Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Upcoming Zombie Uprising (Seriously)

Sometimes when you’re driving home on Saturday night (or Sunday morning, as the case may be), after a good session of socializing, it can feel a little melancholy, as you realize that the upcoming week of stress and maturity is almost upon you.

However, I’ve found that a good remedy for this is to listen to unintentionally hilarious radio. My suggestion is Coast to Coast AM, where they deal with such hard-hitting topics as alien abductions, the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions, and, my new personal favorite, the upcoming zombie uprising.

Yup, apparently the rise of the undead is imminent. I just heard it this weekend, which was news to me. (I missed the beginning, so I don’t know when this will be. Hopefully not until after the Stanley Cup Playoffs.) But, not to worry, Coast to Coast AM had it covered from all angles. One topic they discussed was, and I’m smirking as I write this, The International Response To The Upcoming Zombie Uprising. Yes, they were actually mixing politics with zombies! It was fantastic! For example, they basically said that superpower countries would bomb the crap out of countries that annoy them, using the excuse that they were taking out zombies! Isn’t it great!?

There was also a brief discussion of our own security in this country. One of the very serious sounding commentators mentioned that it wouldn’t be that hard to build a tall fence along the border, which would allow for easy head shots of zombies, but then he added, in a very ominous voice, “but what about those who are already inside?”

From what I could gather, all of their knowledge on zombies came from zombie movies. They spend quite some time discussing one movie in particular, I don’t remember which one, and began to break it down in a very in-depth manner, including what we could learn from it, as if it had been a real-life documentary. I kept waiting for one of the announcers to start laughing and then reveal that it was all a big joke, but it never happened. They just kept talking very seriously.

By the time I got home, I kind of wanted to drive around for a while longer just to see what would come next. However, I was tired, so I reluctantly turned it off. Still, there’s always next week!

I will conclude with the following, which you can take any way you’d like: According to the Coast to Coast AM Wiki, the show attracts an estimated 4.5 million listeners every night, making it the most listened to late night show in North America.

Huh. Maybe I should really start thinking about zombies a little more seriously.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Twitter Me This (or Twittering My Thumbs)

I don’t tweet, and I probably never will. In fact, I don’t quite “get” the popularity of Twitter. I mean, do I really need to know everything about your day, such as where you ate, how long you worked, what movie you watched, and how much weight you bench pressed? (“85 pounds! I’m getting my swagger back!”)

Despite my above statement, however, I’m not totally ignorant to the entertainment that Twitter can bring. Where else can you witness Charlie Sheen self-destruct in real-time? Where else can you read the grammatical trainwrecks that professional athletes pass off as sentences? (Actual example: “aight ima see wuts up”) Where else can you…uh….uh….I guess that’s it.

So, as far as I can see, Twitter is good for making fun of people who make fools of themselves with their not-at-all-well-planned-out tweets.

However, for a normal, everyday person, it just doesn’t seem like tweeting about your life would bring much to the table. For example, I fully realize that if I ever tweeted it’d be horrendously boring. In fact, here's what I think a typical day of tweeting for me would look like:

Up and ready to go! Gonna be a good day! 6:25 AM

Crap! Fell back asleep! Gotta run! 7:15 AM

At work. Probly shoulda showered. 7:45 AM

Working hard, or hardly working? :) 9:03 AM

Almost lunch time! Woot woot! 11:15 AM

mmmmmmm peanut butter jelly time... 12:02 PM

Boss says I should stop tweeting, especially in meetings. Oops! 1:17 PM

2:30 wall, dead ahead! Shoulda got some 5-hour energy! 2:29 PM

Must….stay…..awake….3:34 PM

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!! 4:15PM

Home! Time to work out! 5:47 PM

Just woke up from a two hour nap. Ahhh.. 7:52 PM

Frozen pizza is my friend. 8:32 PM

aight ima see wuts up 8:37 PM

Lethal Weapon is on!!!!!!! Woo hoo! 8:43 PM

Time to get my sleep on! 10:37 PM

Stupid insomnia…. 2:23 AM

Wait a minute. I like this! Hmmmm.......

