Some Weekend Observations...

Fortune Cookies should tell you things you don't already know. I got a fortune cookie that read "you are a thoughtful and generous person." I already know that! Fortune cookies don't tell you things you already know. I know how awesome I am. Tell me something about my future or give me some type of advice.

Next, Cherrios are a very underrated cereal. Thats all.

Third, if you sleep in most of the day try to avoid human contact. Interacting with people who went out and washed their car, or went shopping, or got a haircut, hiking, or did anything other than lying in a bed until one in the afternoon will make you feel even worse about yourself.

Four, the Yankees are super hatable

Five, what up with the kid from Where the Wild Things Are. He is like eight years old but knows how to sail a bout like he has been on a America's Cup team all his life. (For those of you who don't know what the America's Cup is - trust me that was funny.) Of all of the things in that movie, including having to sometimes stop myself and ask why Tony Soprano's voice was coming out a hairy monster suit, that was the hardest thing for me to wrap my head around.

Things You Cant Say To A Woman...

If any guy has ever had to deal with this senario even once they have had to deal with it one too many times.
A woman in your life asks you whether or not another woman is more attractive than she is.

Holy smokes! Here is why this is a horrible spot to be in. One, if the woman who asks you the question is more attractive than you sound like you are just telling her what you want to here. Example:
"No way. You are way prettier than she is."
"You're just saying that!"
A guy is left there to think, "well what the fuck? Do you want my opinion or not? If you were going to discredit my opinion why ask me?"

Then there are guys who (for some unknown reason) have the balls (coupled with the lack of brains) to tell a woman she is not as pretty as another female. Example:
"Is she prettier than me"
"Well, yea. I would say so"
At best the response will be her calling you an asshole and punching you. At worst she starts to cry, punching you and calls you an asshole. Either way you deserve the response. Fucking lie.

But the absolute worse thing you can do is hesitate in your response.
"Is she prettier than me"
pause..."ummm... well... I dont know...No, no way"
Your lady was already going to doubt your answer to begin with. You have done yourself no favors by turning what should be a simple response, into making it sound like you are doing long division in your head.

In any case, whenever faced with this question we, as men, are screwed! If we say no. Then we are going to be accused of lying or just trying to make them feel better. If we say yes we are assholes. If we hesitate we are untrustworthy assholes. If you happen to have a cyanide pill when a woman asks you this question just chomp down on it. You will be better off.

p.s. Ladies what with the weird dress and pant sizes? With guys its very clear. Sizes are tied to inches. We have no fucking way to decipher the difference between a woman who is size 4 or size 8? Size 10, 12, 14??? Its like the metric system of clothing you people got going on here. On behalf on all men" we are confused someone explain this to us.

Dodger Phillies Game4, Angels and Yankees Game 3

Dodgers took it on the chin last night and Cliff Lee pitched like a cy young winner. But the great thing about a blowout is that its often easier to forget than a close lose. Just ask the Twins. The key is for the Dodgers to get deep into counts and draw the occasional walk. If the Dodgers can score early they will get the bad taste of last night out of their mouth and quiet a racous Philly crowd. The key for the Phillies is simple. Keep the power going. Extra base hits have been their key to success its just a matter of their left handed hitters being able to strike against left hander Randy Wolf.

The Angels have to shake off the cobwebs and avoid errors, which they havent been able to do in the first two games. In addition Vlad Guererro needs to hit with runners in scoring position. He has usually thrived against Yankee pitching but not these "new" Yankee pitchers. I have a feeling that the Angels will be able to quiet A-Rod's bat on the road but need to be wary of Mark Texiera and The Captain (especially in late inning situations).

Its a must win for both Southern California teams tonight and a chance for the Yankees and Phillies to take a major step towards the World Series.

Boy in the Balloon

Well its sad that this little six year old boy has gone missing but I have a question? What the hell is this family doing with a homemade balloon. Unless these people are meteoroligist they have no reason to have a balloon. Well, after reading some articles apparently the young boys father is a person that chases storms.

In a 2007 interview with The Denver Post, Richard Heene described becoming a storm chaser after a tornado ripped off a roof where he was working as a contractor and said he once flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma's perimeter in 2005.

Pursuing bad weather was a family activity with the children coming along as the father sought evidence to prove his theory that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.

Although Richard said he has no specialized training, they had a computer tracking system in their car and a special motorcycle.

The Heene family appeared twice on the ABC reality show "Wife Swap," most recently in February. - Associated Press

Not only is this story sad (and hopefully they find this kid alive and well...but how about dad stops paying so much attention to building balloons and chasing storms and spend more time watching his 6 year-old.

UPDATE: Happy to see that they found the little boy. But let this be a lesson to DIYers, once you have kids no more chasing storms, building homemade balloons. and who names their kid Falcon?

Windows 7 Launch Party

In an attempt to convince people that they finally developed an operating system that doesnt suck, Microsoft has developed Windows 7 Launch Parties. The idea is simple: You are invited by microsoft to hold a party where you show off the new windows 7 operating systme to friends, family and co-workers. Still confused about how you are supposed to pull this off? No worries. Micorsoft has developed a "how-to" video. I am not kidding. This is the worst thing I have ever seen. Its just so poorly acted and hacky. I can't believe someone at Microsoft looked at this and said, "yes! Now go put it on the internet for all to see." And the casting...really? Can we get more cliche than a black man, grandmother, middle aged white woman and hipster nerd are all in a kitchen having a chat about their Launch Parties...

