doodledee

Would someone with a Costco or Sam's Club membership please pick me up a couple of those giant plastic bears full of animal crackers? I'm sick of paying for the little bags in the vending machines.

Thanksalot.

In music news, Fred Durst blew a gasket the other day during a concert in Chicago. [Mtv news story] I guess the kids in the audience were yelling mean things and throwing bottles and stuff at the stage. After only 6 songs, a classic rock start meltdown ensued. Check it out:

After Bizkit blitzed through their cover of George Michael's "Faith," the singer walked off the stage, just six songs into what was supposed to be an hour-long set. He continued his profanity-laced tirade from offstage, with shouts about how the band would be back and boasts that, "We are the greatest band in the world!"

Ha! That rules.

[Insert your own 'agreeance' joke here]

Warning: According to this blog, the next top-secret Minneapolis Mob is [already] scheduled for tomorrow, July 30th. If you're not prepared to deal with a 'spontaneous' crowd of geeks THAT MAY POSSIBLY NUMBER INTO THE 70's, then you better stay out of Uptown.

The 'instructions' ask the media to not say anything until it's over. I wonder if they'll be able to hold themselves back. I guess I wouldn't blame them if they sent a crew in a truck and maybe a helicopter or two... After all, it is a SMALL CROWD OF PEOPLE, and nothing makes a better TV news story than footage of a crowd.

As a public service to you, the reader, here is a collection of links to ease your Uptown withdrawal symptoms.

- Find other Gap locations in the area.

- Find other Jimmy Johns locations in the area.

- A list of other Famous Dave's locations in the metro-area.

- And I think there's a Ragstock at the Mall of America or something.

That should pretty much get you through tomorrow.

It's time for an "I Think it's About Mid-Summer '03 Update"

• I haven't played enough golf.
• I've played way too much softball. One league is enough. Which one, you ask? The one where the wives come to watch and/or play and where you can have a few beers after the game. Duh.
• I haven't played enough soccer. I know this not because I find myself wanting to play more - although I do - but rather because I'm still sucking wind every game.
• There's plenty left to do to get ready for the baby. We made some good progress over the last week or so, but the list remains long. The floors upstairs get sanded next week. After that it's officially Go Time.
• Number of times I *almost* bought a camcorder: 3
• The yard has more weeds than usual. I'm thinking this was something Libby used to take care of. Who knew?
• My sister has successfully moved into her new house. I haven't been over to see it yet, but from what I understand, there's already some new contact paper lining the kitchen drawers.
• Quinceaneras attended: 1
• I haven't figured out how to make good potato salad yet. That was on my summer '03 todo list from back in April or something. Whoops.
• My 22-months in the making TV stand is progressing nicely. All that's left now is a final sanding and a couple coats of finish. Having it ready by the Vikings' season opener may actually be an achievable goal.

So far so good.

Today's Strib featured a column by Ellen Goodman entitled 'The Supersizing of America'. It's poorly written, but it's still worth reading. Here's one part that especially caught my eye:

But it's likely to be a long haul to get smaller portions, labeling in fast-food restaurants and to slim down advertising to kids. Margo Wootan says, ''People still haven't made the connection about how industry practices shape and influence their choices. Your child begs you for junk food, begs you to go to McDonald's and you think 'that's kids.' You don't think, 'shame on that food company.'''

I bet a lot more people think 'shame on that food company' than Ms. Wootan realizes. I know I do.

And if they don't, all they need to do is ask themselves why kids beg to go to McDonald's instead of Wendy's or Subway or Taco Bell or Burger King or some other fast food joint. The reason is simple: McDonald's is better than all of them at marketing to the kiddies.

Shame on that food company.

There was that big brouhaha a last month when the FCC announced it was okay for like 2 companies to own every media outlet in the universe. People freaked out. Hell, I freaked out.

Then yesterday the House voted to repeal the law.

Then the Bush Whitehouse said they would "try and fix that". Cute.

I found this article in The Atlantic that talks about the dangers of media conglomeration and makes some neat predictions about the future of television under a couple of different scenarios. The best part? The article is from 1969.

The article mostly focuses on the dominance of the big three networks over all the other channels. Near the end, the author brings up some interesting points about how technology - as opposed to government regulation - would most likely dethrone the networks.

... The same three networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC, [previously] dominated radio. Ultimately their control was undermined, not by governmental actions, but by changing technology. Popular recordings gave stations an alternative and competitive program service. Concurrently, the superior television medium captured the night-time audiences, the prime target of network advertisers.

