"Train don't run out of Wichita unlessin' you're a hog or a cattle. "

It's not Thanksgiving without a viewing of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

PETA makes preparing your Thanksgiving meal tasty fun!

Play the game here.

I don't think this game had the intended effect PETA was looking for, as I had fun playing it.

EDIT: Much like PETA itself, this flash game is super annoying. It would load automatically with the blog, playing loud screams and music. So I just linked to it.

"As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just the recognition that I'm better than almost everybody else is its own reward

Well, after some high hopes last week, I ended the ESPN College Pick 'Em season ranked 4th overall. So no Xbox 360 or Circuit City gift card for me. But considering my picks were based more on luck than expert analysis, placing that high is quite an accomplishment.

So, now the question begs: are you bitches ready for me to totally dominate the next Oscar pool?

Note: I blacked out the full names of all those participating in my league, reasoning that they wouldn't want the public humiliation that would inevitably come with the knowledge that I totally laid the smack down on them.

Song to get you through the weekend: "Wild as a Turkey" by Hayes Carll

It's almost Thanksgiving! What better way to (almost) kick off the week than with some good music? Searching through my iTunes, this is one of the few songs that have "turkey" in the title. And nothing really stuck me as Thanksgiving related (except for Adam Sandler's "Thanksgiving Song," but that's a bit too obvious).

I'm preoccupied with getting all my Christmas music in order right now, but once that's done I intend on immersing myself in my 2008 music rankings. Without using my usual scientific determination, it looks as though Hayes Carll's Trouble in Mind may crack the Top 10.



Okay, upon further reflection, Thanksgiving's really all about family and cranberry sauce. Duh.

Crushes of the Week: the new Bond girls

This week's Crushes are the latest Bond girls: Gemma Arterton and Olga Kurylenko. I'd seen the latter in the dreadful Hitman last year, but this was my first time seeing the former in anything.



While I was not really a fan of Quantum of Solace, at least it delivered the eye candy that we expect from this franchise (Grace Jones excepted).

"Are you now or have you ever been involved in douchebaggery? Remember, sir, that you are under oath."

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30 rock tumbler

Tonight's new episode of "30 Rock": "Gavin Volure"

Liz meets one of Jack's friends, the eccentric businessman Gavin Volure, who becomes enamored with her. Also, Kenneth invests his money in Gavin's business. Meanwhile, Tracy fears that his children, Tracy Jr. and George Foreman Jordan, are trying to kill him.

Discuss.

Office chatter

Tonight's new episode of "The Office": "Frame Toby"

A mysterious person in the office has made a huge mess in the microwave and will not clean it up.

Discuss.

Sunny day

Tonight's season finale of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia": "The Nightman Cometh"

Charlie writes a musical that the entire gang partakes in performing.

Discuss.

You can now refer to me as Micah the Greek

So, this season I've been making my college football picks in ESPN's College Pick 'Em game, concentrating on the league that I started and completely oblivious to the bigger picture. Well, the other day a friend pointed out that I'm ranked #6 in the nation (the world? the universe?)!

How the heck did this happen?! I don't claim to have any keen insight when it comes to sports. My system for picking winners is only a step or two above "I like their mascot better," for Pete's sake. I guess it helps that I'm realistic about "my team" (the Buckeyes can't win every game). Also, I switched from relying on the odds at Yahoo! Sports to the ones on Vegas.com, merely because Yahoo! drastically changed their layout, making it more confusing to a gambling neophyte like myself.

Now that I know my status among the gaming elites, the pressure's on. Winning an Xbox 360 would be swell. The other prize is a Circuit City gift card, which may be totally worthless when it comes time for it to be awarded. ESPN might as well have put up some Best Products or Service Merchandise funny money.

This week in food porn

For those looking for a new food porn fix, a friend recently referred me to the most hardcore site on the net: Smitten Kitchen. Lock the kitchen door and enjoy.

It's been quite a long time since I baked anything, but this weekend I dusted off the ol' KitchenAid and made a batch of that site's pumpkin swirl brownies. Pumpkin AND chocolate in the same recipe? Yes! I admit that it wasn't quite the taste revelation that I had anticipated, but they still turned out to be pretty tasty. I'm going to make another batch for my work's Thanksgiving lunch on Thursday*.

*In addition to being known as that iPod guy, I anticipate being referred to as that guy who cooks by my co-workers.

