One of life's certainties

I just finished doing my taxes for 2004. If you haven't done so already, I strongly suggest e-filing. You can do federal taxes and some state taxes for free, and it's way easier than normal filing. Depending on where you live and if you meet the criteria, there's a free online version of Turbo Tax that's very painless and pretty plain-spoken.

Tomorrow: Life's other certainty and how it relates to the smell in my closet.

Things you never knew you needed

Ever wanted a way to lose weight while playing video games? Now you can! And for the low, low price of only $1,000 to buy what I'm quite certain is a totally impractical way of playing video games. Read more at Gig Matrix.

Women, ever wanted to pee your name in the snow? I thought so. Now you too can understand the freedom of peeing while standing up. Thank the makers of another invention that's been in the news lately: the P-Mate! Unzip the pants, but this funnel-type contraption over ... you know, and voila -- you're peeing like a man.

And they say there's still a gender gap.

Put me in coach -- I'm ready to play ...

("Centerfield" lyrics by John Fogerty)

I've joined a fantasy baseball team with some former co-workers and we had our draft yesterday. I think it went pretty well considering that I don't really know what I'm doing and have now committed myself for an entire season to following statistics and the list of injured players and starters and a bunch of things I never really paid any attention to before. I did some research before the draft and tried to make my picks wisely. But truth be told, I was very tempted to draft players based on the quirkiness of their names. My favorite pick was an outfielder named Coco Crisp. I was also would have liked to have drafted the following: Albert Pujhols (pronounced poo-holes), Chipper Jones and David DeJesus. I also got Troy Percival, which is just a cool name.

In other sporting news, I was pleasantly surprised on Friday to find that in the office's NCAA pool, I've actually got a decent shot with one of my brackets. (The other is waaaay down at the bottom of the rankings.) I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much, but it's pretty exciting nonetheless and made both of Saturday's games rather nerve-wracking because I bet on Illinois and Louisville to make it to the Final Four (and Illinois to win it all).

I should mention that it's technically illegal to bet on college sports and so, of course, there's no money involved in the office pool. (Just as I'm sure there's not in your office.) But if there were , I could have a shot at winning almost $1,500. (It's a big office.)

Gee, if only we had bet money...

I'm doomed

I always find it interesting to see what the media focuses on in the personal life of someone who has done something bad.
For instance, yesterday I was reading about the kid in Minnesota who went on a shooting spree in his school after killing his grandfather and others. The relevance of his connection with an online hate group is obvious. But more odd, to me at least, was the amount of time spent in the story on his supposed fascination with zombies.

Yes, zombies.

Apparently, he had contributed to fan fiction sites about zombies, had written stories about regular people trying to survive in a world being taken over by zombies and liked zombie movies. Apparently, this makes him disturbed.

This does not bode well for my friend Klaus. Nor I, nor any of the other people involved with "Faces of Undeath." (If writing about zombies is bad, how screwed up do you have to be to make a movie about them?!?)

When a writer from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was fired because of a blog he was keeping, one of the articles I read illustrated his eccentricity by pointing out that he kept numerous action figures on his desk at work.
That's your evidence? Big deal. I know people who keep weirder stuff on their desk than that. I used to have a big plastic Viking helmet on my computer. At a Lutheran magazine, they keep around posable Adam and Eve dolls.
You can imagine how they get posed.

The point is, if all of these things are signs of being disturbed, I'm the world's most likely candidate to get fired from work for my blog and then go on a shooting rampage because of it.

If I'd ever worn a trench coat in my life, I'd probably just have to give myself up to the police now.

On a completely unrelated note, my review of "The Office" is up on Gig Matrix if you're interested.

It's odorific!

First off, if you haven't seen "Robot Chicken" on the Cartoon Network, you should check it out sometime. Seth Green is involved if that helps sell it for you. Read more here.
(Coming tomorrow, my review of the Americanized version of "The Office.")

On to my life ...
Really, there hasn't been too much going on. I'm getting close to getting everything unpacked. Then it will just be a matter of getting everything organized. Woo hoo.

In less pleasant news, besides the fact that I still cannot get the cigarette smell to go away completely from my apartment (though I only notice it briefly when I come in now), now one of my closets smells funny.
This is a closet off the hallway, probably for linens and coats. I don't have much in there yet and there's no visible mold or anything, but it really kind of reeks. It smells a little bit like urine, but I know I haven't peed in there (it's not a water closet -- HA!). And I don't remember it smelling that way when I moved in. So seriously, what the hell?!
Right now, I just spray air freshener in there, but that only works for a few moments. I've tried keeping the door open to let it air out, but that just lets the odor waft out. We'll see; I'll come up with something.