If networking in television is changed in the future, the cause will be technology and not governmental intervention.

So all we need is a 'different' broadcasting system and the networks will start lose power. So what's the technology? You guessed it:

For example, when a satellite-to-home service becomes economically feasible, network overlords could reach the public directly without the assistance of local affiliates. This would undermine most of the television barons and, at least initially, further strengthen the power and profitability of the networks. However, if enough channels were available for satellite-to-home broadcasting, or if by governmental decree use of the available channels were required to be leased on a common-carrier basis (or even rationed), other national program suppliers could compete with the networks.

...

In the long run, television audiences could become as fragmented as radio audiences, and TV network dominance would wane.

Wow! How close is this dude to the truth?! We now have cable/satellite service and all these boutique stations are popping up and taking share from the networks. What's more, some of the boutique stations - namely HBO - are kicking some serious network ass in a lot of people's eyes. And how about that Food Network? I frickin' love that channel! Screw you, CBS!

Unfortunately, what this dude didn't manage to predict is that even with our super satellite enabled 500 channel experience, the whole thing is still only owned by just a handful of companies. And they own a lot of radio stations, too. And they make movies. And sell magazines. And they kick puppies.

So I guess the dude was kind of wrong. Sure, technology did bring about a noticeable shift in big three's dominance. After all, with all those channels, people watch less ABC and more ESPN. It's just that ABC owns ESPN. And a bunch of other stuff, too. In fact, the top three television media conglomerates (Disney, AOL, and Viacom) own 31 of the 49 most popular television stations.

But what if it isn't satellites? What if it's the internet that's the technology that changes everything? Sure sounds good, but I don't buy it. Are there really thousands of wannabe TV sitcom makers sitting out there waiting to publish their stuff to the net? Is there really even an audience for that stuff?

Lord help us if there is.

In a story related to the one I mentioned the other day about how we all eat too much stale popcorn, the Center for Science in the Public Interest released a report today entitled "Ice Cream Shops Serving Coronaries in Cones". Cute, eh? As if I needed another reason not to go out and pay $4.50 for a single scoop at Sebastian Joes.

Their findings included this gem:

A Ben & Jerry's empty Waffle Cone Dipped in Chocolate has 320 calories and a half a day's worth of saturated fat.the equivalent of a half-pound rack of BBQ baby back ribs.

Hold up, is that right? If so, I just thought up one of the biggest money making ideas I've ever had: WHY NOT JUST MAKE THE CONE OUT OF BABY BACK RIBS?! That would rule!

"Yeah, I'll have single scoop of cinnamon on a honey glazed cone, please."

"And I'll have a double scoop of rocky road on a rich-n-sassy."

Extra wetnaps available at no charge, of course.

My lips are all chapped. I hate that.

I've had to resort to using chapstick, which I normally don't like doing for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I think it addictive. My sister was - and maybe still is? - addicted to chapstick. She used to practically eat the stuff. It was crazy.

Are you addicted? Are you sure?

A friend of mine back in college claimed that her boyfriend had done a bunch of research and discovered blistex was the only non-addictive lip product on the market. I'm not familiar with the details of how the study was carried out, so I'll just assume it involved a lot of poor undergrads who didn't feel like eating stale popcorn. In any event, I bought into it and blistex is my preferred lip remedy type product. And by that I mean that I'll use whatever is around, but given the choice, I prefer blistex.

Ok, other than the addictive side effects, the thing that bothers me most about chapstick is that I'm always losing it. I don't care if I buy the 10-pack, I can never find one when I need it. And it's not like I'm accidentally throwing them away or anything because under normal-to-soft lip conditions I find lip stuff all over the house.

This time around I dug through a couple of drawers and eventually found a tube that I bought at Vail a few years back. I remember it like it was yesterday. After one day of skiing, my lips got super chapped. That kind of chapped where it even hurts to breathe through your mouth. And seeing as shooshing down a hill at 30 miles an hour involves a lot more wind/lip interaction than breathing, I was in for a world of hurt.

After about 2 minutes, I caved and went into the chalet and bought a tube of chapstick. It was like $4.50. I had no choice. I had to pay.

I remember wigging out on the kid who was manning the little sundry shop about how $4.50 for a tube of chapstick seemed a little excessive, even for Vail. I also remember him saying 'sorry' and actually looking like he meant it.

Then I told him to 'put it on my bill'.

Then he asked me to leave.

