Better Off Jed

Did you ever have one of those days when:

• You were stuck at work late one evening
• Your wife calls to tell you your daughter has requested take out from one of your favorite restaurants
• You tell your wife what you want and prepare to leave work
• You finally leave work tired and hungry to go pick up dinner
• You enter the restaurant and ask for your order
• You barely hear the cashier rapidly recite your order because you are so tired and hungry
• You are salivating on the ride home because you are so hungry and you can already taste your dinner
• You curse at every red light you have to stop at
• You get home and start pulling everything out of the bag
• You do not see your meal
• You start to panic and check the bag again
• You still do not see your meal
• You are about to pick up the phone and call the restaurant and say unkind things to whoever answers
• You take a deep breath, count to ten, and check the receipt first
• You are surprised to see that your meal isn’t listed on the receipt
• You are about to say unkind things to your wife for screwing up the order, but you keep a level head and calmly ask if she ordered your dinner
• You have no reason to doubt your wife when she said that she not only ordered it, but the guy on the phone read back the order correctly
• You feel totally dejected when you realize that there is nothing you can do
• You will not be eating one of your favorite dishes from one of your favorite restaurants
• You end up eating half of your son’s teriyaki soaked rice and half of your wife’s Lettuce Wrapped Chicken
• You enjoy what you ate, but the enjoyment pales in comparison to what could have been
• You are hungry and hour later
• You are obsessed enough with your missing meal to write in your blog about it

Yes, I had one of those days. The restaurant was Pei Wei and my meal was supposed to be Lemon Pepper Chicken. I may have to stop by on my way home from work tonight. I’m still craving it that much.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I think Scott Adams is very funny.  This quote from his blog entry for today just cracked me up:

It’s expensive to travel anywhere, but on the other hand, the new season of 24 is almost here. I don’t need to go to faraway places and meet people when I can sit on my couch and watch Jack Bauer shoot those people.

My in-laws’ standard definition (SD) TV (along with some other electronic equipment) was damaged by a power surge during a thunderstorm over the summer. They used their insurance money to buy a very nice Sony Bravia 40-inch LCD HDTV. I was very excited for them and, as usual, I helped them hook everything up.

There is only one problem. They do not receive any HD programming. I partly blame Verizon for this. Soon after they bought the TV, they switched from Comcast to Verizon. When the tech came over to hook them up, he didn’t even offer them an HD cable box for the TV. I find that awfully surprising.

What’s even worse is that for the SD content, they configured the TV to stretch the 4:3 picture to fill the 16:9 screen because my mother-in-law does not like the vertical black bars.  While Sony has some fancy algorithm to stretch the picture without distorting it too much, it’s still not natural looking. This just drives me absolutely crazy.

Every time I see my in-laws, I ask them if they’ve called Verizon to upgrade the cable box to an HD box. Every time we have the same discussion:

• They ask me if it’s really necessary.
• I explain why HD is better than SD and how SD content actually looks worse on an HDTV than on an SDTV.
• My father-in-law seems to get onboard and helps me convince my mother-in-law.
• I tell them that it will cost them about $10 more per month to rent the HD cable box.
• I tell them that HD is the right way to go for their TV and they agree (probably just to shut me up).
• They promise to call Verizon the next day.

Invariably the next time I see them, it pains me to discover that they have not called Verizon and we have the same conversation all over again.

It’s a waste of a TV if you ask me. I have a perfectly good 32″ SDTV that I’d be happy to give them in exchange for their HDTV. I have offered up this trade to them and they think I’m nuts. They don’t want to give me their *new* HDTV in exchange for my 32″ SDTV. On paper, it doesn’t seem like a fair trade.  However, for the content they receive, the 32″ SDTV would actually be better for them. Seriously, if they are only interested in SD content, the 32″ SDTV would give them a bigger, clearer picture. I’m really just trying to be helpful.

What’s funny is that I constantly try to make analogies to get my in-laws to understand how they are not taking advantage of their TV. Here are some examples:

• It’s like buying a dining room table that seats 20 when you only have 4 chairs.
• It’s like buying a fancy clothes drier, but you still hang your laundry outside to dry.
• It’s like taking a picture of the Mona Lisa with your cell phone, blowing it up to full size, hanging it on your wall and trying to convince me that it looks as good as the original.
• It’s like having a freezer with an ice maker and still using the ice trays that you fill with tap water (which they actually do because there wasn’t a water line close enough to their fridge).
• It’s like installing an electric fence when you don’t have a pet.
• It’s like buying a sports car with a Turbo engine and always driving on windy, country roads.
• It’s like buying a riding lawn mower when you only have a tenth of an acre.
• It’s like buying snow tires for your car when you live near the equator.
• It’s like buying Microsoft Office when all you really need is WordPad.

