Thursday, November 20, 2008

Dreaming of me

I have had some interesting dreams of late. Two of them are weird in just how mundane they were.
In the first one the entire dream all I was doing was ironing a blue dress shirt. I spent a lot of time on the collar.
The second dream was me trying to figure out how to sell a big pile of dust jackets. Not any actual books, just the dust jackets and they were all from the same book.

I won't call the third one a doozy, but it certainly was an action packed dream. So I am present while the president of Congo is making a speech that looks a lot like the elementary school I went to. As he is giving his speech in a classroom shots ring out from the ceiling and seemingly killing the president. I then start ushering people outside as they start to panic. Me and a few others are the classroom, thinking the gunman has left. Shots start coming from the ceiling again. We all dive for cover, but I am shot in the calf. Which left me wondering if the president was the intended target at all. Those of us left removed a few ceiling tiles to try and look for the gunman. Then I woke up.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Oh my goodness

James Ellroy's next book has been given a release date of next fall. It is the third book in his Underworld USA trilogy. You can read about it at: Sobel Weber Associates

I think I just peed myself.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

In My Crosshairs

I've never read Rick Reilly's writing in the back of Sports Illustrated, or his articles on ESPN.com, or any of his other writings. I have seen him a few times on Pardon the Interruption though, and if his appearances on there is any indication of his writing, then I ain't interested.

People love lists, so here are the things he did in Tuesday's show that irritated me:
  1. Early in the show he demanded that the Cleveland Brown's need to start Brady Quinn. Wilbon then informed him they are starting Quinn. "Well then they need to keep starting him!" I don't think that was really a question.
  2. He makes the really weird analogies. Like: "It was like he had eyebrows superglued on. He couldn't take his eyes off of them." I don't even know what the hell that means. Anyone?
  3. He tries to hard to shoe horn in pop culture references. Like when he was trying to compare the Spurs and the Hawks: "It is like the difference between Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Alba" Which produced a very quizzical expression from Michael Wilbon. Then he changed it to Scarlett Johansson and Raquel Welch.
  4. No one finds Rick Reilly as funny as Rick Reilly does. Sometimes he is giggling so hard at the line he is about to issue that he barely gets it out. Horrible.
That is it that's the list! 4 items for less than a half an hour of material...horrible

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Serial Cereal Reviews

Now we all know that maple & brown sugar is a popular flavor for cereal, oatmeal, and as a pizza topping. Life cereal recently introduced their own version of a maple and brown sugar flavored cereal. Let us see how it does.

First off let me me comment on how much I like the new packaging on the Life brand. The logo is similar enough to the old one that it isn't shocking, but with just enough change to look new.

The look and texture of this cereal is just like all of the other brands, as you would expect. The taste? I don't know there is just something off with this cereal. It just doesn't come together for me that I can't put my finger on. I was going to drill it after just one bowl last week, but I wanted to make sure about how I felt. I do, and I don't like it. Sorry Quaker maybe next time.

Nutritionally it is pretty much exactly the same as all of the other flavors. Particularly, in the calorie department, with all four flavors containing 160 with the milk. They also all have 100% of your folic acid if that concerns you at all. All things, literally, being equal here my money would go to the regular or cinnamon flavored cereals.

I debated on how I should score this one. If it was a different brand I might be more generous, but this one had big footsteps to follow. I can only give this 1 1/2 bowls.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Hello, old friend

Comics: Yesterday I went to my little warehouse in preperation of Wizard World Texas. When I got there one of my comic book boxes was turned upside down. I haven't been there in probably two months or so, and I have no idea how long it has been this way. None of the comics looked damaged, so that was fine. Most of them were just kind of hanging there since the box got caught on another box below it. As I was putting them back in the box I found handful of comics that were unbagged. To my delight they were some comics I thought were long gone. They included the single issues I was missing from 100 Bulletts and James Robinson's Starman. Those issues you know you have, but you can't find anywhere so you think you must be going crazy.

Speaking of Wizard World, I am getting really stoked for it now. It starts tomorrow, and it is one of the best weekends in the year for me. A chance to completely geek out. Plus, I will be volunteering at the Hero Intitative booth again, which I have every year since Wizard World Texas began. One of the few charitable acts I do. As one of my friends said, "Travis? Charity? Hah!"

Salad: Last month for the first time in seriously 7-8 years I had ranch dressing on salad. Man, I forgot how good ranch dressing is. It was great. Very comforting, plus it was nice to get a break from all of the vinegariettes and asian dressing I have been eating.

Family: Coming up on November 22nd I will be attending my great-aunt and uncle's 60th wedding anniversary. This should make-up for skipping family reuniuon this year, as just about the same people should be here for the anniversary celebration. I was at the 50th anniversary as well, and it doesn't seem like 10 years has passed since then. My brother is flying in for the anniversary and staying through Thanksgiving, so that should be a fun week.