5 Years...

...ago today I pulled off the con of the century. No, I didn't rob 3 casinos at once and carry 110 million dollars out the front door, or steal a priceless Romanov/Faberge egg, but I convinced the perfect woman to marry me. This is a textbook "long con" mainly because 5 years is a long time, and the con is just getting started...

It's remarkable really, that someone as beautiful, intelligent, funny, patient, loving, sweet, could be so easily convinced to lower her standards, but what can I say - I am pretty convincing. Not only did I get Kristen to marry me though, she still loves me after everything that we have been through, which is almost a greater task, and she willing gave me 2 priceless little ones who make the time fly by.

It has been an interesting 5 years filled with 1 dog (rest in peace Denny), 2 unexpected hospital stays (C-Diff colitis, and a Kidney infection), 3 houses, 4 moves, 5 job titles and I can't count beyond that... There have been lots of fun, exciting, crappy, annoying, and just plain random things that happened in 5 years of marriage, and truth be told - I wouldn't change any of it.

I know it probably sounds cliche or sappy, but I don't care - you don't have to read on - if the rest of my life was like the last 5 years I would be totally happy. Maybe not exactly like the last 5 years as that could get rather repetitive, but not much would need to change.

Thanks for being my perfect "mark" honey, and I hope the con goes on forever.

Sports

Maybe it is because I am Irish. Maybe it is because I was raised in a house where it wasn't a big deal. Maybe it is because in stead of little league and Jr. Jazz, I was in art classes and taking trombone lessons. My dad isn't un-athletic, just more cerebral. In fact, my mom had to teach me how to swing a baseball bat, because, well, there aren't a lot of baseball diamonds in Northern Ireland. In fact, I still have a bump on the back of my head from that baseball lesson, and I suspect that when my mom said "stand here and watch the ball" that she meant watch the bat, but that did "drive home" (pun intended) just how hard one must swing a bat if one wants an eight year old to fly like a solid base hit.

I guess I just don't really get it. I have coworkers who take weeks at a time off in March to ensure that they can be sufficiently drunk in time for their team to lose, usually "thanks to poor reffing," friends who will watch the same episode of SportsCenter every time it airs (4 times a night) and predict which baseball hits are home runs by shouting "gone" after the third airing, and I knew doctors' offices in Colorado that literally shut down whenever the Broncos play. I guess if they are sick during a Broncos' game, best of luck to them. I am not criticizing, believe me, I am no stranger to fanaticism, as my wife will attest (we have gone to movies on our anniversary - sad i know, but it was opening day!) but for sports it just isn't like that for me.

My "blue collar" friends will accuse me of being a girl (they have before) for not loving sports enough to vegetate for 17 hours straight, and I do enjoy an occasional game. I will go to a Jazz game or two each year, I watch the super bowl, and I used to love me some USU basketball - I went to every game when I was in HS. I don't even consider myself particularly unathletic, although my golf buddies may disagree, but watching golf for more than a few minutes? No thanks.

This brings me to the top 4 things I don't get about sports and the people who love them. Again, no offense is intended, but this struck me this past week and I have been feeling guilty that I haven't posted in a while.

1 Delusion

Your team will not always win, unless your team is the Chicago Bulls from when I was growing up - man those guys were fun to watch. If your team is the Utah Jazz, STOP ACTING SURPRISED when they blow a 20 point lead, when Kirilenko chokes, when the reps give them no love, and overall when they lose. If you follow Hockey closely, come to grips that you are one of 7 people in Utah who does, and stop acting surprised when nobody else knows what you are talking about when you reference the "crease" and the "Great one." If you follow curling, move back to Canada. If you follow swimming outside the Olympics, there is something profoundly wrong and you need psychological help. In all, stop acting like if you pretend your team has a chance, that they actually do. The Jazz will probably always choke. The Lakers will probably always be good, and no matter how much fun hockey is to watch, it isn't going to be basketball (can you imagine if 40% of households had hockey goals instead of basketball hoops? It just wouldn't be right). Your team can't always win, and unfortunately, most of the time they lose more often, so let's inject a little realism and start expecting it. I don't expect a Nicholas Cage movie to have Oscar caliber acting, and I don't expect an Oscar nominee to have any "Michael Bay" explosions. I deal with it, and enjoy the show anyway.