I’ll admit that it does seem like I would be taking advantage of my in-laws if I actually convinced them to trade their HDTV for my SDTV, but it’s not like I didn’t try to educate them many times. I’m sure they are starting to get annoyed with me. If they don’t take my advice, what am I supposed to do — just let the TV sit there being underused?

Basically, they have this awesome TV, but they aren’t letting it be awesome. It’s a crime against technology. I would give it a good home. I would care for it and give it a steady diet of HD content. It would be a happy TV in my house.

I just feel like I need to rescue the TV. It’s being abused by having to display distorted SD content. Oh, the humanity! I need to start an organization to fight this abuse as I’m sure it is a global epidemic: People for the Ethical Treatment of Technology (PETT). Who’s with me?!?

Brian Billick was the color commentator for the Redskins-Lions game yesterday on Fox. I think he is the worst booth guy in the history of sports. I think he mispronounced Santana Moss’s first name about 6 different ways during the game.  One time he called him Santonio Moss. I think he may have called him Santoro Moss also. He is very, very bad. I think when “Santonio” ran back the punt for a touchdown, he was breaking down the return during the replay and said something like, “Please forgive my impression of Chris Berman” or something like that. What?!? Who mentions another network’s anchor? I think he wanted to do the “bumblin’, stumblin’” routine that Berman does during replays. What a dolt!

He can’t use the telestrator very well either. I’m usually not distracted by the announcers, but this was beyond bad. Billick just sounded unsure of himself and just had a hard time figuring out what to say and when to say it. The play-by-play guy, Thom Brennaman, wasn’t very good either. If I wasn’t watching it in time delay via Tivo (damn Halloween parade), I would’ve put it on mute and listened to the game on the radio.

I’ve seen Billick in the studio in past years when the Ravens weren’t in the playoffs and he wasn’t too bad. He’s absolutely awful in the booth. He needs to be in the studio or on the sideline.

The Washington Post critiques the announcers of the Redskins game on the Post’s website. I always thought it was a dumb feature, but now I’m very interested in what they thought of Billick.

I heard the new Guns ‘N Roses single, the title track from their upcoming album Chinese Democracy. I was not impressed at all. It sounded like someone that kind of sounded like Axl Rose singing for a band that is just a generic hard rock band. There was nothing special — nothing GNR — about it. This is what took 14 years?

Do you remember the first time you heard “Welcome to the Jungle”? You had to know who this band was and, when you found out, you had to run out and buy Appetite for Destruction. They were exciting. They has a unique personality. They had swagger. They sounded like the abandoned, bastard child of Aerosmith.

This band should be called “The Axl Rose Project”. This is not Guns ‘N Roses — not even close.

I was on the computer the other night checking out Facebook when the status of one of my friends announced that his car had been broken into and his GPS and his brand new super fancy DSLR camera in a case ($2500 w/accessories) were stolen. I literally smacked my forehead and said, “Oh no!” louder than I realized.

My daughter comes running in and asks me what’s wrong. I explained what happened and she had a ton of questions for me.

• Was my friend hurt?
• Was the car damaged?
• Where was the car?
• Why did someone steal his stuff?
• Is someone going to break into our car?

Those are all good questions, but my first question would have been, “Why did he leave that stuff in the front seat of his car?”

When I finally talked to my friend, he told me that he had parked the car in DC while visiting a friend’s house. He lives in the suburbs of Howard County where he can leave the top down on his convertible overnight and not have anything of value taken from his car. Essentially, he got a bit complacent.

Someone threw a rock through his window and took his stuff. The rock was big enough that it dented the inside door. He obviously called the police who told him that there was a car broken into in the exact same spot a couple of nights before. He could even see the glass from the other car still on the street.

My daughter asked me if I ever found out what had happened. I told her what I knew and she rattled off a string of new questions:

• Did they catch who did it?
• Why did they do it?
• Were they boys?
• Would a girl do that?
• How did they know what was in his car?
• What are they going to do with his stuff?

I explained that maybe these criminals would try to sell his stuff to get money. She couldn’t understand why someone would do that. She says to me, “If they needed money so bad, why can’t they just have a lemonade stand?” Is that the most precious and innocent question you ever heard? I laughed and said, “That would be a great thing if people would choose to sell lemonade instead of stealing from people.”

There’s a relatively new kids show on Nickolodeon called Yo Gabba Gabba. The look and feel of the show gives off a totally 70s, trippy vibe. My 4-year old son loves the show. As far as kids shows go, it’s probably one of the better ones and I feel it is pretty educational for little tikes.

The thing that I thought was odd is that I was seeing all of these relatively famous people appearing on the show:

• actor Elijah Wood
• R&B singer Mya
• Skateboarder Tony Hawk
• Country music group Sugarland
• Founder of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, who has a regular art segment
• (and my favorite) rapper Biz Markie, who has a regular feature teaching kids how to beat box
• and others

Again, thank goodness for Wikipedia because it confirmed my suspicions that the creators of the show were well connected in the “business”.

