life, in a nutshell

So where did I leave off???

Cold Snap
It’s been ridiculously cold here in Florida lately, but no matter how cold it gets, we never get any sympathy because it’s always much, much colder elsewhere. Fifty degrees here, two degrees in New York; 45 degrees here, negative seven degrees in Michigan – we just can’t win this sick, twisted, mind-numbingly cold game! Worse yet, I still have yet to actually buy myself a coat or jacket of any sort, so the best thing I’ve got when it gets this chilly is a few longsleeve shirts and my fleece four years after moving here.

Nonetheless, I did get the opportunity to make a nice, big mug of hot chocolate in my Mickey mug last week before work one day, and needless to say it made facing the freeze just a little more tolerable…

The Trials of Regular Exercise
This sucks. I’m doing ok, in that I’ve exercised more in the last month than I have in the last three months … combined … but it’s still nowhere near what I should be doing. Looking back at January’s calendar, I never managed to get past more than two consecutive exercise periods (I’m trying to do every other day) – the third always gets put off, and off, and off. Case in point – I haven’t exercised since last Monday, but before that, I also hit Saturday. Then subtract another week to get to my workout before that – it’s just really been ugly and I keep coming up with excuses and other stuff that I really need to get done first.

But tomorrow is another day – must show discipline!

Writing and Stuff
Things are coming along…slowly albeit, but still along. The website took a lot of shape last week and is just about ready to start taking content – the database just needs a little more tender loving care before it’ll be willing to cooperate. But after some three years in the making, I think I’m finally happy enough with this mock up to see it through to completion. It looks a lot more professional, I think, than some of my other attempts for comedic-genius.com and hopefully will do some part to help take my writing to the next step. It’s still kind of overwhelming to see how the content all lays out because it’s really setup for me to update half a dozen columns just about every week – I hope I can actually keep that schedule once I finally do throw the switch!

Also, my new Disney feature is really starting to take shape and although it might not be quite ready to launch with the rest of the site – whenever that is – I do think it’ll be a solid addition to my other columns and whatnot. It’s kind of interesting to truly focus on a website specifically highlighting my work and only my work because the other sites that I’ve done have always been a collaboration of some sort or another – this one’s all me, baby! So look for a new shine on comedic-genius.com just in time to be late for Christmas… 😛

Television Notables
I’m back to watching the regulars again, and then some…

American Idol — This is the first season that I’ve watched on a regular schedule and have really been enjoying all of the people that suck. Not so sure how the rest will be, though…
Studio 60Best show of the season, hands down! I’m begging for the next five episodes each time we finish the latest show – I would almost argue as good as Sports Night, which Aaron Sorkin hit out of the park, in my opinion. I just wish that I could watch the whole series on DVD in one weekend with this one like I did with Sports Night – can’t get enough!
House — Now that Tritter is gone, it’s getting kinda … well, boring. Meh.
The Office — I’m happy to see that they’re revisiting the Jim / Pam romance, and kind of wish that Karen would just disappear at this point. Also, it’s just not The Office without Dwight!
My Name is Earl — They really need to step this one up because I’m losing interest fast. But just how long can they push the stupid redneck mentality during primetime anyways?
The Apprentice — Still watching, but it just feels too much like The Trump Family with the kids on full time – I think I liked George and Carolyn better. Also, she’s a pretty girl, but please put some make-up on Ivanka during the Tent City Contest that she does each week – the poor woman looks like she just rolled out of bed, not walked out of the boardroom…
Dexter — And it ended a while ago, but I forgot to write about it then and really do want to help spread the word – this show was great. I didn’t expect it to be very good, but it certainly won me over and I normally don’t care much for the crime scene / murder mystery / lots of blood-type cinematics. You should still be able to catch the whole season on Showtime On Demand – Sara’s been working her way through from the beginning as of late – so if you need something to fill a good weekend, I thought it was one of the best new shows I’ve seen in a long time.


Travel

This past weekend, Sara, my Dad and I went down to the Everglades for a little getaway. It’s kind of become a tradition for Dad and I each year when he comes down and Sara had never been, so we thought it would make for a nice weekend. And aside from Superbowl traffic and hotel “No Vacancy” signs up the yin-yang, along with plenty of rain, it wasn’t too bad. Saturday we walked some of the trails off of the main road through the park and today we went on a boat ride out of Everglades City before making the trek home – we didn’t get quite as much done as we’d been hoping just because we ended up having to stay in Naples and commute each day (*I* forgot to get reservations before the football crowd swooped in…), but we all still had a good time.

