Sick this

I came down with a cold on December 17th.  It was after a speaking engagement in North East Georgia. I was teaching early on the morning of the 14th.  I arrived the night before so I wouldn't have to deal with any potential traffic or get up before newspaper boys on bicycles.  I arrived, checked-in, met the host committee and prepared for to go out to dinner when a member of the HC waddled up to me, looked down to me and said in a fairly thick southern accent; "You the fancy Atlanta boy who's goin' to teach us how to use the Internet?"

I thought for a second, swallowed, looked up and quietly said; "I work in Atlanta. I'm going to show you how the Fox uses the Internet.  And as far as fancy goes sir, I like whiskey and the Georgia Bulldogs."

He grabbed my shoulder and shook me like a rag doll howling with laughter.  After dinner I was invited out (read: forced into a car) for drinks with him and another gentleman just like him at a local watering hole.  This is where I unlocked a new level of intoxication I didn't know existed.  It will be referred to as; "politician-drunk".

But back to this cold.  A week after fighting what was just a cold I scooted on down to the doc in the box. I was dismissed after being told it was just a cold and to ride it out.  2 weeks after that I walked into my general practitioner's office and said, "I've had a cold for 3 weeks, fix me."  My doctor quickly give me an antibiotic so strong I haven't been allowed to go the gym for the last week.  Here we are a week later.  The cold is gone but I'm still sloshing fluid around in my lungs. I've coughed so much in the past 4 weeks I've given myself a bulging disc (I checked the spelling of "disc" 4 times.)  Tomorrow I'm headed back to the GP for a chest x-ray. Like most things, I'm blaming the politicians.

2011 Recap

Once again, too many crappy movies and not enough books.  But my reading list jumped from 1 in 2010 to 7 in 2011, so that's something. Underlined items were my favorites.

Music - Albums only
Anthony Jeselnik, Shakespeare 
Foo Fighters, Wasting Light
Original Broadway Cast, Rock Of Ages
Original Broadway Cast, The Book Of Mormon
Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah
Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, Blow In The Wind
Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, Are a Drag
Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, Have Another Ball
Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies, Have a Ball
R.E.M., Collapse Into Now
Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
Daft Punk, Tron Legacy
Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross, The Social Network
Cake, Showroom of Compassion
Girl Talk, Bone Hard Zaggin'
Girl Talk, Stop Cleveland Hate
Girl Talk, Feed the animals
Girl Talk, Night Ripper
Girl Talk, Secret Diary
Girl Talk, Unstoppable
Girl Talk, All Day

Travel
Tuscon, Arizona
Las Vegas, Nevada
Dallas, Texas
Athens, Georgia

Books

The Man Who Ate the World - Jay Rayner

Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer - Warren St. John

Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends - Penn Jillette

Last Words: A Memoir - George Carlin

God No! - Penn Jillette 

Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz - Ron Jeremy

From Hershel to Hobnail Boot: The Life and Times of Larry Munson - Larry Munson

Live entertainment

Blue Man Group

Absinthe (Incredible and would see over and over and over again)

Mumford and Sons (Can't remember a concert I loved this much)

Movies

Wall Street 2

Airplane!

Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel

Tron: Legacy

Penn and Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour

Blood into Wine

Inception

Family Guy: It's a Trap

Love and Other Drugs

Salt

The Social Network

The Box

Avatar

The Blind Side

Foo Fighters: Back and Forth

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Too Big To Fail

Bruno

Clash of the Titans

War of the Worlds

Despicable Me

The Informant

Superheroes

Predators

Cedar Rapids

American: The Bill Hicks Story 

The Invention of Lying

Machete

The A-Team

X-Men: First Class 

The People Vs Larry Flynt 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

RED  

Friends with Benefits

The Muppets

I am Number 4 

Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon 

Captain America 

The Company Men 

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

Devil 

Thor

Quick note to Tess

Dear Tess,

One day you'll learn putting your nose into someone's crotch has a very distinct meaning.

Love,

Dad

Hi Internet! *Waves frantically*

I've been using MobileMe to run a simple little personal website.  It was nothing fancy; just a place to call home on the internet.  I'm not super HTML savvy and I didn't have the time to build and do what I wanted from scratch, but iWeb and MobileMe made the experience super easy and mostly brainless.  It was a typical Apple product; it just worked.  But for whatever lame reason, Apple is throwing out MobileMe like Atlanta Public Schools is throwing away student test results. (Hey-Oooo!)

But there was a page that I kept updated with quotes I liked and the occasional stupid thing I said.  So for posterity's sake...

Quotes I Like or Said that I or other people found amusing

"Honestly had I taken this whole career thing seriously I would have named it something else cause it’s the worst fucking band name in the world." - Dave Grohl

"It frightens me the awful truth of how sweet life can be." - Bob Dylan

"Sometimes good command decisions get compromised by bad emotional responses." - Ben Linus

"Flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative." - Garrett Vonk

"All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life: there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair.  Snapshots don’t show the million decisions that led to that moment."  - Richard Bach

"Beer pong is never a good idea" - RRS

"What Would the flying spaghetti monster do?"

"Never practice two vices at once" - Tallulah Bankhead

"Score one for liquor and poor judgment." - Sheldon Cooper

"I have hard time English Language." - RRS

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." - Hunter S. Thompson

"I can't kill myself, I have too many responsibilities." - Charlie Bartlett

"We're only a six pack away from justice." - Kit Kitchens

"Without friends, no one would choose to live." - Aristotle

"Give your heart to Jesus, because your ass is mine." - Kit Kitchens

"If you can't be a good example you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning." - Catherine Aird

"Fried okra doesn't travel well." - RRS

"The people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?" - Bob Marley

Quick note to Tess

Dear Tess,

The next time you decide to throw a 30 minute tantrum, I'm taping the whole thing and showing it at your rehearsal dinner. You've been warned.

Love,

Dad

iPad RSS Readers

UPS finally came through and delivered an iPad.  I got so tired of waiting for one to fall off the truck, delicately roll up the driveway, knock politely on the door, let itself in and tell charming party jokes, that I bought one.

I have been saving articles on iPad apps for this situation, but one article I missing was a recommendation for an RSS reader.  I use Google Reader for almost all of my desktop/laptop online reading but don't care for its layout, appearance or its user interface in the Google app.

I fired up Twitter and asked; "Does anyone have an iPad aggregator app they really like?"  Here are the results of answers, searching, and playing.

Pulse: Pros - A sexy app with its black background and curvy logo.  A nice absence of glaring colors that would only serve to damage my delicate baby blues.  Easy and quick interface to import feeds from Google Reader.  Cons - Pulse only allows you to import one feed at a time and you're limited to 12 feeds in 5 categories.  That means you're limited to 60 feeds, far short of my needs.

Flud: Another really good looking app... WHEN IT WASN'T CRASHING EVERY MINUTE.  I wish I was kidding or exaggerating.  Fail.

Flipboard: Pros - No limit on the number of feeds.  It imports, not just feeds but entire folders of feeds.   Cons - An off-white background that will tire my eyes after a while.  It has a distinct magazine feel to it, which I'm not crazy about.  The user interface isn't the sleekest, but I'd rather have an app that works than one that looks cool and crashes or limits my usage.

Winner - Flipboard.  It's stable and works and at the end of the day, that's what I'm looking for.  But if Pulse expands the number of feeds and categories, I'll switch in a heartbeat.

Penn and Teller

"Because Teller and I believe it is morally wrong to do things on stage that are really too dangerous.  It makes the audience complicit, in unnecessary human risk."