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7.31.2001 (Evening)	HBO used to run a show called Mr. Show with Bob and David. It was incredibly funny. Bob and David went on to film a movie based on one of the characters from their show, Run Ronnie Run. Now hell if I can find any information about when I might be able to see it, but Ain't It Cool News is running a glowing review of it. AICN is also running some press releases that Bob and David are submitting, which are hilarious in and of themselves. This one concerns a test screening of movie clips. This one is about product placement in their movie. You can find links to lots of info about the movie here. I can't wait until this comes out, and I hope they show it up here in Kansas City. If not, I'll be making a road trip.
7.30.2001 (Evening)	How much are you worth? I'm worth $2,152,402.00.
7.30.2001 (Evening)	I am going to be the last to link to the Jet Powered Beer Cooler.
7.30.2001 (Evening)	Polly Esther of Suck was on NPR again. Fanboys can listen here. Or comment on it here at Plastic.
7.30.2001 (Evening)	I managed to pull into second, but if Hutz continues his poor showing today, I'll drop back again. Only two matches left in the elite eight. Things will move quickly after that... I want to go the party in Seattle...
7.28.2001 (Evening)	This guy has registered the best domain names out there, and you can get an email address from him.
7.28.2001 (Evening)	Submitted by Gurney Halleck: Although they may be two of the most powerful houses of the Landsraad, their websites suck: http://www.Harkonnen.com http://www.Atreides.com
7.27.2001 (Morning)	That guy in the Sansa Coffee commerical has finally been de-throned. Many took a bit of a beating in Krusty's loss to Barney. Today's is a no-brainer. I don't even know how Milhouse got this far, but now he will fall to the mighty power that is Mr. Burns. Booo-urns!
7.27.2001 (Morning)	When I was setting my alarm last night, I apparently set the clock two hours forward. In addition, I apparently didn't turn the alarm on. So just a few minutes ago, I woke up in a blind panic when I looked over at the clock and saw that I was currently an hour late to work. I took a fast shower and got dressed, then looked at the other clock in my room and discovered that I still have plenty of time. When Suck first shut down, they would post a re-run every day. Sometime last week, they stopped doing that and just have their good-bye message on the page. So sad.
7.25.2001 (Evening)	Right now, the Road to Springfield website is down. Nevertheless, I've scored a win for Groundskeeper Willy since he had a commanding lead when the polling closed.
7.25.2001 (Morning)	In the couple hours of sleep I got between that call and now, I had a cool dream that the prank caller hacked my web server. He also hacked my windows machine and installed some sort of utility that made my taskbar go away when I moused over it. So I couldn't figure out how to shut down my computer. So I pulled it's plug, and it kept running. Then, after about 30 seconds it shut down. I restarted with a boot disk and found that my backup of this website had been deleted as well. I guess I'd better back this up somewhere that isn't connected to the internet... I wouldn't want to lose all this amazing content.
7.25.2001 (Late Night)	I've certainly received prank phone calls before. I just got another. I kind of fucked with the guy a bit... Then he threatened to murder me, my wife, my kids and everyone I know. I guess that kind of puts a damper on getting married and having kids. I also apologize to everybody here for getting you into this. All joking aside, I find it a bit unsettling, since I believe that I have my address listed in the phone book. So I went ahead and activated call trace ($8 a pop... Fuck me...) and I guess will be filing an official police report tomorrow when SWB calls back with the trace. Fun fun fun... Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll spend the next couple of hours trying to sleep...
7.24.2001 (Lunch)	Excellent News Radio today. Dave struggles with his video game addiction...
7.23.2001 (Evening)	Submitted by a friend, and I'm more than happy to oblige: Do you hate those commercials before movies as much as I do? I went to the website of the company that sells the ad space and they boast "reach up to 54 million captive consumers monthly"! Those a-holes... To see links on where to complain about this: http://www.badads.org/movies.shtml To write to AMC in particular, the theater I go to the most: http://www.amctheatres.com/comments/other.html Let us all unite! As much as I hate it, I think the most telling statement in the first article is this: "Whether you or I like it or not, every conceivable space is going to be filled with some type of advertising."
