MadMup.com

So I can log into my MSN Messenger and see that I've got 3 e-mails waiting for me, but I can't get to Hotmail because it isn't working!

GRACK! 0 comments

If you're as big a Seinfeld fan as I am (and you probably aren't), you'll really want to go to this website and watch the "Uniform" short. Seinfeld & Superman go together like cinnamon and Life.

Labels: Seinfeld

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My second article is up over at Digital Entertainment News. It's a preview of Alias: The Game. You don't have to read it if you don't want, but you should.

And, yes, I plan to tell you every time I get something published over there. You're just going to have to deal with that, okay? 0 comments

I've established that I went to Panda Express today. Their orange chicken is just about the only Chinese food I'll eat. There was a Chinese place in Wisconsin that had the absolute best crab rangoons I've ever eaten, but everywhere else I've tried crab rangoons, they've made me a little ill.

I also love fortune cookies. Love, love, love them. Not for the fortunes - for the taste. I love the taste of fortune cookies. I've met very few people who are like me in this regard. I'm amused by the fortunes inside, but if they weren't in there, I'd still eat the cookies.

So here was my fortune from today's cookie:

"A smile is your personal welcome mat."

On first read for most people, that sounds pretty good. My smile is a way to tell people that they can talk to me, I'm friendly, come on in. But that's not the way I read it. I read it to mean that my smile invited people to walk all over me.

I'm turning into quite the negative person. 0 comments

After all my blathering about cell phones yesterday, I went and lost mine today...

I found it after a heart-stopping 10 minutes or so, but the trek from Panda Express to GameStop to the van while I retraced my steps seemed to take forever. It had fallen off my belt in the van.

And, of course, when I found it, no one had called. 0 comments

"Boy, we have gone nuts with the phones, haven't we?" - Jerry Seinfeld, I'm Telling You for the Last Time

Everybody's got cell phones these days. People have flip phones, phones with keyboards, phones with cameras, phones with wireless gaming, phones with smaller phones in them...

Okay, maybe not that last one, but it's coming.

We all want anyone to be able to reach us at anytime. I want the public library to be able to contact me about an overdue book when I'm in Kansas. Are my pictures developed? Call me while I'm drivng to Wal-Mart for cat food. Your wife just have a baby? Call me at 2:30 a.m. (Congrats to Aundrea and Josh on the birth of Landon, BTW!) Call me anytime, anyplace - I've got a cell phone!

It's amazing, really, these little technological marvels. Almost anywhere you go in America nowadays you can get at least enough signal strength to be able to tell the person on the other end "I can't hear you! You're fading in and out!!" But for the most part, coverage is good, and something beats nothing, right?

It used to be people would check for messages as soon as they walked in the door. Now we wait for the little signal beeps from our cell phones to tell us "Hey, while you were 'out of area' or on another call 4 hours ago, someone called and left a message. I didn't feel like telling you until just now, though." And, of course, cell phones have given rise to the new saddest words in the English language: "You have no new messages."

Most cell phones have the little screen that tells you who is calling, too. Portable Caller ID. What a great invention. The screen generally only shows the number, but if you save the number you can call it whatever you want so when your crazy second-cousin calls, the screen could say "Do Not Answer!!!!!"

I think a lot of problems in sit-coms could have been avoided if they'd had cell phones. Gilligan's Island is a natural first thought, but I'm talking about as recently as Seinfeld. The only time I remember anyone using a cell phone in Seinfeld was the last episode when Elaine was doing the "cell phone walk-and-talk." And do I even need to mention how much smoother everything would have been if Mr. Ed would have had his own horse-sized cell phone?

Some people gripe about other people's cell phone usage - in restaurants, walking around, in lines, etc. Not me. I'm nosey by nature, so I love overhearing conversations. I think that there are timesyou ought to shut the phones off, of course. Church, plays, theaters - these are "cell phone free" zones, people.

The only problem I really have with cell phones is that mine is never good enough. My current model has a stupid keypad that only works occasionally, but I really like the color screen and I like the bowling game that came with it. If I get a new phone, can I be assured of the bowling game? I'd love to have a camera on my phone, and a keyboard would be nice, but I also want it to be small... I'm a forever-unsatisfied consumer.

I'm a big fan. Want some peace and quiet? Turn your phone off. Want to be depressed about how few calls you get? Leave your phone on. It's all good.

Labels: Seinfeld

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Things happened today. Yes, they did.

