trouble...

i got a shirt from these cats at nordstrom rack and found an evil 25% off coupon code for their website. move forward with caution:
http://www.desteenation.com

25% off coupon code: shirtsonsale

What the--???

Davey and I were watching hoops on TNT tonight and they kept running ads for "cable's number 1 sitcom of all time".

Seinfeld? The Simpsons? Three's Company? Nope... Tyler Perry's Load of Crap.

Really, TNT? Where's the evidence?
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

sweet, rich breakfast redemption

so after yesterday's debacle with the casserole item, this morning was a very tasty baileys/kahlua french toast smothered in pears & blueberries with a few maple sausage balls covered in pecans and nutmeg. this. was. awesome.

again though, being that this wasn't a simple breakfast, one of the people staying there didn't eat it. i thought it was really really great and was captian cleanplate, but i felt for my comerade.

2nd B in the b&b

we got up this morning and were both soooo hungry. i think it was due to just having a sausage at oktoberfest last night for dinner but whatever. thing was, after bringing us some delicious yogurt fruit parfait, we were then served the poopoo platter.

it was an egg casserole type dish (not much egg), heavy on the onion, black beans, corn, red peppers- blehhh. devoured the crap because i was raging hungry but paid the price the rest of the morning.

word to you b&b folk.. keep it simple. how hard is it to mix up friggin krusteaz, drop some bacon, slam some eggs together, and pour some coffee and juice? don't get cute, mkay? KEEP IT SIMPLE.

plus, they went on to explain that this dish was one they used to "serve at the gospel mission". erm.. last i checked, we're dropping a couple-few c's on you for the stay. let's do breakfast right!

value

there was a little facebook status thread that happened this week that, when tagteamed with "beverly hills chihuaha" being a #1 movie with $29 million, got me thinking.

yes, the discussion we'd had joked at how people say they need free health care out of one side of their mouth then rush to buy hummers, escalades, iphones, data plans, and gaming consoles out of the other side of their mouth.

then i started thinking about what empirical evidence i could give to this thought. ok, what about movies. so i did some digging and here's what i came away with:

Top 20 Movies of 10/3-10/5 Weekend
1. Beverly Hills Chihuahua
$29,300,465
2. Eagle Eye
$17,709,817
3. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
$11,311,751
4. Nights in Rodanthe
$7,368,259
5. Appaloosa
$5,050,310
6. Lakeview Terrace
$4,561,227
7. Burn After Reading
$4,120,129
8. Fireproof
$3,987,509
9. American Carol
$3,656,000
10. Religulous
$3,409,643
11. Flash of Genius
$2,251,075
12. Blindness
$1,950,260
13. Igor
$1,739,078
14. Miracle at St. Anna
$1,736,302
15. Righteous Kill
$1,609,959
16. Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys
$1,589,086
17. My Best Friend's Girl
$1,563,164
18. Ghost Town
$1,469,919
19. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People
$1,430,294
20. The Duchess
$893,990

13 of these top 20 movies had a 50% or lower rating on rotten tomatoes-- meaning 1 out of 2 people saying they don't have the money are paying said money to see a flaming turd movie anyway. this is not counting concessions, people. the total amount dropped at the box office was....... one-hundred six million, six-hundred fifty-three thousand PLUS dollars. in one weekend. but health care is too expensive.

something to chew on.

so, umm....

saw this story on 'pardon the interruption' today... the men's basketball team from spain took a picture "slanting their eyes" to joke about china. its kind of been a story but, as jason kidd said:

"We would’ve been already thrown out of the Olympics. At least, we wouldn’t have been able to come back to the U.S. There would be suspensions."

concerning the european NBA players, kidd said, "They won’t do anything to them. It’s a double standard.”

not sure if everyone saw this nonsense - figured i'd put it out too:)

all that said...

i still dvr'ed the u.s.a./china men's hoops today. there's one minute left in the 1st half but we've opened up a 13 point lead. i think i just got suckered into watching this because the pregame interviews from the us players sounded like this was going to be a tough game.

