Hidden embarassment [Life's "metagames"]

For the most part, I am pretty proud of my musical diversity, I have things in my collection ranging from the 1930's group "The Ink Spots" all the way to some of today's mainstream and indie groups.

There is however, about 2% of my music collection that I am, well... ashamed of. Some of this comes from "Zune freebies", some are residual from a time when my wife and my collections were combined on a single computer (I'm not saying my wife has bad taste, but to have Brittany Spears in my collection is something I often have to explain), and some are guilty pleasures (Third Eye Blind much?). This didn't used to be a problem, as I was able to keep my collection secret from others. But since I bought my Zune and joined the "Zune Social" (which displays your favorites, most played, and recent plays), these little awkward gems occasionally come floating to the top.

The Zune software does a nice little job of taking the album art of several albums in your collection and making a mosaic of them as the background while the player is running. No matter how many times I refresh it, there is at least one of these "shame albums" hidden somewhere in the "quilt". This has led to a little game I play; I call the game: "WTF? Musical Where's Waldo". It goes like this, at any given point I will look at the player and try to find the album that I need to cover with a post-it. Here is a screen shot I took, see if you can play along (click the picture for a blown up version). Look at the album art and when you come across one that makes you say "Why the hell does he have THAT?", you've won!

Seriously?... How to Grind? [WTF?]

For those of you who couldn't care less about me whining about my broken toy, I will share this little bit of joy with you. On my iGoogle homepage I have several little boxes that I don't really pay much attention to very often, but are there in case I get really bored. Case-in-point: the How to of the day, which displays the title of three "How-To" articles the change everyday.

The other day I went to search for something and out of the corner of my eye I caught the title "How to grind". I kind of laughed thinking to myself "surely they are talking about skateboarding" (this is specifically addressed in the "article"). Nope.

If you need a laugh [or lesson], please check out this story. This shows the dark side of user generated content (and why Wikipedia is not a reliable source for your research paper). But you have to give credit to the person who could actually type the following line and still hit the save button:

If repositioning does not work, you may want to excuse yourself for a few minutes to let things settle down.

Bonus: it comes with Tips, Warnings, and a video tutorial.

http://www.wikihow.com/Grind

Today's lesson: humanity

I was at Starbucks this morning (I know...BIG surprise), purchasing my morning coffee. As I reached the line there were two people in front of me and the first was finishing up her order. In the 15 seconds it took me to walk to the line and pull my wallet out of my pocket six people fell into place behind me, including a few "regulars" I recognized. My brother works at this particular Starbucks, so the baristas know me and were pouring my coffee as I walked in. Several of the other people in line were [actual] coffee drinkers and the barista scrambled to get their orders ready ahead of time as well. As the coffees started piling up on the counter the first lady took back her card and began to walk away. The cashier said thank you and as she was about to help the next customer she glanced at the register and noticed there was a balance of 80 cents. The cashier kindly called to the previous customer and alerted her of the situation. The customer explained she'd have to go to her car to get the balance and walked out with an embarrassed look as the line came to a halt.

Let me break here and give you a bit of a sidebar. I know its not fair to "judge a book by its cover", and this is something I try to follow. The things that most people get caught up on like (skin color, tattoos, sexual orientation, etc) don't really cause me to prejudice myself. However, there are a few things that I still need to work on. If people have any of the following, they have basically start "in the hole" and have to prove me wrong:

• NASCAR stickers on their car (I know, I know, its a sport...)
• Ponytail on men over 40 (I think they look ridiculous on men period, but have a particularly hard time with the 40+ crowd)
• Bushy mustaches (men or women :) )

Back to my story...

As the women made it to the door, a man handed the cashier a dollar. It was one of the regulars, a retired man, probably 5'3, bright yellow nylon jumpsuit, long grey ponytail, and a bushy mustache. The cashier thought initially thought (as did I) the man was being rude and trying to sneak in payment for a newspaper. He quickly explained it was to cover the lady's balance. The line began moving again, and when the woman returned she was elated that someone had come to her assistance and promptly thanked the man.

I felt kind of bad. I saw this man everyday, and every time I saw him I rolled my eyes. Not anymore... now I just have to work on the NASCAR stickers.

SIDENOTE: As I was typing this, it began to feel like a cheesy email forward. If this was an email forward it seems like it would probably end with "...and the woman pulled a gun out of her purse and handed it to the man. She then explained with a tear in her eye, 'I was going to use this on myself later but your kindness has shown me humanity still has some good...'" :)

That sheep is forking funny!

Two or so weeks ago my family went on our ritual Sunday morning breakfast at a local cafe (La Parisian on Palm & Nees) and enjoyed brunch with both sets of parents. It was a nice morning as usual, lounging around, eating crepes, and enjoying the frigid morning air. Once Keegan's naptime was approaching, we decided to go home before he had a "tired toddler explosion".

As a way to teach K new words and situations we often play the "what's that" game, asking him the name of something we see. On the way home a fire truck drove by with its lights and siren on, naturally we asked "Keegan, what's that?", to which he replied "F*CK!" with a big grin on this face. Natali and I just looked at each other. At first both our jaws were on the ground and we had sort of a deer in the headlights look about us. That look slowly melted into uproarious laughter (but trying to hide it, so we didn't reinforce that particular pronunciation). As we gathered ourselves, we took turns enunciating very carefully: f-eye-er T-r-uh-k. As he tried to repeat, he slowly responded: "Ahhhh fuuuuu*k". Hilarity ensued until both Nat and I were crying from trying to keep our laughter hidden.

The reason I bring this up now is that I think I have to have my "Parental License" suspended for a few days. My parents came over for dinner yesterday and I wanted to show off my son's new vernacular. I brought out a fork (which evokes a similar response) and asked, "Keegan, what's this?". To my dismay he responded "forrrrk". We praised him and gave him a round of applause, but in my head I was disappointed. How sad is that? I already miss the fun I could have had with that one. :)

Baking: Take the good with the bad

My wife has found a new love for baking. This holiday, batch after batch of delicious treats and confections have rolled off the stove and out of the oven. My tough job is that someone has to "test" them and verify that they are of "gift-giving quality".

Unfortunately for me, I am responsible for keeping the kitchen clean (since we both work full-time, and I admit I slack sometimes). So I present to you:

One of the many reasons I love when my wife bakes (the picture doesn't do them justice!):

And the only reason I hate when my wife bakes (not really though):

Winning Wednesday: Fable II (Late)

Fable II hasn't really been given great reviews because of its story, but instead its choice and consequence system.  Basically you are given free reign to do anything in the game.  Each decision you make effects everything else in the game.  In the very beginning of the game you begin as a child and are asked to help find some [arrest] warrents for a town guard.  After collection them, you are approached by a theif, who says he'll pay you to give him the warrents instead of the guard.  The decision seems small, but it has lasting ramifications.  Once you grow up and return to the same town, you learn the consequences of your decision.  If you gave the warrents to the guard, the town is a bustling center of business with many new shops.  If you gave the warrents to the thief, the town is a desolate, lawless, dark place.  Each decision you make also effects your good/evil meter, pure/corrupt, and beautify/ugly meters, and the townsfolk react to you differantly depending on your "ratings".  Its an interesting game, and I'm only about a third of the way through it, but I am continually impressed by the depth of the good vs evil system.  On top off all that the visuals are amazing beautiful scenery and very detailed environments.  I'd definately advise picking this one up even if you don't like RPGs.

Swing by the Xbox website and check out the minigame.  Its a little violent, but the animation style is worth watching in itself (A Hero's Tale).  

NOTE: When asked to put your birthday in, the format is DD MM YYYY, not MM DD YYYY.