First off: my weekend. It took me seven hours to get to Wisconsin on Friday - Chicago was as bad as I've ever seen it. I already hate driving, and that sort of thing doesn't help.

I ended up getting Dad two books, and I'm hoping he likes at least one of them.

My trip home yesterday only took four and a half hours, which is about right. Much better.

Spring Break started today, as I mentioned earlier. We have shorter hours and I have the day off on Friday, so that's cool.

But here's the coolest thing. I met up with a fellow on the Theater Hopper forums who runs a video game news site called Digital Entertainment News. We got to chatting one day, and one thing led to another, and I mentioned I'd love to write reviews for his site. He had me do a couple of test articles to see if it would work. Well...I guess it must have because I have my first preview up on the site! Yee-haw! It's a preview of the upcoming Samurai Jack video game, a game I knew nothing about a week ago. Go give it a read! It's like I'm published!

I've never had to write on deadlines before, so I'm excited and nervous all at the same time. I guess we'll see how it goes, eh? 0 comments

I'll have an update on my weekend later today, but for now I have these questions:

Why does it seem that most janitorial staff members like country music?
And why do they feel they need to play it so loud?

My schools are on Spring Break this week. I am not. Is this what my whole week is going to look - er, sound like?

Argh! 0 comments

I always hate it when I realize I either haven't posted in a few days or I haven't posted anything worthwhile in a few days. I realize "worthwhile" is a subjective term, but you know what I mean.

I'm going up to Wisconsin this weekend - it's my dad's birthday. It gets harder and harder to buy things for dads, doesn't it? The best thing to do is to start some sort of hobby for them and help them along with it on holidays and birthdays. He's been a mechanic for longer than I've been alive (about 32 years now), but I'll never buy him a car-related thing. How could I? I don't know Thing One about cars, much less what he could possibly want that was car-related. I think he has just about everything in that department.

Books are a good idea, but it's hard to pick out a good one. You don't want to get one unless you've read it, or you might have to explain why you got that particular book. Could be embarrassing. "Self help" books send that "I think you could be better" message that you really want to avoid.

Movies are tough, too. My dad doesn't really watch a lot of movies - in fact, I have a hard time imagining my dad doing anything leisurely. Any "spare" moment he had was spent fixing a neighbor's car or the church bus or something. He's a really good mechanic, and I'm not just saying that. He's got the awards to prove it, though he would tell you the awards don't mean anything.

For Christmas I got him and Mom a DVD player, so I'm leaning in the direction of some sort of TV show compilation set. Probably something British, like P.G. Wodehouse. He really liked those books, and I think he liked the show...maybe I'll get a gift receipt to go with that.

So I'll be away from the ol' blog for a day or two. I might write whilst in Wisconsin if I get the inspiration and the inclination. We'll see how it goes.

Be good. 0 comments

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

You'll notice this blog is wearing green, so no pinching. 0 comments

I went to the post office for the first time in a long time today.

What an odd place. I approve of the queuing, but not of the complaining. Everyone in line assumes that the postal workers are being lazy and not doing their job. I'm guessing the postal workers are assuming that we're all a bunch of impatient mouthbreathers, so I guess it works out okay.

I've always been amazed that I can slap a stamp on something and it'll get to where it's headed without too much fuss. People complain when the price of a stamp goes up - I usually don't. It used to cost a quarter to mail a letter (when I was in high school), now it costs 37 cents. Not bad for 14 years later, I think. E-mail is great and all, but actually being able to get a physical thing to someone else is just...neat.

Think about it - what are some of the most precious heirlooms? Letters written "back in the day." How cool is it to hold in your hand something that your great-grandpa wrote to your great-grandma when they were young and in love? Holding in your hand the actual piece of paper he held and wrote on. There's just such a connection there.

It's the same appeal that museums have for me. Looking at a piece of pottery and knowing it was made by a forgotten woman 1500 years ago...man. Perspective City.

For as "into" technology as I am, I regret that most of our lives can be wiped away by a strong magnet. Your grandkids won't be able to hold an e-mail in their hands. Videotape won't last. Even DVD's will be unreadable in 50 years. Sorry to depress you, but that's just the way it is. Want to leave a legacy? Start writing things down.

Sure, there's fire and floods. There are no guarantees, but starting with writing is still a better way.

I also espouse taking actual printed pictures - at least print your digital ones. You'd hate if your hard drive crashed and youlost 3 years worth of memories, wouldn't you?

