A few random facts before I start the writing process:
• Michael Jackson’s best work as a solo artist came before “Thriller.” While I enjoy the song “Human Nature,” SWV’s Human Nature remix of “Right Here” trumps Jacko’s cute little ditty.
• The only Beatle I have seen in person is Ringo Starr, and I’d pay money to see him again.
• I bypassed a chance to see the Black Crowes tonight, and I’m sure I’ll regret that at some point down the road.
So I spent my Tuesday evening watching a lot of visual entertainment. Part of me feels like a waste of flesh, but I also vowed to tackle a fresh, new and exciting personal project this winter, starting in November, so I can forgive myself for a night in front of the television.
Amongst the visual entertainment I enjoyed:
I watched “How to Lose Your Lover,” a chick flick. I rented this movie solely because if features Jennifer Westfeldt of “Kissing Jessica Stein.” She’s hard to resist, yet far from a sexpot. I can’t explain it, but she’s scrumptious. I have to start watching “Notes from the Underbelly” on ABC, or has it been canceled? She’s in it, that’s all I know.
The movie wasn’t the most entertaining chick flick on the video store shelves, but it was amusing. I’ll watch her as Jessica Stein another 100 times, however, before I’ll see How to Lose Your Lover again.
I also watched the second day of Drew Carey’s tenure as host of “The Price is Right.” There’s a website devoted to every facet of TPIR, but I don’t frequent it. I did, however, learn from another game show website that the debut of Drew Carey as host of TPIR was actually the seventh episode he taped. The popular theory behind the logic is that since every contestant won the top prize in his/her game, it was a good episode to lead off the Carey era with.
Since there are no returning champions or other criteria to require presentation of the show in the order in which it was taped, it is easy to present the episodes in a random order.
I still stand by my argument that in a year Carey will be a natural as a host. But until then it will be a bumpy road viewers will travel. Carey’s performance in episode 2 was better than episode 1, for what it’s worth, but I’ll spare further commentary on TPIR for a while. Even I am sick of dwelling on it.
Tuesday night also offered a comedic treat. Richard Simmons was a guest on “ The Late Show with David Letterman.” Simmons and Letterman are a great comedy duo. It’s a shame Simmons hasn’t been a guest on Letterman much in recent years, but every time he is, it’s damn funny. If they sold a DVD of Simmons’ appearances on Letterman, I’d buy it in a New York minute.
I laughed several times during Simmons’ appearance tonight. I think my favorite moment was when Dave said something like, “I’ve stopped trying to figure out the shorts and the tank top, but what’s the deal with the oil?”
Letterman’s comment that Simmons is the only guest in 26 years to appear on his show in shorts and a tank top, and the fact that the outfit hasn’t caught on as a fashion statement, was probably the second best moment of the night.
And finally: I tuned into part of the NBC prime time interview with Utah Sen. Larry Craig. I should write an entire blog topic about how ridiculous the hour was, but I’ll stick to brief comments about it.
First off, it’s sad that an ass clown like Craig is such a national media phenomenon. But I’m as guilty as much of America, I’m enthralled by his story.
But I do not think that the Craig saga is worthy of national attention. It’s a sad indictment of broadcast journalism that Matt Lauer’s interview with Craig and wife was worthy of prime time exposure. There’s no chance this topic would be covered in prime time if NBC doubted it would be a ratings bonanza. It’s the same as the “To Catch a Predator” broadcasts, the shows are about ratings, not news worthiness.
Lauer’s interview was weak. Most of the time he allowed Craig to paint himself as a sympathetic victim. Yeah, right, a guy who has been dogged by rumors of homosexual tendencies for 25 years was just the unlucky victim of an airport bathroom misunderstanding. Sorry, Larry, my odds of hitting the Powerball jackpot are better than the odds of you being mistakenly caught in a gay sex sting.
It was highly entertaining to hear the jackass say, several times, that all of his actions – including the initial arrest and booking, keeping the incident a secret from his family for two months and his guilty plea that became public knowledge – were a mistake. The guy made more mistakes than a blind driver on Ventura Boulevard. What a complete ass clown!
I do give props to Lauer for asking Craig if he was bisexual. (Craig said no.) That has been my contention all along, Craig is not gay, as he claims, he is bisexual. Lauer asked a few tough questions, but his interview overall let Craig paint himself as an innocent victim. I highly doubt that’s the case. I don’t know what’s most pathetic: Craig painting himself as a victim, his wife standing by her man or me watching the interview as I made my dinner.
But the ultimate slap in the face is that after an hour of this crap, more than enough time for Craig to state his case, NBC will share more of the interview during Wednesday’s “Today Show” broadcast. Yeah, right, an hour wasn’t enough time to share all the noteworthy nuggets from the interview. How despicable. Lauer should be ashamed of himself, but I’m sure his fat paychecks pacify him. I’d question who combs his hair in the morning if I doubted that he can look at himself in the mirror, but there’s no question he sold his integrity years ago.
I’d like to think I’d place a higher value on my integrity, but honestly, if I was offered millions to compromise my journalistic integrity, I couldn’t resist.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A work in progress
Two random facts to kick things off:
• Tom Green is an ugly son of a bitch who has no business being a celebrity.
• “Paradise City” by Guns ‘n’ Roses is my second favorite song of all time. The opening 19 seconds is probably my favorite 19 seconds of music.
The wait is over, the Drew Carey era of “The Price is Right” is here, and it’s a work in progress.
Game show geeks across the country have probably been debating the new era of TPIR on message boards for 13, 14 hours now. I’m not interested in that, but how can I resist blogging about day 1? I can’t.
Previews of the new season showed that the set was redesigned slightly. It’s the same basic set, but the colors and graphics are different. (Word is that the set is now mobile, or more so than it was, meaning they could potentially take the show on the road for a week or two to cities around the country.) I wouldn’t call the new look updated, as the set still has a retro feel to it, but it’s different. The new look still pays homage to the most recent edition of the show, but the look of the show evolved under Bob Barker’s reign, so it’s not illogical to tweak the design with a change in host. Hell, “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” have undergone changes over the years, it’d be foolish to expect TPIR to look exactly the same when a new host takes over.
Besides the cosmetic changes it sounds like they made minor updates to much of the music during the show. It’s all recognizable, but it seems to be updated slightly, which is fine. (Although for my money they’ve never improved on the theme music for Wheel of Fortune, although 99.9 percent of Americans wouldn’t have a clue what the original theme music was if Chuck Woolery started dancing nakedly to it in the confines of their bedroom, but I digress.)
Here’s a brief list of my complaints about Drew Carey after day 1:
• He’s not a natural at hosting a game show. When Barker started, he already had experience as an emcee. Carey had recently hosted a few episodes of “Power of 10,” but that’s it. I don’t consider his stint reigning over “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” to be a traditional emcee gig.
• He seems too amused by the contestants. He doesn’t have to come across as better than them, but he doesn’t have that professional, detached air about him.
• He references the announcer multiple times, and refers to that announcer, Rich Fields, by his first and last name. That makes him seem like a guest host rather than the “star” of the show, and he is introduced as the star at the opening of the show.