It’s nice getting to spend time with my Dad like that on an extended basis because even when he’s here for a month or more each year, I usually only get to see him a day here and a day there after work takes it’s toll on my schedule. And I know that Sara enjoyed getting a chance to get to know him a little better, too – I can leave them alone in a room without worrying about coming back to silence, and that’s gotta be a good thing… 🙂

new ride for MGM next year!

Disney Adding Toy Story Attraction
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070126/disney_what_s_new.html?.v=1

It should be interesting to see if this ends up being a unique attraction or just an MGM version of Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin from the Magic Kingdom. Also, I guess I would’ve expected to see something with more recent Pixar characters – Cars, more than anything else – but there are always those rumors about a Toy Story 3 eventually showing its face. But even at late 2008, I don’t think that would align things with a new movie that quickly… We’ll see!

Call me a jerk if you will…

…but I just can’t help myself from laughing out loud when I come out of the restroom stall to find someone brushing their teeth in the bathroom at work.

The fact that all my teeth will have fallen out of my mouth ten years down the road from a lack of maintenance whereas his will still be pearly white is irrelevant.

humor.video

Stephen Colbert Explains the at&t / Cingular restructuring — funny because I work in the telecommunications industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bj1Mtv9cD0I

Demetri Martin. Person. — funny because they don’t feature him nearly enough on The Daily Show.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnUCdQEoCQ0

SNL Digital Short – MacGruber — funny because it reminds me of Kristofer Straub‘s new Time Friends comic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGr9aedSTBw&NR

I think we’ve identified the problem…

So I’ve actually been exercising fairly regularly over the last couple of weeks, but I wasn’t seeing much for results and it’s starting to get a little frustrating. I keep telling myself that I want to get into a habit of regular exercise first and then work on trimming up my diet, but looking back over the last week or so, I think there’s an obvious change that I can make right off the bat:

Saturday – 1/13 — McDonald’s (breakfast), Disney (lunch & dinner)
Monday – 1/15 — Ruby Tuesday (dinner)
Tuesday – 1/16 — Subway (lunch), Chick-Fil-A (dinner)
Wednesday – 1/17 — Chick-Fil-A (breakfast)
Thursday – 1/18 — Taco Bell (lunch), Papa Johns (dinner)
Friday – 1/19 — Arby’s (lunch)
Saturday – 1/20 — New Shanghai / Chinese takeout (dinner)
Sunday – 1/21 — IHOP (dinner)

Good grief, who knew I was actually eating out that much?! My problem is lately I’ve been too busy to actually want to make anything, so I’ll grab something on the way instead … kinda defeats the purpose of exercising, now doesn’t it? Tonight we’ll stop by the grocery store to pick up a few items that will eliminate the “there’s no food in the house!” excuse – new goal for next week is to drastically reduce the size of this list!

Damn…

IllumiNations photo

Last weekend Sara and I took her parents to Epcot for the day after we picked them up from Port Canaveral – good times. I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I normally do, but here’s one from IllumiNations that didn’t turn out too bad. My experience from shooting fireworks at the Magic Kingdom has been that about 1 out of 20 end up being any good, so clearly we just need to spend some more time at Epcot in the evenings… 🙂

(This is the very first time I’ve watched the show from dead center in the front of the World Showcase – most of the time we get stuck somewhere with a limited view around the lagoon. Mind you, the people behind us who wanted to sit down got mad because everyone else was standing (Hey, we were sitting too, but we moved when it was clear that we wouldn’t be able to see anything!), but that’s life. For those others who frequent Disney World, where have you found to be the best viewing spots for this show???)

Ray is Ray

* exchange between Lori and Ray as Lori talks to me on her cell phone … at the time, I’m wandering around the parking garage at work because I forgot which floor I’d parked on *

Lori: Scott can’t find his car.
Ray: Well, where did he park?
Lori & Scott:

That’s my brother-in-law, ladies and gentlemen… 😛

House wha???

So were we the only ones who just felt completely and utterly gipped by the new episode of House tonight?! Build up a big, conflicting storyline, postpone the rising culmination until after the 4-week Christmas break so that you can play Rudolf and Miracle on 34th Street instead, and then just give up on the script and fix everything at the last minute … yeah, now that makes for good television! The last ten minutes felt like nothing but damage control to me – who’s gonna be all that interested in watching a clean and sober House tactfully save lives and that’s it?

I don’t know what was a more humorous way to end the episode – showing “previews” from the next where the limits get pushed farther than ever before … even though the whole Tritter thing pretty much just did that; or saying with a completely straight face that the next episode would be in 3 more weeks. Sorry, I like the show and all, but only one new episode per month is a bit much for me. That said, if the writing is going to continue like it did tonight, maybe it’s just as well…