god has a sense of humor

slingbox, part 2

After much deliberation, I decided that the potential benefits of purchasing a Slingbox (I would get to watch all of my Detroit sports teams in reasonable quality) outweighed the potential negatives (I might waste $160). I had the box shipped directly to Andrew so he could set it up in Detroit. It took a bit of tinkering, but he eventually got the box working and I must say it is a wonderful product for my purposes. The quality is about what you'd expect from video streamed across the internets, not TV quality, but good enough to watch the Lions lose every week. Slingbox will be the best solution for me because I want to be able to watch all of the Detroit sports teams, something that would cost a pretty penny if I was to try to do the same through satellite. If you want a relatively inexpensive way to watch all of your home teams even while you're across the country, Slingbox is the way to go.

In other news, it's Friday!!!

not the billy bob thorton movie

For the past couple months I've been toying with the idea of purchasing a Slingbox. My idea was that I could have my parents hook it up at their house and then I would be able to watch all of the Detroit sports that I have been missing since moving away. The problem is that I have no practical experience with this technology. I've done a lot of research to see how the device works, but what I'd really like to know is the opinion of someone who owns a Slingbox. So if you own a Slingbox or know someone who does, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail to let me know if it's worth purchasing, especially for my intended use.

it was legendary

It's been a couple weeks since my last post, so here's a quick update.

Spent last weekend hanging out with Kurt and Justin. Kurt flew up for the weekend. I hadn't seen Kurt in a long time so it was really nice to be able to hang out and spend time with one of my best friends. We spent all day Saturday drinking in DC and then went to see the Violent Femmes at the 930 Club. Great show. Sunday was spent in Baltimore at Drew and Misti's house eating an incredible barbecue dinner, enjoying a few drinks, and just spending time socializing. (I'll post a picture soon.)

I purchased my tickets to fly back to Michigan over the Thanksgiving holiday. I'll get see my family and go to the Lions game. Not sure who, if anyone, will be around, so if anyone is going to be in Gaylord over Thanksgiving let me know.

hemorrhaging money

I've made a couple large purchases in the past couple of days, something I very rarely do. Neither of them were planned.

A few days ago, my computer monitor died on me. It was a 19" flat screen CRT from KDS. I wasn't too upset because I had purchased it with a pretty good rebate a few years ago. I spent around $80 on it. Luckily, I had a 17" that I was able to use as my backup, but after using a 19" flat screen for so long, it quickly became apparent that this wasn't going to cut it for long. I needed something better.

After much debating, I eventually decided to go a little overboard and buy something unnecessarily large. I purchased a Dell LCD 20.1" Ultrasharp Widescreen and it is every bit as beautiful as it sounds and for 20% off the normal price it was easily worth it (it even has Picture-in-Picture, which I find absurd).

Today I purchased a pair of items that were also expensive and won't even last me as long as the monitor. I had decided months ago to go to the Lions' Thanksgiving Day game with my dad and knew that I could get tickets from Ticketmaster when they went on sale today. I should have been able to, but I screwed it up and lost the tickets. Determined to go, I bought a couple of tickets off Stubhub instead (which is a great site because you can get tickets to anything, just expect to pay a little more). The tickets cost more than I had expected since I wasn't able to get them at face value, but instead of sitting in the upper bowl, my dad and I will now be sitting in the lower bowl, row 14, at the back of the endzone. I can't wait.

it's funny...

...because it's true.

today's post brought to you by the word "ass"

At work yesterday, my boss had issues with the word "assess" that Tysen had used in a memo. He said it looked like "asses", which it sort of does, but in the context it would be impossible to get the two confused. Of course, he wanted to change it, Tysen wanted it to stay, and I didn't care, but found the conversation endlessly entertaining. So, Tysen and I made a few creative changes to the memo to include as many words beginning with ass we could find. Here is my paragraph:

The assertive assistant assassinated the assay before the assurgent associate could asseverate it. The associate is an assiduous asshole for assigning the assistant to assemble assorted asses and assuage the assumptions of the assault. We must assail the associate with assegais until he assents to assess the associate's assimilation and assure us it is an asset.

