Latest C.S.I. stretches truth like Laffy Taffy...

I love the show C.S.I. Ever since the first season when we were introduced to our favorite characters like bug-loving Grissom, ex-stripper Willows, man-hater Sara, gambler Warrick and womanizer Stokes, I liked the show for it's mini-mysteries that only science and forensics can solve. Oh sure, the lighting was brighter back then and their equipment budget now makes room for huge full-wall HDTV screens, but it's still a pretty good show.

Bill and I wrote a piece a while ago called, "You can learn a lot from life from watching C.S.I." in which we detailed things like cheating on your lover will increase your chances of dying, being into freaky fetishes increases that chance and others.

We also included this line, "Apparently, it's possible take a fuzzy, grainy surveillance video and then enlarge certain sections with not only no loss of clarity, but a huge increase of clarity!"

This episode, they take that assumption to new and ridiculous heights.

The episode, "Kiss Kiss, Bye Bye" involves a murder at the party thrown by a wealthy ex-showgirl played by Faye Dunaway. By the way, Faye looks like she's had some work done. From the chipmunk like cheeks when she smiled, to the insanely big and bright choppers in her mouth, to the big, fake breast implants, it was a little hard to see when the old Faye started and the new Faye ended. This was not the Faye Dunaway that I remember from Barfly. This just wasn't a make-up job.

That aside, Faye did a great job portraying a Vegas socialite that lived to be beautiful and had just published her tell all book.

The night begins with a dead body discovered in her bedroom. They find Faye's character in the bedroom vault scared to death that she was going to be shot.

Through their investigation, the team examines the security camera footage. One camera's footage show the murder victim being dropped off by a car near the garage. They of course bring a close-up on the license plate and put it in the state database. They find a match. That is not so unbelievable.

The victim is then handed a slip of paper. The team blows it up enough to not only see the small printing on what looks to be an airplane flight ticket, but they pull the bar code from the ticket and decode that as well! This in turn, tells them that the victim was going to fly somewhere that night.

Now it's one thing to take grainy security footage and get crystal clear face images and license plates, but it's another thing to be able to read the bar code on a plane ticket that someone was holding!

Even my wife had to blurt out, "Oh come on! Do you know how pixelized that would be!"

She ought to know. At her job, she had to capture some stills from television footage that was of someone with their head to their waist in the frame. Even those looked really pixelated!

I swear that Hollywood just can't help themselves. Be it from the political lectures you hear 38 minutes after the hour on Boston Legal or the stretching of science on C.S.I.

That reminds me.

In early episodes of C.S.I., they relied on a lot of pretty obvious science to find out who the killer was. They use liminol to turn blood stains blue in almost every episode. Likewise, they used to use GSR tests, gun shot residue, to rule out or implicate suspects as people who may or may not have pulled the trigger.

In this past episode, there are multiple suspects to this murder. Not one of them were tested for gun shot residue! And just when they still had no suspects and were baffled, they then decide to test the socialite's closes for GSR! Of course, the clothes are missing from the huge closet of party dresses, but they do find the ring she was wearing that night. That does have GSR.

I swear this team makes is harder on themselves. From examining crime scenes with flashlights instead of turning on the lights to not using the GSR test anymore, the CSI team isn't getting any pity from me when they complain.

The first time I got fired...

I'd like to think that I was a valuable asset to a lot of companies that I worked for over the years. Oh sure, I can sometimes blow my lid and can easily be distracted by the banter of conversation, which some people (namely managers) don't like, but all in all, I'm a pretty good, smart worker.

That was lost on my boss at my second job.

Like my brothers before me, I worked at a place called the Captain's Table. This was my first job. I worked as a busboy, dishwasher and cook before finally leaving the place. I had gotten my second job through my older brother, Paul. They needed someone to help out and I fit the bill.

It wasn't a very hard job at first. The place I worked at was a steak restaurant called David's Steakhouse. Paul had a friend that we can call Ralph. Ralph had a wife named Sheri. Now Ralph and Sheri bought David's Steakhouse from the original owners. It was stuck in the middle of a nothing town outside of my hometown, but it had a reputation for serving pretty good food, so it thrived on out of town business.

My job was pretty simple. The cooler with all of the steaks was inconveniently on the other side of the kitchen door. On one side was the cooler and on the other side was the chef's area. My job was the take the orders as the waitresses placed them on the order rack, go into the cooler, select all of the appropriate steaks, take them back to the chef's area and give them the order and the steaks. It was pretty easy work. There may have been some food prep work and table busing that went along with it, but it wasn't that bad.

It was easy and I was pretty good at it. I mean, how hard can it be? You only have so many steaks to choose from and the order didn't pile up that hard. As long as the cooks were busy, you were fine.

Where things started to go wrong was my interactions with the other staff. Being a teenager and me, I probably thought I knew everything. That attitude probably didn't go over well with some people.

One of them was the bar manager. On the other side of the restaurant, they had a lounge where people could drink. It was generally not very busy, but Ralph had a lady run it and she, it seemed, had complete control over every aspect of the bar. She even was allowed to set her own rules for how many pops you could have. If she was working and you were thirsty, she allowed you to have only two glasses of pop from the bar. Now I didn't know this at first and on one particularly busy night, I came in after my second glass of pop, which by the way were long and skinny glasses so it's not as if they were breaking the bar's bank, and I asked for another glass of pop.

She shot me a glare and yelled, "I told you kid that you only get two glasses of pop! That's it!"

I was a flabbergasted. I'm not exactly one to take inane rules lying down. When someone tells me something that I find stupid, I have to ask the reason why. So I did.

"Why?" I had the nerve to ask.

She responded with "That's my rule!"

"Well, I didn't know!" I retorted.

"Well now you know!" she snapped back.

I decided to put this policy to the test. I didn't initially set out to do this, but I liked drinking my Cokes. I noticed that on the days that she didn't work, which was about once a week, I whoever was running the bar would give more than two fountain Cokes with no problem, no questions asked. I then figured that if she gives out two free ones, that I would just buy another Coke if I wanted one with my meal after my shift.

The bartender was back one night and I had already had my two Cokes. I pulled out my wallet and with money in hand I asked for a Coke. She flipped out.

"I told you that you only get two pops a night!" she said red in the face.

I was flabbergasted. Here I was, trying to pay for another Coke and she was turning me down?

"I'm paying for this!" I yelled incredulously, or with disbelief for those who don't like big words.

She said that she didn't care and that if I kept asking, she would talk to Ralph about it.

I couldn't believe it. It's not as if I was trying to bilk David's out of money by overusing the Coke gun behind the bar. Far from it. I was trying to pay for one!

My brother, Paul, told me to not worry about it, but if she was told to start shelling out the Cokes, I don't remember. I do remember having to drink water or bring my own in a little cooler for after I got off work.

If Ralph was not satisfied with my work, I really didn't get a warning. I must have been doing something right because I asked for more hours and I got them. I helped carve the prime rib during the Sunday lunch buffet, helped with prep work and even washed dishes. I was multi-talented (being sarcastic here).

Right about the time I started washing dishes for David's is when things started to go wrong.

Maybe it was my teenager attitude. Maybe it was because I over slept one morning. Maybe it was because I asked Ralph if he minded if I brought in a homework book to read while I was waiting for the dish machine to finish it's cycle.

His response: "I'm not paying you to do homework."

Fair enough. I guess he paid me to lean against the dish machine staring at the cook leaning against the prep table because when you had everything done and you had an hour left before the restaurant closed, that's really all there was left to do. Occasionally, when management had left, I would sneak in my boring homework book from English and read it while washing dished. Like I said, multi-talented...

Maybe it was because I came in one week to pick up my check and I demanded to know why my check was exactly the same as the week before. Surely, I thought, this was a mistake. What are the odds.

I went to Sheri to ask her why and she seemed a little irritated when it wasn't an error, I had just happened to work the exact amount of hours for that two-week period that I had the paycheck period before. Since they didn't use a punch clock and you wrote in when you came and left, everything was rounded up or down to the nearest 15 minutes. It was a simple mistake, I guess.

Maybe it was my increasing attitude towards the waitresses. I thought was had a pretty good relationship. They seemed to like me, but waitresses are pretty temperamental. They take shit from the customers for hours on end, the last thing they want to take shit from is a teenage dishwasher. In retrospect, I should have seen this rift coming when I snapped a few times after I thought I had gotten every dish from every waitress before breaking my machine down for the night. I was usually when I was almost done when one would rush up with a tub of dishes saying, "Sorry! Here are some more dishes!" I would groan and put the machine to together. Maybe it was the groaning. Maybe it was me slamming the machine back together. Maybe it was me slamming the dishes into machine after slamming the said machine back together. Who knows?