7.23.2001 (Evening)	Well, I hadn't been to Stile Project, the most offensive web site ever, in quite a while. So I thought I'd check it out for old times sake. He claims he was hacked, and his site is no more... You never really know with Stile, but if it's true that kind of sucks.
7.23.2001 (Evening)	Marla Singer is on the cover of Maxim this month.
7.22.2001 (Evening)	You techno snobs can scoff all you want, but I really liked The Crystal Method's last album, Vegas. I think that Trip Like I Do and Busy Child got some radio play, and pretty damn near every song on the album ended up in a TV commercial, which I assume is why the techno snobs have a problem with them. In any case, their new album "Tweekend" is coming out next week. And they're apparently going to be playing in Lawrence in a couple of weeks. I think that one would be worth catching...
7.23.2001 (Evening)	Points have been earned. Apu's upset victory of Ned Flanders has radically reshuffled our local rankings. Falcor remains in first place, though...
7.22.2001 (Evening)	Here are some links to random stuff: things that might be true (but aren't) My favorite Leisuretown A University of Houston student paper article featuring interviews with Young Pups cast members. The word of the day The last Filler Robot Wisdom weblog This American Life Space Ghost's Invincible Super Site Pearl Harbor movie/Lenscrafters/Ray Ban promotion Me going to bed
7.22.2001 (Morning)	I've always been a big fan of grassroots political action. Be sure to go here and sign the petition to ban work on Friday afternoons.
7.21.2001 (Evening)	I just don't like the music all these punk kids are listening to any more. I guess I am officially old now. But as a result, I've been putting my own personal music archives to better use lately. When I lived in California and was about to graduate high school, a friend of mine had a sister attending UCLA. At UCLA, she was the music editor for the school paper. Because of this position, she would get many, many CDs to review, and these would pile up. I was over at my friend's house, and her sister offerred me any of the CDs in a big pile of stuff she didn't want. I took several, most of which weren't all that great. I did get a copy of Weezer's first album, and one that I've been listening to a lot lately, Doppelganger by Curve. That's a damn good album, and it surprises me how much I still listen to it almost ten years after it came out. If I had any talent for music reviews, I'd give one. Instead, I'll just do my best to describe it. It has kind of an industrial feel to it, kind of Nine Inch Nails like but not nearly as in-your-face angry. The vocalist Toni Halliday has a kind of sexy/angry tone in parts, but a very nice voice. They apparently have four other albums... I ought to pick them up.
7.21.2001 (Morning)	As I had looked at my bracket, I was worried about two picks. With Cletus, I went with my heart, rather than with my head. I just always liked his appearance in 22 Short Films About Springfield, probably my favorite episode. I mean, he had his own theme song for god's sake... But I was bitten on that one. With today's matchup, I went with my head rather than my heart. For some reason, I had this idea that there was this big Ned Flanders following out there, even enough to take out Apu. Of course, my vote was for Apu, but I picked Flanders. Bad move. Three points down for me.
7.19.2001 (Evening)	Round 2 is over. The real games will begin tomorrow...
7.19.2001 (Evening)	Two items in the "Bringing it back to the old school" department. Be sure to go here and sign the petition to bring back the "classic" style Subway sandwitch cut. Also, please go to Skittles' website and vote to get rid of the green apple skittles and bring back lime. I'm a big Skittles fan, and this bastardization of my scrumptious treat is really starting to grate on me.
7.19.2001 (Morning)	Like everybody else I know, I also forgot Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's birthday yesterday. Happy birthday, sir...
7.18.2001 (Evening)	At the Road to Springfield, the wheat continues to seperate from the chaff. We're on the last contest of round two, then we will begin to earn and lose points. Nobody is out of the running, and we still have one combatant with a perfect score... I assume that we will be starting the sweet sixteen round next week.
7.17.2001 (Evening)	Well at least the sheets fit my bed, and I'm not sleeping on a bare mattress pad any more. Ralph Wiggum laid the smack down on Martin Prince today. And ugly, ugly defeat, as it should be.