So...post office. Mail a letter to someone tomorrow. 0 comments

Here's a neat little tool for those of you having trouble deciding on what movie to watch: What to Rent. It asks you to fill out a few things to get an idea of what you like, and then it suggests things you might like based on your previous preferences and your current mood. I found it to be pretty accurate - I had seen the first 10 movies it suggested to me.

Don't say I never gave you anything. 0 comments

What's the correct procedure for double doors? I'm a big one for holding the door for people - I'm not going to wait for 5 minutes for someone to come along or anything, but if someone's relatively close behind me, I'm good for a hold or two. There's always the danger of getting sucked in and being there for several minutes, but it's a risk I'm generally willing to take.

But double doors flummox me. I can hold one door for you, but how do I get to the second one ahead of you? If I'm walking with someone, some people will wait for me to get it for them, and I don't mind that. I still kind of half-run to get it, but it's nice that they recognize I want to hole the door open. If I don't get to the second door and they open it themselves, what was the point of me getting the first one?

And if someone opens the first one in front of me and kind of hold it open behind them as they walk through, I generally say "thanks." That's as good as a full hold to me. But should I say "thanks" again if they do that for the second door, too? Is it implied that I'm thankful for both holds if I say thanks after the first one? If I don't say "thanks" after the first one, they might view me as ungrateful and I might not get the second one.

It would seem to me that a good system is I'll hold the first door open, you say "thanks." Then you hold the second door open, and I'll say "thanks." But that defeats the whole purpose of holding the door open for someone, I think. If I want to be a gentleman and hold the door for a lady, I effectively end my gentleman-ness by expecting her to hold the next one for me.

While I'm on the subject, why is it that if you hold the door for a string of people, why is it that you get a "thanks" from roughly 15% of the passers-through? I don't do it for the thanks, but when someone does give me one, it makes me wonder why the rest of them didn't. Maybe they're thinking "if he hadn't held it, someone else would have, or I just would've gotten it." Or maybe "he was already holding it when I got here, so it wasn't for me, it was for that first person." Either way, I try to thank people when they do it for me.

I just don't want to overthank anybody, you know? 0 comments

This article is just too good to not pass along.

You remember Tonya Harding, right? And you like hockey, right? Well, if you're in Indy this Friday, you can mix the two...

Make sure you read the very last line of the article.

Too funny. 0 comments

A co-worker of mine has a cam set up on his dog. Here's the link so you can catch up on all the exciting Sammy CAM action!

He sleeps!

He gets up!

He sleeps in a different spot!

You'll be riveted!

Make sure you sign Sammy's guestbook - he'll be glad you came by. 0 comments

I only mention this because I found it to be interesting.

Altoids has a gum now. I saw it this morning while I was buying a tea, so I bought a tin (yes, it comes in a tin, just like their mints do). My review of the gum follows.

It's pretty good. It's got the Altoids kick to it, but the flavor doesn't last very long. For the sake of science, I tried two pieces at once, and was rewarded with watering eyes. Again, the flavor didn't last that long, but it was good while it lasted. 0 comments

I've dropped the ball, it would seem. It wasn't but a few days ago that I made a "sort-of" oath to post more frequently, and here I am, leaving days between postings. How about I catch you up on what's going on?

I went to a performance of Steve Martin's play Picasso at the Lapin Agile last night. I haven't been to a civic theater production before, so that in itself was interesting. The play was enjoyable, though more crass than I was expecting. Granted, I've heard worse, but there's something different about hearing it from real live people 10 feet away from you. I don't know why. The play is about an imagined meeting between Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein in 1904. My one-word summary: interesting.

I'm signed up for the improv workshop at the Civic Theater now. Those classes start on April 13, and there's a performance on May 22 if you're interested.

I have a ticket to see "Weird Al" Yankovic in Indianapolis on April 1. I've been wanting to see him in concert for a long time, so I'm pretty excited about that.

That's about it. You're now pretty much caught up. I'll try to do better. Really. 0 comments

I messed with some people's heads last night at Best Buy. There were only two registers open, and they were facing each other, so it was kind of one big open area in-between them. I stood in the middle of the two, waiting to see which one would open up first. They do this in England all the time - it's called "queuing up." Basically everyone gets in one line, which then feeds to the next available slot. This is opposed to the 4 or 5 short lines, and none of them are ever "the quickest."

Queuing up is the most logical, most efficient way to handle the checkout procedure. Which means, of course, that we Americans don't use it. I've only seen it a few times in America, at fast food places and in a lot of stores (Best Buy included) on the day after Thanksgiving. See? Even there people realize it's the most efficient. So why aren't we doing it all the time?!?