• He likes to address the models by their first name, as if they’re regular members of the show. Maybe they are, but when Barker stopped banging the models, suddenly there was a revolving door of models. (That’s been the case for about the past eight years.) Some of them hung around for a few years, but you never knew which models you would get from day to day. For some reason Carey’s referencing models by name seems out of place.
• His transitions in and out of segments are weak. They’ll get better with time, but right now they suck.
• It will take a while to learn how to talk about every one of the 70-plus games authoritatively, but his inexperience providing commentary during game play is painful. TPIR rubes can tell you all sorts of trivia about the first game ever played under Barker’s reign. Carey’s first game was “Money Game,” where you have to pick the first pair and last pair of numbers in the price of a vehicle from a board of nine sets of numbers. Carey never referenced the game by name, which looked rather amateur to me.
While Carey’s first day as host fell short of a train wreck, it wasn’t good. It’s not as if the guy walked onto the set cold and had to nail it without rehearsal, so he should have been slightly more polished than he was.
I give him props for not trying to be a comedian. The show’s format doesn’t emphasize that skill. He can interject a little comedy now and then, as Barker did, but he’s not hosting a late night talk show.
I also appreciate the fact that the show doesn’t ignore Barker’s legacy. The studio in which the show is taped was renamed the Bob Barker Studio several years ago. They refer to it by name in the opening of the show.
The final game of day 1 was “Barker’s Bargain Bar.” They didn’t rename the game, or eliminate it, which I appreciate. Carey made a joke about the game’s namesake, but the fact that they didn’t detach the show completely from Barker, at least initially, is a classy touch.
Overall the show needs a lot of work to achieve the polish and shine it richly deserves, but for now I can live with it. I realize it’s a work in progress, and I’d rather have the show on the daytime schedule than see it go away, no matter how long it takes to get it right with a new host.
Heck, I’m wondering if it’s time to make a seventh appearance in the studio audience. Eventually they have to call my name, don’t they?
• Tom Green is an ugly son of a bitch who has no business being a celebrity.
• “Paradise City” by Guns ‘n’ Roses is my second favorite song of all time. The opening 19 seconds is probably my favorite 19 seconds of music.
The wait is over, the Drew Carey era of “The Price is Right” is here, and it’s a work in progress.
Game show geeks across the country have probably been debating the new era of TPIR on message boards for 13, 14 hours now. I’m not interested in that, but how can I resist blogging about day 1? I can’t.
Previews of the new season showed that the set was redesigned slightly. It’s the same basic set, but the colors and graphics are different. (Word is that the set is now mobile, or more so than it was, meaning they could potentially take the show on the road for a week or two to cities around the country.) I wouldn’t call the new look updated, as the set still has a retro feel to it, but it’s different. The new look still pays homage to the most recent edition of the show, but the look of the show evolved under Bob Barker’s reign, so it’s not illogical to tweak the design with a change in host. Hell, “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” have undergone changes over the years, it’d be foolish to expect TPIR to look exactly the same when a new host takes over.
Besides the cosmetic changes it sounds like they made minor updates to much of the music during the show. It’s all recognizable, but it seems to be updated slightly, which is fine. (Although for my money they’ve never improved on the theme music for Wheel of Fortune, although 99.9 percent of Americans wouldn’t have a clue what the original theme music was if Chuck Woolery started dancing nakedly to it in the confines of their bedroom, but I digress.)
Here’s a brief list of my complaints about Drew Carey after day 1:
• He’s not a natural at hosting a game show. When Barker started, he already had experience as an emcee. Carey had recently hosted a few episodes of “Power of 10,” but that’s it. I don’t consider his stint reigning over “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” to be a traditional emcee gig.
• He seems too amused by the contestants. He doesn’t have to come across as better than them, but he doesn’t have that professional, detached air about him.
• He references the announcer multiple times, and refers to that announcer, Rich Fields, by his first and last name. That makes him seem like a guest host rather than the “star” of the show, and he is introduced as the star at the opening of the show.
• He likes to address the models by their first name, as if they’re regular members of the show. Maybe they are, but when Barker stopped banging the models, suddenly there was a revolving door of models. (That’s been the case for about the past eight years.) Some of them hung around for a few years, but you never knew which models you would get from day to day. For some reason Carey’s referencing models by name seems out of place.
• His transitions in and out of segments are weak. They’ll get better with time, but right now they suck.
• It will take a while to learn how to talk about every one of the 70-plus games authoritatively, but his inexperience providing commentary during game play is painful. TPIR rubes can tell you all sorts of trivia about the first game ever played under Barker’s reign. Carey’s first game was “Money Game,” where you have to pick the first pair and last pair of numbers in the price of a vehicle from a board of nine sets of numbers. Carey never referenced the game by name, which looked rather amateur to me.
While Carey’s first day as host fell short of a train wreck, it wasn’t good. It’s not as if the guy walked onto the set cold and had to nail it without rehearsal, so he should have been slightly more polished than he was.
I give him props for not trying to be a comedian. The show’s format doesn’t emphasize that skill. He can interject a little comedy now and then, as Barker did, but he’s not hosting a late night talk show.
I also appreciate the fact that the show doesn’t ignore Barker’s legacy. The studio in which the show is taped was renamed the Bob Barker Studio several years ago. They refer to it by name in the opening of the show.
The final game of day 1 was “Barker’s Bargain Bar.” They didn’t rename the game, or eliminate it, which I appreciate. Carey made a joke about the game’s namesake, but the fact that they didn’t detach the show completely from Barker, at least initially, is a classy touch.
Overall the show needs a lot of work to achieve the polish and shine it richly deserves, but for now I can live with it. I realize it’s a work in progress, and I’d rather have the show on the daytime schedule than see it go away, no matter how long it takes to get it right with a new host.
Heck, I’m wondering if it’s time to make a seventh appearance in the studio audience. Eventually they have to call my name, don’t they?
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Surprise!
I didn’t see it coming.
I spent a lot of time running around this past weekend, and I learned a thing or two along the way.
I started my Halloween job last week. (It’s my second year on the job.) I guess you could argue the two hours I was paid to sit through a tedious orientation the previous week was the start of the job, but the actual Halloween attraction opened to the public on Friday evening, and I spent the first of 10 nights as a “mad doctor.” I’ll spare the details of the experience, particularly since I blog about them elsewhere.
So I get home Friday night and manage to keep busy for a few hours, doing what, I don’t recall. I intended to get up bright and early on Saturday, take care of business and head to the Minnesota State Fair grounds for the big annual comic book convention. I like to pay homage to my past by reminiscing in a room full of comic book geeks. I also can count on running into a couple of friends when I’m there, friends I don’t see that often through the year for one reason or another.
One of those friends, Pat, has been selling off a lot of his unwanted collection the past couple of years through a small dealer’s table at the show. So I try to help him for a few hours by watching over his table while he takes a break or peruses the merchandise.
But I had to be at the Halloween gig at 2 p.m. Saturday, so that meant I wouldn’t have a lot of time to offer Pat on Saturday. Since his wife is home with the children during the weekend, he has nobody else to help him out, therefore I have taken it upon myself to be his unofficial employee.