its clear, as the u.s. players come in waves off the bench, that the chinese team is wearing down and is farrrrr less talented than the u.s. second half won't be pretty.

ohbytheway

i mentioned in my previous post there were just seven women in the ONE HUNDRED person committee, so... WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE???

shouldn't an independent worldwide committee be held to the high standards we constantly hear barking about? why doesn't anyone make an issue out of this?

wake up

so apparently the money shouldn't have been enough to have us decide to hold the games over there... we have our first murder on the board:
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer08/news/story?id=3526793

the olympics

the Olympics are awful. i realized today though that there are plenty of people who have the wool pulled over their eyes.

in chatting up a couple of guys at work about the Olympics and the scandals that had gone on with bids to host them, i was asked if i "had any other conspiracies".

i'll get into the allegations and such in a second but i'll just start with the facts:

• NBC paid $2 billion for the TV rights through 2012
• China is spending $40 billion to improve for the Olympics
• an estimated $6 billion will be spent on advertising in connection with the Olympics- 12 different companies paid $80 million each for ad rights during the Olympics
• most "amateur" Olympic athletes don't get paid but some countries pay the medalling ones.

with china's long history of abuse of human rights, why would the interrnational olympic committee "reward" them with all of this attention? the IOC says it's because china has played a meaningful role in the games. if it weren't for the long history of bribe scandals with the IOC and those deciding who gets to host the games, i'd more readily accept that just for argument's sake.

here is a portion of an article from one of those issues (full article here):

so, there's plenty of money in the pot here... there are hundreds, if not thousands, of unpaid athletes, and there are corrupt governments who shell out millions to step out and put on a show like all is well. oh and we're not innocent here either- the US atheltes, even if they wanted to protest or make any sort of statement, have to sign a waiver saying they won't or they can't compete.

the olympics was something we were always told was this wholesome, amateur competition of goodness, when its actually a seedy big-business exploitation. let's just have it every dozen years instead of every 4 :-)

worth it

so so glad that, when deciding on a propane "tabletop" bbq, we got the stainless steel grill- it had been sitting in a storage space for like a year and had crusty caked barbecue sauce all over its innards. well, i took care of that today! and thanks to jenny's idea to break it back in tonight, we had some real yummy burgers and corn on the cob!! hello grill and let's hope for a longer summer:)

yeesh

so its been a bit since i blogged last. well, i reckon i'll throw out a larry king/usa today style "dot..dot..dot" post here...

i almost returned to my old office, but it just didn't work out - i've learned that i'm quite happy where i am... i tried kimmel for a while on the dvr but have switched back to letterman this week- i'm much happier with dave... the mariners seem to be jinxed... goodbye sonics:(... screw that clay bennett loser... really enjoyed the new batman flick, just 22 minutes too long or so... seeing the brad-man has really been great, i miss those friends from the late 90's... my wife is really really loving and patient with me. and beautiful... its been just under a year since we went to new york- it was such a nice place to visit... i truly hope some of those aforementioned close friends decide to move here to seattle... i'm excited about our new team at work and the work we've yet to do to make some change and get some things straightened out... i'm so glad jenny's on to these 8 hour shifts- the 12's were starting to wear on her... alan kalter's celebrity interviews on letterman are classic... looking forward to seeing 'stepbrothers' and 'pineapple express'... hoping there'll be an 'anchorman 2'... got the trillian client today and am using that from the laptop now:)... i'm geeked to use the new wordscraper app on facebook since scrabble has a bug up their bum!

alrighty, time to go wrap up the bbq cleanup overhaul.