Gee, all this stuff about my apartment really makes it sound like a crap-hole. It's not really. (I've certainly lived in worse -- there's no big, black spot on the carpet anywhere that looks like a wrestled with an octopus, the heating seems to work consistently and I have yet to have to call the cops on any neighbors.)
But it definitely has its share of quirks...

Maybe in space, they can't hear you sing

I returned home from work tonight to the sound of my neighbors and some friends singing loudly across the hall.
More specifically, singing Michael Jackson's "Beat It" in a loud, off-key falsetto.

They're still at it, though having killed Michael Jackson, they're on to bludgeoning other songs into submission.
I'm less annoyed that I can hear them across the hall at 1 a.m. than I am because I find their singing to be an offense against humanity in general.

It seems that, even in Virginia, I cannot escape the sounds of karaoke night at the Pioneer.

I am sooo mad

After Tuesday's games, my first-round picks were looking pretty good, but then today ... nooooooooo ... Kansas and Syracuse have to go and muck them all up by losing. Syracuse, which I had going to the Final Four in my main bracket, and Kansas, which I had going to the Sweet Sixteen in that bracket (and winning it all in my second bracket, but that one's pretty much decimated already by some bad picks in the Chicago regional games).

At least, overall in the first round on my main bracket, I'm 23 for 32, which isn't terrible.

Still, as Baby Blue -- who we all know loves basketball -- would say:

What a bunch of jerks.

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad March

I love March Madness. I barely pay attention to college basketball for most of the season (like many sports, I get excited when I'm at a game, but rarely take the time to watch one on TV). But I really get into the NCAA tournament.

I think it's the whole do-or-die thing. You can be the greatest team that ever lived, but if you have a bad day, you can lose to the No. 16 seed. That means it's probably not the most fair judge of which is really the best team, but there's something to be said for the ability to play consistently. And besides, the upsets keep things interesting.

I usually enter the office pool and this year is no different. I actually ended up submitting two ballots (the maximum allowed per person). I had planned on doing all this research but ended up not really having time and just picking like I do every year -- totally randomly, based partly on gut instinct and the occasional eenie-meenie-minie-mo. This was actually how I determined who would win in the final game between Illinois and North Carolina on one of my brackets. (Rounding out the Final Four for that bracket are Syracuse and Louisville.) In the second bracket, I have (gasp!) Kansas taking it all after defeating Oklahoma State. Of course, I just found out this morning that their best guy's stomach flu is flaring up again, or something like that, so that doesn't bode well. (Rounding out the Final Four for the second bracket, if you care, are Duke and Wake Forest.)

In the past, I've always done a bracket for fun in which I determine the game winners by flipping a coin. I mostly do this to see if I can pick winners better than random chance. I'm proud to say that, more often than not, I can.

Though not much better.

So we'll see how the Big Dance goes. But even if my bracketology sucks, if the games are exciting, I'll be happy.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in front of my TV watching the games...

Sweating the small stuff

If you're interested in my review of the TV show "Incredible Heists" on Court TV, check out Gigmatrix.

And for the story of the day, check out this article about people who, bugged by life's little annoyances, choose to get even.

False alarm

I was supposed to have my new employee orientation at work today -- this morning, to be more precise, which involved me getting up several hours earlier than usual. So I dragged myself out of bed and arrived at work, only to find that there was no orientation today. It had been rescheduled. Supposedly an e-mail had been sent to my supervisor, but since she's been out of the office for about a week, who knows? So I went back home and slept for a few more hours.
Despite being rather miffed at this lack of communication (as if it would have been terribly hard to e-mail ME), I'm hoping that the early morning will jump start my sleeping schedule back into something a little more normal. I've been staying awake until about 4 a.m. and sleeping until noon, which is a lousy way of getting anything done. So we'll see.

A couple of other things I feel like railing against, when my cable company set up my cable and high-speed Internet last week, the guy never even stopped by my apartment to see if it worked or anything. This mostly annoyed me because I had woken up at 8 a.m. so that I would be up during the several-hour-timespan in which he was supposed to arrive. But it ends up I could have slept through the whole dang thing and been fine. There was also another cable guy from the same company across the street working on an apartment there at the same time. You'd think one guy could have handled both since he was here, but I guess not. The funny thing was that UPS spent the next couple of days trying to deliver two packages from the cable company. After waiting between the hours of 10-5 for the second attempt at delivery and running in to the guy as I walked out of my apartment at 5:05, I received a coaxial cable and a box of stuff for my Internet access. He said they'd been delivering a lot of those lately, so I can only imagine what kind of shipping costs this is incurring for the company. So why on Earth wouldn't you just have the cable guy take two minutes and hand this stuff to me in person?!? Are all their cable guys lepers or something?
It makes no sense.

