Craig's Variety Show Episode 2 Finally
After many tries, we finally have a date for Craig's Variety Show, Episode 2... It's NewYears Day at 6 AM Channel 12. I'm sure everyone will watch it...
Okay, I'm sure everyone will TiVo it right?
December 2005 Archives
La Gloria Cubana Churchill
I spent my birthday in Florida at Walt Disney World. To celebrate I bought myself a cigar. I figure in Florida for my birthday I would go with a brand I like, instead of something new. So I went with an LGC.
For various reasons I didn't get around to having it until today. Consequently, it had suffered through a flight, and a week of being sealed in a plastic bag in my freezing house.
Construction: It was a little dry, and consequently it started hard to draw and needed to be relit after little time being unsmoked. Granted, it was mistreated so that might not be it's fault. It still burned fairly evenly, and turned into white ash.
Taste: Absolutely incredible. Power-wise, it was pretty middle of the road. It started with chocolate mixed with tobacco, and stayed that way the entire time. I smoked it down to my fingers.
Stats: This cigar measures 7 inches by a ring gauge of 50. It's made in the US with filler from Nicaragua and the Domincan Republic, binder from Nicaragua and wrapper from Ecuador. Holt's sells them for around $3.35 a smoke.
Overall: For $3.35 a pop I'm considering adding a box of these to my humidor.
Note:While Holt's sells them at a good price, the Sosa store at Downtown Disney charged me $8.50 for this smoke. Next time, I'll bring my own.
Phallus Claus
This is one of those inflatable Christmas lawn ornaments that appears to be the rage this holiday season. My question is: who buys a inflatable Christmas lawn ornament of a Santa with a giant tree-dong? You also can't see it in the picture, but the wind causes the inflatable figure to jiggle in a most unwholesome manner.
Do You Hear What I Hear?
Do you hear what I hear, do you hear what I hear? A song, a song, a song that's over-produced...
Why is it that Chirstmas brings out over cleaned voices, unnecessary florishes and children's chiors?
I saw Harry Hamlin
I was within spittin' distance of dreamy, dreamy Harry Hamlin, of L.A. Law and Clash of the Titans fame. He narrated a Christmas Program at EPCOT.
Yeah it's pretty blurry, but nothing can diminish the man beauty that is Harry Hamlin.
Back from Florida
I went down to Walt Disney World for my birthday, and I got back into town yesterday. I've been catching up on everything in preparation for leaving again for Long Island this weekend for Christmas with Janice's family. So I'm just going to do a stream of consciousness thing here and spill it all.
Continue reading "Back from Florida"
Searching For Santa
In my rush to get the movie posted, I forgot to thank the stars of the film. Scott, Janice, Ryan and Joe had to put up with me as a demanding director so they deserve more than thanks, but that's all I got for 'em.
If you haven't seen it, check it out.
I'm A Year Older
I've entered the last year of my 20's. I don't know just how I feel about yet. But my presence at Disney World implies that I won't be going gently futher into adulthood.
My Latest Movie Is Done
I finished the movie I've been working on. It's not my best flick, but I don't think anyone will cry over it. I should have the script, and video up after in a week or so. In a new twist, I'll be adding the storyboards too.
Added MT-Notifier
After putting it off for awhile, I finally got Movable Type notifications to work. I now know when comments are posted instead of having to obsessively check my blog configuration page. After that I figured it wasn't that far a stretch to open up notifications for everyone else.
To that end, I installed MT-Notifier from Everitz Consulting. If you would like to subscribe to a particular post, just check the "Subscribe to This Entry" box on the individual entry page. You have to confirm your desire to do so, but then you're in business.
You see, I don't suffer from delusions that everybody is eager to subscribe to Aarrggghh!!. However occasionally people ask questions in my comments, and I'm never sure what the etiquette is. Do I email them back, or do I just comment back and let them find it when they feel like it? Now, I don't have to worry, the reader can make that decision for themselves.
Coke has No Sense of Humor
My continuing plans to torment Coke do not fair well. In an attempt to be completely honest, I sent them this:
Would this have been a more effective query:
Please send me free Diet Vanilla Coke. You can't sell it anyway. You might as well send me some free. I will give it a good home and love it, until I pour it into my gaping maw!
I'm just wondering.
They reponded:
Thank you for contacting our website, Mr. Ryan. We appreciate your interest in The Coca-Cola Company.
Your comments are appreciated and will be shared with the appropriate management.
If you have additional questions or comments, please visit our website again.
Janice
Industry and Consumer Affairs
The Coca-Cola Company
What I find interesting is that it is clearly a form letter, like the last response, but is different from it. Either an algorithm determines the response, or a person had to pick a response. It almost makes me want to test what will come back from them if I send different queries.
Seasons Greetings?
I've had it up to here with the whole "Happy Holidays" versus "Merry Christmas" debate. I was at Church earlier tonight, and the Monsignor admonished us not the leave Jesus out of the holiday. While I have my issues and disagreements with the Church, I had a lot more respect for them, than to believe that they would get sucked into this stupid issue.
It is a stupid issue, because zealots on both sides of the argument seem to miss the point. At this time of the year we are more charitable, more caring, and more generous to others. The point of offering any sort of seasons greeting is to extend that elevated humanity to others. To offer any sort of well-wish as weapon or to push your views on another person makes your charitable offering crap before it leaves your mouth.