finals, game 3 diary

in the spirit of one of my favorite columnists, bill simmons, i'm keeping a running diary of game 3 of the celtics/lakers game. i'm starting late as i am watching on tivo to skip through commercials:)

end of the 1st qtr- there's sam cassell... where's eddie house?
early 2nd qtr- jordan farmar and pj brown start a little tussle. is farmar serious, or is he truly not realizing pj brown would seriously reformat his hard drive?
10:00 2nd qtr- does KG think he's 6'4"?
8:10 2nd qtr- watching ray-ray drive and shoot pullup j's always reminds me of his belief in the "tension & flow between 2 players" thing he philosophizes about. i've read things about his views of basketball and
7:00 2nd qtr- seriously, is ronny turiaf scaring KG off the block?
random 2nd qtr- where's eddie house?
4:30 2nd qtr- how come posey isn't letting it fly? this guy was key in the heat's championship and all the 3's he drained for them.
3:00 2nd qtr- please don't ever show sly stallone again in hd. or at least warn us so we can swap over to the standard cable channel.
2:04 2nd qtr- "he knows how to motivate his players, mike". well michelle, if doc rivers knew how to *coach* his players or rotate them, perhaps they'd be ahead right now.
random 2nd qtr- where's eddie house?
6.3 seconds, 2nd qtr- EDDIE HOUSE! EDDIE HOUSE! EDDIE HOUSE!
somewhere this quarter too i saw kobe talking to pau gasol in what appeared to be spanish. other than envisioning ron burgundy coming back with "you know i don't speak spanish", it makes me wonder if he addresses all the foreign teammates in their respective languages? are he and ronny turiaf parlayvooing frances with eachother by candlelight?

then, we get to the SIDELINE REPORT with michelle tafoya and kobe beef bryant. here's how it shook out...
michelle tafoya: "you guys have gotten to the line more this half than all of game 2. how have you guys done it?"
kobe: "we just playin the same way" (laughs off the idiotic question)
...which was followed by jenny saying "both teams played hard" in her rasheed wallace mockery. jenny also threw in the ex-jock female horsevoice impersonation. high comedy in the brinkhaus.


SECOND HALF, EVERYBODY!!
11:00 3rd qtr- rondo goes down with his sprained ankle. EDDIE HOUSE. EDDIE HOUSE. EDDIE HOUSE. he's aliiiiiive.
9:13 3rd qtr- kobe's hot so this could get to some choppy waters.
8:53 3rd qtr- replay of rayray playin dee on kobe... that was actually really good defense. funny cuz i just read an article by scoop jackson today about ray's defense and how well he'd been playing this series and last.
8:32 3rd qtr- couple defensive stops by boston.
7:29 3rd qtr- KG goes strong!! it happened it happened. if it weren't for a bouncey rim, he'd have just thrown down a rim rocker too. free throws.
7:13 3rd qtr- steal by house.
6:57 3rd qtr- steal by house.
6:44 3rd qtr- 3 by house.
5:50 3rd qtr- KG goes to the floor again and skyhooks for 2.
4:58 3rd qtr- bullbleep call on pierce when kobe drives into him in the lane. watched this 3 times on tivo- he established position *easily*. the ball don't lie-- kobe misses another free-throw. shocker. bennett salvatore and joey crawford in tonight's officiating crew.
4:43 3rd qtr- rayray with a tray.
4:20 3rd qtr- lamar odom's first fg of the game. is the timing just a coincidence?.....
2:55 3rd qtr- umm... trevor ariza with a basket?
10 seconds 3rd qtr- sasha vujacic flops, gets up and starts barking at my man eddie house. um, this is not "football", friend.


sorry!! 4th quarter died off as i started chatting with friends and playing scrabulous. apologies;-P

ok, look.

alright so here's the deal- david archuleta can sing. ok fine whatever. the problem is he's insanely boring. they're allegedly trying to find the next "american idol" here right? so that person needs to have charisma, stage presence, moxy, confidence, "it", etc.

david 'monchichi' archuleta is totally bankrupt of all of these qualities. he will win because people aren't doing the math. david cook writes songs, is original, has the afforementioned characteristics, and will sell albums and tour. the creators of 'idol' will miss out on that cash cow tho because of the hordes of screaming teeny chicks texting archuleta to victory.

we're going-going... back-back.. to mexi mexi mexi

for the last couple years, the blisses and bonn-bonn and jenny & me have been talking about just not buying christmas gifts for eachother but to all take a trip together somewhere tropical and warm and beautiful. so... on that note, on mother's day afternoon, we BOOKED our trip back to puerto vallarta!!!