There's this thing that's been gaining some popularity in geek circles where a bunch of people pseudo-spontaneously form a mob in some public place. It's all planned in advance, obviously, but the idea is that it all looks like it just 'happened'. Chaos theory or something, maybe, who knows.

I first read about it a month or so ago. I liked the concept. Kind of a big public arty thing. It was innocent and anonymous and I figured both the participants and the witnesses would get a kick out of the whole thing. I especially liked how nobody was supposed to talk to anyone else in the mob. It felt so organic.

[That said, the instructions for participating were a little over the top geek for me. Synchronizing your watches with an official government clock? Ahh, no thanks, I'm just here for the fun.]

Not wanting to be left out of the latest chain-email fad, residents of the Twin Cities have gone ahead and formed their own nerd club mob group. They staged their first event the other day at - brace yourself - the Mall of America. It was a two-part deal that started with everyone acting like robots in one of the rotundas and then later heading to the Bose store to harass the staff and watch some movies. [read about it in the Strib]

Attendance at the local mob was lower than expected. The Minneapolis Mob newsgroup shows 337 members but only 60 showed up and participated. (Way to go, mobbers!) The cops were tipped off about it and had plain clothes officers hanging around, too. (Way to go, cops!) The Bose store had been notified about the impending mob and closed off parts of their store. (Your speakers suck, Bose!) And, as the link to an article suggests, the Star Tribune was even there to cover it. (Way to go, hipster Strib!)

Mobs have gone from underground to mainstream in 45 days. That's gotta be some kind of record. (Way to go, internet!)

What's not a record is how long it took me to re-evaluate my position and conclude that mobs are now officially dumb.

Next!

Here's a good read that talks about why people eat so much food. Go figure, a lot of it has to do with restaurants serving giant portions. I also have to believe that a lot of it has to do with consumers making bad choices. I guess that leaves me mad at the fast food industry and at dumb people. Huh.

This was my favorite quote from the article:

Give moviegoers an extra-large tub of popcorn instead of a container one size smaller and they will eat 45 to 50 percent more, as Dr. Brian Wansink, a professor of nutritional science and marketing at the University of Illinois, showed in one experiment. Even if the popcorn is stale, they will still eat 40 to 45 percent more.

Even if it's stale? That's rules. I wonder how they got people to volunteer for that study? "Wanted: doofs to eat day old popcorn. All you can eat. Bring your own toothpicks."

Yesterday in the Tour de France, Armstrong fell while climbing the last hill. His main rival, Jan Ullrich, avoided the crash and climbed on past him. If Ulrich had wanted to, he could have attacked and - most likely - won the stage and eventually the whole Tour.

Instead, bowing to an unwritten rule of cycling, Ullrich and the rest of the elite riders at the front of the race slowed down and waited for Armstrong to catch up.

Armstrong did. Then Armstrong attacked. Then Armstrong won.

That is a serious display of sportsmanship by Ullrich.

Kind of makes you feel sorry for the doofs at softball that won't admit that they dropped the ball or missed the tag.

Back from Alpine. Very tired. Great shows. Very tired. Catching up on the Tour. Very tired.

• Total hours in the car: 11
• Concerts seen: 2
• Grilled cheese sold in the parking lot: 25
• You Enjoy Myself set closers: 1
• Fans in attendance: oodles
• Afternoons spent watching sailboats on Lake Michigan: 1
• Two nights of dancing like a maniac with your prego wife: priceless

I've gradually been working on moving my website away from my ISP and into my basement. And by gradually, I mean for like over a year.

For reasons unbeknownst to me, the last couple months have brought some significant progress. I upgraded my server to RH9, I managed to get virtual hosting working on Apache, I got tomcat and/or jboss up and running and I even have a movable type install ready to roar. Not too shabby.

As part of the moving process I figured I might redesign some of this site. Tonight I sat for maybe 15 minutes tying to think of something creative.

"Hmm," I thought, "maybe something blue-ish?"

Oh wait.

Screw this.

So I gave up on the whole 'thinking' thing and went out looking for something to 'borrow'. After maybe 20 minutes of that, I reached the following conclusion: most websites are ugly. The ones that aren't ugly are either (a) not so bad or (b) super ugly. Funny how that works.

Resolution: no redesign.

"Phish is a jam band whose jams just don't go anywhere." - Rachel Devitt, writing in the Seattle Times after the recent shows at the Gorge.

