Afishionados,

I’ve been out of town for the past couple of days on a road trip to Kentucky. Why the hell would anyone ever go to Kentucky? Why, to visit the Creation Museum of course! Actually, no, that’s not it at all. I won’t drop $20 on some Christian propaganda ‘museum’ until the Reverend Anaglyph comes for a visit. Then I’ll buy two tickets.

My adventure began Friday afternoon, when I left Ohio and headed to my shithole hotel. Kentucky, apparently, never gets tourists because their hotels are about as nice a place to stay as Guantanamo Bay Resort (Remember, it’s not a ‘prison’ because then we’d be held to the terms of the Geneva Convention and we’re Americans and above the law so there).

Upon arrival, the most pierced woman in all of Kentucky signed me in and gave me my room keys. At least, I think it was a woman. It was hard to tell because of all the piercings and because it was Kentucky and a lot of the women there are scary looking. She also had a difficult time speaking correctly because of her tongue piercing(s?). “Thine here, pleath. Thankth. Here are your room keyth. Pleath enjoy your thtay.” I wonder how she escaped the circus and got hired at the hotel.

Not long after arriving, my stepsister Ly and her husband called, ready to meet up for our big night out on the town in fabulous Covington, Kentucky. Happy for any excuse to leave the hovel hotel, I quickly got into my car and headed to the Madison Theater.

I have been known to attend a Missy Higgins concert from time to time to time. And when Missy decides to have a show a mere 45 minutes from my house… well… How could I possibly refuse?

Ly, brother-in-law, and myself arrived at the Madison Theater early, and set out in search of a place to eat. Just down the street was a small hole in the wall diner which looked friendly enough, so we stopped in for a bite. As it turns out, we weren’t the only three people hoping to eat before the concert.

Missy Higgins and Ly

Missy Higgins, Dave Symes (bass guitarist), and Ben Edgar (guitarist) were all seated together. I’ve been corresponding with Ben for a while now, so I walked up and started talking to them. I had emailed Ben prior and warned told him I’d be seeing him at the Covington show, and we’d made plans to hang out for a bit after. The three of us shared a small conversation, mostly about the iPhone of all things. Seems Missy’s a fan and has one of her own.

While I am always excited to see Missy sing, I think Ly was much more nervous in the diner that I was. “I really want a photo with her but I don’t want to bug her,” she said.

“Just ask her for one when they get up to leave.”

“But I don’t want to bother her.”

“Fine. Let me know when they get up to leave and I’ll ask her for you.”

About twenty minutes go by. Missy, Ben, and Dave get up to go.

“Hey, Missy, my sister would like a photo with you but is too afraid to ask, so can I ask you for one?”

Ly goes red, Missy goes, “Sure!”

Not one to miss an opportunity myself, I snagged another photo, too.

The show, as always, was superb. After the show, Ly, her husband, and I all hung out for a while and chatted with Ben. He’s a great guy, very nice and very down to earth. Afterward, Ly and her husband drove back to Ohio and I returned to my slum. The next morning, I woke up, packed my car, and headed for home.

Actually, I am completely lying about that last bit. I didn’t head home at all. Hell, no! I headed another hour in the complete opposite direction! WHAT!? Why would I do that!? Why, to visit Louisville and see Missy and the gang perform at the Phoenix Hill Tavern is why!

Despite a huge crowd of loud, obnoxious women behind me, the show was quite good. The Phoenix Hill Tavern was a nice venue, as I was able to get very close seating and free parking. Missy’s tour bus was parked in the same lot as my car, and on the way back I saw Ben and Dave chatting with some friends and fellow fans. Ben motioned me over, and so I hung out with the ‘crew’ for a while. It wasn’t long before more fans showed up and convinced Missy to emerge from her bus and sign some autographs and pose for some photos. I know how excited I was in Chicago last year when I waited in line for the same opportunity, so I waited patiently with the band and waited for the crowd to thin. Finally, when she was alone, I had the chance to talk to Missy again. Maybe it was because this was my 8th time seeing her perform, but for whatever reason it really felt like I had seen some friends perform rather than an Australian celebrity. Truth be told, I wasn’t even all that nervous talking to her, and we passed the time chatting as her gear was being loaded up. We talked about her music, her tour, and her success as a singer. I also found out (though probably not surprisingly after 8 shows) that she recognizes me in the crowd and at the very least knows my name.