If you can make it through this 6 minute train wreck you have nothing but my admiration. Its trully worth it just to see how bad it is.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things...

Growing up as a kid me and my brother had two holy grails when it came to toys. They were both toys my dad had growing up. One was an Atari 64ish game counsel. The thing had to be at least 15 years old and it was a dinosaur compared to the original Nintendo. Still it was in perfect condition and my brother and I would love to play it. The second game was his old school rock em sock em robots. This thing was 20 years old if it was a day. But still it worked great. My brother and I loved it. My dad always told us to be careful with these toys. In hindsight I think he was more concerned with protecting these toys then he was protecting us :). My dad grew up in an age when things actually broke. I am not kidding, I drop my iPod all the time and it just keeps ticking. We have grown up in an age where our "toys" are almost indestructible. What does this mean? We have grown up not taking care of anything. If we break something or lose it we buy another one. We are a generation that accidentally drops cell phones down toilets, steps on iPods, throw our CDs around to the point were they get so scratched you can't even play them. We are so jaded we refer to an album coming out as a "CD dropping." CDs SHOULDN'T drop!!! When CDs drop they get damaged. Could you imagine your parents or grandparents, at the age of 20 something, getting a device that costs 400 dollars, plays music, video, connects you to other people around the world, records video and makes phone calls. They would lay down their life to make sure nothing happened to it. Don't believe me? Think about grandma's couch wrapped in plastic, or how your paents would never let you eat in the living room for fear that you would drop something on the crappy shag carpet.

Hell, it gotten so bad that we don't even make things anymore just to make sure that we don't f' them up. Pretty soon the idea of owning a CD, DVD, or printed material will be a thing of the past. Music, movies, books, magazines and newspapers will be completely digital just to ensure that we don't even get a chance at destroying them. But not us, we absolutely wreck our iPods and cell phones. We scratch the damn thing, drop it, lose it in a drunken stooper. We abuse the damn thing and we treat it that way because we are now building things to withstand mistreatment from dumb asses like us!

How many more times do we have to see a "I lost my cell phone need your numbers" thing on facebook.

You lost a device that allows you to make phone calls from anywhere and keep the personal information of thousands of people in pocket? How do we get careless with something that amazing? If you went back in time 60 years with a cell phone you would be arrested and accused of being a witch! Thats how awesome a cell phone is and yet we just treat it like its nothing.

I guess what I am saying is that we live in a golden age. We have treasures (expensive ones) at our finger tips. Lets prove to ourselves that we deserve them. Lets prove that we can have nice things.

A Quick Piece of Advice...

Here is good piece of advice:

Dont hold a grudge, because while your holding on to it the other person is probably out dancing.

Lady Gaga and Iowa Loves the Gays...

I saw Lady GaGa's second performance on Saturday Night Live. At first I was confused. The whole get-up she was wearing was distracting. Well about a minute or so in she went into a medoly of her hits BUT she did it without pre-recorded music. She went and played a piano and let her talent speak for itself something that most pop-stars cant do (Britney Spears anyone). Was she an overwhelming talent as musician or singer, no - not really. But the fact that she would even allow herself to be so vulnerable and stripped down proved to me that she has guts. Todays pop stars are often media creations who are unable to sing and build their career on theatrics. It was nice to see someone say, "hey, I am actually have some discernible talent and can don't have to rely on choreography and lip-syching."

Here is the clip for those who haven't seen it:

Also, how sad is it that IOWA, yes Iowa - as in Field of Dreams Iowa, is more progressive than California. How progressive you ask? Well this weekend were "gay days" at Disneyland which I think is a weird promotion for two reasons. First, Disneyland is the happiest - and hence gayest place on earth. Second, I only know one gay person who doesn't like Disneyland. I digress, the Iowa Board of Tourism was at Disneyland for Gay Days recruiting gay folks to come to Iowa and get married. I never thought I would live in a world were Iowa would be more progressive than California. Forget San Francisco or We Ho say hello to Iowa City and Des Moines. Wave Goodbye to the Castro and say hello to the open embrace of fields and fields of corn.

BIG...

For those of you who are not aware of the 1988 classic BIG let me let you in on a little secret. It is the best and most realistic movie about a 13 year old boy who becomes a 30 year old man overnight after making a wish at a carnival arcade game. Talk about a niche genre.

But seriously in an age of horrible age reversal films (I am looking at you Zack Efron and Chandler from Friends) BIG stands as a testament that these films can be well done. BIG stars Tom Hanks as the adult version of the 13 year old Josh who becomes a grown up overnight after making a wish. From the get go the movie is great because it isnt goofy. When Josh tries to explain to his mother what happens she freaks out thinking that she is being robbed and assumes later that the man who was robbing her has kidnapped her son. Most movies nowadays wouldnt be able to pull this off. The scene would be corny, slap stick, or full of cheap laughs. But in BIG this is actually a pretty intense and sad scene/thread that runs throughout the films. Second, their isnt any BIG lesson (pun intended) to be learned. the entire tension revolves around Hank's character trying to survive in the adult world long enough until he can find the arcade game and wish himself back into his childhood. Also in other movies kids who become adults somehow find a crappy way to become successful teachers, lawyers, fashion designers and so on. In BIG Josh finds success doing something that a 13 year old might actually be good at: making and testing toys.

Plus its got one of the most iconic scenes of all time:

If you have never seen BIG before do yourself a favor and see it as soon as possible.