You can check out Tysen's paragraph here.

why do you always do this, metro?

I've had some interesting experiences on the Metro recently, and not all of them enjoyable.

Last weekend, Tysen and I went to a party at his friend's house. The party started at 10pm and we left around 8pm because the blue line was undergoing maintenance and would probably take an extra half hour to get where we were going. Even with the work on the trains, leaving at 8pm should have put us at the part a little early. Instead, we didn't arrive at the party until 11pm. Half way between Van Dorn and King Street, our train broke down. We had to wait until they could bring another train to pull our train back to Van Dorn. Then, they put us on a different train to King Street. It took a really long time and I was very anxious to get to this party. Still, we didn't get upset and just relaxed and eventually made it to our destination. On the plus side, our delay allowed us time to strike up a conversation with a guy on the metro named Riley. He was in a marine officer training program and just up visiting his girlfriend in DC. He was interesting to talk to. I hope he made it to his destination.

The following Monday, on our way to work, the entire metro station at Springfield closed down. Apparently, it was out of power. Instead, metro bussed everyone from Springfield to Van Dorn. We waited for quite a while before a woman, who apparently needed to get to work very badly, offered to give us a ride in her car so she could take the HOV (carpool) lane. We weren't even an hour late for work after that. It makes me wonder if it would be worth it to drive in every day.

Then there was the guy who tried to get me to sign up for Amway (or something like it). In case you don't know, Amway is essentially a pyramid scheme. It is possible to make money doing it, but most people don't. He initiated the conversation by "accidentally" bumping into me, then asking me where I worked and other random questions. He seemed like a nice guy, but I was wary since he was talking on the metro, which normal people do not do. I quickly figured out what he was trying to sell me, but I let him talk since listening to him was more interesting than standing on the train trying not to make eye contact with the other passengers. Maybe if I see him again I'll give him pointers on his approach.

The last of my metro stories, but certainly not the least interesting, happened when I was waiting for a train (I think it was at Metro Center). One of the pay phones started ringing and a girl answered it, listened for a second, then hung up saying, "Well that was incredibly inappropriate." The phone started ringing again and the girl's boyfriend picked up the phone, said something I couldn't hear, then hung up. I walked over and asked them what the person had said. Apparently, a very man with a very low, whispery voice said, "I want to suck your pussy." "That was friendly," was the only thing I could think to say. What would posses someone to do such a thing? People amaze me.

In an somewhat unrelated matter, on Wednesday I went on my first date since moving to DC. It was fun. Maybe I'll see her again.

back in the swing of things

Have you ever been to a movie you were tempted to walk out of? I never thought this would happen to me, but I was wrong. I went to see Miami Vice last week and it was every bit as bad as I imagined it would be. The dialogue was just terrible, on a level with Star Wars: Episode II (yes, it was that bad). The directing was bad to the point of being distracting, which is odd considering the same man directed Heat and the Last of the Mohicans. Despite all of that, the reason I felt like leaving is because I was bored. That's it. If this had been a rental or just a movie I found while flipping channels on my TV at home I would not have watched more than five minutes of it.

I wasn't surprised by how bad the movie was (I expected as much), but I was surprised by the lack of anything interesting happening.

Last night I watched WarGames (Blogger's spell check wanted to replace "WarGames" with "arguing". What?) on TV. Despite the fact that the film is so outdated it made me laugh (monitors with only the ability to display black backgrounds and green text, huge computer banks with randomly flashing lights that apparently mean something to someone), it really is one of the best "hacker/computer" movies out there.

Tysen, Kathryn and I have tickets to a free pre-screening of Little Miss Sunshine tonight. I'm looking forward to it from the previews. I've always thought Greg Kinnear was funnier than he got credit for.