I’ve yet to encounter an Australian that wasn’t one of the nicest people I’ve ever met (except Anaglyph, that guy’s a total asshole). I’m sure ‘bad’ ones are out there, but in my experience they’re all very friendly and fun to be around.

Unlike people from Kentucky…

Afishionados,

My iPhone posse and I arrived at our local AT&T store around midnight last night. This included my brother-in-law, both stepsisters, and my friend Ross. The parents, who also wanted iPhones but did not want to wait in line for them, arrived and cut in line around 7 A.M. We packed a camping table and collapsable chairs, along with some blankets and pillows to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. We also had doughnuts. Yum. Everyone managed to catch a little sleep. Well, everyone but me. I didn’t sleep a wink, though I finally managed to get in a quick nap around 11 A.M. this morning.

Here is a breakdown by numbers of our little outting:

24 How many doughnuts we had with us.

13 Was my place in the line.

8 Was the number of hours we waited in line.

4 The number of 16 GB iPhones we bought.

3 The number of 8 GB iPhones we bought.

400 million How many people were in line behind us. Well, not really, but it was a lot.

We also managed to make all the local news stations. Here’s me curled up in my comfy chair, guarding the precious doughnuts with my brother-in-law.

It’s a good thing we did decide to camp out at midnight, because the store sold out of iPhones wihin the hour. We wouldn’t have gotten them otherwise.

This was the first time I’ve ever camped out for a product. Considering how damn tired I am, I’m not sure that I’d ever do it again, either. Well… At least until the next iPhone comes out.

Afishionados,

Afishionados,

A shameless plug for my brother tonight because I think he deserves it. My brother, Narrow Dweeb, was in the market for a didgeridoo but discovered that affordable ones are $70+ in the catalogues. The cheaper ones are made from PVC piping and not wood.

So, what is a desperate ex-Marine-gone-Army-Reservist to do? Buy some PVC pipe and a heat gun is what! Yes, Narrow Dweeb has been making his own didgeridoos and playing them on his college campus because he’s crazy. He also has a talent knack for leaving me didgeridoo voicemail messages. At least, I think it’s him because I don’t know any Aboriginal Australians.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, are just a few of his didgeridoo creations. They sound just as good as the real (wooden) ones but look a lot cooler. Especially the flying tiger version, which is my favorite so far.

If this one has a model number, it would be “P-40″.

This one is also quite good and looks a lot like wood after some sanding, staining, and branding. I think it came out nicely.

Here’s a close up look at the “wooden” didgeridoo. It looks great!

I think it people are willing to pay $70 for a didgeridoo that my brother should sell them. I know at least one person who would like to see a Darth Vader or Halo 3 didgeridoo… But I… I mean “he” shall remain nameless.
:-X.

Afishionados,

My sister, her husband, and their children are in town for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. My nephew is 4 and my niece is 1-and-a-half. I love them and usually it’s good to see all of them, but there are moments when I wish that the kids were still in Cleveland where they belong. For example:

My nephew, Austin, is mostly potty trained. I say mostly because he can do everything except wipe his own ass. A skill that, in my opinion, is essential to human survival and one that everyone should possess. Unfortunately, Austin hasn’t quite reached this milestone yet.

A few days ago, I found myself alone in the house with just Austin and Kevin, my other sister’s fiance’. Kevin and I were sitting at the kitchen table surfing the Internet when Austin decided to run like hell to the bathroom (which is just outside the kitchen) and shut the door. Aside from the speed at which the child had moved, I didn’t think much of it. And then the door slowly creaked open, and the a small, squeaky voice announced, “Uncle Atlas, I pooped!”

