Adam & Amber’s Blog

Someone went to the trouble of teasing apart David Lee Roth’s vocal track from Van Halen’s ‘Running with the Devil’. The result is something that should be enjoyed in the season of American Idol. It is impressive to me how well Roth can actually sing (during the 20 seconds in the song when it is called for) and how a rock song should never be sung without a band EVER.

Here is the link

Of course this has been used in various mashups. My favorite, although admittedly purely Middle School Humor, is this one (don’t judge me).

I know I should have posted about Thanksgiving before posting about Black Friday, but BF seemed more relevant this morning (by which I mean early afternoon). Amber and I are in Dayton, OH to spend the Holiday with her side of the family. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Aunt B’s house, turkey, stuffing, casseroles, pies, etc. After dinner the entire family took part in a Wii Bowling Tournament.

Top 3 Results:
1. Adam
2. Amber
3. Ben

I didn’t post this so that I could gloat about my winning, I posted because of all the embarassing pictures of Aunt B… Enjoy

See the entire gallery here.

One thing Amber and I have in common is our love of good deals. I am a big purchase deal lover, meaning that if you got something that retails for $500 on sale for $200 I am interested. Amber is more of a small purchase deal lover, meaning if you got something under $5 or over 75% off in the craft or apparel world watch out (don’t even get me started on the $1 section at Target, or worse when the $1 section goes 75% off. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that has come through our door because, “I got these for only a quarter each”.) The point is, we both like a good deal, which makes Black Friday Perfect for us.

Our 2008 Black Friday in Dayton, OH:

Thursday 10PM EST: We arrive at CompUSA to look for a good deal on a LCD monitor I wanted ($150 for a 22″ LCD). When we arrive, I am dismayed by the completely full store and the small line of people forming for their 5AM Sale. It took me a second to realize what Amber apparently knew the entire time, you can’t show up at 9PM CST for a sale that starts at 9PM EST. I am not sure how I made the time zone mistake (other then my watch and Amber’s car are still in Central Time), but needless to say I left CompUSA empty handed. Which means no new LCD for me, I convince myself I really didn’t need it anyway.

Thursday 10:15 PM: We find a Dunkin’ Donuts that is open until 11 on the same side of town as CompUSA and plan the rest of our evening. A steady stream of people from the already 75+ people line out front of the nearby Best Buy (which opens at 5 AM) come in to buy coffee and use the restroom. The guy behind the counter, that already had to give up part of his Thanksgiving to work short staffed at a Dunkin’ Donuts looks thrilled. A few of the line waiters stop and talk with us, and I learn that people who wait all night in a line are usually Crazy (as in Certifiable) and very friendly (but still crazy).

Friday Midnight: I am sitting in the car at a mini-mall parking lot watching the snow fall outside and “Pushing Daisies” on my iPhone, Amber is waiting in a small line of mostly middle-aged women ready to bum-rush the doors at Simply Scrapbooks (ok, maybe not bum-rush, but they were standing out in the cold/snow waiting for a scrapbook store to open). The sale? 50%+ off all sorts of crafting supplies, PLUS TRIPLE CARD PUNCHES!!! You would have to talk to Amber to find out exactly how good of a deal this is, but she was excited.

Friday 2 AM: I am still in the car at the same mini-mall parking lot, the snow has slowed down (or at least I can’t see it as well because at 1AM they turned the parking lot lights off), my iPhone’s battery all but drained 20 minutes ago, and Amber has been craft shopping for 2 hours. Soon after Amber returns to the car with a smile on her face and a card full of punches.

Friday 3 AM: We are back at Amber’s house. Amber is showing me her spoils, and I have to admit compared to what she normally spends she got some really good deals. We are staying up the rest of the night because I want to go to Staples when they open at 6AM (which means get their at 4:30 AM). I then realize the only difference between me and the people outside of Best Buy is that I am sitting inside a warm house right now, it is a small difference but I hold on to it.