Don is coming to visit me in a couple weeks. Should be a lot of fun. It's been a while since I've seen him (New Years).

updates galore

Wow, it's been well over a month since I've posted to my blog. At least now I know people do visit here once in a while because I was reprimanded by several people for not updating.

Another opinion is that I haven't been updating because I finally have a life, but we all know that's not really the case.

So much has happened since my last post, meaning this post will most likely be a rambling of sorts while I try to remember all points of interest.

Emily visited last weekend and I had a great time. We checked out the bar just across the street from my apartment which, for reasons I cannot explain, I had never visited before. It's a bit of a yuppie bar, but not a bad place to have a beer and watch part of a game. I may visit there once in a while now that I know what it's like.

We spent all of Monday in DC. We visited all of the big monuments and more. Both of us were totally worn out by the day to the point where we barely left the apartment on Tuesday. We didn't go into DC for the 4th of July fireworks because of the rain, but I wasn't very disappointed. Maybe I'll go next year if I'm looking for something to do. (Kathryn posted a cool picture she took of the fireworks on her blog.)

On Sunday Em and I spent the day watching the World Cup and drinking. By the evening, we had polished off a couple white russians, a bottle of wine, and some beer. We were inebriated. We then sat out on my balcony, in the rain, watching the spectacular thunder storm, and singing Red Elvises songs, while Della Resse told Richard Pryor in Harlem Nights to, "Kiss my entire ass!" It was a good night.

You can check out some of the pictures Emily took of the visit on her blog.

The weekend before, Greg came to visit and we also had a great time. On Saturday we met Justin, Matt, and Drew at the Old Dominion Beer Festival, drank some good beer and bullshitted all day. I can't ask for much more than that.

On Tuesday we went to Georgetown and met up with a couple of Greg's college friends, Jeremiah and Autumn. They were really cool and hopefully I'll be hanging out with them more in the future.

While I was at work Monday and Tuesday, Greg spent the day sightseeing. Unfortunately for him, it rained constantly for both days causing less than favorable conditions and the closing of a couple Smithsonian buildings (probably due to flooding or power loss). Of course, the weather cleared up the day after he left.

While staying at my place, Greg introduced me to a series of graphic novels called the Last Man. I picked up the first one at a comic shop in Woodbridge (along with Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, Volume 1). After reading that first book, I'm really looking forward to picking up the second one (along with Astonishing X-Men, Vol. 2). I'm a comic book nerd.

I also ordered books V and VI of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I can't wait to read these, as the first four books have been by far the best Stephen King books I've ever read.

Last night, I went with Justin, Tysen, and Kathryn to a pre-screening of a Scanner Darkly. It was both interesting and strange. Justin said, "I think Philip K. Dick was a heroin addict," and I am inclined to agree. The entire film uses rotoscope animation, enhancing the already odd feel of the movie. If you're a fan of the sci-fi distopia genre, you'd probably enjoy this film.

Those are enough updates for now. There's a sizable chunk of information for you to chew on, compared to what I usually post.

it wasn't even cool back then

On Saturday, I spent most of the day in D.C. with Justin, Misti, Drew, and Drew's family. It was a lot of fun. Drew's dad seemed like a really cool, laid-back guy. We spent all day downtown eating lunch, drinking beer, and sightseeing. I even got to make it to the American History Smithsonian to see the new Muppet exhibit. It was a lot smaller than I expected, but it still had some interesting stuff. If you're a fan of the Muppets you should check it out. It was a long and exhausting day, but I enjoyed it.

When I got home from that excursion, I flicked on the television and, for reasons I cannot explain, stopped on the local cable access channel. They had different musicians on singing protest songs, mostly concerning the war in Iraq. It was interesting, but at the same time I couldn't help laughing just a little bit. These guys took themselves a little too seriously. Still, I admire their musical ability (something I do not have) and their fortitude to stand up for what they believe in.

