Travel, Tunes and Tennis

Is the week over yet? This past week was extremely busy.

I had to go on a very short notice trip to San Antonio, TX for work. I was suppose to go this week but for a project, that has been nothing but problems, got bumped up to immediate priority and I had like 36 hours to prepare for the trip. I left this past Thursday at 6am and I got into San Antonio at 10am. It was a really good drive. There was hardly any traffic and I had my iPod full of music to keep me entertained.


I am totally obsessed with Amy Winehouse's Back to Black album. I listened to it at least 10 times during my trip. I've only seen Amy Winehouse in pictures and thought she was rock and/or pop singers. I was reading a blog post on Dallaspenn.com and he posted some songs from her latest album. I was shocked to heard a r&b/jazz/soul type voice coming out of this girl. I download the album and been listening to it for a couple of weeks now. When I get my Björk CD next week, I will have to purchase Back to Black as well.

This past Saturday, I was in a tennis tournament at a country club in North Dallas area. I won my quarter final round, but lost in the semifinals to the number 2 seed in my division. I wasn't sure joining the tournament because it was being held at a location frequently visited by a guy I used to date name Michael. I haven't seen or heard from him since the last tournament because, basically, I didn't want to. I thought if I saw during the tournament I would be with my group of people and I would be able to brush him off. But this didn't happen. During the middle of first round match he placed on the court right next to me. I was not happy about that because they guy I was trying to avoid was now in my eye line and I couldn't avoid him. By tried my hardest to do so.

He continuously stared at me during my match, but I refused to make any eye contact thereby avoiding making any kind of connection with him. I did take a few glances at him while he played and, I must admit, he looked good. The long curly hair was much shorter, and he lost about 15-20 pounds. If I were a masochist I would totally tried to make something happen between us ... but I am not, so I didn't. But he looked really good. Is there something wrong with me for saying that? I think if I find a guy I am attracted to, I will always be attracted to them for some biological reason. Or maybe I am just attracted to the wrong people?

I wonder if I could be the problem?

Planet Earth

This past Saturday I decided to do my part for Earth Day. To save energy I slept until noon, and spent the rest of the day on the couch watching the last 4 episodes of the 11 part series Planet Earth. Since I don't have the Discovery Channel -- damn you Charter Cable -- I downloaded all 11 episodes from the Interwebs. I watched parts 1 through 7 the week before so watched to finish.

During the Rain Forest episode, they showed different Birds of Paradise. Like this one:


I didn't look like a Bird of Paradise because lacked color and/or ornamentation ... until I saw this:


Freaky, huh? When courting a female forms this shape with its plumage and hops around slapping the ground with its rear feathers. It looks like one of those things from the Zoloft adverts.


Or the inverse of the "Dangerous Pills" from the 1983 Long Island Regional Poison Control Council PSA (source).


If I ever saw any of these things out on the street, I would definitely need to take some Zoloft.

Bloodshed on BET's College Hill

Since I moved to Dallas I haven't had BET because Charter Cable chooses not to carrier it in my area. When I had BET I was really missing much because the majority of the programs the have are crap. The last good show they had was Video Soul with Donnie Simpson ... and ended in 1997.

I was browsing my favorite blogs when I saw GuyTVBlog posted a recap of a fight that occurred on the BET reality show College Hill: Virgin Islands. I haven't seen this show since cast member Peaches "assaulted" fellow housemate Jon in the second season. Jon was a jerk and totally deserved what he got, in my opinion. Anyway ... this recent fight was over the top and I am kind of mad at BET for showing/promoting this incident.

If you go to the College Hill website on BET.com, this is what you see:

edit: BET has since pulled this image off the website
I was interested in seeing what led up the fight, only to be disappointed by this:


BET + ads for chicken = not the smartest way to avoid stereotypes.