Friday 3:30 AM: Staples posts some of their Black Friday deals online, I pounce and get some of the things I wanted. Now I am feeling elated that I won’t have to wait in line after all! I then notice something so fantastic that I had to reload to make sure it was real. Staples online has their own 22″ LCD Monitor for $150, a deal not available in-stores. Needless to say I pulled the trigge, buying the last of the items on my black friday list. I then did something I never had done before (mostly because I have never been up shopping online at 3:30AM before). I posted my deal on Slickdeals.net, which is the online deal site I (along with tens of thousands of people) use all the time (it helped me get my laptop for $800 off). The way slickdeals works is you post a deal on a forum, people rate the deal and if it is good enough it gets put on the front page (kind of like a mix of slashdot and digg, only for deals). I was heartened to see positive comments on my post immediately, but I was also very tired. At about 4:30 AM Amber and I finally went to bed.

Friday 1:30 PM: We wake-up, realizing in full what we have done to our sleep schedules, and I go online to see how my post did. And I see this:

That is right, my deal made the front page of Slickdeals! By now reaching 14,000 views and over 100 comments! You can look at the thread here, but the deal is unfortunately dead now. I will admit it isn’t my finest writing, but it was 4AM and I was very tired.

So that is my story of Black Friday ‘08. We ended up getting everything we wanted (except sleep) and didn’t even have to brave many crowds to do it! I hope all of you had similarly good experiences (probably for most of you it involved sleeping and laughing at people like me).

I remember when I was in high school everyone was trying to flip their pen. Those who could do it would taunt those of us who couldn’t by continually flipping their pen in class. I imagine if YouTube had been around back then, this video would have gotten them to stop being so cocky.

Every so often when I need to look something up on Wikipedia, it turns into a multi-hour click-fest that always makes me feel a bit smarter and a little sad. That is the beauty of Wikipedia, it isn’t so much about finding what you are looking for as it is finding all the things you never knew you needed to know. But, what if you don’t know what you are looking for in the first place? That is where Wikipediavision comes in, it is a real-time Google Map/Wikipedia mashup that shows you what pages are currently getting updated, and where geographically the update is happening. While watching it, it is amazing to note how often Wikipedia is updated and all the weird topics that come up that I never knew I needed to know about.

A while back I posted about a pizza vending machine and made the point that food preparation could easily be done more efficiently by robots. From a business standpoint I still agree with this, there will come a tipping point where it will be much more cost effective to maintain a robot, then employ people.

Recently, this topic of conversation has come back up around the lunch table and it got me thinking of another aspect of this robotic society. In a world of ATMs, Coffee Vending Machines, and Online Ordering we are quickly coming to a day when there is no reason to directly interact with a human all day. It is not hard to imagine a very efficient world where every non-internet business involves just a touch screen and a credit card swipe. I am not sure how I feel about that, this world would allow the introverted to stay introverted (which would make them happy), and the businesses could charge extra for the extroverts to get human interaction (which would make the businesses happy), but is anything lost?

I remember when I was in middle school one of the most uncomfortable things for an introverted youngster like myself to do was order pizza (probably not where you thought I was going). On half days a couple friends would usually come to my house (yes, introverts can have friends) and we would order pizza, for some reason making that phone call was nerve-racking. It seems idiotic to me now that I would be afraid to call and order pizzas, but it probably had to do with the fact that as a middle schooler I never really had to directly interact with “adult” strangers, alone, before that. It took some time, but I got over it (as most people do), but if it hadn’t been for that experience, or others like it, would I have ever broke out of my introverted shell? To put it another way, if all I had needed to do was go online and order the pizza, then I would have never been forced to face that irrational fear. This makes me think that the side effect to this ultra-efficient future, is a psychological one, and I am not sure this world needs more adult introverts (except, maybe for population control).

Looking at this another way, human interaction cuts down on the inherit stupidity of people. I found this blog today about a guy who decided to test out the Dominos Online Pizza ordering system, which allows you to be very specific about what you order. I am not saying that beef-bread isn’t a perfectly valid order, I just think that you should have to go through the indignity of an “excuse me? what was that again?” if you really want to order it. Don’t get me wrong, I can understand the flip-side of this, in my world of phone ordering an introverted, beef-bread loving, adult may never be able to get their beef-bread fix. Maybe, but maybe today’s satiated introverted beef-bread lover, would have been yesterday’s extroverted beef-bread restaurant pioneer, so we could all have enjoyed this little known culinary masterpiece.