Another issue of growing concern is the ongoing revival of 80s fashion. How can this be happening? In general, this movement appears to be limited to young girls, high school or early college age. I'm no expert on fashion, as anyone who has seen my wardrobe can attest, but can these girls actually think they look good? I think the vast majority of these girls have no idea they are imitating the stiles of the 80s. Sure, my generation imitated the trends of the 70s, but we knew what we were doing. We just didn't care.

Can anyone out there answer these questions for me?

• Do they think they look good?
• Do they know they are imitating the 80s?
• Were the 80s ever actually cool?
• When did wind chimes become a proper replacement for earrings?
• Isn't wearing a skirt over top of pants excessive?
• Can I start wearing those MC Hammer pants I've been saving?
• What's the fastest animal in the world?
• Do we need to worry teenagers will resurrect other crappy trends?
  

And while we're on the subject, are the children of this generation less intelligent than those of my generation? This is the way it appears to me and a number of other people my age. Are we, as a society, losing intelligence, beginning with our youth? If so, why? Or does every generation feel this way about the younger generations?

no news is good news

I would appreciate hearing some good news today. Post a comment containing good news, or least something that will put a smile on the faces of those who read it.

rfk is a hole

One of the nice things about moving to DC is that I now have a professional soccer team to call my very own. There is no MLS team in Detroit (probably because they would end up being known as the Detroit Violence, but that's another story). I feel no desire to cheer for any of the other DC sports teams, such as the Redskins or Capitals, but I'm certain this is because I already have favorite teams that cover these areas and have allegiance to more than one team in a sport can lead to trouble.

So now I have my soccer team. This last weekend was my first trip to see them live at RFK stadium in DC. I enjoyed everything about this experience, the game itself, the friendly and soccer-knowledgeable fans around me, and the crazy fans on the other size of the stadium jumping up and down and making their entire section shake (I wanted to be in that section!).

My one complaint is with RFK and those who have been there know what I mean. It is probably the worst stadium to see a sporting event that I have ever been in. It looks really nice from the outside, but inside it is small, old, and just worn-down. Our seats ended and dropped down into an area of just nothing. Here's a picture I took of it with my phone:


It will be better for everyone involved, especially fans and players, when they finally build this team a new soccer-specific stadium.

he's watching you

Ceiling Cat

so true

"All I want from life is to be a monkey of moderate intelligence who wears a suit. That's why I've decided to transfer to business school!"-
-Futurama

royals fans are worth $278.47

If you know me, you know that I am a sports fan.

That may be a bit of an understatement.

I love sports. In fact, watching sports is one of the few pure joys I have in life (next to the smell of bacon and the good feeling of a really long urination). Being sports fan can be tough, every year seeing your favorite team failing over and over again (Lions), but there's nothing I can do. At least that what I used to think.

This guy sold his fan allegiance on eBay. The winner of the auction got to choose the team he would cheer for from that point on. What a fantastic idea. Despite my desire to actually pull for a team that would win once in a while, I could never give up on the Lions.

Why? Because every game has to have a loser, and misery is part of what I love about sports.

fun with science

This weekend I went down to Newport News to visit with Emily and Greg. I had a great time seeing my two best friends. The weather was beautiful the whole time I was down there and Greg and I took full advantage by playing a little frisbee. Mostly the three of just just hung out in Emily's apartment or at the bar or a restaurant.

The most exciting part of the weekend was the science experiment we performed. On his way out here, Greg was listening to NPR and heard that putting Mentos inside of a two liter of soda makes the soda shoot out the top of bottle. Sounded like fun to us, so we gave it a try and it was worth it! We used Diet Coke because that supposedly produces the best results. Check out these pictures (you can click on the picture to see all four).

As you can see, the experiment was a big success. You just drop as many Mentos in at a time as you can and back up, no need to shake the bottle or anything. I don't understand the science behind this; all I know is that it's incredibly cool. Give it a try.

people watching, part 2

Interesting thought: if the metro had a bar, everyone would be social.

people watching

As I am sure you are aware, it can often be interesting and entertaining to observe people and their behavior. For example, on the metro yesterday I watched a woman who changed seats every time the metro stopped. She never sat in the same place twice and didn't seem to care if she was sitting next to someone or not. She did this for five or six stops, until she finally exited the train.