Quick movie review

Quantum of Solace: Bourne. James Bourne. That pretty much sums up what this entry of the 007 series is all about. It's not a James Bond movie, but a flat out Jason Bourne copycat. "Dark" government agent gone rogue, motivated by revenge? Check. Confusing, extremely tight and overly shaky camerawork during the action scenes? Check. There were several good spots (the opera scene, an allusion to Goldfinger), but they were few and far between. Casino Royale was a good reboot for the character, and Solace would've been a great place to update and reintroduce some of the things that made this series fun to a new generation. But it didn't and director Marc Forster merely made a generic action movie. I miss the gadgets. I miss the cheesy one liners. I miss our hero bedding EVERY woman (whose names are silly double entendres, I should add) that he meets. I miss James Bond.

Note: At least, after being M.I.A. in Casino Royale, the nekkid babes are back in the opening credit sequence. And Jack White and Alicia Keys' song was okay. But don't get me started on this movie's dumb title*, lack of the "Bond, James Bond" line, and the placement of the opening iconic gun barrel shot at the very end.

*Yeah, I know there are only a handful of unused Ian Fleming titles and this is the best of that meager lot, but still...

Song to get you through the weekend: "Humble Bee" by John Wesley Harding

Just because John Wesley Harding is one of my all-time favorite artists and deserves a bigger audience than he currently has. Wes's got a new album coming out early next year and I'm really hoping that his inevitable tour makes a stop around me. When I go to a show I love to hear witty stage banter and interesting stories, and he delivers those in spades*.

*It probably helps that he's also an author.

30 rock tumbler

Tonight's new episode of "30 Rock": "The One with the Cast of Night Court"

Liz's former roommate from Chicago, Claire Harper, comes to visit her and Jenna. She develops a stalker-like obsession with Jack. Kenneth is unhappy with the new page uniforms so Tracy decides to cheer him up with the help of Night Court cast members Harry Anderson, Markie Post and Charlie Robinson.

Discuss.

Office chatter

Tonight's new episode of "The Office": "Business Trip"

Michael brings Andy and Oscar on a business trip to Canada, while Jim counts down the days until Pam gets back from art school.

Discuss.

Sunny day

Tonight's new episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia": "The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition"

The gang give an extreme home makeover to an ill-fated family, and they hope to receive good karma in return so that their own dreams will come true.

Discuss.

This video raises more questions than it answers

What are they saying? Who is the guy dancing like Joe Cocker on crystal meth? Why is he only allowed to rise from the floor during the choruses? What kind of instrument is that other dude playing? Where can I get one of those sports coats? And that guy with the pane of glass...WHY?!

I'm so confused.

Credit due: wh1skeylover. Thanks for providing an opportunity for me to stare into the abyss.

Quick movie review

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: This is the first non-"Jersey Trilogy" Kevin Smith film that I've seen (though I would like to see Jersey Girl someday). Going in, my expectations were very high and, unfortunately, the movie didn't meet them. That's not to say that this isn't a very solid comedy, because it is. But you've got to judge a comedy on the big laughs that it provides and it just didn't deliver as many as I'm used to with a Smith movie. He's matured as a director and a writer, though. The dialogue is less like a series of monologues and much more natural (probably due to Seth Rogen's insistence that the director greatly easy up on his "no improv" rule). And "the scene" between Rogen and Elizabeth Banks is expertly shot and probably the most well-crafted one of Kevin Smith's entire oeuvre. It doesn't hurt that Banks' O-face is the sexiest thing that I've seen all year. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Song to get you through the weekend: "I'm Walking This Road Because You Stole My Car (Don't Go)" by Fascinoma

So, I was watching the most recent episode of "American Dad" - a show that started out pretty badly, but has improved greatly - and I had a reaction I'd never thought that this cartoon would provoke: I got a tiny bit choked up. There was a scene where Steve has a "powerful, powerful wet dream" in which he is bonding with a stray cat that he found earlier, but then abandoned. What's going onscreen was funny, so I pretty much determined that the sentimentality of the scene was due to the beautiful song being played over the montage.

After a little bit of AltaVistaing, I found out that the song is "I'm Walking This Road Because You Stole My Car (Don't Go)" by Fascinoma and is available for download on Amazon. It just so happened that Amazon stuck in 5 Pepsi Points - just enough for a free song download - with my order last week. I immediately snagged this song and have been listening to it constantly over the last few days. (Honestly, I would've plopped down the $.79 for song if I didn't have the points.)

The above video doesn't have much to it, but at least it plays the whole song. There's a snippet of the band playing it live here, but their drummer's a tad too enthusiastic during the performance (thankfully, she's not on the studio version).

My Autumn Mix 2008

The leaves have turned and the temperatures have dropped (well, except for today), so why not listen to some suitably chill music in my Autumn Mix?