"Waa-hoo! 45 hours 'til show time!" - Me, about 10 minutes ago

NPR ran a story tonight on All Things Considered that talked about how the major P2P networks are all flooded with porn. [listen here]

In the story, they claimed that a 'recent study' showed that over 40% of searches on P2P networks are for pornographic videos. They sent a reporter to some perv's house to watch him search for things like Pokemon and Britney Spears and end up with 10,000 pr0n vidz in the search results. To keep it edgy, the reporter lady used some fairly risquéords. Like 'boob', for example. Whoa.

I don't buy the 40% finding at all, but that doesn't change the fact that porn is probably the biggest reason most of the P2P networks suck. It's ubiquitous. And it's lame. In fact, in my opinion, it's probably one of the biggest downsides to the internet as a whole. So goes the free market, I guess.

This got me thinking about how my great-aunt Marie never used to have cable. You wouldn't think that'd be a big deal, but for some reason we always seemed to be visiting her on Sundays during the NFL season. This inevitably meant that we end up trying to watch the Vikes on her crappy old console television. Ah boo.

Every time we'd go, we'd have the same conversation:

"Why don't you get cable, Marie?" we'd ask.

"There's too much porn on cable" she'd reply

At which point my dad would always say, "Not on normal cable. You have to pay extra for the porn."

Oddly, that line of reasoning never won her over.

Fast forward to today. Now we've got the internet and it's so full of [free] porn you can't escape it, EVEN IF YOU WANT TO. From the pseudo-naughty ads for those teeny weeny cameras - that, according to the ads, you're supposed to install in your house so you can record all the hot chicks who come over to your place to shower or something - to the spams that must push everyone's yuck button, much of the internet is a wasteland of filth.

But don't get me wrong. Porn aside, the internet is still pretty bitchin'. And what's more, the pollution of the open P2P networks will most likely drive more aggressive innovation in the 'commercial' networks, which can only be a good thing, too.

Again, so goes the free market, I guess.

Two minor car related annoyances:

• Vanity plates that I don't get. And I don't mean 'get' as in I can't decode them, I mean 'get' as in I don't get the meaning. Or the point.
• When you pull into a parking space and you have to park all whack because the dude next to you is parked whack and it's the only [reasonable] spot left in the lot. Then later, when you return to your car, you're the only car left that's parked whack and everyone else thinks you're a doof who can't park.

7-Eleven celebrated the opening of its 25,000 store on July 11th. (Get it?) It was a big deal. They had clerks dressed in tuxedos serving hot dogs and a kids choir and everything. [NYT article here]

Of the 25,000 7-Elevens, around 5800 of them are in the United States. Strangely, I don't think I've been in a single one. Or maybe it's not so strange, seeing as the closest one to my house is around 303 miles away. Still, I wonder if I'm missing out.

Something new for my todo list. Yip yip.

I read about this new music television station the other day. It's called Fuse and I think it's from Canada or something. They've spun themselves to be some kind of alternative to Mtv that caters to real music fans by giving them more of what they want (hint: music) and less of what they don't (hint: Punk'd and Jackass).

What a second... I LOVE THOSE SHOWS! But anyways.

Fuse pitches themselves as an 'underdog' and 'champion of the people' and it's a total hoot. Sure, it's easy to sit back and call yourself an underdog when you're up against Mtv when you consider that Mtv's parent company, Viacom, also owns Mtv2, VH1, VH1 Classics, BET and Country Music Television. (They also own like a bajillion other media properties.) But Fuse's parent company, Rainbow Media Holdings isn't necessarily a rookie to the cable business as they already own WE, AMC, and IFC.

If you need proof of Rainbow's cable influence, all you need consider is that Fuse is already in 31 million homes. And they launched in May. I don't think that would be the expected growth curve for an independent cable channel. Hmm, I guess it is all about who you know.

Here's a blurb from the Fuse corporate site:

Fuse reflects the rapidly changing interests and irreverent attitudes of its 12-34 year-old audience by uniting the media platforms that are at the center of their communication and entertainment - tv, online, and interactive games - and by incorporating their opinions and suggestions into its on-air and online programming.

As the only alternative to mainstream music television, Fuse is based around core principles that represent the network's promise to the audience and illustrate the brand's personality. Most importantly, Fuse is a curator of music programming. It does not dictate to its audience but rather, the programming is informed and guided by viewer input. Through different platforms, Fuse empowers the audience to "do it yourself": choose their music, contribute to and be heard by the network. Fuse is also inclusive and includes programming from a wide range of music genres. And, Fuse has a sense of the absurd, just like its audience.

