Nothing tells people you know a Mac inside and out like wearing a hat. Maybe it prevents the knowledge from escaping through your hair follicles, trapping it so it can be re-absorbed through your scalp.

Don't believe me? Click on the image below to go view Apple's video introduction to their workshops. I counted at least 6 hats the first time. And it's clear that baseball caps are not the best choice. I only saw one of those. It's probably because of the big hole in the back above where you adjust the size. But if you must wear a baseball cap, be sure it is fitted to prevent information leakage.

Today I was pondering a lot of different business/work decisions/ideas through my head on the way to my father's house. And when I arrived there was a blue jay on a wall, with a cardinal about 6 feet away on the grill. The jay was foraging, the cardinal...kinda just hangin'. I was fortunate enough to have a camera with me, but just unfortunate enough to have the cardinal fly off before I could start snapping. Although when I switched the camera to movie mode, the cardinal reappeared for a cameo before darting off again, kind of like what Christopher Walken does in some films.

Not long after, a gaggle of finches (don't know what to call it, but it was quite shy of a flock) came storming by like some sort of multiplayer whilring dervish, you know like binary stars, except with more than two. Must have been a courtship ritual with the young bucks trying to impress a dame. (It's really odd calling a finch a young buck, is it as odd to read?)

They departed as quickly as they arrived kind of like a teenage driver at a tangential relative's family function. The blue jay was completely nonplussed. He kind of looked at 'em like they were a bunch of fools, and went about his business. And yeah, it could have been a she, but I don't know enough about blue jays, except that they supposedly can be pretty nasty, but I believe that's when they perceive danger to their young, and I thing most of us would act the same, pecking on skulls and gouging out eyeballs and that sort of thing.

Anyway I thought this strange coupling may have been a sign that I was on to something with what I was thinking when I arrived, although then again maybe it was just a "Thanks for throwing down some new grass seed at the cemetery today, Son." Or maybe it means I should go ahead to that bird preserve I was thinking about with my son this weekend. You know, once you start thinking too much you tend to ruin everything.

And the thinking never ends. The thing with the blue jays and the eyeballs a few lines back got me thinking about that "slicing up eyeballs" line in "Debaser" by The Pixies. So even though my much imagined mp3 blog, hasn't happened...yet. I'm gonna drop some Pixies on you for a limited time, and if Charles or Kim want me to take it down sooner, I invite them to let me know.

Pixies - Debaser

UPDATE: July, 24, 2008: I now know a little more about birds than I did 2 months ago. My so-called finches were actually sparrows, and apparently I don't have the movie file with the blue jay and the cardinal. Oh well.

"Red Crayon Won."

"Red Crayon won what? The crayons were having a race?"

"Yes."

"Oh!...Where were the crayons having the race?"

"The wall."

The wall, of course. Where else would crayons have a race? This was the conversation me and my two year old had as I was leaning out of the shower recently. Looking at the tracks the racers left behind, it appears to have been a hard fought battle and thankfully it looked like they were doing laps on a track rather than a marathon, so that means less paint, although I'm in no hurry. These are the sort of markings that turn a house into a home.

I can't believe this is now available, and I am without a system to play it. Yes, I could buy a new system, and this is the killer app (no pun intended) to drive new console sales. It was what I was waiting for.

But right now, I have a self-imposed boycott on excessive spending, and unless someone pays me real soon to write about video games, I can't justify the expenditure, when debt reduction is my current goal.

I feel the need to post, because GTA has been the source the majority of traffic to my blog. And most of those posts were written back when San Andreas was released, and they still bring in the most traffic here. The game has pull.

But right now, economics is getting the best of me.

I said right now...for now.

There is a PS3 beckoning me. I hear it. I feel it. It comes to me in dreams. It haunts me. It taunts me. I sense a disturbance in The Force each time a "10" is given in a review somewhere.

Like any addict, I can find a way to justify the purchase, but for now my line is drawn in the sand. I'm not exactly sure how that line in the sand thing works, whether it's me who crosses it, or if I wait for something to cross it, or if it has something to do with the tides, but right now it means I'm not buying Grand Theft Auto IV in the immediate future.