7.15.2001 (Night)	I guess I should be going to bed now, but I'm not tired just yet. I let myself sleep too late this morning, and I ate dinner too late this evening (leftover 3-Mile Island wings from Hooters.) I did finally get my new bed. They delivered it Saturday morning. After it showed up, I went out to get a mattress pad and sheets and all that stuff you need for a bed. Now this bed is just huge. The mattress itself is 18" deep, and when the whole bed is put together it's so high off the ground that if I sit on the edge my feet don't touch the ground. It is comfortable as hell, though. One thing I didn't count on however is buying sheets. I found a mattress pad that works, even though the elastic doesn't quite make it all the way to the bottom of the mattress. Sheets were a bit more of a problem. I tried a JC Penney home store first, and they had no sheets at all that would fit the mattress. Bed Bath and Beyond had a few sets, but the minimum price was $89 for a set of sheets, and they didn't have any colors that I really liked (These things are important, you know...) Linens and Things was worse, minimum price $95. I think what I hate most about shopping is finding out how much stuff costs. But $95 for a set of fucking sheets? Bleh... So I ended up ordering a set of sheets from some place online. We'll see how they work. I got navy blue (to match this web page), but am now thinking I should have gone with a green (to match the camera). In any case, the new bed is orders of magnitude more comfortable than the previous bed. I just finished up reading Choke. Very good. Read it now. I'm finally going to read a borrowed copy of Fight Club. Chuck Palahniuk's never take too long to read, and once I finish up Fight Club, I can read The Tienanmen Papers, and the queue will be empty. I've had some suggestions about what to read next, but yours are welcome as well. If this web page stands for anything, it's about not having to make decisions for myself, so please, guide me. I guess I will go to bed now.
7.14.2001 (Evening)	BULL SHIT!!! Those fuckers at Moviefone have some "original" comedy up on their website... I still think that ours was better...
7.12.2001 (Evening)	Campaign finance reform appears to be dead. The house rejected the rules for debate over the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, and as a result, it won't even come up for a vote. Speaker of the house Dennis Hastert says that he has no plans to bring it to the floor. If this situation is not rectified, and it doesn't look like it will be, I think that the 2002 elections will be the first where I do not vote independant. I think I'll just be voting for the non-incumbent major party in my district. Well, actually as I write that out and re-read it, it seems even more stupid than before. I think that perhaps I'll just stop paying attention to politics... It just pisses me off.
7.12.2001 (Evening)	Here is a video of somebody not quite getting a bike trick right...
7.12.2001 (Evening)	I just got done playing an hour and a half of tennis. I got spanked. There was one game that I swear to god I won, but he disputed the score and I gave it to him. But that doesn't change the fact that I got my ass handed to me on a paper plate. But I was getting pissed. I'm normally a pretty good loser, but by the time we finished up, I was just downright fuming. Hell, maybe if I get pissed when I lose, it'll motivate me not to lose any more... At least we're playing, though. It's been damn hot and damn humid, and it was overcast and cool today, so we had to sneak a game in when we could. In other news, I'm finally getting around to reading Choke, the new one by the author of Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk. I'm hardly into it at all, but it's shaping up to be my favorite. In other Chuck Palahniuk news, at his official site, there's news of a movie to be made of his last book, Survivor. That was a damn good book. Apparently Nicole Kidman has expressed interest to be Fertility, the female lead. Trent Reznor and Marilyn Manson are fighting over the soundtrack. Also, Chuck has apparently finished up another book, Lullaby, which one page on his site claims will be coming out September of 2001, but everything else on the site claims is about a year and a half away. I assume that the September 2001 is just a typo, and they mean September 2002. But I won't complain if it comes out this year. His quote about the new book: "It makes Fight Club look like Little Women." Sweet.