Maybe none of this matters and we will adapt to fit technology into our society, instead of technology replacing our society, but hey, I got to use “beef-bread” in my argument and that has to count for something.

I normally wouldn’t post a video that would be embarrassing to someone else, but this is of a public performance, so I don’t feel too bad. It is strange that she appears to have worked so hard choreographing the routine and yet could play so out of tune. Anyway, the dancing, outfit, and playing combine to make a hilarious video, plus, using the trumpet as a gun, brilliant.

After writing yesterday about ‘Pushing Daisies’, I realized that I could probably write more on the other shows I have started watching this Fall. It is odd, but having the MythTV box makes me record and eventually watch more TV then I usually would (probably has something to do with having 6 tuners). So here is my “Top 10″ ranking of new Fall Shows I have watched, keep in mind these are the only 10 I have watched so it isn’t so much of a “Top 10″ as an “Only 10″:

10. Dirt Sexy Money (ABC)
Overly-simplified Description: Wealthy family has problem and the new family lawyer must fix them, while trying to figure who killed his father.
It very much has the feel of a Evening Soap Opera (ala Desperate House Wives), which means it probably will do ok, just isn’t my cup of tea. After watching an episode or two the characters just got annoying and I really didn’t care about the conflicts. I tried to get Amber started on it (seemed more up her ally) but she didn’t show much interest.

9. Moonlight (CBS)
Overly-simplified Description: Modern day Vampire Private Eye solves cases with young beautiful reporter.
I actually wanted to give this show a chance (I guess I figured TV really needed a vampire on it), but the acting is not great and the entire mood of the show doesn’t feel dark enough to fit the plot. That being said, it doesn’t take mush to be a Friday night hit, so maybe the show will stick around long enough to find itself.

8. K-Ville (FOX)
Overly-simplified Description: Cop show based in port Katrina New Orleans.
This show is actually better then I though it would be, but it also isn’t really all that original. The fact that it takes place in New Orleans adds some to the character development and alters the crimes a little, but at the end of the day crime is crime and a cop show is a cop show. Nothing against law enforcement and doctors, but you would think there could be other professions to base TV dramas around.

7. Reaper (CW)
Overly-simplified Description: Parents sold his soul to the devil, now he must collect lost souls.
There are two reasons I watched this show at all (and broke my “No CW” rule). First, the pilot was directed by Kevin Smith, with this concept and him at the helm it seemed like it would at least be worth a shot. Second, I really liked “Dead Like Me” and was hoping that this might in some way fill that void. I do have to say, that the pilot, directed by Smith, was good. A mix of supernatural, campy, and hilarious. Since then the show seems to be turning towards more generic CW Teen show, which I am sure will do them well (it has up to this point) but unless things get less teeny, I am not sure it will hold my attention.

6. Journeyman (NBC)
Overly-simplified Description: Man comes down with a case of the “Time Travels”. Think Quantum Leap, only more time traveling and less Bakula.
Another show that was better then I initially though it would be. The concept of random time traveling seemed to me not to have the legs to span multiple episodes (more of a movie concept, involving some vast government conspiracy). That being said, the episodic nature of the show allows them to split the main story of the what/why/how of the time traveling into small hints scattered throughout the shows, while at the same time giving you an interesting single episode story to follow. It is hard to believe this show will have a long life on NBC (maybe transfer to SciFi?), but hey Quantum Leap was on forever, so who knows

5. The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
Overly-simplified Description: Geek attempts to hook-up with sexy neighbor, hilarity ensues.
It is strange to see a sitcom on TV anymore, they don’t really seem to have a place other then on CBS where they actually flourish. My initial impression of the show wasn’t that great, it seemed idiotic to base a show around a group of nerds and their hot neighbor. However, the jokes are funny and because I hang out with a sometimes geeky group, the characters are sometimes too easy to relate to. The show is good for a laugh and makes for good fluff TV.