What was going through her mind as she moved from seat to seat? Was there some sort of purpose or pattern that I could not detect? Am I giving too much thought to the odd behavior of a crazy person?

To me, the most bizarre behavior on the metro is the lack of any conversation. The tourists are always easy to spot because they are the only ones talking (and usually about what stop they are getting off at and their general confusion with the metro system). In my two months of metro travels, I've managed only two genuine conversations: one with a guy wearing a Lions jersey and the other with a girl talking about hockey.

Possible conclusion: the only subject I'm comfortable talking to strangers about is sports.

overheard at work

I walked into the men's room at work today just in time to hear one guy standing at the urinals say to the other guy standing at the urinals, "Yeah, but that's too small for the office."

death by b12

Today, I saw a guy drinking an XS Energy Drink. I remember my friend Steve used to be really into these, not sure why. Although they did taste quite good, I was always a little scared when I looked at the nutritional information on the side. Here's what I mean:



If you can't read this, click on the picture to get a full view. Now skip down to the part of the label where the Vitamin B12 is located. Look at the % Daily Value. Holy crap! 4900%!! The Vegetarian Society claims, "B12 has very low toxicity and high intakes are not thought to be dangerous."

That's good to hear. At least no one's going to die from this stuff anytime soon. Or will they...

An excerpt from "Nutrition for Vegetarians" by Drs. Agatha and Calvin Trash reads "In animals studies, there have been cases of increased cancer production in animals receiving high levels of B-12. It has been noted that the animals have an increased production of white blood cells such as occurs in chronic myelogenous leukemia. A case has been reported of acute myeloblastic leukemia resulting from B-12 overdose in the treatment of pernicious anemia."

CANCER!?!?

This is where my research stops and I start making wild generalizations. My theory is that XS is made by the same people who made (or still make) Tab. Cancer terrorists.

everyday life should have musical interludes

I finally made it up to Baltimore this weekend to hang out with Justin. I had a great time.

On may way there after work, he called to tell me that I should still come, even though his apartment was flooding. Apparently a pipe somewhere started leaking and spread through his bedroom, hallway, and part of the living room. I was able to make it to his apartment from Virginia before the maintenance crew, who couldn't have been that far away, got there. They removed a large section of the carpet pad from his bedroom and left giant, noisy, industrial fans to dry the place out. Justin asked one of the guys, "So will I be sans carpet for a few days?" Justin then had to explain what sans meant and the guy did his best to use it in a sentence. "With sans carpet." Close enough, buddy. Meanwhile, I'm in the corner laughing and the guy comments, "He's trippin'." Luckily, all of Justin's stuff was unharmed by the water.

On Saturday we went on a tour of Clipper City Brewing Company. The tour was great. The head-brewer was really funny and interesting and entertaining, not to mention helpful with questions and just generally friendly and nice. We got to eat some malt, which is essentially just roasted barley. They even had four taps available for free samples before and after the tour. Justin took a couple pictures with my camera. If any of them look cool I'll post them here in the near future.

We also saw a matinee showing of V for Vendetta. Very cool. I recommend it highly. Not as action-packed as I had expected, but that was certainly not a bad thing. The movie kept me interested the entire time, wanting to know what was coming next while trying to decide if I agreed with the tactics "V" employed. I would love to learn more about the possible future painted in this film. For example, the movie made multiple references to "the former United States." Why "former?" And how did this occur?