I have a theory. I think it's because Americans like to claim things: land, parking spaces, dibs. Choosing a line is an American's way of saying, "This is mine! I chose it! I will rise or fall based on my choice!"

There are other factors, of course. If there's a cute girl at one particular checkout, you might see a slightly longer line of geeky guys at that checkout.

So I'm standing there in my own private queue, staunchly set against all manner of unwritten American guidelines, when a couple comes up behind me to get in line. I hear furtive muttering. I am very obviously not in either line, but I am also very obviously intending to purchase something. I wait. Finally, the man in the couple asks. "Which line are you in?" I smile and say, "I'm queuing up!" and go on to explain why. The man smiles and nods and says, "I'll go along with that. I've got nothing better to do." The woman looks as if we're both crazy. She wants a line. "Nothing doing," I think.

Finally, one of the lines opens up, and I take my place. I turn and thank my fellow queuers and ask them to help start the revolution.

See, the problem is the interim. Once it was standard, we'd all be happier. But for now, if that couple hadn't acquiesced, they could have cut in one of the lines and ruined the whole thing. It's the same reason America couldn't make the switch to the metric system. How do you raise a generation to use metric when the previous generation is using standard? Can't be done. Again, metric is more logical and could be considered the better choice. You won't catch me using it, though.

And that's exactly the problem. 0 comments

Is this what the English language has come to? We can spell words however we want to, now? I know some people who will be very pleased by this news and others who will stay up late at night gnashing their teeth about it.

Count me in the latter group.

I didn't come here to rant about spelling, strangely enough. I actually want to gripe about collectibles. Everywhere I go I see signs that say "Collect all 12!" or "Collect the whole set!" Mind you, these signs aren't on Faberge eggs, they're on things like "I be illin'!" stickers and Jimmy Neutron Happy Meal figures. Much has already been made about people who buy toys and never open them, hopin that they (the toys) will be worth something someday. Toy Story 2 was actually a documentary about this exact phenomenon. The lesson we can all learn from that movie is that toys are meant to be played with, not locked up and put on display.

Except history teaches us differently. If you still had some of the original Star Wars toys in their original packaging, they would be worth a lot of money. So, of course, when the next round of Star Wars movies started coming out, people were buying the new toys by the truckload. "Some day," they thought, "I can retire on how much money these will be worth. I won't even have to sell them because I'll be able to open a museum and people will pay money to come and see my collection! I'll be rich and famous!"

Side note: When I was younger (so much younger than today), my friend Dan had a lot of Star Wars toys. He had the land speeder, the X-wing, all sorts of stuff. And he had a Boba Fett figure. One day, we took a few characters apiece and went out in the yard/fields/woods to play with them. I was a bossy kid ( I know, I know, you're surprised by that), and I had "convinced" Dan to let me have the Boba Fett. Well, somewhere along the way, Boba got lost. I very rarely lost anything as a kid, so it was surprising. Dan was ticked, as I recall. Years later (like, 10 or more), I bought him one of the new release versions of Boba Fett. It wasn't as cool as having the original, but he had long since forgiven me, and he thought it was cool. So what did he do? He tore open the package and started playing with it! I was shocked! Appalled! Grieved! But then he let me play with it (keeping a watchful eye on me the whole time, of course) and I realized that was the best thing to do. End Side Note.

It's not even just the super-weirdos doing this. There are normal people who don't even like Star Wars that collect the stuff with an eye towards untold wealth down the road. And, of course, it's not just Star Wars. It seems that there's a niche for just about anything. Remember those jelly jars that used to have Muppets and Disney characters on them? There's a market for those, even. With the advent of eBay, all of these people have a much easier time finding each other, too.

I have two main objections. First, I'm being commanded to collect these worthless things. All of them. "You! In the sweater! Get over here and collect all of these porcelain warthogs! Right now!" Can it really be called "collecting" if you get the whole set at one time? Doesn't "collecting" imply "getting a set of similar things over time"? Second, the things I'm supposed to be collecting are - what's the word? - stupid. Stickers. Plastic people. Keychains. Spoons. Caricatures of famous people. Magnets. I've got a better idea - I'm going to collect these little green pieces of paper with pictures of Presidents on them. I've got just the place to keep them, too: I like to call it "a bank."

I should probably admit at this point that I've got a little box waaaaaay up in the back of my closet with some The Tick figures still in their original packaging. I was younger then and I feel really bad about it. I plan to get rid of them. Just as soon as the price goes up a little more... 0 comments