Maybe it was those above reasons, but I have a feeling it was because of that fateful day in the kitchen with Sheri.

Sheri was the boss's wife and as such, she had an attitude. I've worked at a few jobs where someone's wife works either in a position of power or as another worker. I don't think I've ever encountered one that didn't act like they owned the place because they were attached to the man. Sure, in this case, she did technically own the place, but that not the point! Sheri already didn't really like me because of my daring to challenge that my hours were wrong, so this last incident was the straw that broke that camel's back (not saying she was fat, which I don't recall).

Whenever I would wash dishes, people would come by me all night long to go outside to smoke. That was no problem as I understand that they are the slaves to their masters and must satisfy that fix. Sheri, on the other hand, would walk to the back door and then not go outside to smoke. She would light up literally 3 feet behind my back and stand there and smoke her entire cigarette not saying a word most times.

I don't smoke and I hate being around people that smoke. I always have. Every time she did this, I would either suck it up or move to the other end of the dishwashing machine to unload the machine or I'd put away dishes that were clean. But a lot of times, I would be trying to load the machine and she'd be puffing away, looking out the stupid back screen door for minutes on end. Finally, one day, I kind of snapped.

One one long night that I was tired, she came back to smoke and look out the back screen door like always and I just asked, "Could you please not smoke around me?"

Now what's wrong with that? I asked her as nice as I could and I used the word "please" so it shouldn't have been a big deal right? Well, it was probably because I backed it up with this sentence.

"I reserve my right to free air."

That probably didn't go over too well... Probably not.

I remember her saying something about how that as soon as I own the place, then I can tell her what to do or SOMETHING like that.

I believe it was the next time that I came into work that I checked the schedule and found that I wasn't on the schedule. I was a little confused as I had never been fired before, so I asked someone why I wasn't on the schedule. They told me to talk to Ralph.

Ralph informed me that he was letting me go. While he didn't mention the smoking thing specifically, he did mention about how I was a little rude to some of the wait staff, so he was letting me go.

I was a little irritated to say the least. I didn't even get a warning to cool it. I was just told to leave. This really didn't hinder my wage earning at all because I was also working some shifts at my previous kitchen job and my old boss was happy to have me back for any shift that he wanted to schedule me for.

So that's my fired story. I would like to say that I concocted some elaborate revenge scheme to get even, but I didn't. I even took my prom date to eat there after the fact. What did happen was what I call karma kicking in. I won't exactly say what happened, but let me point out that the restaurant isn't even open anymore and it may have had something to do with the actions of Sheri, who may or may not have funneled over to remodeling their house instead of paying the business bills, leaving Ralph with a huge amount of debt when he finally caught wind of it. (Thanks to Paul for filling me in on the sordid details, most of which I've chosen not to go into)

My thoughts on Brokeback...

While I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain and probably will when it hits video, there's something about it that I can't get out of my head.

Years ago, there was a South Park episode where South Park, Colorado threw a film festival. Cartman makes a remark that indie films are lame because it's nothing but a bunch of gay cowboys sitting around eating pudding.

Bill gays it up at Brokeback Mountain...

By Bill The Evil Twin

I admit it. I was gay after seeing Brokeback Mountain over the weekend. While watching this movie about two cowboys falling in love with each other, a feeling stirred inside me. I was quite gay or how do you say, “happy” after seeing this movie.

Ok. That was rather lame, but I was glad I saw the movie, but not because it was a good movie. It was. No, I was glad I saw the movie because I finally got to see the quote that everybody and their pastor has been quoting. You know the one: the “I wish I could quit you.” quote. This quote was almost like waiting for King Kong to appear in King Kong which he doesn’t for well over an hour into the movie. I think this quote doesn’t appear in the movie until about an hour and forty five minutes into the movie.

It seems like every other Oscar season needs a quote that defines the movie that’s going to win or is nominted for something. You’ve heard them before: the “show me money.” or the “I’m king of the world!” Your co-workers are going to riding that Brokeback’s quote into the ground for months possibly all that year. And from a movie that might even be threatening to them with its man on man gay theme, but that won’t stop them from saying it.

One thing I am enjoying is reading some of the backlash for this movie whether in news stories protesting it or the occasional letter to the editor in the local papers. I read one letter condemning it because it showed boys an alternative lifestyle. I have heard that argument before: the “let’s not talk about homosexuality because it is showing people that this is showing kids that it’s okay to be gay.” Which it is. I think people like this miss the point and quite possibly haven’t seen the movie. The movie doesn’t show the two guys making out and go, “hell, that was easy. Let’s be gay and watch sunsets in each others arms for the rest of our lives.” I think what the movie is saying is that love knows no gender, being in love with the same sex is not easy and it’s really not easy if you’re a cowboy in the sixties. There still is a stigma to being gay. People don’t automatically think being gay is the easier lifestyle or to quote David Cross, “the most decadent”. People are still harassed for being gay and sometimes even killed for being gay. I don’t think heterosexuals have to worry about being killed for having a couple kids and driving a minivan.

My wife and I went to the movie on a matinee which is good and bad. The good: it’s cheaper to go. The bad: old people go and they can be way worse than teenagers. I was kind of surprised to see a packed theatre of old people seeing a movie about gay cowboys considering how conservative Nebraska can be. I was also really surprised when the gay sex scene happened because it was kind of graphic (for a mainstream movie). It was pretty tame compared to other sex scenes you may have seen, but what really surprised me was that no one walked out. I was waiting for someone to do so, but no one did. We ran into a couple of woman in the elevator of the parking garage and one of them thought the sex scenes were too graphic. She might as well have said: “I get uncomfortable watching two guys make out and then have butt sex.”

Another reason I was glad to see this movie: Anne Hathaway was topless in this movie. I have this thing you see. I like to see nude female celebrities. I don’t know why. I just do. I am so glad I don’t have to feel bad about seeing the Princess Diaries anymore. I hope she was 18 then, but she definitely is now.

All in all. I really did like the movie. It was not your typical cowboy movie or your typical love story. I thought the message was pretty clear. Gay love is often not easy because of the world we live in and love between two gay cowboys is even harder. I just wish I could quit people from quoting, “I wish I could quit you.”

I check my spam email...

I still have a yahoo email account that I use for ordering stuff online. Mostly, I use my gmail account because I've had nothing but bad luck with my yahoo account. I don't know what happened, but for a long time it was the only account that I had that didn't have spam (I had several accounts because I was a QA tester for an Internet startup company that has long since laid me off).

Then seemingly overnight, I was deluded by spam email. It was getting ridiculous so when I had the chance to use other email addresses, like through my ISP, I did with better results. Still, I always like to glance at the subject lines of the email addresses. You just have to know that a lot of them are sent by people with limited English capacity. That why funny... (joke on broken English)

For example:

Sender: QuickEbayGift
Subject: Bob EasyClaimYourEbayGiftCard consenting

Now the jumbled letters together don't bother me because I can see where this person was going. You could easily interpret it as "It's easy to claim your Ebay gift card." I'm not sure where the consenting comes in. Are they saying that they are consenting that I get an easy claim ebay gift card? The fact that Ebay only sells gift certificates and not gift card is besides the point. Who's consenting?


Sender: GiftCard depot
Subject: Re:Your $100.00 Malmart gift Bob flashing

Can you spot the several errors here? First of all, the Re: implies that I inquired about my Malmart gift, but we get to the second error, why would I call Wal-mart, Mallmart? You got to love the fact that they misspelled the name of the largest retailer in the United States. That would be like misspelling a Disney email as "Win a Dizney vacation free". The most confusing part? What's flashing that it needs the attention of the subject line??

Sender: QuickE-Insurance
Subject: Bob you are qualify for no physical exam candle

A no physical exam candle? Even if this was written grammatically correct, it would still read, "Bob, you have qualified for a no-physical exam candle." I'm not trying to be funny here. What in the hell does a physical have to do with a candle? It's not like you go into Yankee Candle and they say, "All right, that'll be $50. Please step aside for your physical." Clicking on it, it's spam for what appears to be life insurance, but while there is a mention of no physical exam, there is no mention of a candle. I'm just trying to guess what word the person was searching for. Candle... hmm... Handle? Candy?

Sender: Jack
Subject: Order Confirmation

Order Confirmation from a guy I've never heard of? That's a click through if I've ever seen it.

Sender: Alfredo Cooper
Subject: Meet for Assured Sex?

Would I ever meet for assured sex? If I was single? Sure. From Alfredo Cooper? Probably not.