While we were driving around talking about malls in the area, Justin mentioned that malls never really have many stores for men. I agreed. Justin's idea, was to capture this huge demographic by creating a store for men called Fuckin' Kill Shit. I know what you're thinking, because I had the same reaction: "I don't know what they sell, but I'm gonna shop there." Just picture an indoor skeet range with cute, fluffy baby bunnies.

don't open the door for anyone

It's amazing what people will try to sell you. Two guys knocked on the door to my apartment the other day and I, being the idiot that I am, actually opened the door. They launched into this thing about how they were doing this leadership exercise for their high school. I was, of course, skeptical, but I did my best to keep an open mind in case they really were on a leadership exercise. I'll save you some suspense and tell you they were not. The one guy said the exercise was to practice public speaking by going door-to-door and talking to people. Alright. He explained that if he did well enough, he would get to go to Paris. For going talking to people door-to-door? Damn, my high school gypped me. He then asked me which magazines I would like to subscribe to in order to help him. Lemmme make sure I got this here. You want me to buy magazines from you so that you can go to Europe while I sit here with my thumb up my ass watching SportsCenter? Do people actually do this? If so, who are these people? I have a bridge I'd like to sell them.

The best part of this whole scenario came at the end when I told him I was just leaving and that I wasn't interested. As I started to close the door, rather than just leave, the guy says, "Where's the weed, man? Where's the weed? Where's the weed?" He repeated this at least 5 times and I have no idea why.

duke sucks

Hahaha. Pure genius.

i am a huge dork

If you're reading this, you probably already know what a huge dork I am. It's something I enjoy. In fact, I'd like to share a little bit of my dorkiness with you, my dedicated (yeah right) readers.

First up, we have an incredibly useful link I found on Fark just the other day. It's a great website with a large list of free open source software for Windows. They also have a link to some open source Mac software, if you roll that way. Here are a couple items that deserve special notice:

• Mozilla Firefox: a better web browser than Internet Explorer.
• Gaim: one program for all of your instant messengers.
• OpenOffice: great if you can't afford Microsoft Office.
• GIMPShop: great if you can't afford Photoshop.

My second item comes from a random link I followed while surfing the interweb. It's a hilarious article from a great writer at Wired News called Not Your Mama's Online Assistant. In the article, the author, Lore Sjöberg, recaps the version history of a fake online assistant. It starts out a little slow, but it gets better the more you read (trust me).

lost in dc

Yes, I got lost driving around DC today. It wasn't a lot of fun. I was on my way to this week's Ultimate Frisbee game when I took a wrong turn. The directions provided on the website, although seemingly clear sitting in the comfort of my apartment, were not entirely adequate when driving on a busy freeway in DC. So, instead of arriving at the park 20-30 minutes before the game, as I had planned, I never arrived at all. Maybe next week I'll actually be able to find it.

Just because I thought this was funny, here's a link to an XBox 360 commercial that I never actually saw on TV. It's especially funny if you play or ever have played any first person shooters. Enjoy. (Site is not safe for work.)

friends are for hugging

What a great weekend, so far. I spent a couple days down in Newport News with Emily. On my way down to visit Emily I called my friend Stef and talked to her for at least an hour. I hadn't talked to her in a long time and we talked about just about everything you can possibly think of.

It was so good to be able to hang out with Emily, who I hadn't seen since she moved to Virginia a few months ago. We spent all Thursday night just sitting in her apartment, having a couple drinks and talking. It was really nice.

We went shopping on Saturday. When we stopped at Best Buy I picked up American History X (another Edward Norton movie to add to the collection) and Bottle Rocket (my favorite Owen Wilson movie). Bottle Rocket was $16.99, but only rang up at $5.99. It was fantastic getting such a great movie for so much less than I thought it was going to cost me! Suck it, Best Buy!

ncaa tournament for dummies

I just stumbled across this one today. Actually, I think I found the link on Fark, but I can't be sure. Regardless, it's still an interesting little program. It takes seeding and randomly generates a complete NCAA tournament bracket. This is perfect for those who want to join their office pool, but don't want to take the time to actually fill out a bracket. Maybe I should have called it "NCAA Tournament for Lazies" (as if that's a word). I'm tempted to fill out my own bracket and then print out one of the randomly generated ones to see if I can beat it. Sort of a stripped down version of Kasparov verses Deep Blue.