The fight was crazy considering that the people involved in the fight weren't apart of the initial conflict. After the girl fight was broken up, the girl in initiated the fight wound up with a bloody face:


Fighting on television is not new in the post Jerry Springer era, so the slapped (pun intended) on PSA against violence just seemed false to me. The PSA:

Hi. Where the cast of College Hill Season 4. After through that experience we learn a valuable lesson. Eventhough culturally we have different background, we are all the same in the end. Try not to let your emotion get the best of you and to see the situation from the other person's point of view.

Don't let words escalate to the point of disagreement. [What the hell does this even mean? It is not possible to be civil discussion where both parties have opposing views?] We all recognized our role in this situation. When faced with friends fighting, it is best to defuse the situation and not fuel.

Retaliation and anger is never the way to solve problems. Give yourself an opportunity to think before you react. [Yeah, you should that about that before the bloodshed caused by a taking a shoe to the face multiple time] For more information on College Hill Season 4 ... go to BET.com.

My entire issue with BET is that they are trying to have it both ways. I think if your want to show an unedited fight which resulted in bloodshed, while promoting your reality show using that fight ... then you can't really have PSA stating how violence is not the answer. You can't be both the Jerry Springer Show and the Ricki Lake Show at the same time. When a fight broke out on the Ricki Lake Show the footage of the said fight was never shown but in its place was a PSA stating how violence isn't the answer.

First BET: Uncut, now this?!?

I don't know. Am I the only one that feels that BET acted irresponsibly? Or am I being overly sensitive?

theIRS

I finally paid my taxes yesterday to beat the deadline. I actually completed my taxes in February but didn't file them when I found out I owed some money to the government. I decided to delay paying the FEDS until the last possible moment. I got some points by putting it the charge on my credit card, so at least I got something in return.

I am thinking about refiling my taxes for the 2003, 2004, and 2005 because there were some deductions I didn't take advantage of. I think I missed out on refund amounts totaling $1000. I will probably look over the amounts this weekend and see if it worth completed that tedious 1040X form. If the amount of the refund is enough to get the new Series 3 HD TiVo, it would work it.

Amazon.com has this TiVo with as $170 rebate and it will bring the total cost from $799 plus tax (via tivo.com) to $459 w/ no sales tax and free shipping.

I will probably get it in June when my 1 year contract expires for my Series 2 Dual Tuner Tivo. If I get it, I would be the owner of 3 TiVos. More than likely I would take TiVo #1 offline to make room for TiVo #3. I think I might sell it on eBay or hack into for fun.

YOU HAVE 7 HOURS AND 40 MINUTES (CST)TO COMPLETE YOUR TAXES!!!

Ring the Alarm

Friday the 13th is never a good day. But the past Friday exceeded all my fears of this dreaded day.

I was finishing a few tasks for work and noticed that it was a bright and sunny day. I feared that the weather would be horrible considering that morning's forecast predicted tornadoes. Seriously. Living in central and western NY (cities that are not having great weather at the moment) the harshest weather forecast I ever saw was for the possibility for severe thunderstorms. The fact that the local NBC station had a little animated twirling tornado weather made me chuckle a bit, before the fear settled in.

After seeing the sunny, I thought, once again the weather people don't know what the hell they are talking about. I finished up my work tasks and began to pack up my things to leave when I looked out of the window and saw it was now pitch black outside. I canceled my plans to play tennis and decided to head home. I stopped by the local Kroger to get an onion, a green pepper, and some ice cream. When I arrived home I heard a loud whirling noise which sounded like a vacuum cleaner. The sky was now partly cloudy and I regretted not playing tennis. The whirling continued as I entered my apartment. Still not knowing what the sound was I dropped my work bag and groceries in the kitchen and I made my way to the living to watch The View. I turned on the TV to see that all hell was breaking loose.

The same weather woman from that morning was telling viewer to get in a safe because tornadoes have been spotted and they were heading for my area. The noise I was hearing was a Tornado Warning Siren which sounds when a tornado is spotted in Dallas county. I got scared, so I began to plot my escape route. My original plan was to hide underneath my stairs before deciding to that the mall was the best place to go.