we're all 5 of us headed down and staying in the same place we went to last month:-) we are so very excited!!

apparently i sound like someone's boyfriend

thrice in the last 2 days, i've had people at our communities mistake me for the person i'm asking for's boyfriend. what gives? maybe i should use my corporate robot voice instead or something.

awful caroline

ok listen david archuletta, and listen good-- i want someone with MAN in their voice singing sweet caroline, not your little teddy bear ooshy gooshy voice. knock it off.

by the way, he's still a little monchichi....

dot-dot-dot

in honor of that dillweed larry king, i'm writing dot-dot-dots for today...

every breakfast should end with a crisp slice of bacon and a taquito... some outtie bellybuttons should never be uncovered... mexico has a beautiful coastline but from the airplane you can see miles and miles that are totally undeveloped... it's nice that so many people here in mexico try to speak english... authentic mexican food really is the best food on earth... i'll never bite half a roasted serrano chili off ever again... i am very pale...

in an unrelated non-dotdotdot story, there was a vendor who passed us on the beach who said "you have a nice honey, you spend money". while i thought this man was either a/a genius or b/prognosticator of prognosticators, i was not poppin his potion. his plata would be hawked elsewhere. thing is, i *do* have a nice honey and i *do* spend lots of money. he could not have been more right...

mejico!

we made the voyage to puerto vallarta today and this place is beautiful!! on the flight down, there was 5 year old or something-- much too old to be crying like he was 1) and this kid was screaming the whole flight down.

we got here and got through customs out to the yellow cab people who hoard around to get you to ride with them to your destination.. our driver turned out to be a mad max of sorts - looking for every opportunity to zig or zag in between slow-moving busses, waving to other taxi drivers, and generally pushing me closer to a coronary:-p at one point, since i hablo espanyole, i felt i should just tell the guy we'd tip him if he took it easy and drove more carefully. thing is, after we got here, jenny was totally excited about having this guy as our cabbie because he got us here superfast. such is life... we all have varying perspectives:)

the resort we're staying at is called "dreams" and it is the shizz. the grounds are all well-groomed, when you walk in, they greet you with glasses of champagne and cool moist towels to freshen up.. just really really nice. everyone who works here either speaks english or gives it their best go. they also always ask if there's anything else they can do to help... all the little things!

we went to the authentic mexican restaurant called "el patio" and the food was muy sabroso! unfortunately, i wanted to go autentica so i tried taking a bite of one of the grilled peppers on my plate. it turned out that they were SORRANO peppers and i'd bit off more than i could chew;) i started wiping off sheets of sweat and crying! it was ridiculous!

at any rate, gotta wrap up for now as its getting late and jennycakes is ready to knock off for today. hasta la vista.... baby.

wrong answer

just called car toys after having talked to them saturday to order an adapter that'll run from my stock stereo to my ipod. turns out the $100 part they had to order is $78 online. their stance?... "sorry buddy, we don't match online prices. if you order that stuff online, you have to live with the consequences and understand that you might not even get the right part."

um so this line may have worked in 1996 when people were generally waking up to an online world but we all buy all manner of product online and (knock on wood) i haven't ever had someone rip me off on an online purchase.

aside from all that, how about just good customer service?? if someone out there is offering the same product -down to the SKU- you'd be wise to match the price and move your product! you're more than likely still marking the stuff up 3-400%!!!

little stinker archuleta

this kid david archuleta on american idol seemed to be endearing and "aww-shucks" at the start of this season but the more i see him do his shtick with his one mic hold/plams-up arm wave, the more sick i'm growing of him. he's also really just boring so it's pretty sure he isn't winning.

here's my simon drawring of d-archuleta:

awesome.

i just experienced something incredible.

i was eating a sammich from the deli downstairs

--the turkey, bacon, avocado-- and i finish the thing,

so i throw away the little paper tray...

and i look on the desk and there's

HALF A PIECE OF BACON ON MY DESK.

i imagine my eyes bulging out like a cartoon, but that half piece of bacon tasted better than the whole sandwich:-p

me and B leading the good times

i got...
2 tickets to paradise
2 tickets to paradise

ok, well, maybe not as cool as that rockin song, but i did get 2 tickets to the m's game tonight so brian and i went on to the 2nd game of the season, froze our bummbumms off, and entertained everyone within a 10 row radius. as i mentioned to him, i truly believe the m's oughta consider like giving us season tix or a booth to do broadcasts.. something! i don't mean to brag but there were a looooooooooootta people laughing. very very fun. throat'll make a full recovery.



who are these numbskulls??