It looks like Yo Gabba Gabba may be coming to the big screen. That would be a site to see. The article ponders how this movie would compare to Pee Wee’s Playhouse. That’s an interesting comparison and makes me ready to get in line (with my son, of course) to see DJ Lance Rock and his friends on the big screen.

Supposedly, Guns ‘N Roses (i.e., Axl Rose) is finally going to release its new album, Chinese Democracy, next month. Axl Rose has been working on this album for about 14 years. I’ll believe it when I see it. The Wikipedia entry on this is a pretty interesting read.

As a (former?) Guns ‘N Roses fan, I’ve lapped up any news updates on Chinese Democracy over the years. There have been many rumored release dates, but I think it’s for real this time. I feel the expectations (of who exactly? maybe it’s just me) are so high that if it isn’t the greatest album of all time, then it will be a total and utter failure. How good can it be when you have a revolving door of band members over the last 14 years. Not to mention that at one point a guitarist named Buckethead was replaced by a guitarist named Bumblefoot.

I wonder who really cares anymore. Well, I don’t know if I care, but I am certainly curious, so I will be buying it.

Every time my daughter tells me she had P.E. in school, I ask her the same question:

Did you play Pringle Can Hockey?

Every time I ask that question, she gives me a look like I’m crazy. I know that there’s absolutely no chance that she played Pringle Can Hockey, but I ask anyway. She always asks me to tell her what Pringle Can Hockey is and then I happily explain it.

If you went to Crofton Woods Elementary School in the late 70s/early 80s, you have played Pringle Can Hockey. I think hearing about my daughter’s experiences in elementary school P.E. have made me a bit nostalgic for my own elementary school P.E. days. The one thing that stands out above and beyond everything else is Pringle Can Hockey.

It’s a simple game and it’s pure genius. The gym is divided into squares: one for each child. I’d guess that each square is about 4′ x 4′. Each child is given a hockey stick and an empty Pringles can that they stand up on a marker in the middle of their square. Then, the P.E. teacher (I can picture her, but I can’t remember her name) dumps what seems like a million plastic, orange pucks all over the gym and the fun starts.

The object is to hit the pucks with your hockey stick to knock over other people’s cans. At the same time, you have to stay in your square and make sure your Pringle can doesn’t get knocked over. There’s nothing like the sound of empty Pringle cans being knocked down and bouncing and rolling around the gym floor.

There are usually very harsh battles between you and the kids in the squares adjacent to you. While it is every man for himself, there are times when forming alliances are necessary to take down a common enemy. Being by the wall or in the corner is a plus because you are not as exposed, but you have to be wary of wayward pucks that ricochet off the wall.

The most common defensive stance is to stand over your can, so your feet guard the sides and then you use your stick to guard the front. However, this stance leaves you vulnerable from behind. Also, you can’t just stand idly while defending your can. You need to be very aware of your surroundings when you go on the attack. Someone inevitably gets clumsy and knocks down their own can by mistake either with their foot or their stick.

Obviously, the last kid with their Pringle can still upright is the winner.

P.E. in elementary schools these days is so different. They actually learn stuff. My daughter had a quiz on the human heart in P.E. a couple of weeks ago. There really isn’t anything educational about Pringle Can Hockey (other than teaching survival instincts), so I doubt it would be an activity that would be acceptable by today’s standards.

I’ve made the game sound so exciting to my daughter that I think I have convinced her to suggest it to her P.E. teacher. I’m sure the teacher will probably look at her the same way my daughter looks at me every time I ask her about it.

When my son doesn’t get his way and starts crying and carrying on, we say, “If you are going to continue to cry, please go cry in your room.”

Last night, I was reading him a story in his room. When I was done reading, it was time to go to bed. I was getting ready to tuck him in. He, as he often does, asked that I lie with him for a little bit.

I am very adamant about not lying with my kids at night for two reasons:

1. I don’t want it to become a habit/crutch.
2. I absolutely hate lying in their beds.

My wife occasionally lies with them and she sometimes falls asleep before the kids do. Me…I can’t do that. I end up laying there eyes wide open for what seems like an eternity. Most often, I get up before they are asleep and they get upset.

So, last night, I told my son that I will not lie with him. He starts to get upset and looks like he is about to cry.

In a shaky voice, he asks me, “I can cry here, right?” and points to his bed.

“What?” I reply.

“I’m in my room…I can cry here,” he explains.

I laugh and tell him that yes, he can cry in his room.

I kissed him goodnight and he cried for the next 30 minutes before falling asleep. I’m joking about that part. I’m not that cruel.

What really happened: I changed the subject, he never went into a full-on cry. I tucked him in and left. Fifteen minutes later he came downstairs and, again, requested me to lie with him. I walked him upstairs, tucked him in again, and left. He fell asleep soon after.