2 Sports movies

I'm looking at you Rocky. Talk about formulaic! I can't talk many more spins on the "underdog story with classically expressed racial tensions and a message of hard work triumphing over skill." The only one that was even remotely surprising was Friday Night Lights, and that was BC they lost. The movies are to young boys what princess stories are to young girls. They set an inaccurate expectation of happily ever after that sets people up for disappointment when they realize that they aren't like the people in "Remember the Titans." Maybe this one causes the first??

3 Soccer

Entertaining, faster paced than football and baseball, loved world-wide EXCEPT in the USA. Why? Maybe rooted in American desire to fly the rest of the world the finger. To take something loved universally, and say "Meh, we can do better with football. Let's use our hands, hell let's take feet out of it almost entirely just to confuse everyone else." Maybe it is that email forward showing the hot women that are soccer fans in other countries, and the overweight dude with the American flag cape and no shirt. Don't get it, feel free to comment.

4 Recaps

Talking in excruciating detail about the plays in games from years ago, or really more than the past week is not only bizarre, it makes you look like some sort of idiot savant. Keep up the dream though, and maybe one day you will find the calling that matches your skill. Wait, ESPN hasn't called you yet? See #1

The Great TP Poll, Fall Edition

So some of you who read/stalk my wife's blog may remember a while ago, we decided to employ the principles of democracy to help settle our ongoing argument of whether Folding or Crinkling our TP is better. I suspect that most of my readers are probably folders, but if you are a fellow folder I encourage you to check out Kristen's blog and vote again. If you know other folders, please encourage them to vote. If you crinkle and/or know a lot of crinklers, you can disregard this post...

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Quantum of Promotional Consideration

I am more than a casual fan of James Bond movies. Not fanatic, mind you, but I consider it an early birthday present every few years when James Bond visits in November. The cars, the gadgets, the smoothness, (I intentionally exclude women to preserve the peace in my jurisdiction) it's easy to see why James Bond is a paragon of masculinity and role model to many a young nerd, not to mention my 3 year old daughter.

The latest two films are great. I maintain that Casino Royale was the greatest bond movie to date, mainly because it withstands scrutiny on its own merit, and is a stand- alone good film. Quantum of Solace is equally good, lives up to expectations, has one of the most intense car chases since "Ronin," and if you have not seen it, I would encourage you to do so. Money and time well spent, although I do have a few beefs that I will address in a moment.

First, in preparation for the release of the newest Bond film, Spike TV ran a marathon of some of the classics, and I decided to catch up. Upon watching several of the old films, I came to ten realizations...

1 - If you really want a stark reminder of how good the newest films are, watch the older ones.
2 - I think the majority of the "villain plot-lines" are recycled every 5-10 years.
3 - Austin Powers movies are much funnier after watching "Never Say Never Again." Seriously, watch it if you haven't recently. The cat, the closed circuit tv feed threat to the UN, the TV footage of the nuclear blast... It's like deja vu with a young, chubby Kim Bassinger. Comedy.
4 - Screenwriting has improved almost as much as computer technology in the last 45 years.
5 - Christopher Lee is much more intimidating as an evil wizard or a sith lord than he is as an assassin with 3 nipples (Man with the Golden Gun).
6 - Aston Martins are hot cars. Okay, this one is obvious, but it bears repeating. Have you seen a DBS? Even the classic DB5 (that Connery runs into a wall and Craig wins in a game of Texas Hold-em) could make a grown man weep with joy. I touched one once.
7 - Life imitates art. In the 60's, Goldfinger was released and the car had a tracking system that could pinpoint the target on a map and plot an intercept course (sort of - it was always a zoomed-in close up of what was probably a microfiche, but you got the idea) and now, virtually every car manufacturer has a GPS map system as an option at least on some of their vehicles. The same could be said for Cell phones and star trek, but that is a topic for another post.
8 - Old movies are painfully slow, especially when segmented by basic-cable channel commercial ratios of 2 minutes program to 1 minute commercial, even with a DVR.
9 - Daniel Craig's Bond would kick the crap out of Connery, Moore, Lazenby, and probably Dalton at the same time, although Timmy is so mad all the time he might have a shot. I won't speak to Pierce's ability to hold his own, mainly because he is a fellow Irishman and that is blasphemy, and anyone who has fought an Irishman knows we are not to be underestimated.
10 - Women have gotten better looking over the past 40 years. Enough said.

