Category: Life

Editor’s Note: This post has nothing to do with babies.

Jack Black. He’s a good guy. I know. I saw him. In person. What a thrill! And I can tell that we share many things in common. As he was standing there behind the big glass window, it was clear that we both have a distaste for dealing with fans in their mid-twenties who stare at celebrities through big glass windows.

Colin Farrell. Also cool. Quieter than you would think. Likes to doodle in a notebook. Can just chill and have a coffee. He can just hang with one other dude too. He doesn’t need a whole entourage. I feel like in that way we are similar as often you’ll find me hanging with just one other person. We both think it’s easier to make decisions in smaller groups rather than larger ones I guess.

Quick fact: Since I’ve been living in Brooklyn, I’ve seen a bunch of famous people.

Regular fact: Most have not known who I am.

Drawn-out fact: The guy from the Office, John Krasinski, waits, sorta just like everyone else, sorta near the line to get in to the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre, but goes in just a hair before everyone else. But, me, going in 20 minutes later, gets to sit right behind him. We both like to swig on a beer while watching improv. We both have similar senses of humor, as judged by paying attention to which parts of the show made us laugh simutaneously. But the biggest thing I noticed is that I think we are both beginning to feel more comfortable in our own skin.

I will tell you this, however. Bobby DeNiro doesn’t just produce or direct the upcoming blockbuster The Good Shepard. He also waits in a trailer and then occasionally get outs, walks right by me, nods, and then proceeds to act in the mother.

But that’s not all. He also enlists an A-list club of actors to support him. I saw Matt Damon chatting with some friends as he made his way to act in the film opposite Robert DeNiro. Matt Damon wrote and starred in my old favorite movie Good Will Hunting so you can imagine the tickle I got when he ignored me and just kept walking by. If you can’t imagine it, it was a rather short but sweet tickle that felt like a dandelion brushing up against my cheek.

Moby wasn’t as cool. Apparently everybody and their grandma has seen Moby. I, in fact, thought I might just be seeing a lookalike so I made a mental note of a distinct tattoo he had on the back of his neck. It was a cross. And as you can see from this photo, Moby has a cross of a tattoo on the back of his neck. So it’s an official Moby sighting, Mom! Be proud… for once!

I am a celebrity magnet. I am also a magnet that celebrities seem to be able to pretend doesn’t exist. I am also unable to control said magnetism a la Magneto, so it’s not really anything special or evil.

Ending fact: Someday I hope to have pictures to document some of these things. For now, you will have to believe that I saw guy who is inside the Big Bird costume. And you will have to believe that he was very similar to me in that we both think children are important.

With a child on the way, my vehicular needs have changed somewhat. According to local law enforcement, I need a vehicle that can secure a child seat without the use of bungie cords, rope or cargo netting. Consequently, I’m in the market for a new ManMobile. Before I get to my car search, allow me to share the fates of the first two ManMobiles:

The ManMobile I: True to it’s namesake, this truck died like a man. It met its demise in a violent crash on I-90, allowing me to cheat death for the fifth time in my life. This truck really took one for the team, as The Captive Lion and I were able to walk away completely unscathed from some seriously twisted wreckage. To honor the memory of that truck, I haven’t wasted a day since. (Caveat to that statement: Entire days spent playing video games and watching TV don’t count.)

The ManMobile II: The vehicle I’m currently driving, it will be honorably discharged in the coming weeks for its trade-in value. It’s been a damn good truck, and I’ll be sad to see it go. I just wish I could end our relationship in a more fitting manner, perhaps with a fiery explosion of some kind. Thankfully, there’s still time.

And now, here’s a partial checklist of the features and criteria I’ll be using to evaluate prospective vehicles for the title of ManMobile III:

• First, would it survive multiple rollovers at 70mph… as it will likely be asked to do so.
• Is there the requisite clearance and elbowroom needed to fire a bow and arrow out of the driver’s side window?
• Does it look menacing in the rearview mirror of a slow-driving senior citizen? This one is very important to me.
• Can the speaker system provide quality audio output over a wide swath of my musical interests? (Monster ballads, AM talk radio, John Denver’s Greatest Hits, etc.)
• Am I likely to be mistaken for a total badass when behind the wheel?
• Are the tires big enough that I can drive over curbs and medians with impunity?
• At any given time, I am either flooring the gas or the brake with maximum force. Will this truck be compatible with my everyday driving style?
• In a one-on-one, head-on collision with a random other vehicle, am I most likely to be the sole survivor? (This includes tanks, cement mixers, and school buses.)
• If I’m heading in their direction, will walkers and joggers feel compelled to get off the road out of concern for their safety?
• Can this truck handle the payload of the eight tons of baby accessories I’ll be routinely transporting everywhere I go?
• Should I leave the house wearing my Darth Vader voice-changing helmet, is there ample headroom available to accommodate this attire?

Since this is such a major purchase, I’d hate to forget to check something important. Zillionaires, is there anything I left out?

Allow me to quote Nancy Kerrigan: “Why, why, why? … Why meeee? Why meeeeeeee?”

That’s pretty much how I feel right now. Seriously Gonzaga, what the hell happened last night?

You blow a 17-point lead? You allow UCLA to score the last 11 points in the game? Losing is one thing, but is it necessary to put up one of the biggest crunch-time collapses in tournament history?

At the same time, I’m not at all surprised. Humiliating, history-making losses are commonplace for any sports team I choose to openly root for, especially in the post-season.