At first I thought that perhaps Satan was just a soprano and was playing an evil trick on me. And then the voice spoke again. “Uncle Atlas, I said I poooooooooooooped!” I looked at Kevin and he looked at me. His ashen face was like that of a deer’s just mere moments before a van drives into it at 100 MPH.

“Not it,” he said to me as Austin continued to stand in the doorway, pants around his ankles and continuing with the updated status reports of what he had just accomplished.

Kevin is a doctor and a future pediatrician. Apparently, the noxious fumes from Austin’s festering floaters had permeated his brain, causing cell damage and creating a momentary lapse in memory and judgment. Clearly, Kevin was misinformed. And so I took it upon myself to correct his misguided outlook.

“I’m a graphic designer. You’re the pediatrician. If Austin needs crayons or coloring books, I’m there for him. But if there’s chunks in his cheeks, that’s your line of work. Start wiping.”

In the end (no pun intended), Austin wiped his own ass and Kevin gave a thorough inspection. Austin had done just fine by himself, washed his hands, and stepped out from the bathroom. As he approached the table, I congratulated him on his success. “Good job, Austin. Today, you became a man!”

I had a similar experience with Austin this past summer, when I really was the only one (besides him) in the house. My sister and my mother had gone out shopping, and Austin told me that he had to poop. So I did what any paranoid man would do: I sent a text message to both their cell phones.

“Austin has to poop. Come home soon.”

Thankfully, my ingenious plan worked and they arrived within minutes. Of course, I was prepared and had a backup plan in place. If mom and sis had not returned in time, Austin would have been stripped naked and placed safely and securely in a bathtub full of water until someone (anyone) came home.

Afishionados,

Don’t be fooled by the photo above. It’s not really AngryMan’s offspring, so don’t worry.

Have you ever seen the movie Critters? I think it’s the reason that I am so fucked up today.

Critters is like Gremlins, except that it’s less comedy and way less cool. The lack of plot involves evil space alien “hedgehogs” called Krites that come to Earth and eat people on a hillbilly family’s farm. Two bounty hunters (also from space) come to Earth to help save the planet. It’s got to be one of the worst movies ever made.

My parents let me watch Critters when I was 5 or 6 years old. There are really only two scenes that stick out in my mind but they’ve forever fucked me up psychologically.

The hillbilly family’s son (He’s like 12 years old or something) rides his bike through the field at night to try and get help from a neighbor or something because his dad is hurt by the Krites. The Krites, of course, are also in the field and bite his pant legs and bike tires. As a kid, I always thought of this when I rode my bike at night, and to this day I still refuse to drive my car through cornfields.

Another scene has the Krites inside the hillbilly house and they’re chewing E.T.’s head off. A pleather doll of E.T., anyway. And they tear that fucker to pieces. Perhaps it would have been better if they had instead chewed off Drew Barrymore’s head, sparing us countless films with her terrible acting.

Critters spawned three sequels, but Critters 5 was unfortunately canceled. The sequels, while naturally worse than even the horrid first film in the series, were not a complete loss.

Critters 2, for example, did have two excellent points.

Afishionados,

I’m happy to announce two new additions to our beloved family. Two new Intel Macs have been purchased for our humble home. A new 24; 2.4 GHz iMac and a 15″ 2.4 GHz MacBook Pro. Woo hoo. This brings the total number of Macs in the house to four, and the number in the family to five. Sure, we’ve still got a couple retarded PCs in the house but every family has its losers, right?

The big incentive for the le grande purchase was video chatting. Have you ever tried to video chat on a PC with more than one person? No, of course you haven’t because it’s ridiculously difficult if not impossible. Skype is free, but the video quality is crappy. AIM is nice, but what do you do it the person you want to chat with is on Yahoo? Bleh.

I’ve had my first foursome this week (video chat, anyway). My nephew in Cleveland was able to talk to Grandpa, Grandma, his Aunt, and myself, all for free and through the power of iChat. I’ve done video chats before, but never with more than one person at a time. It’s amazing how well it actually worked and the video quality was pretty good.