7.12.2001 (Evening)	Big upset today at Road to Springfield. It looks like several of you picked that to happen, though, but many a point was lost today. It was a squeaker, but Dr. Nick did defeat Waylon Smithers. As pathetic as it was, from about two today until around three today, I had the "results" window up and was refreshing every couple of minutes to watch Smithers' lead dwindle. I need to find more cool stuff on the web to do... Anyway, the upset allowed me to sneak into second place, and Dr. Science himself is the only fellow who can still pull off a perfect bracket. And by next week, we'll actually be selecting the elite eight and can actually start earning points, rather than just losing potential points. Is everyone bored of this? Am I the only one who checks out the site several times a day? I need a hobby. I did finally finish up Linus Torvalds' book. Geeks are cool.
7.11.2001 (Evening)	I lost my first point today.
7.10.2001 (Evening)	Shiner Bock is now available in California. I guess I can move out there after all...
7.10.2001 (Evening)	One more point has been lost in the Road to Springfield challenge. I'm still undefeated, but I have the feeling that Cletus is going to go down to Grandpa today. I certainly hope not, but I really voted with my heart there, not with my head. But it's time to head off to trivia night after I eat some more Buca di Beppo.
7.09.2001 (Evening)	I finally hooked up my webcam again. It has a strange greenish tint to it now... I ought to buy a new camera anyway. I just got back from eating at a restraunt out here called Buca di Beppo. Apparently it's a chain. Truly heroic portions. Not the sort of place to go by yourself... But now I have enough leftovers for the next two days, at least. It was pretty good, but after the food poisoning I got at a local Indian place on Sunday, I'm probably not being too picky. Plenty of garlic, and I'll never complain of too much garlic. Maybe that's why I'm still single...
7.08.2001 (Late Night/Early Morning)	I got back from a night out a while ago. A friend and I went out to do a bit of bar-hopping. We went to a brew pub, then to a nice little seedy place that I've taken a liking to lately. The A/C was out there, and my pal couldn't take it, so we didn't stay there any longer than it took to shoot a game of 8-ball. We went from there to a little club that I've seen many times, but have never ventured into. There was some random girl punk band playing... We watched the last few songs of their set, and stuck around until the next band went on. They were some sort of speed metal band, and we left before they were done with their first song. I grabbed an excellent brisket sandwitch from a street vendor, had a quick double espresso and we headed home. All in all, an uneventful night. I haven't been sleeping well lately, and tonight is no different. When I got back, I put on last week's This American Life. The show was about writer Sarah Vowell retracing the Trail of Tears. The stories that she does are always excellent, but this one was exceptional. You can listen to it here if you're interested. Anyway, the show is now over, and I still can't get to sleep. Friday afternoon, I went to a furniture store and bought myself a new bed. When I first moved to Arkansas, I moved in with a couple who were sharing a room. They were in a two bedroom apartment, and the spare bedroom was fully furnished. Eventually the couple broke up and two of the three of us moved into a new apartment. I needed to buy a bed, but being the cheap/broke college student I was at the time, I bought myself a bed that cost me I believe $112. It's a full size bed, and unless my head is more or less directly against the wall, my feet are hanging off the end. Plus, its just a generally crappy mattress. So I've finally broken down and purchased a real bed. Maybe I'll actually start getting sleep again now. Who knows. My room is currently a mess. I live in a fairly large two bedroom apartment. I was in it by myself until just recently. A friend of the family is recently graduated from school and is in town for training with his company for about 6-8 months. So he's in the second bedroom and splitting the rent with me. When he moved in, I had to clear my stuff out of the extra bedroom and its closet. While I actually did get some of it packed away nicely, the majority of it is sitting in the middle of the floor in my room right now. He's been here for three weeks, and I swear that tomorrow I'm going to get all that stuff packed in boxes and moved out to my storage closet. Let's see what I have over here... My old receiver... I replaced it because the right channel would cut in and out constantly. I'm keeping it because if I ever get a new pair of speakers for my real stereo, I'm going to hook my old speakers up to the old receiver and use it to replace my computer speakers. That way when I listen to This American Life and various other things, it won't sound quite as crappy. I also have a bass (Squier P-Bass, Black and White) and a guitar amp. I play the bass about once every three months. Then I remember that I don't know how to play bass and I do something else. I have a box of old tests from both the University of Houston and the University of Arkansas. Why do I keep these? God only knows. But I can't bring myself to throw them away. This other box contains an old haloween costume, Mardi Gras beads from two years ago, speaker wire and lots of old computer cables and power cords. I need to put that somewhere accessible, because the last two times people have brought their computers over to my place I haven't been able to find power cords or network patch cables. There they are. For some reason I brought all my old comic books back from my parents' place when I went there for my vacation last week. God knows I don't need those here. I also haven't figured out what I'm going to do with my old bed. My new bed gets delivered next Saturday, and I think that what I'll do is just re-arrange the furniture in this room so I can have two beds set up in here. It'll be almost like when I had the three-person dorm room at UH to myself and made the uni-bed. Well, I guess that's about enough for now. I think I'll try to finish that book up now if I'm not going to get to sleep.