Sender: RewardDepartment
Subject: , Get a Prime Mutual Prepaid Mastercard today

Being a former English teacher, I love the subject lines that start with a comma. A comma indicates that the speaker must pause. Who starts a sentence with a pause? It would go like, "Hey, Jack. How are you today?" Jack: ", fine. , and how are you?"

Sender: Clyde Peterson
Subject: Supply significant spicery to your aliveness?

Do I want to add spice to my state of being alive? Umm... Sure. The inside is priceless. At the bottom is the disclaimer.

The subject matter was transported to you because you inquired for to be imparted of knowledge of extends from either us or one of us cooperators, if your-person do not need to acquire extends from us once again do not hesitate reach us at this point.

"At this point" is hyperlinked. Curiously enough, none of the images show up and if you try to go to the website, which is http://girlie.thisisamust.com. Nothing comes up. I just got this email today! They are so inept that they can't even withstand the initial waiting period of spamming?

Did anyone notice this on the werewolf episode of CSI...?

Last Thursday, CSI had yet another genetic anomaly show. In the past, they've had people born with both organs, midgets, fat people and other physical/genetic quirks. This time, they had a show about incredibly hairy people that suffer from a genetic quirk that makes them incredibly hairy.

The episode featured a really hairy guy who gets murdered in his house by a silver bullet. It's only after investigating that they find out that the guy's girlfriend had been trying to call him all day. You also find out that he has a sister who is 5 times hairier than he is. She lives in a hidden room off of his living room. It's about a four foot by 7 foot room that has somehow evaded any suspicion of it's existence until now. That is, until the CSI team is doing some investigating and notice a hole with a light coming through the wall. This leads Katherine Willows (Marg Hellgenberger) to discover the sister of the "vic".

Which reminds me, do the police really refer to people that have been killed as the "vic"? It's only saving them one syllable and probably the same amount of time to say it. I'll have to look into that. In fact, I think I'm going to catalog their terms for future scrutiny.

As it is in any of the episodes about genetic abnormalities, people who come in contact with the "freaks" turn into extras from the Elephant Man. They mock the hairy people as people incapable of any normal life and of course, have to take the matter into their own hands by killing them.

This leads me to the loophole of this episode. While it is kind of interesting that someone would make a hidden bedroom for his sister, it is also interesting that someone very important didn't notice it's existence, even while standing in the room.

The victim's killer was the brother of the hairy guy's girlfriend, who was also supposed to be the victim's best friend. She had just accepted his marriage proposal and her family freaked. The brother enough to take the time to melt down some sterling silver, make a silver bullet and shoot the poor guy. Now that's some drastic final solutioning! The Nazis would have been proud.

The angry brother shows up at the hairy boyfriends house. His sister is out of her room and he tells her to go in. Before she can close the door, the brother bursts in and shoots the hairy boyfriend, who collapses inside the hidden room. The angry brother then walks over the hairy victim and mutters "Freak" and leaves, all the while completely oblivious that he had been standing in a hidden room that he had failed to notice the previous times he had been in the house and that the hairy victim's sister is behind the door seeing his reflection.

That would be the first thing that I would notice. I would think, "Freak! Wait a second? Why am I standing in the middle of an incredibly girly room that is behind what I thought was a solid wall? Oh, well..."

I guess you could argue heat of the moment, but he also fails to get rid of the evidence at his house as the police find his silver bullet mold intake with melted silver all over it. I mean, that's what I would do. I'd just leave evidence lying around when I'm still a police suspect.

Briefly saw the Bachelor in Paris...

Don't call me a woman yet. My wife and I were flipping through the channels last night when we happened upon the Bachelor in Paris, which was right before the 10 O'Clock news. We had just missed the rose ceremony, where the Bachelor gives out a rose to all the women that he asks to continue with him on the "journey".

I really don't know who any of the Bachelors were, but this guy is named Travis, and he's a doctor.

So when we came in, a lady named Allie, who is also a doctor started yelling at him demanding to know why she wasn't picked when she's a doctor like him and they have so much in common.

Earlier, she had apparently remarked that she was "ready to reproduce". He said that the reproduction comment scared him because he wasn't ready. I mean, what guy wouldn't be scared off by that comment 60 seconds into meeting a woman. I'm sure he wouldn't be against it, but I don't think he wants a ticking reproductive clock as a girlfriend either.

She cried and lamented that she's tried blind dates, dating services, etc and nothings worked because everyone is intimitated by her career. I think it's the baby thing that's scaring them off.

Most guys are basically scared boys when it comes to marriage and relationships. You need to ease them into the relationship. Unless he specifically says, "Hey, I'm Travis and I'm ready to reproduce," don't come back with that line yourself! Has that line ever worked?

So then they show a montage on what's going to happen this season on the Bachelor in Paris and the women in the clips talk about how great it was to do this in the most romantic city in the world. Maybe I'm a little jaded, but the Paris I saw when I visited didn't really qualify as "romantic".

I'm not sure if it was the smog-clogged streets with all of the diesel cars running around, the dogshit everywhere from people letting their dogs doing their business, the begging gypsies in the Metro stations, the expensive food, the snooty attitudes or the tons of tourists clogging to see all of the sights, but I seemed to have miss the whole most romantic city in the world thing.

I'm actually tempted to watch the rest of the series to see how many girls this guy can get with, how many women think that he's their soul mate, how many women think that their date was the most romantic date or how many times he can say that choosing among all of the hot women is the toughest thing that he's ever done. Yeah, I'm sure that medical school was no sweat. I'm tempted, but I probably won't. I have enough useless crap to watch...

Apparently it's not a good idea to do computer work on a carpet floor...

This Christmas, my wife announced that she had run out of ideas for gifts to get me, so she asked me if there was anything else that I wanted.

Now there were plenty of things that I wanted: a HDTV, a XBox 360, a new CD player for my car, a snow blower, Sirius satellite radio, a new computer, a recordable DVD player for the living room, etc, but she was thinking about the $50 range. The only thing I could think of was a new case for my computer.

I had originally bought a computer in 1997 when I was in graduate school, which I didn't finish because I managed to find a new career path that suited me. Eventually, the computer ended up getting slower and slower because the original configuration was:

Pentium 333 megahertz processor
8 meg video card
8 gig hard drive
128 megs of RAM

It suited its purpose for a while, but as all computers, it had to be upgraded. I upgraded to an Intel Celeron 1.7 Gig processor, 32 meg video card and 512 megs of RAM.

What I should have realized then and should have upgraded back then was the case. By the time I upgraded 3 years ago, the case's power supply was five-years-old. Plus, the case itself was small and not built for the ventilation required for today's computers.

You see my non-technical friends (if anyone actually reads this), computers need ventilation or they will burn up. Today's processors have fans strapped to them to keep them cool. Power supplies have their own fans. Even the video cards have fans strapped to them to keep them from melting down.

Today's computer cases are bigger than they need to be for ventilation purposes. They even have more open vent ports so that you can put nifty fans in them for more ventilation.

After the upgrade 3 years ago, my computer have perpetually acted like it's been stricken with malaria. One minute it'll feel cool to the touch and the next minute it's burning up. I hated leaving the computer on for fear that it would burn up while I wasn't home.

So that's what was on my mind when my wife asked me what I wanted. I wanted a new case for the computer that came with a new power supply.

She asked, "A computer case?" in that skeptical wife tone.

After quickly explaining the above reasoning, which she was probably zoning out, she said in an even more skeptical tone, "All right."

I convinced her that I wanted it done that day, so off we headed to DIT computers. I picked a nice black one that had easy remove sides. I couldn't wait to get it home to move my computer from one case to another. I had also bought a new video card with some money I had been hoarding, so I was even more anxious to try out some games that my computer had some trouble playing. I figured the new video card would help.

I opened the computer on my coffee table in the living room of my apartment and laid it down on its side on the carpet...

Now let me explain something...

I've tinkered with my computer quite a few times either cleaning it out or installing a new hardrive or a sound card that's gone bad and every time that I've done it, I would do it on the bar in my living room that had a nice hard stone tile floor.

This is an ideal location if you're in the house. You want a work area that has no carpet or anything that will cause static electricity. According to Webopedia, circuitry to on a computer component can be damaged by as little as 10 volts, but the human body can only perceive it when it's hit 1500 volts. They also suggest working on an anti-static mat.

I did not...

I had even been warned about this the first time I ever put in a new computer component. My sound was really bad when the computer first came because they were using a real crappy internal sound chip on the motherboard. I had the computer company send a sound card to fix the problem, but I didn't really know how to put one in. My friend from work, Kevin, showed me how to do it.

One of the first things that he told me to do was to make sure that I avoided static electricity. He suggested that if I was to work on my computer on carpet would be to touch something else prior to touching my computer components.