I intended to get up bright and early on Saturday, but I overslept. I needed the sleep, evidently, and that put me way behind my personal schedule, which included purchasing Diet Pepsi at Target and buying birthday cards for two people, including one whose birthday is the same day as mine. When I finally arrived at the convention I had at most an hour to offer Pat, which he was more than grateful for, primarily so he could visit the restroom.
I was late to work on Saturday, but I really didn’t need to be there two hours before my attraction opened, so it was no big deal.
I arrived home at midnight Saturday and sat down to write for a while. I spent far too long writing e-mail and updating my Halloween blog. Sometime after 2 a.m. I started sifting through boxes of my old comic collection, looking for a few things I could add to Pat’s tables on Sunday. He always offers me the chance to do so, and I figure I might as well make $20 for the trouble of being there.
The problem was I spent far too long reminiscing as I sifted through boxes of unorganized comic books. I couldn’t remember why I ever decided to buy some of the stuff I did, forgot I even had some of it and wondered what I should try to unload. I wasn’t bringing a ton of stuff, but I wanted to pick out some odds and ends that had a snowball’s chance of selling.
The next thing you know it’s 5 a.m.
So I go to bed, knowing I want to be at the convention before it opens to the public at 10 a.m.
And miraculously when the alarm sounds at 8:30 a.m. I get up and get moving. I was sure I would instinctively go back to bed and oversleep, but I didn’t.
I had to bypass breakfast at Burger King in order to make it before 10 a.m., so I settled for an aging banana as my lone source of nourishment for the day, unless Diet Pepsi qualifies as nourishment.
Pat and I both spent some time walking around the convention during the day, but we spent a lot of the time at his tables, catching up on all sorts of topics. I’ve known Pat for about 20 years, and whenever we sit down we talk for hours. Despite living about 20 minutes apart, we only sit down once or twice a year.
The convention ended at 5 p.m. Sunday and I was intending to be there until the end, more or less. My friend Monica had offered to get together for dinner on Sunday evening to celebrate the one occasion I ignore for the most part, my birthday. She suggested a St. Paul area restaurant, as that’s a relative midway point between us.
I wasn’t clear what time we had settled upon, so I called her on Sunday afternoon to confirm that we were still on for dinner and at what time. I said I’d like to stay and help Pat load up his stuff, even though he wasn’t expecting it. I asked if we could meet at 6 p.m. instead, and she hesitantly said OK.
Not long after I got a call saying that she couldn’t change our reservation from 5 p.m.
I found it odd that we even needed a reservation for a Sunday evening at this restaurant, let alone we couldn’t change it that late in the afternoon, but I never suspected anything was up.
While I intended to get to the restaurant about 5 p.m., I was a little slow getting my stuff pulled together and out to my car. During my last trip into the convention I stopped at the restroom. As I was leaving the restroom Pat was coming toward me, motioning me toward the door prize table. For about one second I thought he had big news for me.
As we reached the table, he said something like “meet the new owner of this computer.” I don’t remember exactly how he said it, but it was clear he was implying that he was the new owner, not me.
A fancy computer system was donated to the show, and entries into the drawing for it were $1, with the proceeds benefitting a charity. We each bought one chance, and he was the winner. If it wasn’t going to be me, I’m glad it was my friend. But for one second I thought I had a kick ass birthday present.
So I finally depart the convention and head south through St. Paul. I call my friend because I’m running late and I want to make sure she’s there. She is and suggests she’s sitting in the bar getting drunk. I’ll spare the details of the five-minute comedy of errors that resulted in me crossing a bridge twice to get to the restaurant, a bridge I didn’t want to cross once because I was on the right side of the river to begin with!
Once I get to the restaurant at about 5:20 p.m. there’s no sign of my friend at the bar, so I start to wander through the restaurant, looking for a small table with one woman sitting at it. I’m not finding any single diners anywhere, and as I walk past a couple of groups I hear my name called out, much to my surprise.
Monica, it turns out, had contacted a few of my college friends and arranged a dinner get together, which is why we couldn’t wait until 6 p.m. to begin. It was JayHawk, German Bear, Doug (the famous trio from my annual camping trip to Wausau) and their wives. Doug’s two children joined us, but JayHawk’s son stayed behind in western Wisconsin as did German Bear’s four children in suburban St. Cloud.
To say I was shocked was an understatement. I had no clue anything like this was being planned.
The dinner was a rather routine birthday gathering of friends. In this case the friends have all known each other for years, and while we all see each other in some capacity or another, it’s rare when the four of us from college and their three wives are in the same place at the same time.
Monica didn’t go to school with us, but I’ve known her since college, when Doug and I met her. So everyone in attendance knows her, too, although I’m the only one she sees with any sort of regularity. While Doug and I stopped to visit her on the way to Wausau in May, I’m not sure how many years it had been since he had last seen her prior to then.
I was running on fumes by dinner, but that was easily forgotten once I got there. I was overwhelmed by the fact that my friends had gathered on my birthday. I’ve never had any sort of surprise birthday gathering in my life, and I certainly didn’t expect it this year.
I wouldn’t say my life was forever changed as a result of that dinner, but at a co-worker’s wedding on my birthday two years earlier, I made a life-changing decision. Sometimes I wonder why I made that decision. Dinner on Sunday night reminded me why I did.
So how does a guy wrap up a birthday spent with comic book geeks and some of his best friends? He goes home, watches his anemic Chicago Bears pull off an improbable comeback in the second half of their Sunday night football game in Green Bay and then watches “Kissing Jessica Stein,” because nothing says “happy birthday” like a movie about characters dabbling in lesbian love.
I spent a lot of time running around this past weekend, and I learned a thing or two along the way.
I started my Halloween job last week. (It’s my second year on the job.) I guess you could argue the two hours I was paid to sit through a tedious orientation the previous week was the start of the job, but the actual Halloween attraction opened to the public on Friday evening, and I spent the first of 10 nights as a “mad doctor.” I’ll spare the details of the experience, particularly since I blog about them elsewhere.
So I get home Friday night and manage to keep busy for a few hours, doing what, I don’t recall. I intended to get up bright and early on Saturday, take care of business and head to the Minnesota State Fair grounds for the big annual comic book convention. I like to pay homage to my past by reminiscing in a room full of comic book geeks. I also can count on running into a couple of friends when I’m there, friends I don’t see that often through the year for one reason or another.
One of those friends, Pat, has been selling off a lot of his unwanted collection the past couple of years through a small dealer’s table at the show. So I try to help him for a few hours by watching over his table while he takes a break or peruses the merchandise.
But I had to be at the Halloween gig at 2 p.m. Saturday, so that meant I wouldn’t have a lot of time to offer Pat on Saturday. Since his wife is home with the children during the weekend, he has nobody else to help him out, therefore I have taken it upon myself to be his unofficial employee.
I intended to get up bright and early on Saturday, but I overslept. I needed the sleep, evidently, and that put me way behind my personal schedule, which included purchasing Diet Pepsi at Target and buying birthday cards for two people, including one whose birthday is the same day as mine. When I finally arrived at the convention I had at most an hour to offer Pat, which he was more than grateful for, primarily so he could visit the restroom.
I was late to work on Saturday, but I really didn’t need to be there two hours before my attraction opened, so it was no big deal.
