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But these guys can!

I know that it's some kind of weird old cliche but Samantha wanted a better way to store her spices so I built a spice rack. From design to construction to painting to mounting it took about three hours. I know it's kind of ugly but I'm proud of it because it's the first creative thing I've done in a long long time. All of the materials were from things I already had around the house so it was essentially free.



I've had a subscription to Make magazine for the last year or so and I guess it finally inspired me.

I'm not talking about the radio station, Live 105 (105.3 FM), I'm talking about the temperature in Brentwood right now. It is 105.3 degrees outside and 84.5 degrees inside. The good news is that I have great insulation since I haven't turned on my A/C in several days. The bad news is that I have no desire to leave my house anytime soon.

I could turn on my A/C to make it more comfortable but I'm trying to save money. Since our house is newer, rather small, and only one story it is very good at maintaining a desired temperature. Also, I've installed a ceiling fan in every room of the house (with the help of my father-in-law) so if you are under a fan it feels even cooler.

July is usually the hottest month here so I'm hoping today isn't an indicator that next month will hit 110 degrees...

Update (6/22/06): Today hit 108.2!

Update (6/23/06): The world is the hottest it's been in 2,000 years.

Update (7/22/06): Today hit 113.8! The highest recorded temperature in history in the Bay Area is 115. That was in Livermore in 1975. So, we are just 1.2 degrees away from that. Fortunately we are expected to drop 15 degrees in the next 3 days so we will get some relief. I will never consider anything in the 90's hot again.

The only thing more boring than a business meeting is one where people virtually attend. During the rare times I pay attention to them I hope and pray for WebEx blunders. Here are things I have witnessed:

• A new email preview popup from Outlook letting everyone know in graphic detail how Viagra will make their lives better.
• An instant message window shows the presenter's friend complaining about how a mutual friend is being an expletive.
• An Outlook meeting reminder of a TWO HOUR appointment for "hair coloring and pedicure with Mario" that takes place during business hours.
• A PowerPoint presentation with the word "everybodies" which has been underlined by the built-in spell check utility.

Letting large groups of people have a live view of your computer is a potentially embarrassing (but entertaining) thing.

We get free Showtime this month so that they can sucker us into subscribing. The selection of movies is far from stellar but since I like free stuff I set our DVR to record every single movie available so that I can review them after the month is over. Also, Showtime carries Penn & Teller's "Bull...." which I think is hilarious.



However, the thing I am most excited about is "Chopping Mall". It's a 1986 low budget teen slasher film produced by the king of B movies, Roger Corman. Basically a lightening storm causes three mall security robots to malfunction and start killing teens locked in a mall late at night. The acting, dialogue, music, and special effects are all hilariously bad. Actually, for a low budget movie the production value wasn't too bad. The only exception is the audio mixing, the background noises were louder than the foreground noises!




The two moments that tie for my favorite are when the annoying blonde girl gets hit by a robot laser which makes her head explode and when a crazed nerd drives an electric utility vehicle (similar to a golf cart) kamikaze-style into a robot which causes both of them to be electrocuted.

If you like B movies I highly recommend this one.

When the original "got milk?" ads came out thirteen years ago (not kidding) everyone laughed and cried and bought some milk. They were clever and "edgy" and all that and they served their purpose for a few years. Now I'm asking for this trend to be retired... please! I see tired rip-offs of the phrase on a daily basis in local advertising. Today, while driving north on 880 I saw a big and shiny 4x4 pickup with "Got Avon?" in huge letters on the back window. Because of that and the fact that it was a purple truck I figured it would be a woman driving but it was a guy. Putting aside the gender identity questions I wonder if it's legal for one company to completely steal the slogan of another company. I don't even really care about that though. I just want the whole "got...?" thing to die! It served its purpose! Plus, the thing that made it a good campaign was the whole package: clever writing, decent acting, unique narrator voice, unique font, etc... Just using "got...?" is a completely lazy appropriation of a formerly good idea. If we have to resort to banning the word "got" from the English language I don't think that is going too far (there is always "have"). So please, everyone, IT'S NOT FUNNY OR CLEVER ANYMORE, it's just pitiful.

Speaking of "pitiful", here is a link to an officially sanctioned free download of Weird Al Yankovic's pardoy of "Beautiful" by James Blunt, "Pitiful". I think it is pretty funny.