And one more thing, after the game ended, I flipped over to NBC hoping that an episode of The Office would make me less enraged. Naturally, it was a rerun, which served as the icing on top this horrific evening.

It’s a good thing I keep a flask in my desk. That’s the only thing that’s gonna get me through the rest of the day.

As you are reading this, there is a very good chance I’m also online, scouring the Net. Just like yours, my signal is dashing from machine to machine, hopping networks, and jumping firewalls. Our digital selves seem to have more freedoms than our physical selves. In the virtual world, we are free from many of the constraints of travel, time, and custom. It is my hope that by experiencing these freedoms even in their distorted digital manifestations we will yearn for them in our civil societies. The Internet will be a major catalyst to a more progressive and enriching world, not just as a tool to organize but as a testing ground for ideas and innovations that make our lives better. It all sounds so perfectly amazing, right?

The truth is the Net is only a fraction of how cool it can and will become. We will continually have to wade through crap in order to get there. First we had to put up with AOL disks. Then came email spam. Remember pop-up ads? Or spyware. Did you ever get a virus? We’ve overcome a lot already. But I’ve found the next myth, the next hoax, the next lie that we need to dispel: wireless.

First off, I don’t like the term. Wireless. It takes eight letters to say something doesn’t exist? And it’s always going to be second banana to “wired” because it has bought into the paradigm in which “wired” products are the norm. I think that “wireless” should be the standard and gadgets with wires should be called “teathered” or “immobile.” That’s what so-called “wired” products really are. We need to start using terminology that is based in the technologies of 2006 and not 1950.

To me, you call a human a human, not a tailless monkey.

And it’s not just our vocabulary that needs an update. Modern product designers should be ashamed. The amount of cords and wires it takes to run an average media setup is ridiculous. There is a whole intestine-looking tangle of cords behind my entertainment center. I’ve often said that I think the only people still making money hand over fist in the product hardware business are the cord and wire makers.

So needless to say, the concept of “wireless” sounds fantastic to me. I don’t even need to see the flop. I’m all in.

In fact, I’ve already purchased quite a few “wireless” products. Pretty quickly, however, I found out that wireless often means something very different than an average person’s definition of the term. For example, it would seem obvious that “wireless” means “without wires” as in this diagram:

But, sadly, that is often not the case. Usually “wireless” quite simply means “differently wired.” You need a dongle for that, a power cord for this, and an ethernet cable just for good measure… or spite. All to be “wireless.”

Here is my xbox wireless adapter, for example.

In this case, “wireless” means “two wires.” I am actually surprised they went so far as to put the word “wireless” in the product name. This thing can only go a matter of five feet from an outlet. Immobile, not wireless in my book.

And what do I tell my friends when I trip on one of these cords? “Sorry guys no basketball for me. I biffed my knee when I tripped on my wireless adapter’s cord. What’s that? Yeah, I’m ok. I’ll just chill around the house and listen to audio cassettes on my iPod. I never weened myself off tape hiss, man.”

Well, it’s March Madness time, meaning I am yet again staking my happiness to how well Gonzaga does in the tournament. As a public service, I’m providing some brief profiles of my favorite team in the tourney, in case others are interested in following them as well. And yes, I realize that this post has just doomed them to early elimination.

Adam Morrison: The mustache angle has been overdone in the national media. Frankly, that story is played-out.

…long pause…
…shifting eyes…
…cracking knuckles…

Unfortunately, I can’t walk past a dead horse without subjecting it to my own merciless beating:

If you haven’t seen Morrison’s mustache, simply tune into today’s game, or catch any episode of The George Lopez Show. I’m serious. I was flipping through channels the other day and saw that the Mexican kid that plays George’s 13-year old son has the exact same haircut and facial hair. Trust me, it actually makes the show worth watching when he’s on camera.

On a related topic, I present to you a new definition of wasted time: I spent over an hour (on company time) searching for a current mustachioed headshot of Luis Armand Garcia (the child actor cast as George’s son.) I searched Google and every “George Lopez Show” related fan site on the Internet. Thankfully, there were only three such websites. I only tell you this to illustrate the pain and sacrifice I endure to try and put funny content on this website. Here’s the best I could do:

First, Adam Morrison:

And now Luis Armand Garcia: (sorry that it’s only a side view… just trust me about the mustache part.)

Onto the rest of the team:

Derek Raivio: He’s the starting shooting guard. If it looks as though he’s about 14 years old, that’s because he is. He’s got an unreal fake ID. Ironically, he’s the one guy on the team that could justify a bad teenage mustache.

David Pendergraft: Introducing the token really white guy. (On Gonzaga’s roster, you need to clarify the degree of whiteness.) He’s a role player, he takes charges, and he even has red hair. By any standard of measure, this makes him the quintessential white guy on a college basketball team.

P-Mac: Also known as Pierre Marie Altidor Cespedes. If his name doesn’t scare you, neither will his nationality: French Canadian.

Erroll Knight: Treading carefully as I type this… let’s just say he’s the anti-Pendergraft.

Jeremy Pargo: Backup point guard. What he lacks in height and stature, he makes up for in cockiness and trash-talking. Such is always the case.

J.P. Batista: He’s easy to spot, just look for a 6-10 Brazilian center, weighing 280+. He’s a solid player, but unfortunately has the same vertical leap of my wife in her second trimester.

Sean Mallon: He’s the starting power forward. Although, “power” might be too strong a word. Maybe “persistent”? Or perhaps “moderate”? I like that one. He’s our starting moderate forward.

So that’s it. Let the games begin, and Go Zags!!!