Also in the realm of things that make no sense, McDonald's (or at least the ones here) has begun to offer only 10-piece Chicken McNuggets with its value meal. It used to be eight and that was perfect. But no, now I have to get 10. It's not a supersize choice or something, it's the default, and I can't downsize it. I don't want 10 chicken nuggets; I only want eight. I'm seriously considering not eating at McDonald's anymore in protest. And for those that know some of my eating habits, you know that's a big deal.

In other interesting news, check out this fascinating story about what happened between Brian Nichols -- the guy from the Atlanta courthouse shootings -- and the woman he took hostage in her apartment. It's a great read.

Part III

So in the two weeks since I've been in Norfolk, I've done a little bit of unpacking, played a lot of video games and just been going through the general process of settling into a new place. Most of it's not that exciting, but here are some snippets that may or may not be amusing:

Weird things I've discovered about my apartment since moving in:
1) There's no dishwasher -- doh! Totally forgot about that when apartment hunting.
2) Laundry is $1.25 to wash and the same to dry; and the dryer I used didn't dry very well. This seems expensive to me, even though it really probably isn't. The laundry facilities are also in the next building, meaning I've got to go outside to do my laundry anyway. For that trouble, my car is a lot closer and I decided I may as well just drive to a laundromat. I found a place where it's $1 to wash on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which are my days off of work. I realize that's only a difference of 25 cents, but at least the dryers work better. Plus, it's across the street from a Papa John's, so I can pick up a pizza and bring it home. :-)
3) Most of the electrical outlets are upside down. Or at least what I think of as upside down (with the two prong holes on the bottom and the grounding pin on top). I have no idea why this is, but then again maybe I've never known which way is up for an outlet.
4) Speaking of outlets, the bathroom doesn't have any.
5) The bathroom does, however, have a large metal bin of sorts connected to the wall. It has a panel on hinges like the top of some garbage cans, so at first, that's what I thought it was. But there's no way to put a garbage bag in there. My best guess is that it might be for towels. But what an odd thing to take up space in a bathroom with.
6) One of the kitchen cabinet doors can't be opened all the way, because it hits the light fixture. You would have thought someone would have noticed this when designing the kitchen. But apparently not. So I can only open that cabinet door about 45 degrees and have to remember not to just fling it open lest one day I send the kitchen light crashing down on my head.
7) The refrigerator periodically makes weird knocking noises, like there's a small person inside tapping out Morse code.
"Generally you don't see that sort of behavior in a major appliance."
But I haven't heard anyone say "Zuul" when I open it up, so I can't be too concerned.

As an unrelated story, I had spent a couple of days looking around for a bed last week (I thought it was time to upgrade to an adult, queen-sized bed rather than the twin bed I've slept in since I was a kid). Then last week I was doing laundry at the laundromat and ordered my first Papa John's pizza in Duluth. As I was waiting for it, I wandered into a furniture store next door. Lo and behold, they had a headboard I liked on sale for $99, a mattress that was comparable to all the others I'd seen, and a matching nightstand for pretty cheap. Plus, the guy was willing to give me 20 percent off all of it.
So I bought a bed while waiting for a pizza.

And that more or less catches us up to the present. I don't know how exciting my blog will be from here on out, but I'll do my best.
If nothing else, I can always dedicate a posting on Social Security to Baby Blue...

Part II: Moving in

I had big plans for my first night in Norfolk. I had been thinking about it for the latter half of my road trip. I'd brought a TV so I could watch "Lost" and "Alias" that night, order Papa John's pizza and it would be a great way to start in my new place.

Unfortunately, things don't always work out the way we plan.

I walked into my empty apartment (my furniture and most of my stuff wouldn't arrive for another week) and was somewhat overcome with doubt and loneliness. Walking into a big, empty apartment can do that, I guess. Here I was, in many ways starting from scratch and rebuilding my life anew -- again. Having moved many times -- between towns and within towns -- I wasn't worried about my ability to do it so much as I felt wary of doing it. Despite my fear of settling in life, sometimes settling down doesn't seem so bad. Or at least not moving to a different apartment every year.
My mini-emotional crisis was compounded by the fact that I discovered Papa John's didn't deliver to where I live and I didn't get any stations on the TV (cable wasn't hooked up until this past Monday). I had also made a trip to Target for some of the essentials but had either forgotten/couldn't find/decided to put off buying most of the things on my list, including air freshner because whoever lived here before clearly smoked.
Also included in that was a shower curtain -- but not just any shower curtain, the one I had previously had in Duluth. This would later become a bit of an obsession. I went back to Target three times over the next several days looking for the shower curtain I wanted and the store was always out of it. I could say that I was so intent on getting that particular curtain simply because I liked it, but from a psychological perspective, I think I was probably just trying to salvage something familiar in my new settings. (It occurs to me that my choice of apartment could have been influenced by the same thing, seeing as how I live right by a mall, a Target, a Home Depot, an Olive Garden and a grocery store, just like my last apartment in Duluth.) And yes, I could have just kept the old shower curtain, but it was old and ready to be trashed. At any rate, I finally ended up driving to a Target in the next city to get it there.
So that was my multiday quest for a shower curtain.

