Random Links — 10.20.05

October 20, 2005


I’m so tired right now I can hardly put together a coherent though.

Still, I owe it to you – the loyal reader – to get something out, so I present to you another edition of “random links from the internet.” Many of these were grabbed from Bill Simmons’ Intern’s “Daily Links” section.

I said I was tired. I’m also lazy. Sue me.

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First, David Copperfield is planning to impregnate a woman on stage. Without touching her. As a magic trick.

How do you prove something like that? Will there be someone on hand to administer an ultra-sound? Will Copperfield be required to pay child support? Will he forever be known as David Cop-A-Feel? (I stole that last one from Dan Patrick – and because of that I don’t feel the least bit bad about how horrible the joke was.)

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Next: we all love Ali G (except Kerrie, who I don’t think cared too much for him) and we all love him even more when he’s promoting the NBA on TNT. Especially when it’s with Steve Nash, Kerrie’s super dirty favorite ball-player.

Check two of the promos out, they’re hilarious.

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My Name is Earl is a hilarious show. I laughed out loud the first time I saw it. Additionally, it comes on before The Office, so you’ve got the best hour of comedy on network television right there.

Since, of course, we only have network television, we should know.

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“The Rolling Stones are so old..”

“How old are they?”

“The Rolling Stones are so old that have defibrillators backstage at their concers!”

(laughter and applause)

Oh, sorry. That’s not a joke. That’s true. They actually do have them backstage.

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That’s all for me. Have a great night.

Tags: Random Links |

3 Comments

So much for light beer

October 19, 2005


I’m not quite sure what to say.

It is birthday season for me – I say season because my work schedule creates the need for several dinners and gift presentations throughout the week before and after my actual birthday – and my mother, once again, has presented me with a gift to rival all gifts.

A little background: my mom, though she’ll always deny it, is very good at picking out gifts for me. Two Christmases ago she presented me with an England gift basket, featuring Guinness, English crackers and all of that foofy stuff, etc. and last year she purchased a subscription to Sports Illustrated. She’s always on the button, it seems.

This year was no different, but it was a little unsettling.

This year’s gift was twenty-one beers from around the world (and a bottle of wine.)

Awesome, yes, but I can’t help thinking that my mom considers me a drunk.

Well…

Still, I can now go on my own mini-World Beer Tour in the comfort of my home instead of having to spend four dollars a pint at Old Chicago (though I do wish these beers would count on that tour. Maybe I can finagle some sort of “home-study” credit, where two of a beer would count for one at the bar.)

The moral of the story is this – we’ve all wanted our mom to buy beer for us, but it’s kind of a weird experience when it happens. Once you get over that, however, you just hope she keeps buying you beer. I hope this myself; I may be able to get past the idea of her swearing on my blog (as she did below about Harry Potter: she’s LOTR LOVR – your identity has been revealed, mother!)

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In the interest of filling more space, and because I’m excited about the 10 different world beers in my fridge right now, I present to you my gift.

Two each of:

Hazed and Infused (Colorado)
Löwenbräu Original (Germany)
Boddingtons (England) — (a personal favorite – it finishes the brewing process in your glass)
Pilsner Urquel (Czech Republic) — (another personal favorite – they have this on tap at The Tavern in St. Cloud)
Warsteiner (Germany)
Red Stripe (Jamaica)
Widmer Bros. Hefewiezen (Oregon)
Point Honey Light (Wisconsin)
Orval (Belgium) — (a beer brewed in an actual monastery by actual trappist monks – very cool)

and one each of:

Ayinger Octoberfest (Germany) — (it’s a 1 pint, 1 oz. bottle)
Ménage à Trois wine

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So much for light beer, eh?

Tags: Random Links, Vilhauer |

2 Comments

The end of the summer

October 18, 2005


It’s been beautiful these last few days in South Dakota, and all I can think about is when the bottom’s going to fall out – when we’re going to lose our 70 degree weather patterns and start bundling up for snow. I’m beginning to dread the idea of having to zip and button more than necessary just to take the garbage out to the garage.

I’ve really been taking for granted this weather, this mid-October heat-wave. Usually by this time we’ve finished raking the leaves and have brought the outside stuff inside. In fact, I’ve cleaned the garage in anticipation of moving the patio furniture inside. I’ve started to get ready to mulch the perennials for the upcoming winter. I’m one sub-zero day from moving the lawn mower to the back and prominently featuring the snow-blower in its rightful winter place.

Last weekend was our last camping trip of the year. If my fears are correct, it was our last kayaking trip as well. Tonight will be our last grill out. I’ve mowed my last lawn, I feel, and I’ve trimmed my last fence.

All I want is one last nice day – as a birthday present, possibly – on the 29th, my first day off after ten days on at work. Is that too much to ask?

I feel as if I’ve wasted the summer, though I know that’s not the case. I’ve done more this summer than I have in any of my past summers – I’ve camped more than ever, I’ve traveled, I’ve enjoyed the outdoors – whether at a state park or in my own backyard – whenever possible.

Maybe that’s what’s making this so hard to let go of. Maybe I over appreciated the beautiful summer we had, and because of that I’m having a hard time weaning myself off of it. I usually love the fall, but this year I’m just not impressed.