I don’t know why, but with so many new Macs in the house I’ve been thinking about my first Mac computer. It was the Titanium PowerBook G4 and it was (and still is) one of the sexiest computers ever. The tech specs are laughable by today’s standards, but in 2001 they were, as Darth Vader would say, impressive. Most impressive.

My TiBook had a 500 MHz G4 processor, 256 megabytes of RAM, a 20 gigabyte hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive (no burning of any kind), a 15″ screen with 1152 x 768 resolution, and Mac OS 9.1. The starting price was $3499, but that was before I added the wireless networking card, which was an additional $99.

Click here to see the original Titanium PowerBook commercial.

In comparision, my MacBook Pro has a 2.4 GHz processor, 4 gigabytes (4096 megabytes) of RAM, a 160 gigabyte hard drive, built-in wireless networking, a DVD/CD burner, a 15″ screen with 1440 x 900 resolution, and Mac OS X 10.4.10. The cost of my model MacBook Pro is $2499. So the features have gone up but the price has come down.

I uncovered, after much, MUCH digging within Google, the original Titanium PowerBook information video. It’s only 5 minutes long, and it’s funny to see how excited everyone is by something that, by today’s standards, is an obsolete antique. Still, I wish I’d kept mine around for nostalgic purposes, but I sold it many years ago for the 667 MHz version.

The video is cool, I promise. It even has the song “Rain Dance” by Karl Jenkins in it. You can’t lose!

Click here to watch the five minute Titanium PowerBook information video.

The Dell Inspiron 8600 that the MacBook Pro replaced has been formatted with an all-but-legit permanently activated version of Windows Vista Ultimate and is on its way to my brother Drew, who’s hard as hell on all his electronic equipment, gadgets, and toys. I figure, if you’re going to beat the shit out of something, might as well be a Dell with Windows.

(To the Dell’s credit, I am impressed that the ~3 year old laptop runs Windows Vista Ultimate with all its glorious bells, whistles, and eye candy. But, it’s still Windows.)

I’m sold on Macs for life. If you’re a Windows user and you’re happy with your PC, that’s great. I’m not looking to start a platform war. But if you’re a Windows user and you’re unhappy, remember: You don’t have to love your computer. But you certainly shouldn’t have to hate it, either.

Think different.

Afishionados,

Today was the best day that I’ve had in a really long time.

I spent the whole day with my sister, her husband, and my mom. We all went shopping at the mall and bought new clothes. I haven’t really bought any new clothes since joining the Navy, so I needed an update. I should look pretty good for school when I start in the fall.

My laptop has always had a black pixel out on the screen, which really has never bothered me too much. Until two days ago, when the little bastard decided to turn BRIGHT FUCKIN’ GREEN ALL THE TIME. It looked like this:

Annoying. Why did that pixel decide to “wake up”? Stay BLACK if you must, but not GREEN! Or red. Or blue. That’s the problem with technology these days: everything uses LCDs so you’re always at risk for having a stuck or dead pixel.

I called my local Apple store and they wouldn’t replace a screen because of one stuck pixel. Lucky me. Fortunately, an independent Apple retailer in my area also fixes Apple computers. And they DID replace the screen for me. They also did it in less than 48 hours, which is faster than ANY turnaround time I have ever experienced directly from Apple. It’s a brand new store and all the folks that work their are friendly. I want to take them all donuts for helping me out.

I’ve been keeping really busy lately, too. Tomorrow it’s off to Cleveland to help sis and husband with unpacking their stuff into their new apartment. As long as there’s beer, we’ll be fine.

I’ve also got something cookin’ in the OFAL Laboratory. I’m working on an Internet project and testing it out with some friends. I’ve put a lot of work into it, and I think it could be really big. The graphics still need some work and it’s not quite ready for prime time. But I can say that it’s powered by WordPress and should have a bigger following than Old Fish and Lemonade. I’m excited. (Not that OFAL is going anywhere, mind you. This project is totally separate.)

Stay tuned!