T-Mobile must be very proud of themselves

OK, so after taking them to task here recently, T-Mobile did have my phone arrive by UPS yesterday- just 3 business days after i ordered it. i stand by them sucking though... i called them thursday, friday, and saturday and was told they had no status on whether my phone had been shipped. no status on their website, no email to me... nada. anyhoo, that was at least a half-hearted, throw-me-a-bone effort on their part:-p

The Hammer

jenny and i took marites to see The Hammer saturday night and we were not disappointed! the theater was prettty full and consisted of about 80% couples on dates and 20% dudes. there were laugh out loud moments throughout the movie and a smattering of applause at the end.

there's good character development, very funny dialogue, great boxing footage, and real life tie-ins galore! i listen to adam carolla's podcasts regularly and heard a lot of his own details of the film before seeing it but a lot of media in general have given it high praise. ebert & roeper gave it 2 thumbs up and made it one of their "3 to see".

i found other reviews calling it a "warm-hearted romantic comedy" which is really accurate... it just has a drizzle of guy humor and some really good boxing scenes. laughs a'plenty!!

T-Mobile Sucks

from 1999 to 2007 i was, on the whole, a happy pac bell/cingular customer. due to patchy coverage at our townhouse -only for jennycakes- we changed our cells over to T-Mobile. i'm here to tell you this company SUUUUUUCKS out loud. please avoid them.

i'm here to tell you, their website, their phone support, their email support, and their policies are ALL worse than cingular (now at&t)'s. in retrospect, we even paid less to get out of our cingular contract than what T-Mobile charges ($150/line versus $200/line).

go with at&t, verizon, sprint, someone, anyone but T-Mobile.

-n8

new ink

i got a celtic cross on my right shoulder and hadn't realized it until i saw my nephew is getting one too... figured i'd throw a pic up for him:)

ahhh... orange chiken & letterbob

so jenny's busy recovering from her jetlag and sleeping the evening away so i baked myself some trader joe orange chicken, cme downstairs, and put on the letterman. whenever i watch the late show, i laugh out loud a good 5 or 6 times. hearty laughs too - not little chuckles. i'm so thankful that we got to see him in september and that we've got the dvr now so i can watch:-)

anyhoo, tomorrow night's a big sonics/blazers game up at the key and that should be good times! we went to a sonics game earlier this year but the highlight of that whole catastrophe was chanting "SAVE OUR SONICS!" (clap-clap clap-clap-clap) and so on...

juno

alex and i went and saw juno this afternoon and it was really good. the storyline is based around a 16 yearold girl who gets pregnant so, that matter aside, the development was well done.

the acting at the start of the movie felt a little forced from the girl (juno) but she seemed to settle in and eventually it didn't seem like someone reading lines. also, the whole 'girl who hates everything' like janeane garofalo is so tired... ok ok, we get it, you hate everyone and everything - blah blah blah.

the acting by the parents was really good and there were very interesting storyline twists and developments. anyway, we enjoyed this movie.

here's to you!

sad to see our local coffee house go byebye but tomorrow is their last day in business and it's got me kinda bummed. just a reminder to support our local mom-n-pop shops:-)

dan in reel life

date-n-movie night for the brizzninks last night. some good times, some tomfoolery.