Now, my 3 "beefs" with Bond films, including the most recent ones.
1 - Promotional Consideration - If you see Q of S a second time (or Casino for that matter), pay attention to the cars. Not just the beautiful Aston, but all the cars (Ford, Volvo, Jaguar, Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, etc.). They are all Ford, or Ford subsidiaries (seriously, even the beater that he steals in Port Au Prince is an `80s Ford Bronco). Now that is fine, the Wachowski brothers used all GM cars for their awesome freeway scene, but what bugs me is that many of the cars don't even exist, or are unobtainable in the US. The Hydrogen powered Ford Edge that is the "official car of the baddies" in the movie isn't even in pre-pre-testing. If you must place a product in a movie, make it a real product that I can go out and buy, or at least drool over, like his Omega Seamaster Automatic. They have those at J. Brooks in the Gateway, and I visit them every time I go there. I think if Ford had launched a car like the Mondeo (that Bond drives in Casino) or a real WORKING Hydrogen powered Edge stateside, they could have stayed home last week when the General and Mr. Chrysler went to DC with their guitar case, piece of cardboard, and Sharpie.
2 - Villains either have to be pretty dumb, or all have the same realtor. In Austin Powers, Dr. Evil asks that his "underground lair" be built inside a hollowed out volcano. Ironically, in almost every movie, there are conveniently placed Hydrogen tanks primed for explosion, giant antennae on which to impale both henchmen and villians alike, a convenient facade (dilapidated building, dam, ocean oil drilling platform, nuclear train left over from the cold war, etc.), and some sort of overly elaborate power system that is inevitably destroyed by the protagonist in the climax. If I ever become a villian, I am buying a friggin' bomb shelter that runs on nothing more volatile than candles and a hotplate. It will still have sharks with laser beams though, naturally.
3 - It doesn't matter how much time passes, I am still not James Bond. This just isn't fair. Everyone on earth gets older, slower, fatter, and worse looking, but not Bond, and it's just not fair. I think the people I feel the worst for are the actors. Every so often, when gravity starts to work its magic, they just change him out for a new model. At the end of the credits it always says "James Bond Will Return," but it should say something like, "Just not as the same person." It should be said, however, that Connery still could come back again, since he did that a few times.

So I have to consign myself that I will neither become James Bond (I only figured that out around the time "Goldeneye" came out), nor will I have the chance to play him in a movie, because, frankly, I can't act. If anyone suspects this is false modesty, I will try and track down a video of my last acting role as "Charlie the Anvil Salesman" in the Wasatch Jr. High production of "the Music Man" and that should alleviate any doubts as to my lack of acting prowess. So I must live vicariously through the somewhat regular installments of product placement, "Evil plan" recycling, senseless womanizing, Aston Martin thrashing exploits of the character that "invented" the spy. All I can say is "KEEP IT COMING!"

Oh sweet, sweet internet...

So I read an article a while back that said in China, psychologists have begun to treat what they refer to as a "technology addiction." This is basically the growing trend of people to forsake meaningful human contact for the cold, lifeless series of tubes that is the internet. The funny thing is that they are talking about it in China, and I have yet to hear it brought up stateside. Isn't this the kind of thing that Oprah usually blows the cover off?

So I come down to my basement office today, and on my favorite gadget blog, find this Dilbert cartoon, that so completely expresses the psycho-emotional dilemma that I experience daily, and in sharing it I almost don't need to comment.