He cited one example in which a guy he was helping over the phone had his new RAM ready to install when he heard a "BZZT!" The guy had shocked the RAM, which was now dead.




I had heard about the dangers but much like I had never believed my parents when they told me that every time I turned the lights on and off that it cost a quarter or much in the way that conservatives dismiss the supposed dangers of global warming, I really didn't comprehend the severity of the problem.

So when I had my motherboard and other components laying on the carpet while I moved them from one case to another, it's a small miracle that I didn't fry everything.

I was trying to work on the floor undisturbed, but seeing as how my wife was at work and I had to watch my four-year-old daughter, Julia, it was hard to remain undisturbed. She was poking in and around the computer and even touching things at some points in the day. Several times, she jumped on my back while I was kneeling over the computer.

I felt the familiar "BZZZT!" of static electricity. And this happened several times.

I didn't think much about it, but I did when, after moving everything to the new box and then starting up the new computer box, the fans whirred, but nothing else happened. Nothing on the monitor. No familiar beep from the computer BIOS. Nothing.

I started to panic a little. I opened the box and reseeded everything on the motherboard. Nothing. I checked every power cable. Nothing. I tried the old video card. Nothing. I even tried running off the motherboard's video port. Nothing.

So I took it back to the computer store and had them run a computer diagnostic, which was going to take 5 to 7 business days before they even got to it.

Therefore, I had to suffer in guilt and panic for more than a week while I fretted about what could be wrong with the computer. I even sought help from a computer tech help forum that I frequent. At first I was a little vague in my details because I didn't think where I put the computer case together was relevant. Finally, when I disclosed the charges from my daughter and the putting the computer together on the carpet, I got this reply.

"LMAO! That motherboard is toast!!"

So in the end, it WAS the motherboard. I ended up getting a new motherboard/processor combination, which is really twisting my arm...

Postcards from Uncle Sam...

by Bill the Evil Twin

I was in the National Guard for six long years. Let me tell you, that was some of the longest six years in my life. Bob should know, he was there. We could not wait to get out. If I had to explain why we did not like “Going Guard”, it would practically fill a book. So from time to time, I am just going to write about it from time to time when the muse hits. I told myself I was going to write about this topic for a long time. Well, the muse finally hit and it hit this last weekend.

I went to the local Blockbuster and rented the movie “The 40 Year Old Virgin. “ I don’t need to tell you it was hi-larious and this in no way is a review of the movie, but what I am going to talk about is the post card that was stuck in the box that the movie came in. It was a postcard for recruiting for the Army National Guard. I just love Army, well... all military recruiting advertising. Like any form of advertising, it tries to pick out the “positive” or “good” or whatever the ad agency at the time told the Army was going to get them their target market. It always tickles me when it come around, so this one made me smile.

On the postcard it says for the headline, “The most heart racing, adrenaline rushing, action packed adventure you’ve ever seen. And that’s just basic training. “ That's funny. I’ve been through Army basic training and the headline should read, “The most nerve-racking, tiring, sleep-deprived, self-esteem sucking 13 weeks of your life. And you get to spend it with a mixture of immature assholes, rednecks and other guys duped into joining. Yep. That’s basic training.”

Let’s examine the card a little further shall we. It says, “Rappelling, driving tanks, obstacle courses, and rescue missions are just some of the adventurous challenges Guard members face.” Let’s take the first thing on the list: Rappelling. I rappelled when I was in the guard. 3 years after I joined and twice on the same day. I admit. It was fun. The next time, was well... there was no next time. But on the card it has a picture of a guy rappelling. That kind of makes it seem like guardsmen rappell all the time, you know, just for kicks and on every mission. Frankly, I have never heard of a mission in actual combat that had rappelling in it. I personally think it’s an activity that was created, perhaps incorporated, into attracting people to join the ranks. I have heard radio commercials about being a guard member for the day and on that day on one the first activities listed was, you guess it, rappelling. I almost wish that was the reason Bob and I joined, but sadly no... we didn’t.

As for the rest of the card. Driving tanks is listed. Driving a tank is easier than driving a car. Why? Because the tanks I drove never went faster than 35 miles an hour and since you don’t actually have to follow any rules of the road, ie: you can drive over most things and not damage it, you don’t actually have to take a driving test for a tank. My “drivers test for a tank went something like this: (Bob's note: Bill actually drove an APC: Armored Personnel Carrier. Big difference)

“Hey Bill. You’re going to drive the Track (that’s an Armored Personnel Carrier) at AT (that’s Annual Training) this summer.”

“Uh... Ok”

End of test.

As for the rest of the postcard, obstacle courses and rescue missions. They are not as fun as they sound. Obstacles courses just shows you how out of shape you are. Rescue Missions are just like combat except no ones dies, you can’t feel bullets wizzing or bombs exploding and you get to quit when the officers say it over. Usually that’s less than 3 hours. Like I said, just like real combat.

By the way, when you flip over the card, it says, “How many DVD’s in your collection give you the opportunity to earn $10,000? Sounds pretty enticing huh? But you know if you think about, most of the DVD’s give you the opportunity to make that much money, just differently. A lot of the DVD’s are like mini film schools in themselves. If you pay attention, you could learn a lot about composition, lighting, acting and even screen writing, that you could possibly make your own successful movies and you didn’t even have to have your head shaved and be shipped away for 13 weeks for constant harrassment and exercise.

If you were to fill out the card, it says on the bottom in italics, “I understand there is no obligation on my part.” For filling out the card, you receive an “American Soldier” DVD and a t-shirt that says:

Army National Guard
Est. 1636
100% American Soldier
Defending Freedom Made in the USA

100% American Soldier? That kind of sounds like an obligation to me. There should be fine print that says, “I understand that wearing this makes me an American Soldier and I am obligated to signing up for six years”

I got kind of curious on why that postcard was in that particular movie. Did the National Guard stick the card in every DVD that was out there? I had rented three other movies and check each one for the card.

The Sea Inside - No Card
Fever Pitch - No Card
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Card!
If you look at “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”, you could make an assumption on the type of person that rents those types of movies. All right. I’LL make the assumption. People that rent those movies are 1) male 2) in high school or college 3) possibly single. Fever Pitch is kind of a date movie and no one getting some is going to sign up and be three months away from his girlfriend. “The Sea Inside” is an arty movie and frankly looks kind of faggy. We just don’t want those type to join up. I could totally be wrong on this. The blockbuster staff could have forgotten to put the cards in the other DVD cases. However, I could be right.

It’s not just postcards that the National Guard is using. I read an article where on some Mom and Pop pizza places, they are giving free pizza boxes to the owners to put their pizzas in. On the boxes, it has a picture of a young woman and a message telling about how the government will pay for tuition and other benefits. Again, no queers please. Didn’t you see the picture of the attractive young woman?

Some Guard web sites are offering a free song from Itunes. Yep. One song and all you have to do is put in your vital information and be harrassed by a recruiter just for that one song. Dude, I could have bought you a song. I won’t, but you get the idea.

Well, apparently, these tactics are working better than the postcard. I can’t say they would have worked for me. I wasn’t as against joining the military as I was when I was younger. I just wanted to go to college, but I do know if I had ended up in Iraq for joining up for this so-called part time job, I would have been super pissed.

Kelly Clarkson is the devil...

Originally posted on 04/26/05, but I'm reposting here...

Bill came over one Sunday for some odd reason that I can't really remember. That's not important. What is important is that we were listening to the radio at the time. The Kelly Clarkson song, "Since You've Been Gone" came on the radio. If you don't know, Kelly Clarkson was the first winner of American Idol and this is the second single off of her second album, Breakaway.

So we were talking about how the song isn't bad and kind of catchy when Bill asks, "Hey, have you seen the video for this song?"

If you haven't seen the video for "Since You've Been Gone", which if you’re someone like my Mom, then I can perfectly understand why you haven't, the premise of the video is that Kelly Clarkson walks around her ex-boyfriend's apartment while cutting up clothes, destroying things and just generally trashing the place. As she leaves, the boyfriend walks up to the apartment with his new girlfriend all none the wiser that Kelly has just committed several felonies such as breaking and entering and vandalism.

"Yeah, I've seen it," I say. "What about it?"

"Don't you think it sets a bad example?"

"In what way?" I ask.

"She destroys stuff in her ex-boyfriends apartment and leaves."

"And?" I ask.

"It sets a bad example because kids may think that this type of behavior is OK."

I kind of smirk and say, "Yeah, I know what you mean because there's this video where Avril Lavigne leaves painted marks all over town, which is vandalism, and they have an impromptu concert in the middle of a busy intersection, which is disturbing the peace."

"Oh, shut up!" Bill yells. "You always do this!"