4. Bionic Woman (NBC)
Overly-simplified Description: Woman gets implanted with bionics, and aboriginally calls herself the Bionic Woman.
The pilot ran like a movie, big explosions, special effects, fights. All of which was a bit misleading as the show has fallen into a spy show with a scifi twist (which can feel a bit familiar). I do have two gripes with the show. One, the transition from regular woman to bionic seemed rushed. It would have been fun to see her be independent for a while, discover what she can do on her own. Two, there is a sub-plot between her and her sister that feels more “After School Special” then “Primetime TV”. My guess is that it was an attempt to grab a broader audience, but it just feels awkward and contrived. All that being said, the show is still very watchable and at least worth a shot.

3. Life (NBC)
Overly-simplified Description: Cop turned inmate turned back to cop finds himself in a generic cop show.
Another cop show, with another twist. Most people would probably hold that against ‘Life’, but there is some originality here, and the characters are interesting enough to warrant watching. I imagine that down the line the originality will get lost and the show will become completely generic, but for now it is worth a few viewings.

2. Pushing Daisies (ABC)
See full review here.

1. Chuck (NBC)
Overly-simplified Description: Nerd turns spy after receiving trippy email
I think this is a genius show by NBC. You take a night that has “Heroes”, which is basically required Nerd TV, and put on a show were a Nerd gets to do something extraordinary, become a spy. It is just good psychology, give people someone to watch that is similar to them, give him a cool ability, a beautiful partner, and a life more interesting then their own, and you got yourself a hit. On top of that, the show has some quality action, good comedy, and interesting plot lines. It seems like the show will have to go through a couple of interesting plot twists to survive more then a season, but if it can survive those it could last a while.
I am not sure I have accomplished much more by writing this then proving I watch too much TV (which I do), but maybe someone out there will find something interesting to watch off this list. As a general comment, it seems like the networks are doing a better job with new shows this year. The quality seems higher then in years past, which probably has two sides. Quality generally means pricey, and that generally means a show has to be better then average to survive. It is hard to see a show like ‘Bionic Woman”, “Pushing Daisies”, or “Chuck” surviving multiple seasons without pulling in good ratings.

I was tooling around youtube a while back when I stumbled upon this video, I can’t explain why but I find it hilarious. This is just one in a series of videos, you can check out their site here.

When I first read the pitch on Pushing Daisies I thought to myself, “what a stupid concept for a show”. The basic plot that I read then was that the show was based around a guy that for some completely unknown reason can bring people back to life by touching them, but if he touches them again they die and he cannot bring them back. However, if he doesn’t touch them again (killing them, …keep up) within 60 seconds someone else dies in their place. I am sure by this point you can understand why I would think that the concept for the show was stupid. Even writing it now I can’t imagine wanting to watch that show, and I wouldn’t have even given it a shot if it weren’t for a recommendation of a friend.

What you don’t get from the plot synopsis is that Pushing Daisies is a truly original television program. The cinematography has the feel of Big Fish or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (which it also shares a similar narration) and the basic plot premise is so absurd that once you buy into it (which is surprisingly easy to do) the show has the freedom to do whatever they want with you, and they do. From cast members breaking out in musical numbers to cars that run on dandelions, nothing is to far fetched and that is refreshing.

The show is basically a crime show, every episode has a death (usually a few) and the main characters go about solving why the person died. You can probably see why being able to bring people back, even only for a minute, would be useful in this line of work. The plot is made more interesting by a cross-episode story arc, that involves the main character bringing back a recently killed estranged childhood sweetheart and not being able to bring himself to put her back under. They of course fall in love, which is complicated seeing as how if he touches her again she will die. The cool thing is that with as complicated and absurd as that sounds (and trust me that is just the surface, it gets much more complicated and absurd) the fact that the show revels in both it’s complexness and absurdity makes it incredibly smart and entertaining.

I won’t say this is a show that will stay on the air forever (I can’t imagine it having a broad enough appeal to be a mutli-season hit) or that original won’t turn into hokey after 20+ episodes, but for now it is definitely a show worth watching and catching up on. I have to applaud ABC for taking a chance on a show that I am sure needed to be explained multiple times before anyone even remotely understood what it was about.

P.S. If you want to catch-up ABC has some of the episodes online, a trend shared by all the major networks. It is getting to the point you don’t even need a tv anymore because they give the shows away, with fewer commercials, online. I’m not sure the angle the networks are using with putting all their shows online, but I like it.