I am a freaking masochist. Reading Kotaku's not helping.

Ok...that title was a tease, but it would be the sort of premature announcement that Fox would make before a deal was actually announced, if the 2000 presidential election is any indication.

I tire of Larry Kudlow on CNBC. So today I contacted CNBC through their web site to complain. Does this e-mail go beyond the webmaster? I don't know. I had difficulty using the "Fast Message" feature today when I tried to contact the Fast Money guys about erroneously referring to Ravi Shankar as being deceased. Maybe I should have included that in my e-mail about Kudlow. That way if my message was being sent to the wrong person in one respect, they may have at least been the right person to fix something else. And then the next time someone else living is referred to as dead, I can save their asses live in real-time.   more »

And when relating the story to a family member today, I couldn't help but be reminded of this scene from Fight Club.



And after seeing that again, I've found inner peace.

If you get Fight Club, then you'll get this post. If not, well then, just bask in the beauty of controlled implosions. No actual buildings were harmed in the making of the film.

I've been completely engulfed in work. The blog suffers. But I managed to read this entire piece by John Cusack over at The Huffington Post. Cusack is not thrilled about the State of the Union. He is not alone.

Did I mention that this post is 2 and a half years old. I didn't think I was busy for that long, but what's changed? Hunter S. Thompson is still dead. Iraq is still a mess. The wolves are still in the hen house.

And to all the grammar geeks out there, it's "has" not "have", since I'm talking about the chain of office superstores, and not individual staples, and they're a helluva lot more fun than the superstores. They would've posted my review.

Staples (the office superstore) asked me in an e-mail to submit a review of a recent purchase. And what I purchased was a 10-pack of blue two-pocket portfolio folders. And I typically don't buy these without first consulting Consumer Reports, but this time it was all impulse. No wonder my credit card bills exceed the per capita income of some less favored nations. (You know I really wanted to put the extra "u" in both "favor" and "humor" tonight. Is that the Brit in me that I never knew was there? Is that even an English thing? Granted it does look better, and so does "colour". Well, maybe.)

So today I noticed that my review was no longer on their website. In the context of this blog it certainly may seem more of a lame stab at humour (ha-ha!), but was downright hysterical over at Staples (the website of the office superstore, not at the website of a collective group self-realizing staples that wrestled the URL from the corporate monolith). Alright, so it wasn't that funny, but here it is. If you can't fill the Internet with crap that has nowhere else to go, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing, say it again. Or not.

Staples product review for blue 2 pocket portfolios

By larzini from NJ on 3/7/2008
Your rating: 5 stars
Headline: Holds Papers Exactly As Described!

Pros : Easy To Open/Close, Durable Construction, 2 pockets,
Potty-trained, It's Blue, Nicely textured, Fun for the whole family
Cons : Poor gas mileage, No puree setting, Don't feed after midnight,
Slight metallic taste
Best Uses : Organizing Documents, Conversation piece, Bud vase, Holding
papers, Fanning, Placemat
Describe Yourself : Value Oriented
Primary use of this product : Business

These folders are great. First of all, they are blue. A blue so blue.
And blue is a color. And it is a color I enjoy wholeheartedly. I have
used many of these folders, and each time they lived up to my
expectations of holding my papers. Except one time when I turned a paper-filled
folder upside-down. Guess what? Yep. The papers fell out. Not just one.
All of them. DO NOT TURN UPSIDE-DOWN WHEN PAPERS ARE INSIDE. THEY WILL
FALL OUT! Sorry about yelling, but I cannot emphazise that point enough.
And I can't spell emphazies either. Did I mention there is not
spell-check feature? Well, there's not. Perhaps in the next release.
Unfortunately, Staples have not opened up the next version to users for beta
testing. By the way, the folders are blue. I opened the folder and closed
it numerous times. And it performed every time without fail. Another
nice thing is that there are 10 in a package. I really didn't need that
many, but rather than waste them, I spread whatever documents I need to
transport evenly among the 10 folders. If I have less than 10 papers I
need to transport, I grab magazine blow-in cards or junk mail and put
those in the empty folders. It kills me to have 10 folders and even
leave one empty. If you really need a folder, I would consider this one,
maybe the red model as well, but your insurance rates will go up, so let
the buyer beware.