"Do what?"

"You twist things I say!"

"Because I don't think that what you just said makes sense," I say. "It's just a video, Bill. It's not like kids are going to watch it and copy it."

"They might."

I thought about it a minute and thought about stopping the conversation and keeping quiet. I couldn't help myself. I had to keep this going.

"That's true," I said. "There's this video by Twisted Sister where the father is blown out the window by a guitar rock chord..."

"Oh shuuut up!" Bill exclaims with rolled eyes.

"Bob!" my wife, Laura, yells from the kitchen.

"turns into Dee Snyder," I continue, "and drags his father down the stairs by his hair."

"You think that you're funny, but your not," Laura says.

"Oh come one!" I exclaim. "You have to admit that it's funny!"

Laura says, "This is funny for one person, you."

Bill says, "You really are reaching."

"Reaching! You're the one that's insisting that Kelly Clarkson's corrupting the youths of America."

"Keep reaching!" he shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

Bill sighs, "I can see that this is going to end up on your blog."

"Damn right it's ending up on my blog! It's a stupid argument."

Nothing is said for a minute. I'm sitting there with a smirk on my face. I'm trying to think of a good comeback. Bill's scowling because he knows that I'm trying to think of a good comeback.

I raise my finger to speak. Bill sighs again. "There's another video by Avril Lavigne..."

Laura yells from the kitchen, "Robert! Let it go!"

"In which she walks down the street..."

"You just can't help yourself," Bill says with distaste.

"No I can't," I laugh and finish quickly, "and then shoves a guy in a bar...

"Robert!" Laura yells again and glares.

I laugh and say, "I'm done."

"Good." Bill says.

Bill leaves and I ask Laura, "You can't possibly agree with him can you?"

"No, but I just didn't want hear you two argue. It wasn't worth arguing over."

"It was funny," I said.

"Only to you," she says. I snicker.

Hours later, I call Bill up on his cell phone and say, "Bill, there's this one video by Jane's Addiction called "Been Caught Stealing where they opening mock the laws against shoplifting and encourage people to steal. It sets a bad example."

Bill sighs and asks, "It took you all day to come up with that lame comeback?"

"Pretty much," I chuckled.

Thank God the Amazing Race - Family Edition is over... Karma wins again...

I posted about the Weaver family from the Amazing Race - Family Edition last week here. They were the family that lost their Dad to a racetrack accident and then proceeded to go all crazy with their faith. In this season of the Amazing Race, they made sure to ask God for guidance for everything from finding a road sign to finding a red coffee bean in a large pile of other coffee beans.

It's not just the religious thing that bothers me, it's their moral superiority. It'd be one thing if they were nice to everybody in the race and then everybody hated them, but it wasn't that by a long shot. They were the team that didn't speak to any other team, which alienated them from everybody else.

Well, Tuesday night, they crowned a team champions of the Amazing Race and thank heaven it wasn't the Weavers. I feel for their loss, but again, their attitudes were horrible.

You see, the Amazing Race is a game where karma plays a big role in who wins. In all of their seasons (I think they're up to 10), the team that is ultra competitive, but are major pricks to everyone end up not winning the game.

There are always teams that I love to hate during the Amazing Race and they have never one the game. It's a fact. Don't dispute it. Look it up. I'm not wrong.

Last year, they had Rob and Amber from Survivor in the game. From the start, they were the team that messed with everyone. Rob bribed security guards not to give information in airports. Rob bribed cab drivers to not wait for teams. He messed with people's heads at airports. During one leg, one team's car overturned in a desert stretch, seriously injuring that team's cameraman. Every team stopped to either help or ask if they were OK except for Rob and Amber. They just drove on by. So it was of no surprise to me that on the final leg, when he and Amber got a flight ahead of everyone else to the final destination, another team got on the plane even when the jetway was taken away. They ended up losing. Karma.

The previous season to that, there was a former Miss Texas and her asshole boyfriend, who were again ultra competitive and nice to nobody. The boyfriend sneered at locals at every turn and almost got himself arrested when he refused to pay a cab driver in one country. The night before the final flight, the team that ended up winning came in way later to the airport than the other two teams. They found out that the flight that Miss Texas and boyfriend were on was delayed, which made a later flight the early flight. When the boyfriend found this out at the last minute, he attempted to get on the flight, but since he had already checked his bags at the counter on the original flight (on a different airline), they were not allowed to change flights. End result: the team that won gets to the final destination 20 minutes earlier and wins handily. I'm telling you, Karma.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, I just knew the Weavers were in for a date with Karma. They started the first hour way ahead of everyone else until they get to a challenge that involved them driving a golf cart into a stadium by way of the only entrance. They took forever finding the entrance and then fail to find the clue tacked to the back of one of the 55,000 indoor seats until hours later, which allowed the other teams to catch up. Rebecca, the 19-year-old put it very eliquently when she described her frustration.

"This is stupid..." (think of a bored teenager)

"I don't need to find this stupid clue. I've done more important things in my life. This is just stupid..." (think bored with a sneer)

They eventually find the clue, but it's for the last charter flight, which gives the other two teams a little lead. Karma finally caught up and the team that I was rooting for, the Linz family, finally won. You see, they were mostly positive. They never complained about what they were doing, where they were, or how they were doing it. I'm telling you, it's karma. That why I love the Amazing Race (except for this disappointing season of North America travel instead of world-wide, multi-continent travel). It's the team's that remain positive and are at least friendly to other teams or locals that win.

Time for a name change...

We started this site originally as 3 Point 5 Stars because we couldn't think of a better name and because Bill suggested it. Bill thought that it was a good idea because he was always intrigued by how unless something is universally hated, it will average out to 3.5 stars on Amazon.com because fans that are mad at the bad reviews will pump it up to off set the bad reviews. This is the problem with the review system. People sometimes try to vote honestly by giving something they liked, but had a few problems with just four stars, but then others who haven't even honestly listened or watched the title in question will give it just one star.

For example, the newest Ann Coulter or Al Franken book will get five stars from their fans to offset the one star reviews posted by people that openly haven't read the book, but "don't have to to know that it sucks!" or from people that skimmed it while in the airport bookstore and therefore are qualified to comment on the whole book.

That premise is still a basis on some of our views, but I thought it pigeonholed the site, so we're changing it to something equally as kind of stupid, Pop Vultures. I guess it's a commentary on how we all feed on the remains of Pop Culture.

Amazon, I thought you knew me...

by Bill the Evil Twin

I have to admit it. I am kind of addicted to amazon.com. Patton Oswalt has a bit about how much time you can waste on the internet just by going by whatever thought comes across your mind. Amazon can kind of be that way since you can pretty much find anything on this site. One cool thing is that it tells you what you might like if you bought something recently. For example, if you bought something by Interpol, it will recommend you Bloc Party or Franz Ferdinand.

This can be somewhat reminiscent of a friend who lends you something you might like based on what you own. Friends who have a vast knowledge of music are good to have. Unfortunately, I know more about music than all of my friends combined, so Amazon has to suffice as my best friend, but like a friend Amazon is often not smart, is clueless and doesnÕt take a hint.

When I first starting buying stuff off of Amazon, I was recommended things that I did buy and enjoy and stuff that I didnÕt which is why you have to really look at the reviews closely. Like a friend, Amazon notices what you buy and then recommends things, unfortunately, it doesn't learn. Here are some examples.

My brother and I do this contest with friends of ours. Every year, like nerd saplings, we spring forth and try to guess what the blockbusters of the summer are going to be and rank them. At the end of the summer, the person who guessed correctly wins DVDs from each member in the pool. Unfortunately, I have not won anything in the years we have been playing. This might be a good thing since it may mean that I'm not a movie geek. At least I hope I'm not, but I have come close to winning it, so still could be a full fledged geek.

Anyway, one summer when I lost, the winner wanted "The Brood" on DVD. If you haven't seen "The Brood", well it's lovely film from David Cronenberg which I barely remember so here's what one Amazon review said about it:
"To synopsis the plot: Frank Carveth's estranged wife is crazy, and undergoing unconventional therapy at her psychiatrist's controversial institute. Suspecting her of abusing their daughter, he removes her from his wife's care, to the strenuous objections of her shrink. Several people connected to wifey's emotionally crippling past begin to show up dead, and Carveth finds himself fighting to save his daughter from her crazy mother's 'other' set of kids"

Well, I bought it and sent it to the "winner" of the movie pool. After that, my friend Amazon started suggesting other equally disturbing horror movies, which means EVERY disturbing horror movie ever made. This went on for months and finally, I figured out how to tell Amazon, "Look. Just because I bought "The Brood" doesn't mean that I want to own every sick horror movie ever made." All I had to do was go into "Improve your recommendations". Amazon keeps track of everything I buy and there is a little check mark that says, "Use for my recommendations." So, by me checking that box, it's like Amazon saying to me, "Sorry bro, my bad. Won't happen again." This is all fine and dandy, but it still won't learn.