Central to Fuse's identity are a progressive logo, changing taglines, viral marketing campaigns that break the rules of traditional branding...

Ok, that's enough of that. Anytime somebody says 'progressive logo', I immediately stop taking them seriously. I wonder how Fuse's target audience - with their irreverent attitudes and their sense of the absurd - would react after being shown a corporate branding strategy document like this? I wonder if they'd feel 'empowered' to 'do it themselves'?

But a lot of people haven't seen it and probably never will and that's probably ok. The network is growing, they're playing music on TV, and people seem to like it. And, as lame as it is, it's still a little competition for Mtv, which can't be a bad thing. So for now, I'm cynically pro-Fuse.

I heard Ted Turner on NPR the other day talking about how in today's consolidated media world that a company like CNN would never make it. Maybe he was only half wrong. Maybe a company that pretends to be a no-BS underdog company like CNN can indeed make it.

A story in today's Strib reports Camera Phones Pose Privacy Pickle.

What's the big deal? Are people worried about strangers using cellphone cameras to take pictures of their butts or something? Why would they do that? So they could post them to some website for other people to gawk at and rate on a scale of 1-10?

Well let's hope they don't find out about this place, then.

Nice privacy pickle, dude!

I learned a couple of interesting things today.

• Buffalo burgers, when cooked over a grill, taste remarkably like Steam-Ums. And what's more, buffalo is low in fat and Steak-Ums are not.
• The domain steakums.com is owned by some dude named Patrick Beringer. He also owns - brace yourself - hotpatrick.com. Sorry, JoePa.
• If you're running multiple BEA WL Servers - either clustered or not - and there's a JMS server in play, each server instance must be uniquely named in order to avoid JMS related connection errors. WTF?
• I'm too dumb and/or unmotivated to learn how to configure sendmail. I'll cook anyone a steak dinner who wants to help me out do it for me.
• Today when Victor Hugo Pena took the lead in the Tour de France, he became the first Columbian ever to wear the yellow jersey.
• Based on this recording, the engine in Huna's new car sounds like it might run at higher RPMs than my Jeep's engine does. How big of a car nerd do you have to be to record your engine and post it on the internet? (Hint: huge nerd.)

That's all.

There have been a bunch of stories today about the work being done to determine the cause of the Columbia's crash. It now seems a near certainty that the infamous 'insulating foam' was responsible for damaging the heat tiles on the left wing so bad that wicked-hot gas could enter the shuttle body during reentry. You know the rest.

When I first heard the 'falling foam' stuff, I personally didn't buy it. I imagined a piece of that pink owens corning stuff falling off some booster or something and then gently floating down and landing on the wing. Bzzzz! It turns out it was much higher-density and - get this - it was traveling 500 mph. Who knew foam could even go 500 mph? Not me.

Today the investigative team invited a bunch of journalists to watch them blast a piece of foam at a section of wing to see what it would do. They did the same thing a few weeks ago, too. I guess they shoot the foam out of a big gun that is normally used to shoot dead birds at airplanes. Eww.

Today's experiment produced an enormous (16" x 16") hole in the wing. [NYTimes story here] It was much bigger than what investigators and scientists believed could happen, and as a result, the foam has already been labeled "the smoking gun". I prefer "the bloody glove".

If you're into this stuff, NASA's official investigation page is loaded with detail. The email transcript stuff is especially fascinating. They go into all kinds of detail about what might have happened and what they should do about it, even down to contemplating different 'contingency scenarios' if the damage was determined to be bad enough. Serious business. Go figure, you don't see very many :-) things from those boys at NASA.

OLN has a new website for their Tour de France coverage this year. It's hella ugly, but it's still the only online source for real time English language audio coverage of the race.

Yahoo UK has probably my favorite information only TDF page. It's faster and cleaner and way less stressed than the OLN site. As a result, it's most likely the site I'll end up reloading 50 times an hour every hour for the next 20 days.

Man, that's some serious clicking. Good thing I installed mouse gestures.

On a non-related hoot note, when I was writing this, the front page on Yahoo UK Sports featured a thumbnail picture of some high maintenance looking chick under the headline 'Glamour of F1'. (That's 'Formula One' for you NASCAR fans out there.) Being into glamour, I clicked the picture, figuring I'd get an article about how the beautiful people in Europe all love fast cars or something. Instead, all I got was a giant picture of the same glamorous lady from the homepage.