All proper spacing removed for your inconvenience.

Did that post make this read like a splog? (That's "spam blog" for you home-gamers.)

I should say St. Valentine's Day. Well, not anymore, it's now Friday, but this post somehow disappeared after writing it about 24 hours ago.

I never dreamt I'd someday look back fondly at the Crazy Eddie television commercials. Yet, here I find myself waxing nostalgically over some Northeastern pop culture detritus.



I never embed, I usually just link, but I've reconsidered my position on that. Why send the eyeballs elsewhere when they can stay right here.

I remember buying vinyl records and cassettes at Crazy Eddie, as well as a floppy disk drive for my Atari 800XL computer. These ads actually inspired the Seinfeld episode entitled, "The Junk Mail". Elaine dates a guy who was once the fictional television pitchman known as "The Wiz". Incidentally, The Wiz, later known as Nobody Beats The Wiz, was also an electronics retailer located predominantly in New York and New Jersey. But since their prices weren't completely insane they often used real-life characters in their ads, such as Joe Namath.

This was long before Namath went 0-for-2 in pass attempts on the sidelines, seeking out kisses from Suzy Kolber. (Yep, that link goes to the infamous video. I thought it would look kind of crappy to put two embedded videos in the same post. Especially when the point of this video was to highlight the Crazy Eddie ads, and not focus on the ancillary Joe Namath reference.)

STORMTROOPER: Your landspeeder exceeds official Pinewood Derby length by 3/16 of an inch.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: My landspeeder passes the pre-race inspection.

STORMTROOPER: Your landspeeder passes the pre-race inspection.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: I may proceed to the race area.

STORMTROOPER: You may proceed to the race area.

OBI-WAN KENOBI: Move along.

STORMTROOPER: Move along.



Obi-Wan's appearance at the Pinewood Derby occurs between the events of Episode III and Episode IV.



My son and I built this over the course of two and half days for his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. I'm forgetting my father-in-law. He helped, too. I should go back and insert him in the first sentence, but this time there's no looking back. I think it was the ancient jedi sage Han Dhenli that summed it up best, "Don't look back...You can never look back." Or maybe it was that guy from the Eagles.

Yes, my son built it, too. It was his idea to do a Star Wars vehicle, and this one seemed like it would be the easiest, given my limited handiwork. He helped with the design, filing, sanding, and painting. And the fruits of our labors earned us the "People's Choice" award, out of roughly 30 cars. This award is voted on by his Cub Scout peers, and he told me didn't even vote for his own car.



No other racer saw this rear view of the car during the course of the race. And it's no fault of their own since they left us in a dust storm much like those on Tatooine. So we're especially proud of that "People's Choice" award, and the ribbon that generously awarded us a tie for 3rd our of the 4 cars in the Tiger Cub division.

I found another Star Wars Pinewood Derby car on the Internets. Nice X-Wing, Marshall Family.

http://bananastickersaremetal.ytmnd.com/

Metalocalypse amuses me. I know this because I've watched it twice. And read an interview in Electronic Musician with Brendon Small. Neither of those links go to the article. The Internets must be broken since I can't create link to the page of a magazine that's sitting on my floor. Stupid Internets!

Brendon Small? Isn't that the guy from Spinal Tap? (No, not that guy from Spinal Tap.)

This one.



Oh...Derek Smalls. Right.

When I hand my children paints and paintbrushes, I love the things they create, and you might too.

Of course, my kids ain't no Picasso, or Linsky even. Or are they?

An OmniNerd post linked to this Daily Mail article, about a boy and his paintbrush, and his mother, who was the impetus driving her son's art career. She's done an impressive job, as he's already sold a painting and been asked to exhibit in a German gallery.

And he's only two.

