understand what I did. I’ve had this woman crawling up my rear end for two days now asking question after question about why this and why that. Problem is she isn’t smart enough to understand any of my answers, so we are both just wasting our breath. She just can’t fathom how I could ever charge her $300 for a hard drive and my labor. For you see, she has an 11-year old son that knows more about computers than anyone she knows. I mean, people are always calling to ask his advice as a PC expert. Yet somehow, he wasn’t able to diagnose a bad hard drive and properly remove viruses and adware on his mom’s laptop. I’m sure he just had a off-day, and it’s not that he is a frickin’ 11-year old that knows how to run a program which automatically makes him smarter than anyone else this parent knows and therefore is assumed to be some sort of genius and/or prodigy.

I get really tired of people that bring their computer to me, after their “genius” neighbor or nephew or cousin or milkman tried to fix it and couldn’t. And then complain about how much I charge them. You know what? If it were that easy, your dumb family member or neighbor could have fixed it. But they couldn’t, so what does that tell you? This is my job. This is how I make my living. And sometimes my job is hard dammit. Just because your neighbor can install a modem doesn’t mean that he is my equal. You are paying for my experience and expertise, and if you don’t want those things by all means, don’t bring me your computer. The money I make off of an hour of labor is not worth the aggravation of spending an additional half hour explaining to someone why I charged them for the time it took to fix their problem.

Veronica Mars has been picked up for a second season. I’m happy and excited, but a little fearful as well. I don’t trust network executives, and they have renewed more than one show only to have it never see the light of day the following season. But for now I’ll be grateful that at least one season of near perfect TV has been made. I’ll be pre-ordering the DVD’s as soon as they are announced. I can’t wait to have a Veronica Mars Marathon weekend.

There is a new episode tomorrow night. We are getting closer and closer to finding our killer…

I’m paying for my onions and apples and the roadside produce stand, when I am startled by loud BANG. The 16-year-old kid running the register and I both look across the 4 (5 if you count the center) lane road and see a Toyota Camry t-boned into a boat and trailer that were parked in an empty lot at the side of the road. Somehow, the driver (later discovered to be female by all eyewitness accounts, meaning me) had managed to go from a side street all the way across this busy road without getting creamed, a statistical improbability to be sure, and then plowed into the boat that was straight ahead of her. After a couple of seconds of stunned uncertainty on her part, she makes the decision to throw it in reverse. This is followed by a giant billowing of white smoke as she tries to untangle herself from the boat. I didn’t think much about this, just thought she was trying to get loose and into the parking lot. But alas, my faith in the quality and trustworthiness of humanity was once again proven to be misguided. After much wheel-spinning and engine trauma (I can only assume), she managed to get loose and promptly took off down the road. The following is a brilliantly rendered diagram of the incident:

At this point, I was quite irritated that I hadn’t gone across the road and gotten a plate number or something. I really felt for the poor guy that had his boat and trailer ruined and didn’t even have a tangible culprit to blame for it. But what could I do at this point? Not much, or so I thought…

I got back in my car after finishing my purchase, and continued my journey. And about a mile or so up the road, what did I see but this very same Camry sitting in the center lane, apparently stranded as it’s overworked engine gave up. I pulled a u-turn, then another and got behind the car long enough to jot down the license plate number, then drove on a bit longer trying to figure out the next best step in my crusade for vigilante justice. Lo and behold, another mile or so down the road I see two policemen parked side by side in a parking lot having a conversation. So I pull in and tell them the story, one of them shoots off on a hunt for the hit and run driver while the other takes down my contact information and a more detailed explanation of the incident. I wished that I could have stuck around and seen the outcome, but I didn’t want to seem too excited about it and have the cops think me a complete psycho.

Far too often both stupidity and criminal behavior go unpunished, and it felt good to prevent this lady from getting away with her jackassery. I can only hope she was uncooperative and got the taser.

FYI, don’t freak out if your comments don’t immediately show up. The new upgrade makes me approve comments the first time someone posts. After you have been approved once, you shouldn’t have to wait after that. And I am pretty diligent about my admin responsibilities so you shouldn’t have to wait too long.

This helps cut down on the amount of “online poker” and “Canadian Viagra” comments that I have to manually moderate. I hate spam.

I encourage all of my readers to contribute to the comments. For one, it lets me know that at least 3 of you are actually looking at this thing once in a while. And we can have a fun little back and forth IF you contribute. So please, comment, criticize, and contribute. That way, maybe we can all be just a little bit more angry. And then what a wonderful world it would be.