For most people, to offer someone "Happy Holidays" is to say "I want to offer you well wishes but I'm not sure what holiday you celebrate." It may also mean "I don't really care but I am offering you platitudes." It doesn't mean "I hate the baby Jesus."
On the other hand, most people that say "Merry Christmas," are saying "I want to offer you well wishes and I celebrate Christmas." It may too mean "I don't really care but I am offering you platitudes." It doesn't mean "I hope the baby Jesus devours you and your heathen children."
My rule on the matter, is that if you really want to extend well wishes to people offer the well wishes that they want to receive. If you encounter a someone you know is Christian, say "Merry Christmas." If you encounter a person you know is Jewish say "Happy Chanukah." If you encounter someone you know worships the Flying Spaghetti Monster, ask them where their pirate costume is.
If you don't know, remember that "Happy Holidays" means "I don't know what you celebrate, but I wish you well!"
And for the record, I am Catholic, which means according to me, I'm Christian, (according to others, I'm a "so-called Christian.") I respond to "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays," and I will just be happy that in this craptastic world someone wishes me well... or is at least offering platitudes.
Insomniac Blogging
I slept most of the day away fighting off a migraine. So I'm up rendering video for this year's Christmas movie. I just finished the video cut and now I have to go back and start editing the sound.
Rendering takes awhile cause my workstation is two years old, and I applied a lot of video tweaks to the movie:
- Color corrected every shot
- Letterboxed the whole thing
- Added a film look to most of the shots
- Added an effect that looked like it was shot through white diffusion to make a flashback look distinct.
Now comes the awful period that will last until a month after I show this thing at the Christmas party. What I thought was funny has now, after repeated viewing, ceased to entertain me. Doubt creeps in. Will other people find it funny? Will people be offended? Worst, will other people think it's lame?
Okay, it's probably done. Onward to tedious sound design!
Jim Davis for Govenor (Florida)
I'm happy to share with everyone that ColdFusion is being used to make the world a better place... or at least to make Florida Democratic again.
The crew at Jim Davis for Governor '06 have created a good looking site that uses ColdFusion, and blogging to reach the state of Florida. The cool thing I like about it is that the main blogger, Matthew Thornton, (disclaimer: a good friend of mine, who comments here from time to time,) gets the blogging medium. If you read the blog, it reads like a blog. It's got a the right tone and content, as opposed to other candidate blogs that are just a collection of press releases. It's not just me that thinks so. This guy said it too..
Congratulations to Matt, and the whole crew at the Jim Davis campaign. Now it's time to win.
Coke Just Doesn't Understand
A couple days ago, I wrote about Coke breaking my heart by discontinuing Diet Vanilla Coke, possible the greatest liquid ever created by man... in a laboratory... by an R and D team. I wrote to Coke to ask them information about how to amass a supply for my future Diet Vanilla Coke needs. This is what I wrote:
I'm a huge fan of Diet Vanilla Coke. (I go through about 4 12 packs a week.) I am very disappointed to find out that it is being discontinued. Is there anyway I can find out where the final shipments are being sent in my area so I can hoard it?
It should have been obvious that I meant:
Please send me free Diet Vanilla Coke. You can't sell it anyway. You might as well send me some free. I will give it a good home and love it, until I pour it into my gaping maw!
Their response in the extended section.
Continue reading "Coke Just Doesn't Understand"
Blackberry Blogging
Finally got myself a new cell phone. It's a Blackberry 8700c powered by Cingular Edge data services.
Long and short of it. I love blogging from the comfort of my own bed. It seems to be a decent cure for insomnia.
You Better Watch Out
Work has an annual Christmas party where we are encouraged to submit videos with a Christmas theme. My first year out, I figured I'd go for a little weird and disturbing, and hence put forth "It's a Wonderful Mensch" where I suggested that the CIO of my company locked up workers in a cage if they gave him a bad Christmas present. I was solidly trounced however in weirdness (and humor) by "You Better Watch Out."
"You Better Watch Out" has finally been put out on the web, and I'll join Dan and Becky in trying to spread the meme. Check it out, it's really worth it.
And while you're at Google Video, feel free to search for Citizen Wumpus...
Future of Flashpaper
The Internets are a twitter with talk of the now finalized merger of Adobe and Macromedia. Now can I get an answer to the question I've wanted to ask, but knew no one would answer:
What's going to happen to Flashpaper?
I get that pdf is the defacto standard for sharing documents. However, Acrobat Reader is such overkil for reading documents on the web. On the other hand Flashpaper is such a fast, lightweight, and effective way of consuming specially formatted documents on the web. Up until yesterday, I assumed that Adobe would incorporate a superior product into the fold, and make a Flash version of Acrobat Reader or something for consumption on the web. But after Coke broke my heart yesterday, I'm not so sure that superior products win out.
Now that forward looking statements are no longer prohibited, somebody out there better spill it.
Why does Coke Hate Me?
Diet Vanilla Coke is being discontinued. Why Coca Cola? I have been a loyal customer. I buy incredible amounts of the stuff. I have for years. Am I not enough?
I'm going to have to hoard the stuff now.
Twinkle, Twinkle, Cira?
For the last few nights I've been driving home around 6pm with Janice. We've seen the Cira Center light up. Not only does it have hundreds of tiny bright lights, they change color, they make patterns and they sparkle.
Has anyone else seen this? Does anyone know anything about this? Is it a testing thing, or are they going to do this permanently?