Unfortunately, Muxtape has been shut down by the RIAA (and will reopen later with an entirely different focus), so I couldn't post this one there like I've done with previous seasonal mixes. Luckily, I discovered imeem and, unlike Muxtape, it lets you embed your playlist. Sweet!



But imeem doesn't have all of the music that I included on my Autumn Mix CD. The missing songs are as follows (YouTube videos provided where available):

The Cure - "2 Late"
Greg Garing - "Safe Within Your Arms"
Lights - "February Air"
Steve Earle with Allison Moorer - "Days Aren't Long Enough"
Hotel Lights - "Amelia Bright"
Mazzy Star - "Halah"
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - "(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me"

Notes:
- The only version of "The Drugs Don't Work" available on imeem is a live one, but the one that I put on the CD is the studio version.
- The mix of "Everybody But Me" above is different than the one that is on my CD. I think the one on imeem is a demo.

30 rock tumbler

Tonight's new episode of "30 Rock": "Believe In The Stars"

To get out of jury duty, Liz flies to Chicago only to be sat next to Oprah Winfrey on her return flight to New York. An argument between Tracy and Jenna leads to a "social experiment" to prove who is right. Kenneth challenges Jack's morality after an "Olympics snafu".

Discuss.

Office chatter

Tonight's new episode of "The Office": "Customer Survey"

Dwight and Jim are shocked when they get the results of the annual customer survey report.

Discuss.

Sunny day

Tonight's new episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia": "The Gang Cracks The Liberty Bell"

The gang fudge history by claiming that Paddy's Pub was responsible for cracking the Liberty Bell in an attempt to turn their dive into a Philadelphia landmark.

Discuss.

The afternoon after

Yes, the next four years seem kind of dire. Media censorship, an even bigger government, higher taxes, dissent squashed with cries of racism, an increased welfare/nanny state, the end of secret union ballots, socialized medicine, a curbing of our Constitutional rights, and a threat to the life of our most innocent are all possibly looming on the horizon. It's looking pretty grim, folks, but luckily I am able to see at least some bright sides to what happened last night:

• We can start putting race behind us. While racism has been a blight on this country for centuries, Obama is now The Man. That says a whole lot about how far we've come. Let's put an end to the Race Baiting Industrial Complex. Give Jesse, Al, et al. some pink slips.


• The GOP may get back to its roots. The party's been taken over by neo-conservatives, those big government liberals who have a hard on for the military. Maybe party leaders will see that they've hurt the party more than they've helped it and kick them out. Then they can get back to their basic principles of smaller government and fiscal responsibility.


• The Democrats likely won't get a supermajority in Congress. That just makes it a little harder for them to railroad their damaging policies through the legislative process. Shooting down Obama's more outrageous spending proposals will make the Republican's "fiscally responsible" tag legit, setting them up for gains in 2010. Here's to the GOP growing a pair.


• The trivial minute-by-minute Sarah Palin witch hunt will end. Folks, the irrational hatred of this accomplished woman and her family got really old really quickly.


• A new generation of libertarians are born. Once some of those young wide-eyed idealists and "history voters" see how much the government will weasel it's way into their lives and rape their paychecks, there's a chance that disillusionment will breed rationality. Viva la revolution!


• "The Daily Show" will (hopefully) refocus. For too long they've stuck to the "we're-not-biased-we-just-make-fun-of-the-party-in-power" line. Well, suddenly the Democrats are the sole party of power. Now it's Jon Stewart's time to walk it like he talks it. Maybe those woefully misinformed kids who rely on this show for their news will see a different side. I'm skeptical, though. Stephen Colbert gets a pass because he's always hilarious.


• The bar is set extremely low for the Presidential qualifications. A junior first-term Senator who spent the bulk of the last two years campaigning rather than doing his job? Seriously, people? That's it. Tomorrow I set up my 2012 exploratory committee.


• The world's view of the US may improve. Ceding our country's autonomy to the UN and the World Court would be extremely unwise and I pray that we don't go down that route. But I'm optimistic that the world's people will be nicer to us and I won't have to adopt a thick Scottish brogue when traveling abroad.


• The Anti-Bush Merchandising Industry will not go bankrupt. They'll just have to transition to an anti-Obama model. Yes, you can!


• Schadenfreude, schadenfreude, schadenfreude. The next four years of seeing Obama's fans get upset because he can't possibly deliver all of the sunshine and lollipops that he promised will be absolutely delicious. When he doesn't pay their mortgages or fill up their tanks, they will be weeping out of disappointment and frustration, not joy. Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness! Yummy!