I arrived home at midnight Saturday and sat down to write for a while. I spent far too long writing e-mail and updating my Halloween blog. Sometime after 2 a.m. I started sifting through boxes of my old comic collection, looking for a few things I could add to Pat’s tables on Sunday. He always offers me the chance to do so, and I figure I might as well make $20 for the trouble of being there.
The problem was I spent far too long reminiscing as I sifted through boxes of unorganized comic books. I couldn’t remember why I ever decided to buy some of the stuff I did, forgot I even had some of it and wondered what I should try to unload. I wasn’t bringing a ton of stuff, but I wanted to pick out some odds and ends that had a snowball’s chance of selling.
The next thing you know it’s 5 a.m.
So I go to bed, knowing I want to be at the convention before it opens to the public at 10 a.m.
And miraculously when the alarm sounds at 8:30 a.m. I get up and get moving. I was sure I would instinctively go back to bed and oversleep, but I didn’t.
I had to bypass breakfast at Burger King in order to make it before 10 a.m., so I settled for an aging banana as my lone source of nourishment for the day, unless Diet Pepsi qualifies as nourishment.
Pat and I both spent some time walking around the convention during the day, but we spent a lot of the time at his tables, catching up on all sorts of topics. I’ve known Pat for about 20 years, and whenever we sit down we talk for hours. Despite living about 20 minutes apart, we only sit down once or twice a year.
The convention ended at 5 p.m. Sunday and I was intending to be there until the end, more or less. My friend Monica had offered to get together for dinner on Sunday evening to celebrate the one occasion I ignore for the most part, my birthday. She suggested a St. Paul area restaurant, as that’s a relative midway point between us.
I wasn’t clear what time we had settled upon, so I called her on Sunday afternoon to confirm that we were still on for dinner and at what time. I said I’d like to stay and help Pat load up his stuff, even though he wasn’t expecting it. I asked if we could meet at 6 p.m. instead, and she hesitantly said OK.
Not long after I got a call saying that she couldn’t change our reservation from 5 p.m.
I found it odd that we even needed a reservation for a Sunday evening at this restaurant, let alone we couldn’t change it that late in the afternoon, but I never suspected anything was up.
While I intended to get to the restaurant about 5 p.m., I was a little slow getting my stuff pulled together and out to my car. During my last trip into the convention I stopped at the restroom. As I was leaving the restroom Pat was coming toward me, motioning me toward the door prize table. For about one second I thought he had big news for me.
As we reached the table, he said something like “meet the new owner of this computer.” I don’t remember exactly how he said it, but it was clear he was implying that he was the new owner, not me.
A fancy computer system was donated to the show, and entries into the drawing for it were $1, with the proceeds benefitting a charity. We each bought one chance, and he was the winner. If it wasn’t going to be me, I’m glad it was my friend. But for one second I thought I had a kick ass birthday present.
So I finally depart the convention and head south through St. Paul. I call my friend because I’m running late and I want to make sure she’s there. She is and suggests she’s sitting in the bar getting drunk. I’ll spare the details of the five-minute comedy of errors that resulted in me crossing a bridge twice to get to the restaurant, a bridge I didn’t want to cross once because I was on the right side of the river to begin with!
Once I get to the restaurant at about 5:20 p.m. there’s no sign of my friend at the bar, so I start to wander through the restaurant, looking for a small table with one woman sitting at it. I’m not finding any single diners anywhere, and as I walk past a couple of groups I hear my name called out, much to my surprise.
Monica, it turns out, had contacted a few of my college friends and arranged a dinner get together, which is why we couldn’t wait until 6 p.m. to begin. It was JayHawk, German Bear, Doug (the famous trio from my annual camping trip to Wausau) and their wives. Doug’s two children joined us, but JayHawk’s son stayed behind in western Wisconsin as did German Bear’s four children in suburban St. Cloud.
To say I was shocked was an understatement. I had no clue anything like this was being planned.
The dinner was a rather routine birthday gathering of friends. In this case the friends have all known each other for years, and while we all see each other in some capacity or another, it’s rare when the four of us from college and their three wives are in the same place at the same time.
Monica didn’t go to school with us, but I’ve known her since college, when Doug and I met her. So everyone in attendance knows her, too, although I’m the only one she sees with any sort of regularity. While Doug and I stopped to visit her on the way to Wausau in May, I’m not sure how many years it had been since he had last seen her prior to then.
I was running on fumes by dinner, but that was easily forgotten once I got there. I was overwhelmed by the fact that my friends had gathered on my birthday. I’ve never had any sort of surprise birthday gathering in my life, and I certainly didn’t expect it this year.
I wouldn’t say my life was forever changed as a result of that dinner, but at a co-worker’s wedding on my birthday two years earlier, I made a life-changing decision. Sometimes I wonder why I made that decision. Dinner on Sunday night reminded me why I did.
So how does a guy wrap up a birthday spent with comic book geeks and some of his best friends? He goes home, watches his anemic Chicago Bears pull off an improbable comeback in the second half of their Sunday night football game in Green Bay and then watches “Kissing Jessica Stein,” because nothing says “happy birthday” like a movie about characters dabbling in lesbian love.
Monday, September 24, 2007
The women I love
I had a revelation a couple of weeks ago. It may be time to add a new name to the list, for the first time in six or seven years.
At least I know I’m not dead, yet.
I never planned to make a list, it just happened. I’m not sure who made that list first, but I noticed many years ago that I was drawn to a couple of women in particular, Andie MacDowell and Drew Barrymore.
Sure I was hot for Vanna White back in high school, but perhaps it had something to do with all those letters she was turning. Had her career been as a TV newscaster I probably wouldn’t have been in love with Vanna back in the day. Chances are she wouldn’t have had me tuning into CNN on a regular basis. “Wheel of Fortune” came first, Vanna was a nice bonus.
But when it comes to my list, it doesn’t matter how good or bad the movies or television shows are. All that matters is that it’s another showcase of the women I love.
While I can still kick ass when it comes to solving Wheel of Fortune puzzles, Vanna fell off my radar years ago. But at some point after graduating college I became enamored with Andie and Drew, and that holds true to this day.
They were the first two women I was drawn to for their unrelinquishing sexuality, even when they weren’t playing it up.
Andie and Drew took very different paths to their careers in film, and have projected two very different personas, but I’ve been in love with both of them for years. (And yes, it was a dream come true in 1994 when they co-starred in “Bad Girls,” a lame cowboy flick.)
They’re two of five women that have made the exclusive list over the years. Well, two of four. No. 5 still has her membership pending, and although she’s late to the party, better late than never, I say. This is not a ranking, but rather a chronological recount, starting with No. 1:
I’m not sure when the first time I encountered Andie MacDowell was. It might have been “Groundhog Day,” a movie that cracks me up to this day. (I try to make a point to watch it every Feb. 2.) She wasn’t particularly stunning as a local television producer, but she left a distinct impression upon me, enough that I started making a point to check her out regularly. She mesmerizes me, I can’t explain it and at this point I couldn’t care less why she does.
At one point I’d seen all of her films, “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Green Card,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and even “Hudson Hawk.” At 49, she’s the oldest woman on the list, and as beautiful as ever. She has often been panned for her acting, and while she isn’t a critical darling, she’s not that bad. And recently I learned she has divorced her second husband, so the window of opportunity is open again!