I bought two books on building fences because I was building a fence. Well, for months, Amazon recommended me every fence book I didn't happen to buy. How many fence books do you think I need? I had to check the box again.

Now for horror movies or fence building, this checking the box thing is very good, but for music it's a whole new ball game. Amazon knows to recommend popular things, but I wish Amazon would recommend lesser known artists.

When you first start buying things off of Amazon, it doesn't know a damn thing about you, but it does a pretty good job, but if you're like me and own a lot of CDs and try to help Amazon out by constantly updating your recommendations, you really start to mess things up.

For example, Amazon will bring up a list of 15 things per page that you might like. At the bottom of each thing, it says, "Why recommended? Because you bought (such and such)." This is all fine and good, but like The Brood, just because I bought that one thing does not mean I want to buy EVERYTHING that sounds like that artists.

One time, I bought the Nirvana box set. So, Amazon started recommending other bands that I might enjoy, like Alice in Chains. Alice in Chains - "Dirt" is listed. Now I could tell Amazon that I do own it and yes I do like it, but I don't really want to rate it, so I "lie" and click "Not Interested". The page updates and Amazon reveals:
Alice in Chains - "Alice in Chains"
Not Interested
Alice in Chains - "Jar of Flies"
Not Interested
Alice in Chains - "Face Lift"

This happens all the time. My favorite though is when it recommends something based on one band of a certain genre I might like. Namely Third Eye Blind. I like them. I think they are a good band for pop. It could be a guilty pleasure, but they are a good band in my opinion and I don't try to force it on to anybody.

So Amazon goes, "Hmm...Third Eye Blind huh? How about Vertical Horizon? Do you like the album that has the one hit wonder, 'Everything She Wants'?"

"Sorry, I am Non Interested"

Page updates

"Well, how about their follow album that yielded no hits and no one bought? How about that?"

"Look, if I didn't want the popular album. Why would I want the other one?"

"Sorry man. How about Three Doors Down? They kind of sound like Third Eye Blind, right?"

Amazon is an annoying little friend and I wish it would "learn" from my personal choices, but I sometimes feel that the day that happens, I will be trying to please the computer instead of the other way around.

Jesus busy helping the Weavers...

I've always loved the Amazing Race. Unlike other reality shows in which the contestants sit around and scheme, the Amazing Race's contestants actual do things. They fly around the world in pairs of twos, finding clue locations and overcoming clue obstacles to get the next clue before the pit stop at the end of each leg. It's pretty compelling TV because you have people relying on faith, luck and ingenuity in order to remain in the race. There are no vote offs and alliances are easily shattered as teams that intend to stick together end up giving up as soon as one team slows them down. Plus, it's a chance for personalities to shine and personalities to shame. Some teams take the race in stride, appreciate the diverse locations and learn from the experience. Other teams seem to fall into that category of people that bitch about every other team, bitch about every location and bitch about their position in the race. I love it.

This year, CBS tried to change things up by having a family edition of the Amazing Race. For the first time, they have fielded teams of four and kids. As a result, the producers have chosen to keep the main race in the United States with a lone trip to Central America as the overseas trip. I thought it would be neat for people to jaunt around the United States, but in the end, it's just not compelling. Plus, having parents scream at their kids just is plain disturbing. I ended up feeling sorry for the kids whose dumb as parents tell them the wrong way to drive and then blame them for going the wrong way.

There are a variety of teams that you love to hate for a variety of reasons:

• There was the New York area family that spent most of their time screaming at each other.
• There was the family with two young kids.
• There was the family of sisters that all seemed to be giggling with each other one minute and then hating each other the next
• There was even a family with a step mom who spent a lot of her time yelling at her step kids to stop fraternizing with other teams, which was met with "She's such a bitch" comments by the son.
  

Then, there was/is (as of the last show), the Weaver family.

They are a family of a Mom, two daughters and a young son from Florida that have found God more in their lives after the Dad was killed on a racetrack. I can see why they took to religion in a time of crisis. Some people need faith in their lives to make sense of everything, but these people have taken direction from God and elevated it in a new direction.

From the very start of the race, I knew I was in for a long season when they get their first clue and have to drive somewhere.

"Dear Lord, please give us direction."
"Jesus, please help us find the clue box."
"Jesus, help us find the road sign."

These were just some of many examples of guidance they were searching for. I'm not religious by a long shot, but I would like to think that if I was, I would pray for something more substantial than clue boxes or road signs. While I realize that you could say that maybe God wants them to win the million dollar prize, I would like to think that God has more important things on his mind. That would be a crappy message: "Your father died so that you may win a million dollars on a reality TV show."

Which reminds me, seeing as their father died on a race track, they freaked out when they had to go to a race track for a clue. Then they freaked out more when they had to go to the track itself and ride a tandem bike around the track. On another leg of the show, they ended up going to a (gasp!) go-cart track, to which the kids freaked out again. The Mom ended up doing the go-cart challenge and they moved on. I can understand pain from having a relative die, but come on people! It's just a go-cart track! It's not as if they asked you to drive an actual race car while trying to dodge pit crew workers on the track. It's called facing your fears and it makes you a stronger person.

What absolutely kills me about the Weavers is their total disdain for the other teams. They claim to be the one team that is trying to live a respectful, Christian life, but since I've been watching, they've been the team that has complained about everything. One team's member was trying to console the daughters about how hard it must be to do the race track challenge and when that person walked away, the Weaver daughter murmured, "I hate them! They're so fake!"

Being as they're from Florida, I'm sure they're shocked that there are actually states that aren't perpetually green. When they made it to Utah, they made fun of the surroundings (I've been there. While I don't want to move there, it was a nice blend of desert and mountains.). The young son intoned that when God was making the world that "God must have skipped Utah." One of the daughters complained that if she ever met someone from Utah, they'd say, "I feel so sorry for you!"

Later in that race, they pass a bike rider on a mountain. The son, Rolly, leans out the window and says, "You think you're Lance Armstrong, but you're not!" Oh. Ha Ha.

Every week for the past several weeks, we've seen the snotty Weavers bemoan why no one likes them at the end of the show? Could it possibly your holier-than-thou attitude? I'm thinking yes.

Spoon, Bright Eyes and the Lord of the Rings...

by Bill the Evil Twin

I went the Spoon and Bright Eyes concert on Friday, November 11 at the Orpheum in Omaha, NE. I had never seen a concert there before and was quite looking forward to it, but the weeks leading up to it were met with uncertainty. I wasn't certain if Spoon was the headliner or Bright Eyes. I assumed that Spoon was the opener because Bright Eyes is technically an omaha "band" and Bright Eyes does come to Omaha at least 3 times a year. The day before the show, I found out that Bright Eyes was definitely going to open. Oh well, I guess I just was going to have to deal with it.

Things did not seem out of the ordinary. It seemed like a normal concert with a notable exception. There were not the overly annoying fans that you might find at a Green Day, (Insert name of TRL band here), etc... which has the "fan" who "loves" the aforementioned band so much that most of them immediately lose their "love" or for that matter "memory" of the band a year later when the next big thing comes along. What was at the concert was your typical alterna-fan in all age ranges, mostly wearing black, chuck taylors and disheveled hair. Although, there were a lot of older people there and by older I mean age 50 and above which I found odd, but it will be explained later.

Willy Mason was the first to open up and in my opinion he was one of your typical folk singers. He has a message and a guitar and well...he's a folk singer... so politely listen which I did. He got a lot of applause, but I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that the bassist for Bright Eyes was playing bass on the first part of his set. Before one song, he said, "You know everytime I come to Omaha, the people are great, the places are great... the music." This got an applause. You know, because he said, "Omaha." and well... the concert was in Omaha. Anyway, later he said this was the second time he was in Omaha. So apparently Willy is one solid judge of character.

After his set, may friend Dave and I riffed on his "second time" comment by saying things like,

"You know everytime I come here, there's a place I always go. The food is just incredible."

Dave would then ask, "So how many times have you been here?" To which I reply, "Oh... this is my second time." It went on like that for at least 20 minutes. All in all, of all the times I have seen Willy Mason, I've never really been impressed with him. How many times have I seen him? Once.

David Dondero was next and he bored me... so we went to the lobby for drinks. Sorry David.

Spoon came on and played for about an hour and a half. I was very pleased. I don't really have much to add. They played a tight set. Didn't talk too much and just cranked out as many songs as possible. Overall very good. The crowd seemed to react very well at least I thought.