we hit the red lobster down in federal way for the splendid cheddar bay biscuits (or at least that's what one of my friend calls them). these things are amazing. if you didn't even eat seafood ever at all, i'd still say eat at red lobster and have a salad and some biscuits:)

so anyhoo - we went over to the 2 buck theater and saw 'dan in real life' which was a solid B-minus. knowing the idea of the story, it was kind of boring. it was still touching to a degree and it was nice to see michael scott -er, uh- steve carell be someone else. overall, it was enjoyable. my mental dust hadn't really settled last night though so i was probably not as fun to be around as i could have been. poor jenny...

shaq from heat to suns?...

so i read this morning that miami is about to ship shaq to phoenix for shawn marion (very good player) and some buster i couldn't pick out of a line-up. oh yeah, marcus banks. doesn't he rap with fitty cent? whatever.

so peeps on espn.com are all enraged that PHX would trade for shaq, that he's too old to stay with the uptempo suns' O, and he'll be a bad fit. apparently these folks have all either forgotten or deleted from their memories the aging lou alcindor who still helped the showtime lakers in his old age. with shaq's hip issues, and this being his worst season ever, he's still averaging 15 pts and 8 boards - plenty of young bigs would give their left ear for that. he's also a champion and brings solidarity to the room. this would be a win-win trade.

ok well, whatever

so the giants won... ah well, i'm not a die-hard pats' fan. thing is, if these teams played ten times, i'd take the pats 7/10 to win. the giants' last drive saw a dropped INT by some NE DB, "the miracle"- where eli escaped 3 sacks in 1, followed by a miracle helmet-catch. these don't happen everyday. the patriots would also not be so lethargic every time these teams played. thus, i say the giants take 3 outta ten matchups.

my pick: pats by 10

i'm gonna say patriots win the supe-diddily-uper bowl, 34-24

strangeness and suckitude

first the suckitude - the new footrest was apparently not seaworthy. i've had this thing for 9 days and the screws that held the roller part into the particle board have stripped out the cheap particle board so that the holes are too big. for goodness sake, whatever happened to pride in craftsmanship?!?! i'll probably have to take it home and run some drywall anchors into the thing and then redo the screws... that, or take it back to Office Max and exchange it. yeesh.

the strangeness came in the form of a red jeep that was parked outside early this morning when i went to workout. i pulled into the parking spot and reached over to grab my man-bag and saw what appears to be 2 shirtless young boys and a deer head:

new footrest

WOOHOO!!! so apparently the footrest i'd ordered some time ago at work was just sitting in the storage room upstairs:-p today, my cohort raquel brought it down and i now can kindly rest my dawgs on this puppy:

colts lose!

good times. the return of the Manning Face! it was painful to go through the super bowl victory of the colts last year but ahhhh, the sweet sweet return of the manning face washes away that horrible taste... for those of you not knowing, do this when you lose:
http://media.scout.com/Media/Image/25/258411.jpg

de foosball

wow. today's playoff games were really good! not just because the hawks won to advance but then also the steelers/jaguars game was really close and worth watching too. the seahawks win actually inspired an email from a friend of mine who always declines to watch nfl games:

---
did you see that game today? it was awesome,.

i want to watch foosballs now.

---

hopefully the hawks can clean their game up offensively and go beat the pack!

roids, etc

I'm sick of steroids. Not doing them;) hearing about them. The MLB hearings went on forever but the NFL catches guys and gives them little slaps on the wrist. The WWE is making millions (not just off toothless hillbillies anymore) with their roided-out psychopaths, and the new American Gladiators features a dozen or so completely roided-out freaks and NBC has shamelessly promoted that new show. What drug testing did NBC put those horses through?

What gives? Why the double standard? Are we just jealous of the "professional athletes"? I know my wife enjoys complaining about the multimillion dollar contracts these guys sign without an education (I enjoy knowing Johnny Depp dropped out of high-school and is a drug addict yet his millions don't bother anyone:) But seriously, why do we have different rules for LeBron James than we do for Johnny Depp? Is it race? Social standing? Their vocabulary? JD has been to the joint, enjoys a joint, etc, yet he's a big hero. Not saying we should all fall at LeBron's feet. We just need to slow the roll a bit before we start blathering on about these injustices.