Holiday Havoc

We wake up at a normal hour to finish packing prior to our 12:30 flight. It's hectic (of course) but all gets done. We hit the road with little issue. Little to no traffic lets us cruise to airport in record time. A mile and a half from the airport a sound rings clear from the front of the vehicle. We have a blowout. Thank god for the Benz, we don't even swerve. I pull over to inspect the damage - front tire has a triangle shaped piece torn from the inside of the wheel. The wife and I rush as quickly as possible to change the tire. See, I haven't change a tire on the Benz before - and didn't we just buy 4 new tires last year!? So I read the instructions in the manual and start the process. One little problem: according to the road side assistance lady...

"...once you remove the 6 lug nuts the tire should come right off...nothing else is holding it in place...you might run into the fact that they rust sometimes...tap gently to loosen it..."

Right, so after I've used every profanity known to man, beaten my expensive rim into a nasty condition, my tire is still stuck to the car. I'm pulling, yanking, and still nothing. Nothing till I notice that the threads and the opening aren't aligned. I twist the tire back and forth till it comes loose. We slap the spare on, drive no more then 50mph to the airport, and make it with enough time to eat lunch. Also, when we pull into the parking lot waiting for us is a luggage cart - someone was looking out for us.

Needless to say we finally made it to our destination (even if Southwest lost our car seats) with a borrowed set of car seats for the little ones.

Happy Holidays everyone.

Things I'm reading | and want to keep reading

Interview with Mike MoranMike Moran's BLOG
Avinash Kaushik's post on Podcasts
Reading more about StatCounter & ClickTracks

Analytics :: The Choice is Yours

Great article on what I believe are the core "first" steps in appropriate analytic implementation (after all, you have to have some kind of data, even if it's wrong - as long as you figure out that it is in fact wrong to get you to a place with good data - which isn't to say alter the data to make it good - just read the article, I'm working myself into a loop).

Lego Star Wars | XBOX

The boy and I have been playing The Incredibles for some time now. We're at a part that neither of us can get past (the stupid Volcano part with the robot - can't seem to figure out the sequence to beat the bastard). So while shopping tonight for our holiday donation gifts I went over to check out the XBOX games on sale (not 360, just good-old regular XBOX). I wasn't really looking for something the both of us could play, but I came across Lego Star Wars. Now, I'd just rented Black and had officially determined my level of game play isn't what it used to be. I know I've always liked adventure games, and this one looks kind of cool, and it's a "Everyone" play rated, so I figured we'd try it out. And, it's a two player game (if desired).

Ok, so near 10pm, I turned it off and sent the boy to bed. I was still playing it after I sent him up. It's fun, challenging (in some parts), and the graphics are very cool. We'll see how far we get till we get stuck and move onto a new game.

Ms. Dewey | Live Search

What happens when you take Flash, merge it with a hot woman who has something to say about everything, and introduce search results powered by Microsoft Live Search? You get a slick search portal that kicks out results in a fun way: Ms. Dewey.

According to Wikipedia:

Developed by MRM and EVB, Ms. Dewey is a fully animated search assistant who audibly comments on searched keywords in her own style and makes random actions when idle, including taking props from behind her desk.

Technorati returns some interesting results other bloggers are writing about. From 24th Floor:

Ms Dewey’s real name is Janina Gavankar. It just came to my attention that Ms Dewey also played in a movie call Cup of My Blood.

And my personal favorite from WebProBLOG:

Before becoming the most attractive thing about MSN Search, Gavankar was pleasing crowds using another method - soft-core movies… you know, the ones you find on Cinemax during their late-night viewing schedule. According to Cutts’ post, Ms. Dewey appeared in a movie called Cup Of My Blood, and judging by the screencaps (NSFW) Gavankar is not a believer in the “no nudity” clause so many actresses include in their contracts nowadays.

So, happy searching. Just as a fun little bonus, type in Porsche 911 C4 - at 8:36am I was listed as result #3.

UrlTrends

UrlTrends A free service that allows you to view any URLs PageRank™, Alexa Rank, popular search terms, incoming links and more!

Back in 2007 | The most disturbing film in history (maybe)

Since having children there have been a number of films I find difficult to view. One of note is a popular one: Trainspotting. Specific to the child scene. I can't watch films that deal with children being harmed or abused in certain ways. A level of realism churns me to the point of unable to watch the scenes before me. Even important films that question the political or societal nature of past/present/future. Simply put, I just can't watch them.