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Furious Fowl

So it turns out that using a slingshot to launch various types of birds with special abilities at green pigs that snort a lot and sometimes wear helmets is incredibly fun.

Yes, I’ve become hopelessly addicted to the game Angry Birds, along with a large percentage of the world’s population. It’s simple, yet fun, all without becoming boring. More importantly, you get to knock down stuff by throwing other stuff at it, which all males find hugely entertaining due to basic genetic programming.

I won’t go into the details of the game, as its something best discovered on your own. I will say, however, that if you ever decide to give it a chance you’ll most likely not be able to put it down. There have been several nights where I’ve found myself lying awake in bed much later than normal, feverishly tapping and swiping on my phone, all while whispering, “Just one more level, just one more level, just one more level….” (This had led to some sleep-deprived mornings at work where I stumble around aimlessly, seeing nothing but flying birds and snorting pigs everywhere that I look.)

The funny thing is that I normally miss out on fads, most of the time intentionally. For example, I’ve never listened to a song by Lady Gaga in my life, mainly because she seems annoying. I’ve also never seen a minute of Lost, nor have I ever watched American Idol. I’m also quite certain that I’ve never read a book endorsed by Oprah. (If so, I’d probably feel a little sick inside.)

But I am fully on board the Angry Birds bandwagon, even though it's wasting the vast majority of my free time. My plan is to wholeheartedly immerse myself into it so I either make it through the entire game or burn myself out trying. Only after that will I be able to resume my normal daily activities, such as eating, shaving, and wearing clothes that have been washed sometime in the last month.

But until then, I’m nothing more than an unthinking, pathetic drone, following the whims of popular culture. However, when the evil green pigs steal the plucky birds’ eggs, somebody has to step up and help the birds extract justice, and I'm just that person!

Plus, did I mention that throwing stuff at other stuff is cool?


Monday, March 7, 2011

THA-THUMP!!!!!!

There’s nothing like hitting a pothole. One minute you’re calmly driving your car, by which I mean fiddling with the radio, talking on your phone, and drinking scalding hot coffee, all while steering with your knee and occasionally remembering to look up, and then suddenly, THA-THUMP!!!!!!

This is followed by a string of bad words and a glance in the rearview mirror to see just how much of your car was left behind in the crater you just ran over. After the bad words finally come to a stop, you then hope that you weren’t talking to your mother on the phone. Finally, you feel something dripping on you, and you look up to see coffee staining the entire roof and slowly draining down on you from the visor.

This is what driving in Minnesota these days is like. Potholes are pretty much the norm, much worse than anywhere else I’ve resided. Side streets are the worst, and it’s gotten to the point that, after hitting them several dozen times, I’ve committed many of these potholes to memory, allowing me to expertly swerve around them while I drink coffee and steer with my knee.

Minnesota has lost millions of dollars in state funding. This lack of money, along with the tumultuous winter, have combined to help bring about the runaway pothole bonanza. (I actually researched this fact, although it consisted entirely of me pulling up an article that I’d read a while back at work when I should have been, you know, working. I will, however, take credit for the phrase “runaway pothole bonanza”.)

There is one spot on Highway 6, as you’re nearing the intersection with 12, where it’s particularly bad. In fact, there aren’t any potholes there, per se, as much as the road is just sinking and rising so much that it pretty much resembles a sine wave. I’ve accidentally almost gotten air there several times, which would be cool if I was driving a ’69 Charger in Hazzard County, but which instead just elicits seasickness and a string of bad words. (Sorry, Mom!)

Usually I try to finish up a blog entry with some sort of snappy joke that ties everything together. However, this time I’m just going to go with a bunch of pictures of huge potholes I found on the internet: