Rumors! Rumors! Rumors!

Rumors abound on the web (like here and here and here) about Verizon Wireless and Apple teaming up for an iPhone in 2009, possibly even by MacWorld 2009 (second week of January for those who follow the Gregorian calendar rather than the Applearian calendar). This would be insanely awesome for me as I'm an employee of the former and an unashamed fanboy of the latter. If you're like me, and having trouble waiting for such a collabo (as the kids would call it these days), perhaps I could interest you in some coasters?

My New Favorite Letter to the Editor

I suppose I never really had a favorite letter to the editor, so forgive the title, but for whatever reason, this letter moved me a bit. Maybe it's because of my upcoming fatherhood, or my dad and I talking about baseball every chance we get. For whatever reason here it is:

I am among the countless Dodgers fans who, as a boy, slept with a transistor radio under his pillow, furtively listening to Scully. After I confessed my disobedience years later, my father feigned surprise and then said, "Son, why do you think you never had to change the batteries?"
Steve Ross, Sherman Oaks, Calif.

This was in this week's Sports Illustrated in response to an article about Vin Scully, the long-time radio announcer of the Dodgers. Good stuff.

What Happened to Fall?!?

So fall was here for a week, and now that dreaded summer heat seems to be back. I really need more than a week of fall, I need three months of fall. I did get to enjoy the weather though. Kristen and I took a weekend trip to West Jefferson, NC and rented a cozy log cabin to celebrate our third anniversary. It was the best weekend I've had in a long time. It's always interesting to me how many couples seem to dread spending time alone, but Kristen and I can think of nothing better than a weekend alone, no phone, internet or TV, just each other. The highlights:

Hooded sweatshirts! That's right, it was cool enough to wear a hooded sweatshirt without sweating through it!

Cafe Breves at Bohemia. Kristen and I have spent a weekend in West Jefferson each of the last three years and we have had a Cafe Breve at least once every day that they've been open. (They're closed on Sunday. This always makes me very sad.) I alternated between pumpkin spice and cinnamon spice and they were both awesome. Of course, how could a beverage with half and half as its base not be awesome?

Organic veggies! Our cabin shared land with an organic farm. Friday night we enjoyed steak and salad consisting of heirloom tomatos and arugula that we picked ourselves that day. Delish!

Speaking of food, Kristen made cheese blintzes with blueberries one morning, and homemade chocolate waffles the next. No one does breakfast like she does.

We did dinner in Blowing Rock on Saturday and it was awesome. I had cornmeal dusted trout with a fresh tomato garlic aioli and Kristen had spinach and mushroom ravioli. We also started out with calamari. My mouth is watering at the moment.

We also drove down lots of dirt roads, breathed in copious amounts of fresh mountain air, enjoyed the hot tub, completed crossword puzzles, took naps for no reason, and just enjoyed the company of each other. I can't wait to go back in only 51 weeks!

Cha Cha

Has anyone heard of Cha Cha? Sounds like a cool idea. Call them or send them a text message (to 242242) and ask them anything. They will text you the answer and the source within minutes for free! They have a network of 25,000 "guides" who work whenever they want and are paid between $0.10 and $0.20 per answer. They only use pre-approved websites to find the answers. Pretty neat idea, right? So I decided to test them with a question no one would know off the top of their head (except probably my dad) but could find pretty easily. Here's what went down:
Q. What is Mike Mussina's career win total and career ERA?
A. Mike Mussina career average ERA is 163. Chacha on.

Only took about 2 minutes to get my response which is nice and speedy. The problem is that my-two part question only had a one-part answer, and that one-part answer was wrong. Mike Mussina has 263 wins and a career ERA of 3.69. What makes this worse is that you are also sent a link with the source of the information (in my case, baseball-reference.com, a perfect choice.) I was able to find the correct information on this page, why wasn't my guide?
Chacha=FAIL!

Totally Awesome (and Probably Delicious)

Tell me these don't look tasty! And only 8 gigs of sugar each!

Things That Iritate Me To No End

I'm a positive dude, I swear, but these 10 things drive me crazy!

1. Dudes who walk into an empty bathroom and use the middle urinal causing me to walk into a nearly empty bathroom and break the "don't use a urinal next to an already occupied urinal" rule. Hey, don't make it look like it's my fault when you're the rule breaker!

2. Technology made to make my life a tad bit simpler, but ends up making my life way more difficult when it doesn't work. For example, remember when you used to be able to turn a knob and water would pour forth from your sink? That wasn't so difficult right? Now while I'm in the bathroom at work (after being forced against my will to break the urinal rule) I have to wave like an idiot under each faucet hoping at least one will work long enough to dampen my hands. Thank goodness we've done away with those insanely difficult knobs. Life is so much easier now!

3. Bluetooth head sets. No explanation needed.

4. People with a total inability to utilize their vehicle's turn signals. Now I don't know about your car, but in my car I have an easily-manipulated lever located conveniently right next to my steering wheel that I can use to communicate my upcoming actions to other drivers around me. It's really a pretty remarkable device. You might know that your driveway is only a block and a half away, but without a turn signal, I have absolutely no idea why you are driving eleven miles an hour right now.