Long story short, I never made it to the mall and my area was spared by the storm. I ended up calling a friend of mine and we talked on the phone for over an hour.

So I guess the moral to the story is: weather people actually know what the hell they are talking about.

Movies: Hot Fuzz

This past Tuesday, I had a free ticket for a preview screening of the movie Hot Fuzz.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie since I really enjoyed Shaun of the Dead. When I went to go see Grindhouse this past Saturday, I saw that they were giving away free passes and I grabbed a bunch to distribute to some of my friends. Sadly, I was the only person who attended the screening because it conflict with my tennis club's play session.

I arrived at the theater 30 minutes early and the it was packed. When I went to look for seats, there was nothing left but seats in the first and second rows from the scene. At first I was not happy, but when I sat in my chair (located in the second row on the left-hand side) I found that my view of screen was actually rather good. The only trouble I had started when I decided to be a nice guy when I moved over a seat to allow a couple to sit together. I regretted my decision 10 seconds later.

THEY WOULDN'T. STOP. TALKING!

She was a purported screen writer, and her companion (husband? boyfriend? friend?) was an alleged actor. I swear, I never wanted to chastise anyone in a theater for talking before more than these two. The movie was so good, that I decided to not make a scene.

Hot Fuzz is a lot of things, and dull isn't one of them. It's a cop drama-action-mystery/whodunit comedy ... if that makes any senses. My favorite thing(s) about the movie is how mundane tasks are give a sense of heightened drama to them. The opening a dooring is done in a fast-zooming camera motion accompanied by a swooping, bass filled sound effect. It's hard to described, because I am horrible writer, but if you have seen Shaun of the Dead then you know what I am getting at. If you haven't seen Shaun of the Dead, rent it immediately.

If the movie is in your city on April 20th I recommend that you see it.

Movies: Blades of Glory & Grindhouse

Blades of Glory

Let me say this ... I am not the biggest fan of Will Ferrell, but the movie looked interesting and I was on the fence about seeing. It wasn't until I saw this picture that I knew I had to see it:


I have a big crush Will Arnett and I have liked Amy Poehler since her Upright Citizen Brigade days, so the picture above compelled me to see this movie. Alas, the movie was not good. There were a few good jokes, but they were few and far between. Anything with Amy and Will was hilarious but everything else fell flat. I wouldn't recommend seeing this movie in the theaters.

Grindhouse


This movie was awesome. I was expecting to leave the theater at some point during the 191 minute movie, but I couldn't leave because I didn't want to miss anything. The faux trailer for "Machete" (which may actually become a real movie), Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" starring my other crush Freddie Rodriguez, the faux movie trailers, and Quentin Tarantino's "Deathproof" were just a spot on throwback to the exploitation movies of the late 60's and 70's. In both films I loved the uses of bad continuity, missing reels, and poor lighting found in most B-movies.

But which movie is better?

The movies complement each together well, but for me, I think I like Tarantino's "Deathproof" a bit more than Rodriguez's "Planet Terror". There is far less action in his film, but there is more character development and great Tarantino dialogue to enjoy which all builds up to a great car chase scene.

These movies are best enjoyed on the big screen. It is a must see.

Another Job Opportunity

I got offered another promotion at my company. It is the Junior DBA position that I was told about late last year but it never panned out due to company restructuring. Now, someone is leaving the company and there is now an open position.

The last couple of weeks have been crazy. I just got promotion, I interviewed for a new job, and now I am being offered another position in a completely different field. There are of thing to sort out -- pros and cons of each job -- before I make a decision by the end of the week. It is not necessarily about money; it is more about the quality of life. So far nothing is topping the possible 11 weeks off the job I interviewed for is offering. I will have to call them tomorrow and see if I am still in the running for the position.

Update at the end of the week.