It would be hard to pick between her and No. 2:
When Drew emerged from her drunken teenage years, she played edgy, troubled young women. The kind you wouldn’t want to bring home to meet your parents, but the kind you couldn’t resist, either. She graduated to mainstream flicks and a diverse body of work. She maintains her wild streak, but damn, she cleans up well.
For a few years these two were the only two that held the key to my heart, until along came No. 3:
I can’t explain why, but somehow I was captivated by Joey Lauren Adams when I first saw “Chasing Amy” more than 10 years ago. I had loved “Clerks,” so after suffering through Kevin Smith’s follow up, “Mallrats,” I went to see Chasing Amy the first chance I had in the Twin Cities. (I had been living in Canada at the time.) While Joey was in Mallrats, she had a small part in it, and didn’t really capture my imagination. But in Chasing Amy I was mesmerized. I saw it again at a budget theater and rented it twice before the end of that year. In the years since I’ve probably seen it another 10 or 12 times. (Ironically I still don’t own it in any format.)
I’ve seen almost all of Joey’s movies, some have been big budget mainstream flicks, some have been small, artsy flicks. She’s known for her slightly annoying voice, and it doesn’t bother me a bit.
I can’t explain why she fascinated me so in Chasing Amy. I don’t think I’m attracted to lesbians, although if I am, that could explain No. 4:
Piper Perabo is best known as the young, naive girl who wants to make it big as a songwriter in “Coyote Ugly.” Given that pop music is all about shaking the money maker, you can’t really fault her character’s wet T-shirt exhibitions atop the bar. Even though the movie was lame, it was love at first sight.
She has had a mixed bag of work, much like Joey and Andie. She has appeared in small and supporting roles in a few big budget flicks, such as “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Prestige” and “Because I Said So,” and has a lot of artsy flicks to her credit, many of those with significant roles. And in at least two of them she plays a woman with lesbian tendencies. She’s adorable.
So for several years it has been the four of them. Sure, there are plenty of beautiful women in entertainment, although Angelina Jolie does little for me. She’s not unattractive, but she doesn’t make my heart stop. That’s heard to do, VERY hard to do.
But a couple of weeks ago while watching Letterman he had a guest I vaguely remembered seeing before. She is by far the wackiest, but is vying to be No. 5:
Amy Sedaris, 46, has carved out a niche for herself during the past several years with her offbeat sense of humor and style. The woman is wacky. As I watched her on Letterman recently I was highly entertained by her sharp, eclectic wit. From there she went from being another pretty face to the latest object of my desire.
I’m not very familiar with her work, although I know I’ve run across it a few times. I think her most notable work is the television series “Strangers with Candy,” which spawned a prequel film by the same name last year. I have never seen the series, which ran on Comedy Central, but I know one film on my short list the next time I hit the video store. Somehow I have a feeling there’s going to be some lesbian undertone to the movie, I just know it. (Ironically I was dying for a “Kissing Jessica Stein” fix on my way home from a city council meeting tonight. That’s another DVD I have to finally buy.)
I have no idea what the story is behind the set of Amy photos I posted. When I did a simple Google search of her name, that was one of two images it returned. But let’s be honest, what’s not to love about a woman who rolls around in whip cream and sprinkles for a photo shoot. Can I get an “amen” people?
At least I know I’m not dead, yet.
I never planned to make a list, it just happened. I’m not sure who made that list first, but I noticed many years ago that I was drawn to a couple of women in particular, Andie MacDowell and Drew Barrymore.
Sure I was hot for Vanna White back in high school, but perhaps it had something to do with all those letters she was turning. Had her career been as a TV newscaster I probably wouldn’t have been in love with Vanna back in the day. Chances are she wouldn’t have had me tuning into CNN on a regular basis. “Wheel of Fortune” came first, Vanna was a nice bonus.
But when it comes to my list, it doesn’t matter how good or bad the movies or television shows are. All that matters is that it’s another showcase of the women I love.
While I can still kick ass when it comes to solving Wheel of Fortune puzzles, Vanna fell off my radar years ago. But at some point after graduating college I became enamored with Andie and Drew, and that holds true to this day.
They were the first two women I was drawn to for their unrelinquishing sexuality, even when they weren’t playing it up.
Andie and Drew took very different paths to their careers in film, and have projected two very different personas, but I’ve been in love with both of them for years. (And yes, it was a dream come true in 1994 when they co-starred in “Bad Girls,” a lame cowboy flick.)
They’re two of five women that have made the exclusive list over the years. Well, two of four. No. 5 still has her membership pending, and although she’s late to the party, better late than never, I say. This is not a ranking, but rather a chronological recount, starting with No. 1:
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/MMPH/251443~Andie-Macdowell-Posters.jpg
I’m not sure when the first time I encountered Andie MacDowell was. It might have been “Groundhog Day,” a movie that cracks me up to this day. (I try to make a point to watch it every Feb. 2.) She wasn’t particularly stunning as a local television producer, but she left a distinct impression upon me, enough that I started making a point to check her out regularly. She mesmerizes me, I can’t explain it and at this point I couldn’t care less why she does.
At one point I’d seen all of her films, “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Green Card,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and even “Hudson Hawk.” At 49, she’s the oldest woman on the list, and as beautiful as ever. She has often been panned for her acting, and while she isn’t a critical darling, she’s not that bad. And recently I learned she has divorced her second husband, so the window of opportunity is open again!
It would be hard to pick between her and No. 2:
http://tastefulsociety.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/drew-barrymore-1024x768.jpg
When Drew emerged from her drunken teenage years, she played edgy, troubled young women. The kind you wouldn’t want to bring home to meet your parents, but the kind you couldn’t resist, either. She graduated to mainstream flicks and a diverse body of work. She maintains her wild streak, but damn, she cleans up well.
For a few years these two were the only two that held the key to my heart, until along came No. 3:
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/8835/images/Lookalikes/JoeyLaurenAdams.jpg
I can’t explain why, but somehow I was captivated by Joey Lauren Adams when I first saw “Chasing Amy” more than 10 years ago. I had loved “Clerks,” so after suffering through Kevin Smith’s follow up, “Mallrats,” I went to see Chasing Amy the first chance I had in the Twin Cities. (I had been living in Canada at the time.) While Joey was in Mallrats, she had a small part in it, and didn’t really capture my imagination. But in Chasing Amy I was mesmerized. I saw it again at a budget theater and rented it twice before the end of that year. In the years since I’ve probably seen it another 10 or 12 times. (Ironically I still don’t own it in any format.)
I’ve seen almost all of Joey’s movies, some have been big budget mainstream flicks, some have been small, artsy flicks. She’s known for her slightly annoying voice, and it doesn’t bother me a bit.
I can’t explain why she fascinated me so in Chasing Amy. I don’t think I’m attracted to lesbians, although if I am, that could explain No. 4:
http://www.clubplanet.com/news/blogpics/piper%20perabo.jpg
Piper Perabo is best known as the young, naive girl who wants to make it big as a songwriter in “Coyote Ugly.” Given that pop music is all about shaking the money maker, you can’t really fault her character’s wet T-shirt exhibitions atop the bar. Even though the movie was lame, it was love at first sight.