Almost... I'll keep this one to a brief list of 5 pieces of evidence that our society already has an unhealthy technology addiction, and if not our society, well, me...

1 - Text Messaging. If you doubt this, go to a restaurant, order a large water, and watch. I guarantee that you will see several tables where, rather than meaningful conversation, two people are sitting and simultaneously texting other people. What does it say when we are so preoccupied with "keeping in touch" that we fail to engage on a meaningful level? What? Did you say something, sorry, I got a text...

2 - Social Networking Sites. Now I confess I love Facebook. You can find people that you haven't taken the effort to keep in touch with or wouldn't have the stones to track down, and engage in a conveniently superficial relationship limited to 1-3 sentence "wall posts," status updates (and their associated comments), a personal message if you want to go really crazy, and then of course the endless stream of surveys, applications, causes, and all the other stuff that really amounts to a whole lot of nothing. Why not just call someone? Because you can't do that from your blackberry during a meeting, and the Jr High crush that tracks you down to apologize for being unkind would seem a lot more creepy to your spouse if she called you out of the blue.

3 - Cell Phones. These things are awesome. Not only do they bankroll this little operation of mine, but how cool is it that we have access to virtually everything and can strap it to our hip or throw it in our pocket or purse. The world is our phone booth (Remember phonebooths?) and our car becomes entertainment central. Even my 1-year-old picks up ANY phone, opens it if it is a flip, says "Hello? Ummmmm..." and then frantically presses keys with her thumbs,, as if she is sending a text message. How cool is that? An entirely untapped market of the cell phone companies to start targeting. The crazy thing is that I have seen people who lose their house or car due to financial troubles, but they won't cancel their cell phone because they have to be connected. Well, if you are homeless, at least people can still get ahold of you...

4 - TV. I love TV. I know, it isn't really something that you tell people, but let's be honest, it is an escape from the cruel, cold, unexciting, and rather anti-climactic world that is painfully devoid of a soundtrack. Now, as if voluntary subjection to radiation, normalized laziness, and complete withdrawal from reality aren't enough, we have digital video recorders that allow us to watch more TV in the same amount of time by eliminating commercials. Good thing, because when it boils down to it, there really are a lot of good things on...

5 - Blogs. Oh the irony. Rather than reading books, newspapers, or magazines, we read bite-sized chunks of information, conveniently concise enough that when our attention span starts to wane, we can move on to the next random, impertinent topic that the blogger feels wont to direct our attention to. We keep track of family and friends conveniently on our computers, and no longer have to tell people what we are doing, we just blog it and leave the ball in their court. The sad thing is that if you watch news programs, many of the anchors are now forced to Blog while on the air, in order to seem "in touch."

Now, after reading blogs, texting, skipping commercials, networking socially, our attention spans are reduced to being capable of little more than brief, insubstantial focus and can only be captured by sensationalism and emotional pandering. I wonder what will "they" come up with next. I am sure what ever it is it will be great, and I will embrace it a full two years before anyone else, probably because I read about it on my favorite blog, and a friend listed "it" as something they are a fan of on their facebook page... Wait are you still reading? Sorry, I moved on 2 paragraphs ago and I am currently chatting with a former employee through google talk. Sorry... Seacrest OUT!

Bailouts Shmailouts

Do any of my loyal readers remember the good old days? Maybe it is my age catching up with me (I DO turn 31 on Sunday) but I remember when companies were expected to take care of themselves, and if they didn't, they were bought out by other companies. Now granted, I did take my Econ class in college pass/fail (because I was WORKING to pay for school, imagine that) but I am pretty sure the professor addressed this as one of the fundamentals of a free market economy. Now, the government is picking and choosing who they bail out, and the biggest complaint I hear from people is "Where is my bailout?" What the freaking hell? I usually refrain from using profanity here, so for you sensitive readers I apologize, but seriously! We are a nation of over-consumers. We feel entitled to more, not because we have earned it, or even need it, but because we are American.