At first I was pissed, then I noticed the caption:

Monday June 30, 11:38 AM F1 babe at the European GP

That rules. We need more babe identification pictures in American sports coverage.

As we do most years, Libby and I spent the 4th at my folks cabin up north. They shoot the fireworks right over the water and you go and sit in your boat and watch them. Everyone has a good time hootin' and hollerin' at the big explosions in the sky.

I guess it's different down here in the big city, though, because some dude got killed at the fireworks out on Lake Minnetonka. Capt. Bill Chandler of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office tells the story:

Around 7:30 p.m., a man in one boat and two men in another boat began arguing about their driving conduct. The men, who did not know each other, pulled their boats alongside one another. The man leaned into the boat containing the two other men, and one of those two allegedly threw him into the water. As the suspects fled, they drove over the top of the victim, killing him on impact.

The media is calling it 'boat rage'. I guess this is supposed to be a take-off on 'road rage', but my bet is that in this case it's less like 'road rage' and more like 'drunk jackass rage'.

Tonight I was pumping gas into my down-to-the-fumes tank over at the Bobby and Steve's on Washington Avenue downtown. It's a neat place. They have little television sets built into the pumps so you get to watch FoxNews while you pump your gas. Wee.

During the 3 minutes it took to fill my tank there was some talk show on. A bunch of doofs were going on about the mystery surrounding that basketball player from Waco who was [apparently] murdered. I was surprised to see that one of the 'expert guests' on the show was Mark "Bloody Glove" Fuhrman.

I was mostly surprised because I thought I remembered Fuhrman trying to crawl away and hide under a rock after the OJ trial ended. In fact, I believe his exact words were:

I want my private life back and I'm never going to have it.

I looked into it some, and in addition to his FoxNews work, I guess he also has written a couple of books and has a talk radio show in Washington state. Huh. He sure doesn't act like he wants us to forget about him.

But anyway, that's not the point of this story.

The point is that while I'm standing there pumping my gas and watching Mark Furhman on the little 4" TV, my eyes were drawn to the advertisements for the car wash that's attached to the station. It's a Touch Free Tunnel system. [ha ha (c) JoePa]

The thing about those gas station car washes is that they use such ridiculous names to describe the different levels of wash. For like $2.99 you get the Ultimate Car Wash. Or if you throw in an extra couple of bucks you can get the Ultimate Supreme Car Wash. Or better yet, throw down maybe $8 and you can get the Hella Bitchin' Platinum Car Wash. Or something like that, you get the idea.

I would think that a naming strategy like that would backfire. After all, why upgrade when you're already getting an Ultimate? Instead, they should call the 'basic' wash something crappy - like maybe 'Cheap-Ass Rinse & Go' - and try and guilt people into buying the better packages. And by 'better' I mean the ones with the 'tire dressing' treatment.

Because if there's one thing I know, it's that you don't make your money back on a Touch Free Tunnel system unless you're selling a whole hell of a lot of tire dressing.

I read the other day that Spielberg & Co. are planning on making Indiana Jones 4. I don't think they've started shooting yet, mainly because (a) Harrison Ford didn't say anything about it when he was out promoting Hollywood Hartnett and (b) it has an intended release date of summer 2005.

I did a quick google and - go figure - there's already tons and tons of information out there. Go go geeks. Here's a pretty good FAQ that answered most of my questions. I guess the fourth movie will be set in the 50's instead of the 30's, and Indy will be fighting someone other than Nazis. He will continue to have a tan and a whip.

Making another movie seems terribly risky to me. The first three chapters in the Indy trilogy were pretty damn good. Yes, that's right, even the third one. Risking the whole franchise by making a fourth movie 16 years after the third one was released is just begging for disaster. (Yousa thinksa I'm a-kiddin sa? Then yousa stoopid doodyhead.)

I'm not saying I'm not pumped for it - because I totally am - I'm just saying that this time I'm going in prepared for the worst.

Tom Green is back on the air over on the Mtv and I'm not sure how to feel about it. Sometimes I see that dude and he's all funny and humble and I kinda cheer for him a little bit and hope that he does well. Then other times I see him and he's on TV doing stuff that's so mean and so stupid that I just wish he would go away and stop being such an ass.

I haven't watched the new show yet, but I did see him guest-hosting on Letterman maybe a week or two ago and he did a pretty good job. (See: funny, humble.) Maybe he's finally ditching the dumbass/jerk/goofball routine? Here's hoping.