She has had a mixed bag of work, much like Joey and Andie. She has appeared in small and supporting roles in a few big budget flicks, such as “Cheaper by the Dozen,” “The Prestige” and “Because I Said So,” and has a lot of artsy flicks to her credit, many of those with significant roles. And in at least two of them she plays a woman with lesbian tendencies. She’s adorable.
So for several years it has been the four of them. Sure, there are plenty of beautiful women in entertainment, although Angelina Jolie does little for me. She’s not unattractive, but she doesn’t make my heart stop. That’s heard to do, VERY hard to do.
But a couple of weeks ago while watching Letterman he had a guest I vaguely remembered seeing before. She is by far the wackiest, but is vying to be No. 5:
http://www.amysedarisrocks.com/images/interview/ilikeyou-interview.jpg
Amy Sedaris, 46, has carved out a niche for herself during the past several years with her offbeat sense of humor and style. The woman is wacky. As I watched her on Letterman recently I was highly entertained by her sharp, eclectic wit. From there she went from being another pretty face to the latest object of my desire.
I’m not very familiar with her work, although I know I’ve run across it a few times. I think her most notable work is the television series “Strangers with Candy,” which spawned a prequel film by the same name last year. I have never seen the series, which ran on Comedy Central, but I know one film on my short list the next time I hit the video store. Somehow I have a feeling there’s going to be some lesbian undertone to the movie, I just know it. (Ironically I was dying for a “Kissing Jessica Stein” fix on my way home from a city council meeting tonight. That’s another DVD I have to finally buy.)
I have no idea what the story is behind the set of Amy photos I posted. When I did a simple Google search of her name, that was one of two images it returned. But let’s be honest, what’s not to love about a woman who rolls around in whip cream and sprinkles for a photo shoot. Can I get an “amen” people?
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Screamtown, baby! (unedited)
I stumbled onto a nice surprise this weekend, Screamtown!
I’m not sure why, but I was attracted to the thrills of a haunted house at a young age. I have been to many haunted houses and mazes over the years. If Halloween passes and I haven’t been to a haunted attraction I feel like I cheated myself out of the enjoyment of an otherwise silly day on the calendar.
While I don’t spend all my weekend every October going to a haunted attraction, I’ve been to enough of them over the past 10-plus years and watched the development of many of them to be a quasi-historian on the subject.
For the past several years I have attended such attractions primarily with two people, my nephew and “The Chief.” Chief is a youngster I was matched with about 10 years ago through the Big Brothers program, and for several years we hit up the biggest attractions in the metro. In the past few years that role has been filled primarily by my nephew.
Haunted attractions tend to have a limited life span, for whatever reason. In its early years the Mall of America had one of the best haunted houses I have ever been to. I loved it and it was seemed to do good business. I’m not sure why it went by the wayside after a few years, but it did.
The first haunted attraction to raise the bar in the metro, to the best of my knowledge, was Spooky World. It started in the mid-1990s, originally at Murphy’s Landing, a site best known for its historic preservation of old buildings, and later at Canterbury Park, a site best known for horse racing and poker.
Spooky World seemed to be the first to serve up a combo platter. There were a couple of prominent haunted hay rides around the metro and a variety of haunted houses, some with mass marketing, others that seemed to stick to entertaining the local crowds. Spooky World put the two together and threw in a bunch of miscellaneous crap to sell itself as the best of both worlds. I think it worked.
I did go to it in its earliest incarnation at Murphy’s Landing, although I don’t remember a lot about it. There was a hay ride and there was at least one haunted maze, and perhaps two. By the time it moved to Canterbury it was featuring the hay ride and three or four haunted mazes, as well as the miscellaneous crap. I went to it a couple of times at Canterbury, thanks largely to media comps.
Spooky World’s proprietor was self-employed, evidently, and when he took a full-time job a few years ago he apparently couldn’t sell the enterprise, as he sold off the props and costumes, bringing Spooky World to a close.
But by that point every haunted hay ride still in existence was offering a haunted house as part of its package, or vice versa. The Trail of Terror, operated by the same huckster(s) that run the big Renaissance Festival each fall, added a hay ride to their package somewhere along the line. The Trail of Terror was already mass marketed, but the proprietor(s) ratcheted it up a bit, positioning their operation as the successor to Spooky World.
The Trail of Terror seems to be a big success. I get media comps to it each year, so I’ve been there for at least the past three or four years. It’s not bad, but it’s not that spectacular, no matter how much they talk it up in their advertising. And you can spend two hours waiting for a hay ride on a busy weekend, a hay ride that’s well done, but not worth two hours of your time.
So I’ve soured on the Trail a bit in recent years. Last year a new player entered the market. Our major amusement park, Valleyfair, decided to offer its own combo platter, haunted mazes and amusement rides. It’s the most expensive haunted attraction in the metro, but worth it if riding roller coasters in 50 F weather is appealing. I took my nephew to it on a Sunday afternoon last year (and then the Trail that night) and it was cloudy and 44 F in the afternoon. Not ideal conditions for a ride on the Wild Thing roller coaster.
I think Valleyfair’s mazes are well done, and I don’t say that because I worked there last year. (I had for years thought it would be a blast to work at a haunted attraction, and last year I added that to my life experiences. I enjoyed it so much I’m going back for another season this October.)
The mazes are well done, but again, you have to want to pay for the privilege of rides, too.
With the Trail of Terror and Valleyfair’s ValleyScare in the south metro, not that many miles apart, it wouldn’t seem like there’s room for yet another combo platter in the vicinity. But this weekend I learned I was wrong.
There are a few websites dedicated to listing haunted attractions by state. Some have more listings than others and some are better organized than others. I don’t have a favorite, but horrorfind.com and haunt.org are two of several that offer such a service. Getting excited for the upcoming Halloween season I decided to peruse one of them. And what do I find? Screamtown!
Screamtown will operate at Canterbury park, a mile or so from ValleyScare. Property outside the track has been the site of a popular corn maze for more than a decade, and that appears to be the locale for Screamtown.
Screamtown doesn’t have a hay ride, but the same corn maze will become the “Nightmare Corn Maze,” as best as I can tell. There are also three other haunted attractions, “Circus Vampire,” “Haunted Chambers” and “The Carver Mansion.” These seem to be indoor attractions although there aren’t permanent indoor structures near the corn maze, so it’s unclear as to exactly how substantial each of these are.
My first instinct it to pencil in a date to visit the newest attraction in the metro. Screamtown is getting the jump on most, if not all, haunted attractions by opening this weekend. Typically haunted attractions are open for four weekends in October, at most. Screamtown will be open for five weekends this season, although its only Sunday night will be Oct. 28.
My ValleyScare schedule will keep me booked on Friday and Saturday evenings in October, so that limits my options quite a bit.
I will be up north this weekend, bicycling my ass off I hope, so I cannot make it to Screamtown this weekend. It looks like I will have four chances to visit it. One Wednesday and Thursday night during the week of the big education convention that turns kids loose every mid-October, the Thursday night before Halloween and the final Sunday of October.
So there are two nights that are particularly appealing out of the four. While that should be enough of a window of opportunity, I’m not sure I’ll make it. The Chief is now a high school graduate, so he’s too busy to meet up with me more than once a year, and my nephew lives too far up north to be convenient, as I proved last year. Both my available nights are school nights for him, so I have to write him off.