I went to Brickskeller (their website is terrible) on Tuesday night. It was only the second time I've been there and I've really enjoyed it each time. I got to meet up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while, Matt and Chris from Mississippi who I hadn't seen since I graduated. Met up with Justin there too. It was nice to get out and have a couple drinks with some friends, something that's not so easy when you don't know many people in the area you live. I mentioned that our waiter bared an uncanny resemblance to Adam Brody, so Justin called him Adam a couple times. I don't think he even noticed. I'm not sure he had things completely together that night anyway; Chris' parents ordered some dessert and he said, "Do we even serve that?"

what in the world?

While I'm thinking about it, I found this picture some time ago on a website while browsing digital cameras. Funny, but I'm not sure it helps to sell cameras. Please correct me if I'm wrong on that one.

*Click the picture for full size.

random argument

The strangest thing happened at lunch today. I got busy doing other things and didn't actually make it to lunch until 2:30 this afternoon, which was fine by me because that meant most of the places wouldn't be as busy as they are at my normal lunchtime. I went to Subway because it was close and also empty. I gave my order to the first lady behind the counter, a six inch Cheese Steak on Italian Herbs, and she proceeded to place my sandwich in the oven. She then turned around and said to me, "Yes?" I was taken aback. What does she want now? I wondered. "What?" was my clever response. I was really on my game today. "What would you like?" was her response. It was like a slap in the face. "You just took my order," I told her. This statement must have shook the foundation of her existence, because she stared at me for quite some time. After a long period in which I could almost hear the gears in her head grinding, she asked, "What would you like?" Luckily for the both of us, another employee who had been listening in on our conversation said, "I got it." He pulled my sandwich from the oven and gave me a look that said, "It's ok, she's crazy." I suppose it is only Subway, but how do people like this get jobs?

Common sense, not to mention general customer service, has gone the way of the dodo, T-Rex, and chivalry.

thank you, young lady

On my way to work this morning, I saw something interesting. As I was walking, I noticed a woman walking in the opposite direction. By itself, this is not a noteworthy or unusual event (women often walk in the exact opposite direction I do). What made this passing more interesting was that this woman had perhaps the largest jugs I've ever seen in my life (and I don't mean she was carrying a lot of water from the river back to her village). The best part of this whole scenario came when she stopped at the corner to ask a cop for directions. I have to give it to the man, he did an excellent job of maintaining his focus and not staring at her chest, but I thought his neck was going to snap at any moment.

I saw Thank You for Smoking last night and it was fabulous. I recommend it very highly to everyone. The smoking bit doesn't matter at all. In fact, despite some of the reviews I've read, the movie didn't affect my feelings about smoking, good or bad. It's just a hilarious movie that should appeal to just about everybody. The writing is quick, the characters are quirky, and Adam Brody (yes, I watch the OC, I admit it) steals just about every scene he's in. Go see this movie!

is your name on the list?

Congratulations! You've made it past the bouncer and found your way into the VA Lounge. You must have great connections.

Some of you, I'm sure, are curious as to the origin of the name. You see, I live in Virginia and I thought "the VA Lounge" sounded funny. "The Lounge" will be my little getaway during the day. I hope you'll all take some time once in a while to visit "the Lounge" and make it your own little break-spot from your life (and read about mine). Please comment on everything, it makes me feel as though people will actually read this!

I'm going with Tysen tonight to a free screening of Thank You for Smoking. I've heard some good things about the movie and I'm interested to see it. Plus it's free and that's my favorite price. Then this weekend I'll probably be heading up to Baltimore to hang out with Justin. It'll be good to have a close friend to spend some time with.

*Interesting note: the Blogger spell check apparently thought Justin's name should be Justine, which I felt was strangely appropriate.

Just a quick hello for now. Check back soon for periodic updates, which are sure to follow.