Yesterday I received a late Christmas present from my sister in Hawaii. She sent me a WWE produced DVD titled: "The Greatest Wrestling Stars of the 80s". I had seen this video at stores over the last few months, considered it, but gave it a pass. I figured that the DVD would just be a bunch of profiles on the wrestlers. I usually don't expect to see what I want on those "retrospective" packages. Fortunately for me, the WWE really came through. Besides profiles, ther...
I just wrote up a test to give to my fifth grade students. In order to show the kids what to do, I enlarged the test on the copier. I got the copies, and stapled them together, and then I thought: "Hey: Big Test!" ha ha. For a sense of scale, I point your attention to the ruler to the left of the test.
Today my wife, my kids, and I were out shopping. During our outing, I had to refer to a yellow pages at a gas station. Fortunately I was able to find the entry of the store which I had been looking for. (Ironically -but not related to this article- the address in the book was wrong) This experience reminded me of something that I have seen in movies. Often, one will see a character refer to a phone book at some point in a movie or TV show. Once that person ...
Today my wife and I took the boys to a small zoo in the central part of our state. On the way home, we stopped off for a little shopping. One of the places we went to was Barnes & Noble. (I wanted to buy a CD. "Teegan and Sara": "Jealousy" ...I think...) As soon as we walked into the store, our oldest son exclaimed "choo-choo". He wanted to play with the Thomas the Tank Engine train set that they have at Barnes and Noble stores. (Just like he knows that...
So I am at home, helping my younger son stay sleeping. I am watching a show called "Rock Fest" on the VH1 Classics channel. The show starts with videos by: Queen, Alice Cooper, and Ozzy Osbourne. (followed by Ted Nugent and ZZ Top...) The seventeen-year-old within me is super-excited about this trifecta (without commercial interruption.) But there I sit with a baby, enjoying what I would have REALLY liked fifteen years ago. (Except then they wouldn't play those thre...
Yesterday a package arrived in the mail from my mother in-law from Japan. She sent us the last three episodes of the Japanese weekly late-night show, "Ainori." Wickpedia Link The biggest event of 2005's final show would be the end of the three-year "Hide saga". This one young man, Hide (prononced "hid-day"), has spent the past three years (through 14 different countries) in the love wagon, in search of true love. In these three years, Hide has been invited to return to ...
The other night my wife, my son, and I enjoyed a nice Korean barbecue (bulgogi) dinner. Yum!
My favorite quote from 2005 comes from Roger Ebert's July 8 review of the movie "The Fantastic Four." In describing The Thing , Ebert writes: " But the Thing looks like Don Rickles crossed with Mt. Rushmore; he has a body that feels like a driveway and a face with crevices you could hide a toothbrush in. " I love that. "...Don Rickles crossed with Mt. Rushmore;..." Funny.
Today my wife and I took the boys to the zoo. In order to keep our one-month-old warm, my wife had to hold the baby under one of my jackets. (Her jackets are too small for a passenger.) She has the baby under this gigantic jacket. She looks like George Costanza when he wore his new Gore-tex jacket at the liquor store (when he broke a few bottles). After the zoo, we went to the Asian grocery store. Our older son always enjoys looking at the meats and ...
One of the channels on my television is VH1 Classics. As the name implies, they play older videos. The Classics channel is great. Lots of videos, not a lot of speaking, and the commercials are very infrequent. It is a very enjoyable way to watch music videos. Lately I have noticed a slight growth in the all-talk and talk-intensive types of shows. There is a program called "Hanging With..." which is a half interview/ half video show. I also saw a show w...
My wife and I needed to return a video to the Japanese video store in Minneapolis. Since we were in town, we took advantage of it and had dinner at one of my old haunts in Saint Paul. We ate at "Porkys", a 1950s/60s style drive-in. In my opinion, the best thing on the menu at Porky's is the fried fish sandwich. (It is probably the best fried fish sandwich that I know of.) My wife and I had that, while our older son had the children's chicken leg set. (He ate that...
A few months ago, I found myself in need of some new tires. Like most people, I bought two tires, and kept two of the older ones on my car. At the Sam's Club tire center, the guy working there told me that they have to put the new tires on the back (of my front wheel drive car). He cited some sort of statistical research that says that cars which have the rear tires changed have fewer accidents. I acquiesced, but in my mind I was thinking: "Whud 'ju talkin' bout ti...
This time of year, for as long as I remember, there is always talk of whether or not we'll be enjoying a "white Christmas". On the streets, on the TV and radio, friends, family, and coworkers invariably wonder aloud: "I wonder whether we'll have a white or a brown Christmas this year. I sure hope that it'll be white!" I have always wondered whether this desire for a white Christmas existed before Irving Berlin wrote (and Bing Crosby sung) the song "White Christmas" in 1942. ...
I heard on the radio this morning that there is a legal challenge to the city of Minneapolis' photo-ticket program. Apparently the city of Minneapolis has a number of stationary cameras posted around town. If a camera catches drivers commiting some sort of traffic violation, a ticket is sent to the address of the owner of the "offending" vehicle. Is the insurance industry behind this? Sure these tickets can be an economic boon for the cities, but will be even better for insurance compani...
For a good part of the past hour, I have been trying to post something on my geocities website. Not being able to do what I want is driving me NUTS! Once I sign in (which takes an incredibly long time), I get sent to an entry page that I have never seen before. That entry page tells me that Geocities is improved, and it is easier to navigate. Problem is, I don't know where to go to get to my files/uploads list. That seems like neither an improvement in navigation, nor ease. Eventually ...