Most of my friends are married with children and have never struck me as highly interested in visiting a haunted house. And their kids are too young for these sorts of things, so it’s too early for me to start borrowing them for a night of haunted fun. Perhaps in a few years.
So perhaps I’ll have to rely upon the reviews of others this year to learn how good or bad Screamtown is since I may be tapped out of resources for exploring the latest haunted destination in the Twin Cities. If that’s the case, is this the end of an era, a sign that yet another chapter in life is coming to a close? Or do I just like to assign significance to silly circumstances in my life?
I’m not sure why, but I was attracted to the thrills of a haunted house at a young age. I have been to many haunted houses and mazes over the years. If Halloween passes and I haven’t been to a haunted attraction I feel like I cheated myself out of the enjoyment of an otherwise silly day on the calendar.
While I don’t spend all my weekend every October going to a haunted attraction, I’ve been to enough of them over the past 10-plus years and watched the development of many of them to be a quasi-historian on the subject.
For the past several years I have attended such attractions primarily with two people, my nephew and “The Chief.” Chief is a youngster I was matched with about 10 years ago through the Big Brothers program, and for several years we hit up the biggest attractions in the metro. In the past few years that role has been filled primarily by my nephew.
Haunted attractions tend to have a limited life span, for whatever reason. In its early years the Mall of America had one of the best haunted houses I have ever been to. I loved it and it was seemed to do good business. I’m not sure why it went by the wayside after a few years, but it did.
The first haunted attraction to raise the bar in the metro, to the best of my knowledge, was Spooky World. It started in the mid-1990s, originally at Murphy’s Landing, a site best known for its historic preservation of old buildings, and later at Canterbury Park, a site best known for horse racing and poker.
Spooky World seemed to be the first to serve up a combo platter. There were a couple of prominent haunted hay rides around the metro and a variety of haunted houses, some with mass marketing, others that seemed to stick to entertaining the local crowds. Spooky World put the two together and threw in a bunch of miscellaneous crap to sell itself as the best of both worlds. I think it worked.
I did go to it in its earliest incarnation at Murphy’s Landing, although I don’t remember a lot about it. There was a hay ride and there was at least one haunted maze, and perhaps two. By the time it moved to Canterbury it was featuring the hay ride and three or four haunted mazes, as well as the miscellaneous crap. I went to it a couple of times at Canterbury, thanks largely to media comps.
Spooky World’s proprietor was self-employed, evidently, and when he took a full-time job a few years ago he apparently couldn’t sell the enterprise, as he sold off the props and costumes, bringing Spooky World to a close.
But by that point every haunted hay ride still in existence was offering a haunted house as part of its package, or vice versa. The Trail of Terror, operated by the same huckster(s) that run the big Renaissance Festival each fall, added a hay ride to their package somewhere along the line. The Trail of Terror was already mass marketed, but the proprietor(s) ratcheted it up a bit, positioning their operation as the successor to Spooky World.
The Trail of Terror seems to be a big success. I get media comps to it each year, so I’ve been there for at least the past three or four years. It’s not bad, but it’s not that spectacular, no matter how much they talk it up in their advertising. And you can spend two hours waiting for a hay ride on a busy weekend, a hay ride that’s well done, but not worth two hours of your time.
So I’ve soured on the Trail a bit in recent years. Last year a new player entered the market. Our major amusement park, Valleyfair, decided to offer its own combo platter, haunted mazes and amusement rides. It’s the most expensive haunted attraction in the metro, but worth it if riding roller coasters in 50 F weather is appealing. I took my nephew to it on a Sunday afternoon last year (and then the Trail that night) and it was cloudy and 44 F in the afternoon. Not ideal conditions for a ride on the Wild Thing roller coaster.
I think Valleyfair’s mazes are well done, and I don’t say that because I worked there last year. (I had for years thought it would be a blast to work at a haunted attraction, and last year I added that to my life experiences. I enjoyed it so much I’m going back for another season this October.)
The mazes are well done, but again, you have to want to pay for the privilege of rides, too.
With the Trail of Terror and Valleyfair’s ValleyScare in the south metro, not that many miles apart, it wouldn’t seem like there’s room for yet another combo platter in the vicinity. But this weekend I learned I was wrong.
There are a few websites dedicated to listing haunted attractions by state. Some have more listings than others and some are better organized than others. I don’t have a favorite, but horrorfind.com and haunt.org are two of several that offer such a service. Getting excited for the upcoming Halloween season I decided to peruse one of them. And what do I find? Screamtown!
Screamtown will operate at Canterbury park, a mile or so from ValleyScare. Property outside the track has been the site of a popular corn maze for more than a decade, and that appears to be the locale for Screamtown.
Screamtown doesn’t have a hay ride, but the same corn maze will become the “Nightmare Corn Maze,” as best as I can tell. There are also three other haunted attractions, “Circus Vampire,” “Haunted Chambers” and “The Carver Mansion.” These seem to be indoor attractions although there aren’t permanent indoor structures near the corn maze, so it’s unclear as to exactly how substantial each of these are.
My first instinct it to pencil in a date to visit the newest attraction in the metro. Screamtown is getting the jump on most, if not all, haunted attractions by opening this weekend. Typically haunted attractions are open for four weekends in October, at most. Screamtown will be open for five weekends this season, although its only Sunday night will be Oct. 28.
My ValleyScare schedule will keep me booked on Friday and Saturday evenings in October, so that limits my options quite a bit.
I will be up north this weekend, bicycling my ass off I hope, so I cannot make it to Screamtown this weekend. It looks like I will have four chances to visit it. One Wednesday and Thursday night during the week of the big education convention that turns kids loose every mid-October, the Thursday night before Halloween and the final Sunday of October.
So there are two nights that are particularly appealing out of the four. While that should be enough of a window of opportunity, I’m not sure I’ll make it. The Chief is now a high school graduate, so he’s too busy to meet up with me more than once a year, and my nephew lives too far up north to be convenient, as I proved last year. Both my available nights are school nights for him, so I have to write him off.
Most of my friends are married with children and have never struck me as highly interested in visiting a haunted house. And their kids are too young for these sorts of things, so it’s too early for me to start borrowing them for a night of haunted fun. Perhaps in a few years.
So perhaps I’ll have to rely upon the reviews of others this year to learn how good or bad Screamtown is since I may be tapped out of resources for exploring the latest haunted destination in the Twin Cities. If that’s the case, is this the end of an era, a sign that yet another chapter in life is coming to a close? Or do I just like to assign significance to silly circumstances in my life?
Thursday, September 20, 2007
My disease (unedited)
Heredity is tough to beat.
I have inherited characteristics of both of my parents, and I’d like to think the fact I’m not the least bit bald is because my grandfather had a decent head of hair into his 70s. (Baldness skips a generation and is influenced by your mother’s side of the family, allegedly. True or not, I’ll buy into it.)
I inherited one of my mother’s traits that I cannot shake, and I doubt I ever will.
I love coupons.
It pains me to shop without them, and while I’m not obsessed with using them, it warms my heart when I do.