• Palin 2012. Some may not want to acknowledge it, but with this election she planted the seeds of a fervent base. I was at the rallies. I saw them. You can't stop this woman. You can only hope to contain her.

The next four years will indeed suck, but it won't be that bad. It may not be what Obama had in mind, but his presidency does give me a little bit of hope.

How I'm coping with this historic night

Oh, sweet elixir, please tell me it was all a dream.

Obama: "Look in my eyes. What do you see?"

I swear that I came up with the idea of setting Obama footage to Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" before I saw these YouTube videos, but I lack the necessary editing skills to actually make it happen. I still think it's a clever - if rather obvious - idea.



There are other videos here and here.

And I would've never connected the first term junior senator from Illinois with Cake's "Comfort Eagle," but somehow it all makes sense...



And lastly, it's the reeeeeeeemix!



Children just love Dear Leader!

Micah World endorses Skywalker/Soup Nazi

One defeated the Empire. The other makes a mean mulligatawny. 'Nuff said.

My second date with Sarah Palin

Well, it's been a little over a fortnight since my first date with Gov. Sarah Palin. And while at least I had a good time then - I can't vouch for her - I hadn't heard from her since. Did I tick her off somehow? Did she see the Slate and NPR podcasts on my iPod? Was it the unsavory Blue State company that I keep? The fact that I hate Power Country?

It turns out that I was over thinking her silence, as I'm unfortunately wont to do. She e-mailed me again last week to set up a second date for Saturday!



This next date was a nighttime one, which was a good sign. I didn't quite "get" why she wanted to meet at a high school, though. I'm fifteen years removed from my school, she much more from hers. But, hey, I went along with it, though I also questioned why she wanted the date to be outside. Those are great for springtime walks through the park; not so much for standing still while the temperature drops. I just chalked it up to that being how they do things in Alaska. In a budding relationship that has so much potential such as this one, it's best not to second guess yourself, lest you screw things up.

So, there was a lot of waiting around for her. I knew she had to run some errands in a couple of other states that day, but I showed up early anyway. Just as I was ready to leave, she showed up, looking as beautiful as ever.

Like last time, she did most, nay all of the talking. Some of the conversation (if you could call it that) was just her repeating stories from our last date. And lots of talking about her old man again (I'm starting to think that she's got daddy issues). But she did have some new stuff to talk about. Something about clean coal and a looming dangerous monopoly of the federal government, I think. Again, I was too busy swooning, like when Elaine dated "The Wiz" on that episode of "Seinfeld."



Our date was all too brief, though. Since it was getting late, she had to get going. I was hoping that she'd invite me in for "moose burgers" (or "coffee," as we call it in the Lower 48), but no dice. On the bright side, I guess that's a good indication that she's not a slut.

Unfortunately, this may have been our last meeting for a while. See, if she doesn't get that big promotion tomorrow, she said that she was just going to go back to her folks' place up north and get her life in order. But she left open the possibility of another date in, say, four years. I wished her well, we tearfully said our goodbyes, and that was it.

I don't know, man. If she doesn't get that promotion, it's going to be a long wait. In the meantime I'll have to hit eHarmony or CPAC.



It's a shame, too, since my sister hasn't liked any of my previous girlfriends, much less cheered and waved signs when she hung out with them. There's just something special about Sarah.

"Like the back of a Volkswagen?": my Halloween costume that wasn't

I spent Halloween doling out candy at my sister's house, so both she and her husband could take their kids out trick or treating. Since I wasn't out making merry (read: getting drunk), I didn't bother dressing up. But what would I go as if I had gone out?

One of my cinematic heroes: Brodie from Mallrats.





The similarities are striking, no? Granted, I didn't have a Dixie cup or bag of chocolate-covered pretzels*, but I would've acquired those items had I officially dressed up for the holiday.



And just for the heck of it, here's another Mallrats picture. This one always makes me chuckle.

Mallrats is probably my favorite Kevin Smith movie (a view that pretty much only I hold) and has a special place in my heart. The day after a bad break-up with a college girlfriend, my school was showing this movie and I went...and laughed my butt off. Then I went back and watched it again the next night. And the night after that one. I know that it's weird to find such solace in a movie consisting solely of dick and fart jokes, but it got me through a really bad time.

So that's my Brodie Bruce outfit. I've had a different costume in mind for the past few Halloweens now, but have never actually assembled it. I'm still going to keep mum about what it is, but hopefully, next year it'll come to fruition.

*They'd be a little bit melty, but damn exquisite.

Song to get you through the weekend: "Halloween" by Stephen Lynch

Because Halloween's not over until the stores run out of heavily-discounted candy.