7.05.2001 (Evening)	I finally added Carrot Top to the Hall of Shame. I wasn't nearly as harsh on him as I probably should have been, but I just don't feel that he even deserves my active hate. I reserve that for that trollop Geena Davis.
7.05.2001 (Evening)	All Things Considered also did a nice series on independent internet media. You can listen to part 1 here, and part 2 here. Part one features a nice interview with Joey Anuff, founder of Suck.com. Part 2 features more of Joey and an interview with CmdrTaco of Slashdot.
7.05.2001 (Evening)	I swear I haven't been neglecting upload of my weight chart just because of my current unfortunate upward trend. It's just been because I've been lazy. Of course, that's also probably what's responsible for the current upward trend. I played tennis and hit some weights today. I'll be playing tennis tomorrow. Time to get back on track... I just ate too much good food while I was at home last weekend.
7.05.2001 (Afternoon)	National Public Radio's All Things Considered is always good for a solid two hours of road trip entertainment, assuming I can find an NPR station wherever I am. I usually can, and I had excellent coverage on my way from Kansas City to Lesterville, MO last Friday. I had stopped for gas in one town, and on returning to my car I heard the end of a report, saying "Heather Havrilesky is a former writer for Suck.com. She is currently unemployed." Luckily, All Things Considered is often repeated, and I did hear this report by the writer of my (former) favorite Wednesday entertainment, Filler. In this report, notice that she mentions that she received several marriage proposals per week. I am proud to say that one of them did come from me...
7.05.2001 (Morning)	It was a fun vacation. I got to the campground about 9:30 Friday night... It took me a while to get set up, and when I was set up, I had a couple of beers and went to sleep. Saturday, I woke up in time for a nice breakfast of hot dogs and beer, took a nice morning swim in the river, and went back to the campsite to sit around the fire and dry off before Big Smith went on. Big Smith played an excellent show, but it started to sprinkle during about their second song. By their third, it could be described as nothing less than a downpour. The stage was covered, and they tossed tarps over the speakers so they kept playing. I was surprised at how many people (including me) stayed through the rain. As a matter of fact, the crowd that they drew during a thunderstorm was bigger than the previous band drew while it was still sunny. Unfortunately, when they finished playing, I returned to my campsite to find that my tent was under about three inches of water, and just about everything I had brought with me had been completely soaked. I sat under a tarp until the rain stopped, then tried my best to clean up. I pretty much had to write it off, though. I went to the evening show before retiring early to sleep in my car. My car is not comfortable for sleeping so I ended up waking up about an hour before the sun came up, packing up my campsite, and hitting the road. In Chicago, I went shopping Monday, then went to the Taste of Chicago food festival Tuesday, and the Grant Park fireworks show Tuesday evening. That was pretty damn cool, actually. Probably the best fireworks show I've seen, and Houston had put on some pretty decent ones...
7.05.2001 (Lunch)	I've updated the Road To Springfield Challenge brackets. Three still remain perfect... Today's matchup has the potential to do further damage, but I wouldn't be too worried about the Captain taking out Sideshow Bob. There's just something to be said for evil-geniushood. If that's not a word, it should be.