Now the banks are happy, and the stock market is still spiraling lower and lower (below 8000 today I hear), but apparently GM forgot to pay attention to the common rules of fiscal responsibility and is in danger of running out of money. Huh? The General is the largest car company in the world. 1 in 3 cars sold is made by GM or a subsidiary and they ran out of money? I guess they got big not by being good, but because they are American, and doggone it, they deserved to. I realized that they must really be desperate when I received an email from them on my work email account. (Hence the picture - get it? Spam?) It was addressed to all employees of Sprint enrolled in the employee discount program (GM gives a substantial discount to Sprint employees, so if this inspires you to rush out and buy an american car, talk to me first. The financial apocalypse is no reason to pay full price!) and urgently encouraged them to write, email, petition, fax, or threaten their congressman/woman to support the proposed $25 Billion dollar bailout of the 3 detroit automakers, Ford, GM, and Chrysler. I was surprised to know 3 things.

1 - Apparently there are lots of americans who work in the auto industry. Weird, I thought all cars were made in Japan, Korea, Canada, or Mexico (Seriously, most Volkswagens are now made in Mexico, and the Chevy Equinox is based on a Suzuki, which is manufactured in Canada).

2 - Apparently, Chrysler is still a company. Last I heard, they were consumed by Cerberus, a three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades, but apparently Cerberus is actually a company. I thought for sure that the new Chrysler Sebring could only have been spewed from Hades itself, but I guess since the company still exists they are in pretty good shape, and I hear they launched the Challenger, a new V8 muscle car. All right, that should get us ALL back on track.

3 - Apparently, in CEO and corporate marketing schools they teach you that when you have overspent, consistently produced sub-standard products, mismanaged assets, squandered opportunities to capitalize on new technology (Rent "the death of the Electric Car" if you doubt me here), and basically flown logic and your shareholders the bird, the American way is to ask for a bailout, and spend some of your last cash on a massive viral marketing campaign, even though you may not have enough cash on hand to continue making payroll after the first of the year. I have to hand it to them, I thought launching the Hummer line was genius, but this really takes the cake.

The reason I am most upset isn't what you may suspect. I am not a complete communist/fascist when it comes to my car tastes, (I do like VW, but have you seen a Chinese car? Ugh) and I do not feel slighted that I am not getting bailed out. Sure I could find something creative to spend a few billion on if Hank and Ben kicked it my way, but the thing I am most worried about is the fate of the Camaro. I have been waiting for this car since the Transformers Movie a few summers back, and if GM goes down, I may not get one, or worse - I may have to pay full price! I know that seems silly, no one pays full price for a GM car, but really, our kids are already on the hook for 700 Billion, what's another 25? Think of the lost jobs, the compounding financial turmoil, the billions in lost tax revenue, but most important, think of my Camaro.

So this is my plea to all my faithful readers and blog-stalkers alike - call your congressman and ask him to bail out our automakers, because why should they have to follow the rules of a free market economy when the banks don't? And even if you don't agree with the fundamental principles of capitalism, look at this thing! It's beautiful, and when I get one, I will take you for a ride. No you can't drive, but if I get stuck in the snow, you can help push me out of the snowbank.

A Littel Attention to Detail's

Okay enough about politics and seriousness, time for a rant. Why is it that people in this country don't feel the need to correctly speak, spell or punctuate? This is a rapidly declining standard that is aggravating beyond words. Perhaps it was that my Dad spoke the King (or Queen's) English, and insisted that I did as well, but this is sort of a matter of pride for me, since I still retain my British citizenship I need to be able to speak the language that the country spawned. Not saying I don't have my moments where I slip up in speach, but for heaven's sake people...

Let's make this a "top three, scratch that four" complaints. I hope not to offend anyone, but if I do, I apologize in advance. Here goes.

1 - Email - Since messages are generally short and less formal, there is an apparent supposition that it is not necessary to spell things correctly, punctuate, capitalize, or even string words together coherently, let alone spell people's names correctly. I had a regional director of marketing that consistently spelled a colleague's name "Brain" in stead of "Brian." Really? You make $100k a year and can't check to make sure you are spelling a co-worker's name correctly? I won't even talk about the numerous times we had to get out the urim and thumim to make sense of a weekly marketing update. I understand occasional mistakes, but every word processing program since the first Windows I used over 15 years ago has had a spelling check. CLICK IT! Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Comcast, all have spelling check, and if you use Outlook, it will even check your grammar, but that might be asking too much. Just start with spelling names and 90% of words correctly and I will be happier.