Mom took the piss out of the UK art world, but as far as I'm concerned, why should it matter? Seriously. If you like it, buy it and frame it. I've hung up some of my children's work, some in frames, some on the refrigerator.

Next time, I might even pick up a canvas and select a palette that will match one of our rooms, so that the next time they ask to paint, we'll get a La Raia original. Can you imagine how much it would cost to convince an artist to operate under you direction? I know Linsky doesn't work that cheap.

I loved how the mom called her son "an art critic and and a familiar face at major exhibitions". She herself is a freelance art critic, and has bringing the lad along to galleries since he was three months old. If the kid offered an opinion at least once during those visits, then her statement is indisputable.

The driveway's been empty. The mail is overflowing out the mailbox. Nobody raked the leaves. The newspapers are strewn across the driveway. You'd think somebody died.

I've done more of these type of posts than I'm proud to admit. It's kind of like, "Oh yeah, I had a blog once. Wait a second...I still do! Oh, Shit! The blog! I forgot to feed the blog!" Some blogs are nearly living entities, when nurtured by a caring individual. I'm not certain I'm that type of individual. I'm kind of like an every-other-weekend parent these days. The one that 's not sure they want to visit the kids, but they feel obligated. I don't know how many of those there are out there, and I'm not sure I like using that metaphor to describe myself, especially since I'm married and very much involved with my kids' lives.

Now perhaps that's an accidental segway into the, you know, when you're a parent and a breadwinner, the blog doesn't come first. The blog is the red-headed stepchild. Now I know that re-headed stepchild needs love, too, but I'm just saying.

So, I'm back for at least the rest of this post. I took on another writing assignment, so this the WD-40 priming the typing fingers and working it's way through the brain.

I did it again. I just erased whole post that I spent I don't know how long concocting. I'm so pissed at my own stupidity that I have to go to sleep since it's nearly 3 AM, which means I've deprived myself of sleep again for the purpose of posting on this lonely old blog. But if I re-write the post now, it will probably contain a good amount of bile in post that set out to be quite the opposite of a rant. You know what, it's not even going to be this post. It will be the next one.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

ARRGH! It's like baking a batch of cookies from scratch and then absentmindedly putting them down the garbage disposal.

I'm sure I'm not the only blogger to have done this. So perhaps I'll take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone. But comfort doesn't type the post again, now does it?

JCPenney 1977 catalog photos, and commentary.

I just posted over at Armchair Arcade. I'll probably post the same article here as well, but it fits nicely with their classic gaming and homebrew content. But since I've not been posting anywhere of late, with a writer's block beginning to border on legendary, there needs to be some reference to it here at TBIMB, actually, tbimb.

Yes, Donkey Kong II. Someone actually took the old code and made new levels with it. What's next? Maybe they'll add a few mor ghosts to Pac-Man. Stinky, Kinky, Dinky, and I don't know, how 'bout Buscemi? That's a good name for a ghost. And if Tarantino ever turns Pac-Man into a movie, who else but Steve Buscemi would play Pinky.

I can see it now:

"Why am I Pinky?"

"Because you're pink, alright?"

Enough of that, go over to Armchair Arcade for the full story minus any Reservoir Dogs references.

I want to listen to Hype Machine today. So if the next 7800 people that read thisblogismyblog would please visit Hype Machine, I will be much happier at work today, and won't have to listen to this stupid creaking door somewhere off in the distance. Of course, I could listen my iPod or WFMU or something, but I wanted to listen to some mp3s over at my favorite mp3 blog aggregator, who has decided not to launch their new website until 10,000 people visit at the same time.

Bastards. The moniker is Hype Machine though, why should something like this not be expected?

The strange thing is...I feel so used. Right now, I'm doing exactly what they want me to do. And I can't say that I like it. Not that I don't use their site almost daily to find and hear new music. (Old music too, for that matter.) But still.

Although a stunt like this might backfire and get the RIAA looking their way. And their as much fun as a sack of wet mice.

In the time it's taken me to write this, only about 4 more people have visited the site. And don't remind how long I'll be waiting to listen to Hype Machine, if thisblogismyblog alone was responsible for directing 7800 more listeners.