I collect coupons for restaurants near the office and periodically patronize those places. My co-workers, who must make a lot more money than me, act as if going to the same place twice in two weeks is some sort of dining faux pas. Rush never tires of making some lame coupon quip whenever we talk about going somewhere to eat, but I never here him complain when I split the cost of a meal with him using a coupon and it costs him less than $5 for lunch.
While I don’t buy five copies of the Sunday paper each week, I will clip coupons from it each week. I also pull off several of the in-store adhesive coupons that are directly on packages if I’ll use them down the road. Tonight at Target there were “save $1.50 now” coupons on 12-packs of Sierra Mist and Sierra Mist Free. I don’t buy Sierra Mist Free very often, I need my Diet Pepsi fix most of the time, but I grabbed six coupons off of the packages for future use.
So why was I shopping at Target? I don’t buy a lot of groceries there, even though research shows Super Target stores are as competitive as the local grocery chains. The biggest reason I shop at Target: printable coupons.
Target has printable coupons on its website, evidently, and while there aren’t tons of them offering huge savings, there are a few gems. I buy small bottles of mustard for 9 cents, (many of which are donated to the local food shelf, occasional meat and cheese products for a great price if they’re on sale and Pepsi products for less than $2 a 12-pack, typically, when I use the $1 off a 12-pack coupon for each one.
Printing the coupons is easy, because people transfer the coupon image to their own websites and create coupon generators, a template that prints out any denomination of desired coupons quickly and easily.
I learn about some of these great deals through websites such as fatwallet.com, online forums where people discuss online and retail deals around the country. Many of those folks are hardcore. I look like an amateur in comparison to the hoops some folks jump through to get things for free, or even make a profit after a rebate. I haven’t graduated to that level, and I don’t think I ever will.
If only there were coupons for beer.
Speed round:
• My weekend bike ride in northern Minnesota was canceled, which is unfortunate, as Saturday would have been a great day to bike 100 miles.
• I love the book I’m reading, “Breaking Vegas.”
• I watched one movie the entire summer, “Super Bad.”
• Future blog topic: the women I love.
• Two years ago I went to a Halloween party. My costume was a hybrid of Gene and Richard Simmons. There’s a picture somewhere. Since I'm not smart enough to figure out how to post it here, (I don't think my ancient computer will let me,) all I can do is post a link. Look here, Chachi!
I have inherited characteristics of both of my parents, and I’d like to think the fact I’m not the least bit bald is because my grandfather had a decent head of hair into his 70s. (Baldness skips a generation and is influenced by your mother’s side of the family, allegedly. True or not, I’ll buy into it.)
I inherited one of my mother’s traits that I cannot shake, and I doubt I ever will.
I love coupons.
It pains me to shop without them, and while I’m not obsessed with using them, it warms my heart when I do.
I collect coupons for restaurants near the office and periodically patronize those places. My co-workers, who must make a lot more money than me, act as if going to the same place twice in two weeks is some sort of dining faux pas. Rush never tires of making some lame coupon quip whenever we talk about going somewhere to eat, but I never here him complain when I split the cost of a meal with him using a coupon and it costs him less than $5 for lunch.
While I don’t buy five copies of the Sunday paper each week, I will clip coupons from it each week. I also pull off several of the in-store adhesive coupons that are directly on packages if I’ll use them down the road. Tonight at Target there were “save $1.50 now” coupons on 12-packs of Sierra Mist and Sierra Mist Free. I don’t buy Sierra Mist Free very often, I need my Diet Pepsi fix most of the time, but I grabbed six coupons off of the packages for future use.
So why was I shopping at Target? I don’t buy a lot of groceries there, even though research shows Super Target stores are as competitive as the local grocery chains. The biggest reason I shop at Target: printable coupons.
Target has printable coupons on its website, evidently, and while there aren’t tons of them offering huge savings, there are a few gems. I buy small bottles of mustard for 9 cents, (many of which are donated to the local food shelf, occasional meat and cheese products for a great price if they’re on sale and Pepsi products for less than $2 a 12-pack, typically, when I use the $1 off a 12-pack coupon for each one.
Printing the coupons is easy, because people transfer the coupon image to their own websites and create coupon generators, a template that prints out any denomination of desired coupons quickly and easily.
I learn about some of these great deals through websites such as fatwallet.com, online forums where people discuss online and retail deals around the country. Many of those folks are hardcore. I look like an amateur in comparison to the hoops some folks jump through to get things for free, or even make a profit after a rebate. I haven’t graduated to that level, and I don’t think I ever will.
If only there were coupons for beer.
Speed round:
• My weekend bike ride in northern Minnesota was canceled, which is unfortunate, as Saturday would have been a great day to bike 100 miles.
• I love the book I’m reading, “Breaking Vegas.”
• I watched one movie the entire summer, “Super Bad.”
• Future blog topic: the women I love.
• Two years ago I went to a Halloween party. My costume was a hybrid of Gene and Richard Simmons. There’s a picture somewhere. Since I'm not smart enough to figure out how to post it here, (I don't think my ancient computer will let me,) all I can do is post a link. Look here, Chachi!
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
When you can't come up with a fresh, new and exciting idea, it's better to cut your losses
There are several things I would like to sit down and write about, but instead let’s play “Jeopardy!”
Miller Park for $200
Following my third tour of Stinktown’s Lakefront Brewery, it was the final score of Friday night’s Brewers/Cincinnati Reds game that Stinktown lost on Robin Yount bobblehead night at Miller Park.
What is 6-5 Cincinnati?
U.S. Cellular Field for $200
After a cameo at the Bay View Bash, it was the final score of Saturday night’s White Sox/Anaheim Angels game that Chicago lost at the former Comiskey Park.
What is 2-1 Angels?
U.S. Cellular Field for $400
The going rate for parking several blocks from the ballpark.
What is $20?
U.S. Cellular Field for $600
The cost of a leftover 2005 World Series championship shirt (XL) at my favorite team’s stadium.
What is $5?
Headwaters 100 for $200
The annual Headwaters 100 bike ride I will participate in on Saturday begins and ends in this U.S. city.
What is Park Rapids, Minn.?
Good ideas that don’t pan out for $200
A failed attempt at random recaps from the Fonz’s life.
What is this blog?
Miller Park for $200
Following my third tour of Stinktown’s Lakefront Brewery, it was the final score of Friday night’s Brewers/Cincinnati Reds game that Stinktown lost on Robin Yount bobblehead night at Miller Park.
What is 6-5 Cincinnati?
U.S. Cellular Field for $200
After a cameo at the Bay View Bash, it was the final score of Saturday night’s White Sox/Anaheim Angels game that Chicago lost at the former Comiskey Park.
What is 2-1 Angels?
U.S. Cellular Field for $400
The going rate for parking several blocks from the ballpark.
What is $20?
U.S. Cellular Field for $600
The cost of a leftover 2005 World Series championship shirt (XL) at my favorite team’s stadium.
What is $5?
Headwaters 100 for $200
The annual Headwaters 100 bike ride I will participate in on Saturday begins and ends in this U.S. city.
What is Park Rapids, Minn.?
Good ideas that don’t pan out for $200
A failed attempt at random recaps from the Fonz’s life.
What is this blog?
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