After Spoon left the stage, they then set up for Bright Eyes. I don't know if this is the norm, but live they have at least seven members who play live. Not only that, but they gave everybody in the band ample room to roam on the big statge. Now, I have never seen them live before and frankly was just going to leave after Spoon. I had tried on several occasions to get into Bright Eyes, but it hasn't taken. I recognize Conor Oberst is a great songwriter, but it just doesn't appeal to me, but we were encouraged by some friends of ours to stay for Bright Eyes.

So the lights go down and a woman comes out, people scream and someone yells, "Yeah Sabrina!" Sabrina sits down at the harp and plays some long intro during which the people behind me were talking to each other on how talented Sabrina is. She then played three notes and everyone went apeshit. The rest of the band came out and took their places and started playing. I found out later the song they started with was, "Sunlight Sunset" off of Fevers & Mirrors.

Conor was wearing a black suit jacket and black loafers and even though I was in the 3rd balcony, his hair seemed to be pure black. Also, he seemed to be the average height of a rock star. 5 foot 6 and below, but I digress.

Between one song, someone yelled, "I love you Conor!" It was a male and I wasn't quite sure if he was joking, but I am leaning towards that this guy actually did love Conor and simply chose to express that fact in a crowded theatre. Later, whenever Conor would do his trademark, "Wooh!", the crowd would scream. The audience seemed rather entranced and would gasp and voice their approval whenever Bright Eyes played a note, any note, they recognized.

I guess I should also mention the old people. I was told that there were several members of the Bright Eyes families in attendance. Man, my Grandma would have loved my band too if I could play.

Dave and I stayed for 4 songs. We gave it a chance, but we decided to leave anyway. On the way out, I realized three things. 1) I probably would never really come to like Bright Eyes. 2) Omaha and the state of Nebraska does not need another Bright Eyes fan. There was plenty of adoration to go around. 3. Seeing Bright Eyes reminded me of going to see The Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings you might be asking? I'll explain.

I went to see Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring when it came out on opening night. My twin brother, Bob, was a fan and so was my brother Joe. I think they had both read the books and wanted to know if I would go. I had heard of much hype about this movie, so I decided to go and so it with them. Bob told me some of the story and told me of a side story where they get a pony and name it Bill for so reason. Why he told of this, I don't know. (Bob's note: In the movie, the characters specifically mention this pony named Bill, which is described in great detail in the book. People chuckled. I thought Bill might want to know the reference.)

Like the Bright Eyes concert, things seemed normal at first until the movie started. I could feel people having internal orgasms as the movie was rolling. They would start to snicker before something funny was going to happen. They would laugh at an in-joke and just before something scary or exciting was going to happen, I could feel them get excited. So this basically was me in a crowd of moviegoers seeing a movie that everybody had seen already, but hadn't actually seen. I should note that before the movie someone asked their friend if Bill the Pony was going to show up. In the movie, when Bill the Pony shows up (briefly), Bob leans over and says, "That's Bill." I think to myself, "No Shit!". When the hobbits say bye to Bill, people laugh because, yeah, that was really funny.

It's all coming back to me now. I was kind of mad while I was watching the movie. Everyone practically ruined the movie for me, because of the comments and the body language. After the movie, Bob and Joe asked me what I thought of the movie. I said, "The Lull of the Rings" Now, I've seen The Two Towers and Return of the King and really enjoyed them, but the first one just rubbed me wrong.

Now, I have heard that across the country for the Lord of the Rings movies, people were dressing up like hobbits, elves, etc. when they went to go see it. Now, nothing like this happened, but at the Bright Eyes show, there were a lot of little Conor's running around dressed in black with black hair that was unkempt.

I had a friend who went to the concert and he thoroughly enjoyed it, but he did admit that Bright Eyes fans are very annoying. He was on the main level and he said there were a couple of guys that were really into Conor Oberst. When they weren't dancing their asses off, they were commenting on what a genius Conor Oberst was. Like I said before, Nebraska does not need another Bright Eyes fan. The market is officially cornered.

You lost me at the 42 hour road trip...

by Bill the Evil Twin                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Went and saw Elizabethtown last night (this was weeks ago obviously, but we haven't promised timely criticism). I was looking forward to it. I have seen almost all of Cameron Crowe's movies. Vanilla Sky kind of sucked, but this seemed like it would be a more of a back to basics type of movie. You know, one filled with a character you could identify with that's going through some personal accompanied by a deep musical soundtrack showcasing a knowledge of music most of us don't have. Sadly, only the latter happened.

Elizabethtown is the story of a guy named Drew (Orlando Bloom) who is a shoe designer who loses the company he works for over 976 million dollars. He is eventually fired and decides to kill himself. Right before he is about to kill himself, fate intervenes and... yep...somebody calls to stop him. It's his sister and their father has died. He has to go to Elizabethtown, Kentucky(where his father was born and lived until high school) to take care of the funeral arrangements. His sister has a baby so, naturally(?) can't go and his Mom can't go because no one likes her in that town. (Bob's note: Wow. Those are some really good excuses. I can't make it to Thanksgiving this year with a legitimate excuse and I feel like I'm getting the guilt trip for it. Only in Hollywood.)

Right at the very beginning, Orlando Bloom narrates the movie for a very long time setting up the story. First off, this is a problem because he cannot narrate a movie very well. As he is explaining how he got this great idea for a shoe, working several years to get it done, the fallout, I just found myself not believing him to be the every man I could identify with. I don't really think he comes across as likeable at all. At least in Jerry McGuire, Tom Cruise is likeable even though he is a nut job.

On the way to Elizabethtown, he takes a red eye flight where he meets Claire (Kirsten Dunst), a flight attendant. For reasons I will never know, she decides to talk to him. Because speaking from experience, women just don't find the depressed, suicidal, I-hate-myself persona all that attractive. You might think the opposite, but, no. They really don't. Claire talks to him for a long time while he tries to ignore her and get some sleep. (Bob's note: While she's supposed to be working?) When the flight lands, she gives him her number and directions on how to get to Elizabethtown. Naturally, he gets lost and eventually finds it to meet up with the people of Elizabethtown.

I really don't want to bore you with the other details. Let's just say it deals with him dealing with the townfolk about the funeral arrangements, his relationship with Claire and his relationship with his family.

In one segment of the movie, they talk on the phone all night and eventually meet to watch the sunrise. During that scene, the song, "Come Pick Me Up," by Ryan Adams is playing which is a song about him wanting to get in a relationship with a woman he knows is going to fuck up his mind, sleep with his friends and steal his records. Surely, this was the best song to choose for this part of the movie. (Bob's note: I'm detecting Bill's sarcasm here)

Supposedly, Claire has a boyfriend, who is gone a lot, and continues to hang out with Drew as a "friend." Not once giving him mixed signals. Wait, she does, which you would think would bother Drew, but no, not really. It doesn't.

The big "whatever" in this movie is when Claire makes him a map for him to take a road trip because he's never taken one, and he promised her he would. So in the span of maybe 12 hours, she makes a map that is pretty much a scrap book of maps, brochures and pictures of all the places he needs to go to on his way back to Oregon. Drew says it took him 42 hours for him to complete it. Did I mention that she put together 12 CDs of music timed to where and when he would be traveling and that it was narrated by Claire? So, along the way, you hear several songs you have never heard, but they sound good. Obscure songs by Elton John, Elvis, obscure blues, obscure 70's band, etc, etc, etc.

On this road trip, he is encouraged to take 30 minutes to have a bowl of chili, go to Graceland, see a round barn, take time to pump his fist in the air and dance, take 5 minutes to look at an article talking about his doomed shoe, see the motel where Martin Luther King was shot, etc, etc. Did I mention she included a picture or a brochure from each of the places she visited and had music to accompany it. At the very end of the road trip, he meets up with Claire at a farmers market and they live happily ever after. I guess.

Here are some problems with this movie. No girl is this cool and has this type of taste in music. Not unless she had a brain transplant with Cameron Crowe. So, this very cool girl ends up with the guy who had everything and then failed. I hate to break this to Cameron Crowe, but I don't root for the guy who has everything and then lost it. I root for the guy who has nothing and then gets the girl. In Almost Famous, I totally related to the 15-year-old kid (William Miller) because I was that kid. The kid that wanted to be cool and then realized he could never be cool because he can't. (Bob's note: What a second?! You were never cool? Since when?) I relish when someone who has everything fails, unless you can show me he was a great guy and didn't deserve to fail, but they never did.

Another problem: the music. We get it Cameron Crow!. You know a lot about music!