I first realized this issue I have when we lived back east. Wife and kid were on a trip to the mid-west, and I was left to my own devices. I went to a speciality video store in the district and rented some Out Of Print (OOP) titles. Titles my wife would never be able to stomach. One of which was Salò. You might know of Salò as the most expensive OOP DVD ever (in some cases over $1000). For those that don't know what Salò is, I'll try my best:

Pier Paolo Pasolini
1975
(from the Criterion site)
A loose adaptation of the Marquis de Sade's The 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo is perhaps the most disturbing and disgusting film ever made. It is also one of the most important, offering a blistering critique of fascism and idealism that suggests moral redemption may be nothing but a myth.

Now, the part about "most important" got me interested. The "most disturbing" part had me intrigued. I've seen my share of exploitation films, hard core violent, out and out insane, so I figured I needed to see this film...20 minutes. I got though about 20 minutes before I had to turn it off. Disturbing doesn't come close. I still have images burned in my brain that I can't shake.

Why the recap? Where's the point? I just read this from DVDFile.com:

Criterion has supposedly had issues renewing licenses for the film from the Pasolini estate, but as posted on Criterion’s official site: “Have we been able to renew our rights [to Salò]? Well, here’s the answer you weren’t expecting. Yes. We’re working on a brand new HD transfer now. It’ll be a totally new release and be out in 2007.”

So the reason I've never re-visited Salò was due in part to the inability of finding it without spending a fortune. Now, that it's being re-released I'm toying with the idea of attempting to watch it all the way though. Maybe if I watch it with someone else it might allow for conversation though some of the harsher parts? I don't know. I haven't made up my mind yet.

So any of my friends out there that want to watch Salò with me?

I don't do needles

My parents tell me they made a choice when I was first born - give him really strong drugs that might weaken his teeth, or not give him really string drugs and let him die. I have this very early memory of my mom/dad/me spilling the medicine on my "blanky" and destroying it. Mom cut out a small piece for me to keep, but for the most part is was trashed.

Move ahead to many moons ago - I was eating a sandwich (ham, most likely) when I bit down on a *crunch* sensation. Gross, was my first thought. I fished out a white piece of something sharp. It was the front of my tooth. It has sheared off the front half. Needless to say, I called mom and told her we needed to call the dentist and fix this shit now!

Lets back track a little...I have the very fond memory of screaming in the dentists chair, as he was ripping out 1 of 4 teeth that session "I CAN STILL FEEL..." I had been injected into my gums the anesthetic that was SUPPOSE to numb me, but alas it did not. I know my mother heard me screaming from the waiting room (she was, after all, working for the good doc at the time). After it was all done, I swore I'd never take a needle in the gums again, no matter what.

slob? I floss. I Brush. I drink as ass load of soda. That might be one reason. So I head into the dentist this morning to have 2 taken care of. Seems the filling from the "sheared off tooth" incident was all So it turns out at the ripe age of 30 I have, what was it, 4 cavities! What I am, an unkemptfugly, and the one next to it needed to be taken care of as well. I ask the assistant:

Umm, do you plan on shooting me in the gums to numb me up?

Yes.

Right, I don't do that.

No anesthesia?

No, I don't do needles in the gum. You guys can give me a topical, but I don't do that...

So very nicely, she writes a note on a stikie and pastes it to my chart: NO SHOTS. As I'm talking to the assistant about holiday shopping, she looks away and has a brief conversation with the doc. "We're talking about you. That you don't do shots..."

So the doctor rolls over and looks at me perplexed "So, you don't do shots? Topical won't do anything, so if you won't do a shot, you'll feel it." I answer "I've had 4 teeth pulled with all feeling, I'll be ok." She looks at me "4 ADULT teeth pulled? You've had 4 ADULT teeth?" I say "Yup." NOW, they might have been adult, they might have been baby, but hell if I was going to have anyone stick a god-damn needle in my gums. So she starts in. Drills away. I focus on a spot. I'm more concerned about the congestion running down my throat preventing me from breathing 100% then I am with the pain.

The good doctor pauses, so I think, and looks at me "Wow, you're amazing. You didn't even flinch. 99.9% of the people I've seen couldn't do what you just did - and I've seen a lot. You're awesome. How do you do it?" I tell her that I've been fortunate enough to inherit a high tolerance for pain. My legacy spreads across the whole office. I can feel the vibe...ok, now I'm totally embellishing for the sake of ego.

So while I'm sitting there, waiting to have my teeth filled, I ask the assistant to help me take this picture. This is the before. This is when I had all my nerves exposed to the world...and I didn't even flinch. At one point I looked up and said "Dustin Hoffman's got nothing on me..." I'm not sure if they got it.