Can it be possible that I’ve become one of those normal human beings that actually cling to the end of summer instead of merely letting it go and waiting for the snow?

Tags: Outdoors |

1 Comment

Indecision

October 18, 2005


I had so many things that I wanted to do with my day off…

But I can’t remember what any of them are.

I’ve just been tooling around the internet for two hours now, and I haven’t done anything constructive at all. I don’t really feel like writing anything, or reading anything, and I don’t’ want to get sucked up in playing NBA Live 2006, so instead, I’ve wasted a perfectly good first half of a day.

Sometimes indecision is a person’s worst enemy.

Hell, maybe I’ll go mow the lawn or something.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just suck it up and force myself to do something leisurely.

Isn’t this sad?

Tags: Vilhauer |

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Walton & Noble

October 16, 2005


Today I ventured into a usually avoided area.

Armed with a gift certificate I walked through the front doors. I instantly heard random horrible coffee-shop music faintly piped in above the chaos of a hundred people’s voices. Every ten minutes someone would trip the security gate and a just as horrible loud beeping sound would emanate from the music section.

The store itself was pure chaos: items were being rearranged (for the second time in the past year, mind you) and nothing could be found. I asked for a list of four items and only one could be located, though I eventually found another one of them on the shelf (right were it was supposed to be.) I waited in line for information and nearly screamed as the item I wanted was on hold – all three copies by the same person.

Where was this hellhole? Best Buy? Wal-Mart?

No. Barnes and Noble.

What happened to this place?

I can remember when Barnes and Noble was a quaint bookstore – that’s right.. books! Now it’s a multi media affair, selling everything – except, of course, the actual book that I want to buy. It’s loud, it’s crowded, and it’s constantly changing. The sports section has been moved three times in the past two years – including twice the past two times I’ve been there. I can never find what I want, and when I do, I nearly always have to put the book back because it’s been smashed against its fellow books until it looks like a well read copy of the Gutenberg Bible.

I used to love going to Barnes and Noble – before my “fight big box commerce” ideals took effect – and I only go now when I receive a gift certificate. I love books, but there are times that I just can’t handle Barnes and Noble.

Why are the magazines always out of date? Why are the books always changing? How can I bring a list of four recently released books into the store and have only one in stock (that is, if you don’t count the one that’s in stock but the clerk didn’t notice)? Additionally, how can I think of three more books that I’d like (two of which are recently in the news) and find that those three are either on hold for someone else or not in stock?

How can a place call itself a bookstore when they don’t seem to have any good books?

Listen — I enjoyed looking at books today, but I just couldn’t understand the logic behind having an ultra-busy, non-relaxing, noisy, understocked bookstore. At least a small store would have an excuse for not having my books in — they wouldn’t have 20,000 square feet of room to put it.

Regardless, I found something to buy there (Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Lorrie Moore’s Like Life, and a new Moleskin notebook to replace my old one) but I left with my nerves rattled. I felt like I had just left a warzone.

This town needs an independent bookstore so bad.

Tags: Annoyances, Books |

3 Comments

Newsgator: revolutionary tool

October 15, 2005


Todd Epp at SD Watch warned all of us in the South Dakota Blogosphere a few months ago that if we didn’t have an RSS feed, we were no longer on his radar. In fact, I quote from Epp himself –

Fellow babies, let me level with you. If you run a blog or a website and you don’t have an RSS feed that I can copy into my Newsgator reader, you do not exist.

It’s nothing personal, but you just don’t exist to me any more if you are in cyberspace and don’t use an RSS feed.

I’ve started using Newsgator, an online blog/website aggregator, myself. It takes all of the sites and blogs that I read daily and brings them all to one place: my account at Newsgator. So now, just like Todd Epp, if your website don’t have an RSS feed, I no longer read it.

I’m not doing it on purpose. I’m not doing it to slight you. In fact, there is not one sites that I currently read that doesn’t have some sort of feed. But really, I can’t pass up the opportunity to have someone (or in this case, something) pull all of the great stuff I read every day and put it together in one simple place. I don’t have to continuously give your website hits when you haven’t bothered to write anything in the past week.

I can move seamlessly from reading a Bill Simmons article to watching an especially funny Republican botch up clip from Crooks and Liars to informing myself on what happened on this day according to the BBC. I’ve got sports, I’ve got friends, I’ve got people I don’t even know – all of them are on my list.

So, Newsgator is my friend.

It should be yours, as well.

Tags: Blogging, Random Links |

4 Comments

One last time

October 14, 2005


Today, with little warning, we decided to camping. Kerrie is taking the rest of the day off and we’re headed off to Newton Hills with the tent, the kayak, the Sirius satellite radio, and a case of beer.

This will mark the last time we go camping this year, I believe.

Of course, it may also be the most memorable. As much as I like hanging out with a group of friends, or laying in the warm sun, or travelling to the Black Hills, I still feel the best camping weather is 65-70 degrees and windy on an October day. Just Kerrie and me and our dog.

That way we can wake up and listen to NPR all morning like a couple of yuppies.

God, I love camping.

Tags: Outdoors |

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