Anyhow, so I was feeling a little sorry for myself for the first couple of hours in town, but I was cheered up several things:
1) I arrived to find a bunch of mail, including a "housewarming" letter from Germany, which was a total surprise and incredibly touching.
2) I talked on the phone to my parents and much of the Duluth gang.
3) I had thought to bring my video games along and began playing "Resident Evil 4," which is fantastic.
4) I also watched the commentary from "Faces of Undeath," a little-known but incredibly funny zombie movie. It's a cult classic. Trust me.

So that was my first night here. It ended well, or at least as well as it can with me sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor for the first of many nights. But you know how it is...

Coming up:
Odd things about my apartment
and
How I went to pick up a pizza and ended up buying a bed

Back and blogging, Part I: The Trip

Hello there.
I'm back online, though bear with me as I catch up on everyone's e-mails and blogs. In the meantime, I present to you the first installment of what I've been up to, along with a quick anecdote from today:

So I was driving around this afternoon, flipping stations on the radio and I come across this hip-hop song, which I later find out is called "Lonely" by Akon. It's not a particularly good song, but what captivated me was that it included a chorus that sounded very much like it was sung by Alvin of Alvin and the Chipmunks. This brought to mind several questions:
1) Has Alvin decided to go solo?
2) How do Simon, Theodore and Dave feel about this?
3) Could the other two chipmunks join up the guys from NSync that Justin Timberlake left behind when he went solo? Maybe they could also join the members of Destiny's Child that Beyonce ditched. They could form a group called Can't Make It On Our Own or something like that.
4) Why would you pair a chipmunk with a hip-hop artist?
5) Then again, why not?

So anyway, the trip out to Virginia went as well as a 1,803-mile trip can go. Suffice to say I was tired of being in a car by the time I got here. And thank goodness for books on tape, or I would have driven myself insane. But I definitely recommend Bill Bryson's "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" and Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones."

After leaving Duluth with a heavy heart and not just a few tears, I made my first stop in Wisconsin for a fun visit with relatives I hadn't seen in years. Then I made my way down into the heartland to visit K-Mac. We hung out with her very cool, very fun RFT crew, and the next day we visited our alma mater. Our inner journalism geeks were in luck, because the judging for Pictures of the Year was going on at the time, which is a lot more interesting than it sounds. They look at all the entries for the year's best photos from around the world on a big screen and, in moments, the judges decide which ones stay for consideration to win an award and which ones are out. For spot news, they looked at more than 600 photos and whittled it down to about 40 in an hour or so. It's fascinating to see what the judges think separates an average or even good photo from a truly great one. We closed out our time in Columbia with dinner with an old friend (I ate toasted ravioli -- a treat I haven't had since college) and a quick tour of campus to see how things have changed. A fair amount has been updated but, most surprising, who would have thought the MU Student News would still be around?
Wonders never cease.

The next day, I decided to take a short detour into Metropolis, Ill., home of the Superman museum and an annual Superman festival in the summer. I suspected it would be pretty hokey and wasn't disappointed. The city's motto seems to be "Metropolis: We're Unique!"
Not exactly words to inspire you to book a vacation.
Besides the big statue of Superman in the middle of the city (but no Daily Planet -- what a wasted opportunity!), there's a museum that's basically one guy's overabundant collection of Superman-related items. There are props and costumes from the numerous TV and movie incarnations of Superman, more action figures and comic books than you would have ever thought possible (including the old comic spin-offs that focused on Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane and were HORRIBLE). But I did buy a Superman T-shirt. I'd like to say it was out of pity for the poor woman behind the counter who, I'm pretty sure, hadn't seen anyone in the place all day, but really it was because I've always wanted one. And, admittedly, I'm glad I checked the place out.

My curiosity sated, I headed through Lexington for dinner with an old college pal and on to Charleston, W.Va. The rest of the drive into Norfolk the next day was uneventful until the last 20 miles, which took an hour and a half because of accidents, construction and general traffic problems. It was excruciating -- partly because after five days I was so close to the end I could taste it, and partly because I really had to pee.

What will Brian find in Norfolk?
What if he doesn't like it?
Will the Joker's dastardly plan mean the end of the copy editing crusader?
Tune in tomorrow to find out -- same blog time, same blog channel ...