You really drove it home with the 42-hour road trip with all the songs we may have heard once or twice or never in our lifetime. Your character, Claire, lives in Kentucky and is a flight attendant. When does she have time to listen to music? In one scene you have her packing two CDs in her suitcase: Ryan Adam's "Love is Hell" and a Heart album. How convenient. This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that your wife is Nancy Wilson from Heart. Probably a huge coincidence. So she packs CDs. CDs? Not an ipod? Again, she is a flight attendant and wants to pack light, so why would she just pack two CDs when she has this VAST collection of music. Which brings up an interesting point. Since she is a flight attendant, why would she road trip when she could fly where ever she wanted for free? Oh, that's right, she's a free spirit who just so happens to look like Kirsten Dunst.

In another scene at the "Celebration of Life for Drew's father", a band fronted by Drew's cousin reunites and plays a cover of Free Bird. It was at that point where I said to myself, "Now I really hated Lynard Skynard." (Bob's note: actually spelled Lynyrd Skynyrd)

The main problem: Orlando Bloom. I just didn't buy him from the start as the lead for this movie. I don't know who would have been better, but he is obviously better wearing long blond hair, shooting arrows and hanging out with hobbits.

Bill nada fan of Nada Surf...

My twin brother, Bill, and I exchange CDs a lot to find out new music. Usually, I'm mooching off CDs he bought, but occassionally, I come up with CDs for him that I've obtained.

I had come across the newest CD by Nada Surf, called "The Weight is a Gift". I thought Bill might like it, so I made a copy for him to listen to and then give back later. ;-)

Bill flips through the CDs and says, "Mm Hmm. Like it. OK. Sure. (He gets to the Nada Surf cd). Nada. Nada going to listen to it."

I had listened to it a few times, so I defended my choice, "Hey! It's good! Just listen to it!"

You might remember Nada Surf from the end of the alternative craze in the 90s. They were supposed to be the next Weezer as their album was produced by Ric Ocasek, who produced Weezer's blue album. Also, they had an MTV-friendly video called, "Popular" that we definitely Weezer like. They seemed like a one-hit wonder. The CD was nothing special and I remember selling it. They fell of the face of the earth, or so it seemed, until they came back into prominence a few years ago.

Nada Surf's new CD is the follow-up to their sort of comeback CD called "Let Go". It was hailed my critics everywhere as the next greatest CD of that year it was released (too lazy to look, but I think it was 2003). I'm sure if you did a search for it right now on Amazon.com, you'd see plenty of 5 star reviews proclaiming it the greatest CD they've ever heard. I liked it. It wasn't so great. It was good. I liked plenty of songs on it, but it seemed to drag down when they'd hit a slow song. Just my opinion.

The newest Nada Surf CD suffers from the same kind of problem for me. I really like the uptempo songs, but I feel the slow songs drag it down.

The album starts with "Concrete Bed", a quick start song with a fast acoustic riff through it. The chorus proclaims that "To find someone you love, you gotta be someone you love." A simple enough message that you need to like yourself for others to like you. It's a nice song.

Then you hit, "Do It Again." It's kind of set up like a Pixies song in which the bass and drums hit first with some light electric guitar strumming. Things build by the bridge with the chorus of course being the selling point. Go figure, this song is about a relationship that seems to be about a couple lying around with nothing to do, so the guy begs his girl to "show me the keys" and "Do It Again". I'm sure you're seeing where this is headed. Maybe I missed something in that interpretation, but I think that's where it's going. It's a solid song.

Then we hit the single, "Always Love." This one tells you that "Always love. Hate will get you everytime." This one starts out quiet for the first 38 seconds and then kicks into high gear. It's a nice rocking song (for them it's rocking).

Next comes my favorite song, "What Is Your Secret." which seems to be about a failed relationship. Nada's singer proclaims, "I don't care about you anymore. The people got tired. Our movies don't play much anymore. The actress was fired." It's an interesting semi-rocking song about someone feeling mislead about a relationship.

So you have four really good songs to open the album, which is a problem. The rest of the album doesn't match up in my opinion. There are a couple of clunky slow songs that drag it down. And a really snappy corny song that Bill absolutely hates, "Blankest Year."

"Blankest Year" proclaims, "Ohh! The Hell with It! I'm gonna have a party!" Bill said that when he was listening to it, he was rolling his eyes. Then came the verse, "Ohh. Fuck It!" along with the background harmonizing of "Fuck It!" He said, "Oh no! They DIDN'T just harmonize "fuck it" did they?"

Bill said that he couldn't take anymore so he stopped listening.

I said, "Well I think it has a few good songs. The first four are really good."

Bill snorted, "That's great. I happen to like albums."

I snorted back like Bill, "I'm Bill. I only like albums. I don't like individual songs."

He got mad.

"Oh screw you! I didn't say that!"

All in all, it's a decent album. If I was grading it honestly, I'd give it a 3.5 stars. Seriously.

Saw Wallace and Grommit today... Part of it...

Originally posted on 10/16/05...

I went to the movies with Julia today since my wife has to work on Sundays. We would have gone yesterday to the movie, but we spent part of the time buying a used car.

I purchased a 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe. I test drove it for a few days and really liked it. It gets decent gas mileage for an SUV. It rides really smooth, too.

Today I was feeling really horrible about the purchase. I haven't purchased a car with payments in over a decade as one I bought with insurance settlement money, one was a cheap repo and the other was given to us. I felt really good about this purchase for most of the day, but maybe it was the alcohol I ingested while watching the Baylor/NU game, but started feeling really horrible about it. I kept wondering if it was the right decision and if I really needed that new of a vehicle and if we could afford it (we can). Basically, I had a huge amount of buyers guilt. I shouldn't. We needed the new vehicle because our last car was falling apart. As a bonus, there's a warranty on the car AND our insurance went down. I'm feeling better about it now, though.

So seeing as how I was bummed out, I decided to take Julia to the new Wallace and Grommit picture, "Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit"

Julia loves the Wallace and Grommit DVD that I bought for her before she was born (the first one I bought knowing that I was going to be a father), so she was pretty excited to see the movie.

We rush to get to the theater, but I had to stop as an ATM to get some money. We half-run to the entrance and buy tickets. We buy a pop and a popcorn and run to the theater, expecting to barely make the movie on time.

I have no idea why I was worried about being late.

We must have sat through seven movie trailers before the main movie started. There were trailers for Dozen 2, Chicken Little, some new CGI movie about animals feeding off food in the suburbs, Curious George and a movie called Dreamer. Dreamer is a Dakota Fanning movie about a girl who basically begs her father, a horse trainer played by Kurt Russel, to keep a horse that got injured alive. The horse gets better and they consider running it. It's all sentimental and crap... Basically, tears started streaming down my face a little during one part of the trailer when Dakota and Kurt talk about a story she wrote about a king that lives in a big palace with a horse. She says the story is dumb. He says that he loves the story about the king. She whispers, "I love the king, too."

So I'm a real sentimental guy. I was feeling homesick today and thought of Julia telling me that when I saw that scene. So sue me. Hey, I've only seen ET twice and I cried when ET leaves each time.

So the movie starts and it's a Madagascar spin-off with the penguins from that movie doing a Christmas short.

Immediately, Julia is impatient.

"I want to see Wallace and Grommit!"

I shush her and try to explain that it'll start after this one.

"But I want to see Wallace and Grommit!"

Finally, the movie starts not a moment too soon. I was afraid we were going to have a repeat of the March of the Penguins movie. Julia was entranced at first, but then bored silly after 20 minutes. We didn't see the end of it. It's a great movie, but whoever called it the perfect family movie is high.

The new Wallace and Grommit movie centers around our heroes Wallace, the inventor, and Grommit, his dog, in their efforts to rid the neighborhood of the rabbit problem before the annual vegetable festival. They now run a service called AnitPesto. They capture rabbits from people's gardens and house them in their basement.

While experimenting with a new brain modification device, Wallace and a bunny are hooked up during a full moon. He thinks thoughts like, "Veggie bad. Carrots bad."

Something goes wrong and suddenly a huge rabbit is on the loose eating up everyone's gardens and causing rampant destruction.

The movie is pretty charming and it's kind of odd seeing a non-cgi 3D film in wide screen. I started noticing when finger prints would be on the characters as they were doing their actions and when they would disappear.

But then, we had to leave.

About an hour into the film, we see the Were Rabbit transform and Julia was not amused.

She turned to me, "Daddy, I want to go... NOW!"

"What's the matter?"

"This movie is scary!"

"No, it's not. It's okay sweetie."

"I want to go now!"

"Umm.... Okay."

And we left. I guess I'll have to wait for DVD to see how this ends. I could have forced her to stay, but I didn't want to press my luck.