5. 24-Hour news channels. If you have no more details since the last update six minutes ago, then why are you giving us an update? I guess it is maybe a tad bit entertaining to hear a CNN anchor say things live on camera like "we're really just guessing here," or "we can't tell you why police are chasing this man, but we do have blurry video for you."

6. This new thing where you pay for something like an umbrella with your debit card and they give you a slip with a line for a tip. Why would I tip you? Why must you make me feel cheap when I'm forced to enter a zero on the tip line as if I'm starving your family? If you want a tip, cut my hair or deliver food to my table or something. Am I wrong here?

7. The radio. How do people listen to the radio for longer than eight minutes without going crazy? Do they realize that with an iPod or a CD you can listen to music that you choose without listening to 45 minutes of ads every hour? Finally, some technology that really does make our lives easier.

8. Football absolutely dominating anything sports related on the radio and TV when baseball is in the stretch run and the football season hasn't even started yet. Why do I need to know about the Dolphin's third string quarterback options two months before the season starts? I'm pretty sure Tom Brady just proved why preseason guessing games are worthless.

9. Mock drafts. I'm a dude and a sports fan, but I just don't understand why every single employee of ESPN, from the lunch lady to Stuart Scott needs to give us their mock drafts every day. Here's an idea, if the draft is tomorrow, let's just wait and see what happens tomorrow. I bet it'll even be accurate!

10. Writing checks. Unless you're over the age of 90 or you're paying a utility bill in the comfort of your own home, you should NOT be writing checks. Certainly not in public. Its called a debit card. Look into it. No really, look into it.

Since I'm not a totally negative guy, here are 10 things I like:
1. My wife's guacamole.
2. Brollie and Eva when they wake up from naps and their heads are extra cone head-like.
3. Skippy natural peanut butter with golden delicious apples.
4. Long walks on the beach. No, seriously.
5. My MacBook.
6. The 13000 songs in my iTunes. (I love each of them, much like a parent loves each of their children.
7. Watching 72 episodes of Lost in a month with Kristen.
8. Flaming Amy' burritos.
9. Iced coffee.
10. Lists of things.

12 Albums That Have Shaped My Life

1. Aerosmith - Big Ones



I guess for a list like this, I've gotta start at the beginning, and what better way to do that than starting with my very first CD. It was Christmas morning some time in the early 90s, and after opening all my other presents and failing to find the CD player I had been hoping for, my mom asked me to get something for her from my room. I can't remember what she asked me to bring her, but I do remember the ginormous box wrapped and sitting in the middle of my room. It was a Sony 5-Disc stereo that I still have today. And what's a brand new stereo without any music to play in it? I then unwrapped my final gift, Aerosmith's Big Ones. I played that disc out for years. My parents probably got so sick of hearing "Crazy" and "Amazing" over and over. Until I got to my hardcore stage. Then I'm sure they missed those songs.

2. Face to Face - Don't Turn Away



This album did more to influence the next 13 years of my life than anything else. I was in Brad Davis's basement in the summer of '95 and he tried to play off this album being his band. I was blown away when I found out that there was this whole underground scene of music that I was completely ignorant of. Brad is now in The AKAs (Are Everywhere) doing the whole Warped Tour thing and I'm training people on how to use Verizon Wireless's data services. I guess our paths turned out slightly different.

3. Strife - One Truth



Ah, my hardcore days. This really should be a three way tie along with Earth Crisis's Firestorm and Snapcase's Lookinglasself albums as I originally thought that only Victory Records released hardcore albums. Then I discovered:

4. One King Down - Bloodlust Revenge



What? There are other hardcore labels? No way! I'm going to be really poor now!
(Side note: God bless my parents for dealing with this stage of my life. They must have HATED these albums.)

5. Chamberlain - The Moon My Saddle



If you know anything about me musically, then you already know about my unwavering obsession with all things David Moore. Of all the albums on this list, I still listen to this album on a consistent basis. If this was a Best Albums of All Time list, this would be at the very top.

6. Texas is the Reason - Do You Know Who You Are?


Much like Chamberlain, I have devoured anything Texas is the Reason related in the last decade. From Solea to New Rising Sons, House + Parish to New End Original, if a former member of TITR is in the band, you'll find it in my collection.

7. Saves the Day - Can't Slow Down



I know, I know, Saves the Day like totally ripped off Lifetime and I'm losing all the respect you had for me by listing this album. See the thing is, and it's embarrassing to admit it here, but I discovered Saves the Day before I discovered Lifetime. It was my sophomore year at IUP and I met this dude named Kiersten who was all about New York hardcore. We'd hang out in his dorm and listen to Madball, Blood for Blood and the rest of the DMS crew until one day he played Saves the Day and from those first chords of Deciding I was hooked. To this day, this is still the album I go to for that first day of summer, when you're driving around with the windows down. This is that album.