Afishionados,

Today was a good day. I spent the afternoon and evening with my grandma. I love her, she’s incredible. She’s in her mid eighties now but still gets around quite well and likes to go to the movies. Tonight we saw the Transformers movie together then went out for dinner. Next up this week, we’ll be seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I thought that the Transformers movie was good. I expected no plot, lots of CG special effects, and lots of action. I was not disappointed, and there was even a fair bit of humor in the film as well. I loved the Transformers toys and TV show as a kid, and I wanted to see how well the film compared to what I remember of the “old school” Transformers as a child.

My favorite Transformers growing up were Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. The movie features the original voice of Optimus Prime (the great Peter Cullen) from the cartoons, which is great because Prime’s gruff voice is one of the features that helps define him as a character. Optimus Prime without Peter Cullen would be like Darth Vader without James Earl Jones. Prime’s voice has always been great, but it simply sounds the best in surround sound.

I always liked Bumblebee because he used to be a Volkswagen Beetle and I have always liked that car. In the new film, however, he’s a Camaro because Volkswagen wouldn’t allow their beloved car to be seen transforming and blowing up other, more evil space alien robots, and therefore would not give the studio its blessing to keep Bumblebee a bug. For fans of the old Transformers, though, Bumblebee’s introduction in the film features a great inside joke with regard to this “Volkswagen change of character” situation. I thought it was funny.

Acting is what you would expect it to be: all but nonexistent. Sam (played by Shia LaBeouf) is believable as a high school nerd, and is actually funny in some scenes. Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) plays the girlfriend/heroine and is good screen candy and little else. Jon Voight (Defense Secretary John Keller) is the worst of everyone and Josh Duhamel (Air Force Captain Lennox) shows that Captains in the Air Force are not required to have their hair cut to military standards. Oh, and his character is pointless, too.

☆☆☆☆

Four Autobots out of Five.

Speaking of movies, The Simpsons Movie has a feature on their web site where you can make yourself a character in the Simpsons universe. Here is what I would look like if I were a character in the Simpsons.

Now, go make your own Simpsons avatar. It’ free, you don’t have to register, and I want to see what you guys look like.

Afishionados,

Another photo from Andrew heads my way, just in time for the 4th of July. Thanks, Andrew, I can always use more horse meat. I think I’ll use this chunk for my 4th of July Barbaro-B-Q.

I slept through the parade (again) but did manage to make my way downtown for the festivities. The old part of downtown was blocked off and was full of delicious, fried, and unhealthy food. Awesome. Since I live so close, I walked there, and on my way I couldn’t help but notice this crazy shit in the front of someone’s yard.

I snapped this with my camera phone at a good distance, but I think the photo came out really well, considering. In case you can’t read it, the yellow sign says “I think I can” and the red one says “I made a present”.

I hope you noticed the photo of Isaac. In his cowboy duds. In a toilet. In the front lawn. This is fucked up on so many levels that I don’t even know where to begin. Why would you dress your child up like a country western circus clown and take photos? Do you want him to be a virgin for the rest of his life? And yes, that really is a toilet, it just looks odd from the angle in the photo.

What am I saying? It would look odd at ANY angle. It’s a goddamn toilet in the front yard!

I’m really hope that Isaac is getting potty trained. Otherwise, the existence of the toilet completely baffles me. As for the “present” that Isaac made, well… Isaac, my friend, if you consider those things presents, have I got a treat for you. Come out with me after I’ve had some Chipotle and I promise to deliver you one HELLUVA gift. And since you’re claiming them as “presents”, Isaac, you just found yourself a spot in my ongoing feature, Christmas Gifts You Shouldn’t Buy. Congratulations. (For the record, I didn’t get close enough to the toilet to see if it was just dirt, or one of Isaac’s presents.)

On a more serious note, have yourselves a great 4th of July. Go buy some fireworks and celebrate our nation’s independence by blowing up a small part of it. And thanks to our troops, especially those overseas, who are over there so that we can celebrate. And to my good friends on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the USS Enterprise, and in the United States Marine Corps. Come home safe, you guys! Happy 4th of July and Congratulations to Isaac!