2- Now that you have mastered the spell check, let's take it to the next level. Let's talk about knowing what words mean. I know this is tough, but every cell phone sold now except the ones specifically marketed to kids and senior citizens has the internet or text messaging (Send a message to 46645 with "definition" and the word, and you will receive a message with the definition for free, just the cost of a regular text message). Use it to find out what words actually mean. A few favorites are "Ignorant" used as if it means generally a jerk, "Socialist" as a label applied to anyone who voted for a Democrat in any election since 1980 (Sorry, small political jab), "Their" used in place of "They're" or "There" or "Your" versus "You're"(We'll talk more about apostrophes in a moment), and last but not least, "All forms of 'to be' verbs." Is it really that hard to decide whether to use "was" or "were" when referring to what you and several friends did last night? I don't care if you live in Utah or West Virginia, you know in your heart whether it should be "We was" or "We were" and if you simply choose not to speak correctly, well you simply sound ignorant (Okay, that is my last one, and I'll stop using the word ignorant "for realz" now).

3 - Ebonics - I haven't heard this term in a while, but I haven't heard a suitable replacement, so we'll play this one where it lies. Why does every up-and-coming hip-hop icon wanna-be feel the need to brutalize the english language to the point of needing dental records in order to identify it. Now I am not a hip-hop hater, anyone who knows me well knows that my iPod has a decent selection of both old and new school hip hop. I love Snoop, Dre, Kanye, and "all themz," but do we really need to create new words, colloquial or not, to accomodate the declining education standards in the US? I don't think that with our Federal budget defecit and armed forces already stretched thin, we should be sending the message to other nations that we are raising a generation of complete idiots. It is like asking someone to attack us, because can you imagine trying to give missile command orders using this ridiculous excuse for communication? General Whitey; "Where are the missile launch codes?" Private Wigger; "Right thurr..." General Whitey; "Where?" Private Wigger; "Thurr!" General Whitey; "Private, we don't have time for this, could you be a little more specific? The Russians are launching as we speak!" Private Wigger; "Fo shizzle g-dizzle. Themz iz all up in the desk's biz-nass..." BOOM! I hope you see my point. Now I will confess, this is one that I do have a hard time with as I find it amusing, but the truth is much more disturbing - millions of people not only communicate this way, but believe it to be acceptable. This is not just a race issue, although there are racial undertones, the bottom line is that unless you own the Bentleys and Ferraris in your own music videos, your slang and prostituted English should stay in the songs and music videos that tend to give it breath.

4 - Plural forms of words, specifically apostrophes. This is my biggest pet peeve, and sadly, the most common that I have noticed lately. This may come as a shock to some of you (hopefully not) but adding "apostrophe s" to words does not make them plural, in fact it usually makes them wrong. Different words have different plural forms, but as far as I am aware, no word in the English language is made plural by adding an "apostrophe s," but in stead this makes most words possessive. This means that if my blog title were "The Kane's" that it would be singular and possessive, or "the blog belonging to one Kane," or give it the meaning "The Kane IS..." Totally different, and yet no one but me seems bothered by this. If I am incorrect or out of line, feel free to comment, or if you have a question, I would gladly refer you to a few sites, but in the name of all that is holy, STOP USING APOSTROPHEs TO MAKE THINGS PLURAL!!! Especially on websites, printed material, and emails.

If you don't know a word's (possessive, not words - plural) definition or the correct plural form, check Websters or Wikipedia, but unless you want to be called out by an angry British Expatriate (not necessarily me, unless you catch me on a bad day), called out by an English teacher, or maybe beaten to death with the dictionary or thesaurus that you perhaps ought not have considered so trivial or unimportant, take the extra seconds to care for the language - somebody has to.