8. The Juliana Theory - Understand This is a Dream



So it's still my sophomore year of college, and I'm rooming with another straight edge hardcore kid named Mike, and suddenly our musical tastes start drifting apart. He's still completely into metal and hardcore and I'm starting to seque into the more melodic (aka wussy) emo genre of music. Now don't get me wrong, I was still all for the late night mosh sessions where we'd turn the lights down, blare the music and practice our circle pit moves (totally not a joke, I thought I broke my hand one night when I went windmilling right into our bunk beds. Not cool, but totally awesome at the same time...). I can't tell you why, but suddenly he was also into the Juliana Theory and I got to play my wussy emo music a little more often. I'm pretty sure he even started cuffing his dark jeans and wore his glasses a lot more often. Those were fun times. But just when you'd think we'd lost our hardcore edge...

9. Ignite - Call On My Brothers



Ah, southern California's hardcore poster children. For a long time I kept a list of the top bands I wanted to see live and Ignite held the top position on this list for at least three years. That's when Mike and I saw the fliers. Ignite were performing during IUP's annual finals week concert. This is still the most unusual concert I've ever been too, and probably one of the best. It's easy to get the attention of one of your favorite bands when only two people in the crowd know any of the words. Long story short, Goldfinger headlined the concert and the fire alarms went off in the middle of the concert moving everyone to the parking lot. I had lost my copy of this album and had planned to buy a new copy but all the merch was inside, so I just walked up to Zoli in the parking lot and he gave me his personal copy. I won't be losing this one.

10. Last Days of April - Angel Youth



I was really into this album during the summer after my junior year of college. I was interning for a computer software company and had to share an office with someone a few pegs higher than me on the corporate ladder. I listened to this CD with the volume as low as humanly possible and basically looped the album over and over (cause that's what I do) and I thought I was all nice and stealthy about it until he finally turned around and said "you really like that album don't you?" Whoops. I'm still a rabid fan and buy all their albums direct from Sweden.

11. Say Anything - In Defense of the Genre



A double disc, and my vote for the album of 2007. It's obviously the most recent album on this list, and possibly the most popular (except for Aerosmith of course) but it is a phenomenal genre melding piece of work. Max Bemis will write a song specifically for you for a price (which I can't recall at the moment) and it could actually be worth it. The dude can sing about anything and make you think it's the best song you've heard in years. Hopefully he's got plenty of songs left.

12. David Crowder*Band - A Collision



I was actually given a mixed tape (really a CD, but mixed tape sounds so much more indie and cool) by a friend to discover the greatness that is the DC*B. This mixed batch of songs opened my eyes to the idea that religious songs could still be well-written and worthy of a listen. A lot of things have changed in my life in the last year, and this album has influenced quite a few of those changes. You can scroll through some older blog entries to find out more. My wife gets sick of me listening to DC*B ALL THE TIME but it could be worse. Much, much worse.

Honorable Mentions:
Refused - The Shape of Punk to Come
The Get Up Kids - Something to Write Home About
New Found Glory - Nothing Gold Can Stay
Mae - The Everglow
The Gloria Record - A Lull in Traffic
Silent Majority - Life of a Spectator
Jimmy Bufett - Songs You Know By Heart
Bane - Holding This Moment
The Hope Conspiracy - Self-Titled
Underoath - They're Only Chasing Safety

Fourteen Days

When I started blogging, I had stuff to say all the time. Then I create a blog, and never have anything to say anymore. It's weird how that works. I still don't have anything to say, so instead, here's a list of what's happened in the last two weeks:
1. Found out some huge, good news. Let's just say someone I know is going to be a father within the next, oh, nine months or so.
2. We got slammed by Tropical Storm Hanna. That's a lie. She snuck around the city early in the morning on Saturday, knocked out our power a few times for a couple of minutes, and then ripped the gate off our fence. Then she was gone. I haven't seen her since.
3. I made some peanut butter ice cream for a friend and it's my new favorite flavor. RIght now I'm waiting for a batch of vanilla to finish churning for our small group/ice cream sunday party tomorrow.
4. I have a slight ankle sprain which totally blows. I did it on Wednesday playing volleyball at lunch. It's still sore, and being that it's Sunday, it makes me a bit nervous. Good thing I have two volleyball matches starting in fifty minutes. That'll probably help the ankle out.
5. I ran a mobile camera today at PC3 and it was a blast. Much more of a creative outlet than the studio cam. Hopefully it's not my last experience.
6. My song of the week has been Cannons by Phil Wickham which the band performed today. Good stuff.
7. Today has been a good day, but started disastrous. For some strange reason I woke up ten minutes before my alarm clock (5:04am) so I decided to get up and eat breakfast. I then proceeded to find two piles of dog poop in the living room. Gross. So I bag it up and put it outside the door. Then I go to eat my frosted mini wheats and find out the fridge door was never completely closed last night. So I had lukewarm milk with my cereal. Gross again. Then as I was leaving for church, I take the bags of dog crap to the trash can and find the lid absolutely covered in maggots. GRRRROOOOSSSSSS. From that point on the day has been good. But oh, what a stomach churning start.