Wyszdom

Bad: Getting arrested.
Worse: Getting arrested on an episode of COPS.
Even worse: Having your clip chosen for the theme song sequence shown before every episode.

The next time I have some extra cash, instead of upgrading to a larger TV, I think I’ll just put all the money towards extra remote controls. I can then scatter them throughout my apartment, so I’ll never again have to experience that moment where after getting settled on the couch, I realize that the remote is sitting on the kitchen table.

I went to a midnight screening of Up tonight in 3D. Don’t worry, I won’t post any (major) spoilers; I should probably be getting to bed anyway. A few quick thoughts:

• It’s a good movie, and this was expected. Pixar doesn’t make bad films. It has a good story and Pixar-level humor.
• Yes, there’s a new short before the feature, and it got a lot of laughs.
• I honestly could have done without the 3D. Some fast-motion segments just seemed blurry, and the perspective often felt a bit off. Fortunately there weren’t many gratuitous 3D show-off shots, so it will look fine on any screen. I look forward to seeing it again in full 2D clarity.
• Yep, John Ratzenberger has a part. A quote from Cars: “They’re just using the same actor for every movie! What kind of cut-rate production is this?”
• I need to find a snooty theater around here so I don’t have to listen to stupid comments about how every preview is lame.
• Garrett Popcorn is good. (Thanks, Ai!) And it looks like their webmaster heard that bold text is the secret key to number one rankings for any key phrase.
• Favorite quote from Ai: “Did you tweet?”

I’m not sure if it was the Memorial Day Parade, but this report (which I came across on my Twitter saved search for [Doylestown]), triggered one of my favorite memories. My family was driving through the town one day, and we had some trouble getting to our destination because a bunch of the streets were blocked off for an unknown event. Finally, we were able to turn onto an unblocked street in the right direction, but when we reached the next intersection, just as we stopped at the stop sign, a full-blown marching band came marching by right in front of us, and we had to sit and wait for it to pass. Obviously they had neglected to close all of the applicable intersections (or perhaps the band had made a wrong turn). I thought it was hilarious, because it felt like a scene from a movie. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a scene in some movie where a car chase or other event is interrupted by an unexpected marching band.

Today really felt like summer, reaching 91° in the afternoon. I ate lunch outside on my balcony, and extended my bike ride. I used to eat outside on nice days at home, and as I got close to the bay on my bike, I was reminded of summer bike rides in South Carolina.

I’ve been thinking about two other summer memories this past week, both about small-town eateries:

Frosty’s Dairy Bar
Located in Bristol, New Hampshire, this is a great spot to hit for some ice cream after a day of waterskiing on Newfound Lake.

Dilly’s Corner
Just minutes from my parents’ house in Pennsylvania, I spent many summer nights eating an order of “Chicken & Chips” (chips as in fries) before finishing the meal with some ice cream. There’s a nice write up of the ordering process and a great shot of the menu on HollyEats.com.

I hope to return to these places soon. It’s been a while.

Not only am I now biking on the weekends, I’m tracking my journey using My Tracks. I recently decided to give Android a try for a week, and I’ve been trying out some things that I can’t do on my iPhone, like run background applications. Since whenever I mention that I’ve started riding my bike people ask how far I ride (and I never know the answer), I figured My Tracks could help me out. It turns out that the one-way trip between Google and my apartment is about 3.7 miles. I didn’t go all the way to the building today because of concert traffic, but at least now I have an answer.

I don’t think anybody else has realized it yet, but last night’s episode of The Office is about to happen in our office. I’m pretty excited.

[Sorry for the short post. Twitter is down.]

Last night, I went to a performance by B.J. Novak, a writer for The Office who is perhaps now best known as playing Ryan on the same show.

After his stand-up routine, he started taking questions from the audience, and said he’d be happy to talk about The Office. I couldn’t think of any questions at the time (I was running on no sleep), but when I got back to my apartment, I remembered something that I’ve often wondered. This is what I’ll have to ask B.J. the next time I see him:

The Office is shot as a documentary. Do you think the characters watch it?

If the documentary is a TV series, I’d guess that at least some of them do watch it, and that Michael tunes in for every episode to evaluate how entertaining he is. If it’s a single film, they’ll probably all go to the premiere, and then have an extraordinarily awkward day at work, if they ever see each other again.

Bergy was playing Brain Age and sent me this picture:

The computer’s response was: ”Focus on the good looks.”

Inspired by my sister and cousin, I’m a big fan of “your face” jokes. As in, “Do you know what else is a joke? Your face.”

Anyone on NPR

NPR is pretty much the scariest thing ever. You almost never see it coming. You can know someone (or think you know someone), until you get in their car for the first time. Just after you close the door and the driver starts to back out, it hits you. They’re listening to NPR. You instinctively reach for the door handle, but it’s too late. You’re already on the move, and if you bailed out now, you’d just look weird.

No matter what they’re talking about on the air, it’s immediately something I have zero interest in, because I simply don’t like the way they speak. I’m not going to try to describe it, but I don’t like it.

I once had to take a shuttle from Telluride, Colorado to Grand Junction, because my flight out of Telluride was cancelled. It’s a journey of over three hours. When the driver opened up the door, there was some country music playing. I looked at my mom before I got in and we both kind of rolled our eyes at the music, but hey, it’s Colorado. If you don’t like cowboys, don’t visit. I’m glad we drove off before she could hear what I was really listening to, because no mother should have to see her son be subjected to what I would soon experience. I wasn’t in for three hours of country music. No, that music was the short intro to an NPR segment. A segment which I heard multiple times on my journey to the airport. Ever watch one of those 24 hour news channels and notice that they don’t really have 24 hours of content and instead run a loop of about 20-something minutes? NPR does that too.

And what is it with those musical intros? Often, they’re actually pretty good and unusual, and I incorrectly assume that my driver simply has good taste in music. Pretty cruel trick. And the other thing… how is it that these listeners always turn on their cars at the beginning of a segment, when the music is playing? You would think that such timing would be unlikely, considering the relative length of the intro compared to the spoken content. Is NPR an on-demand service using radio technology I’m not yet aware of? Are these people playing CDs of NPR just to mess with me? I don’t know, but I want it to stop.

The narrator from Desperate Housewives

If you ever want to see me go into a panic, hide my remote, turn my TV’s volume up, and change the channel to ABC when it’s showing an episode of Desperate Housewives.

Once I hear that voice my heart starts racing. I’ll sit up on my couch and take in a huge breath, like one does after waking from a nightmare. This always seems to happen when I’ve dozed off for a bit on a Sunday night, and of course I’ve left the remote somewhere inconvenient like in the kitchen or right in front of the TV itself. All I can think of is getting the TV turned off, muted, or on a different channel as soon as possible. I don’t mean to offend the actress; I just don’t like the sound of her character.

Macy Gray

I didn’t plan on including musicians when I started writing this post, but they popped into my head. I don’t know if she has other songs, but I remember when “I Try” became popular and it would play on the radio when I wasn’t in control. I didn’t like it.

John Mayer

This guy’s pretty popular so I’m sure there are some songs of his that I like, but I recently heard him sing “Free Fallin’” on the radio and it really bugged me. If you’re a big time musician doing a cover of a song, shouldn’t the idea be to make it as good as or better than the original? This guy took a rock song and sang it in a boring “just me and my guitar” way, probably wearing sandals and a hemp necklace.