So far away.

Cass and I booked our honeymoon to the place we wanted at the resort we wanted. We will be spending a week in St. Lucia this July and we are so excited.

The island looks awesome and we finally found a flight to get us there in one day. For the longest everything we found had us staying a night in Miami or someplace equally not exciting. The only bummer is that we have to fly Delta and I sort of feel bad about that since Eugene Mirman.

Jungle zipline tours and snorkeling will happen. We found the resort we wanted at a good price for all inclusive and sprang for a room with an ocean view. That ocean is going to get the s**t viewed out of it.

Sick Day

Ooops I grabbed the wrong pic from the website.

I'm home sick today and not feeling so great. I did want to jump on here and post that YYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

The only productive thing I did today is come up with new nicknames for my dogs: Charles in Charge and the Fresh Princess.

Football

The next time someone (American) tells me soccer is boring because nothing happens I am going to remember this. Holy cow. 11 minutes of actual gameplay in a 2 hour 54 minute broadcast? That is insane.

Current Addiction: Clash of Heroes

The current thing that occupies too much of my time according to Cass is Clash of Heroes for the DS. Her mom got me this game for Christmas and it is awesome. I'd rank it among my top five favorite games ever for the DS. So everyone if I know you and you own a DS buy this game so I can fight you on the DS instead of fighting you with my DS. A special note for some who may not know this I like to assault people with my DS.

Where would I rank it? Funny I should ask, me.

5. Professor Layton and the Curious Village
4. Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes
3. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
2. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
1. The World Ends With You

Too late?

When I was 16 I wanted a job. Not because of some innate ethic or boredom. I wanted money and like most Americans who don't live in coal mining towns real jobs are hard to come by when you're 12.

I got a job at American TV & Appliance in the warehouse. I was really excited about this job for a few reasons. Importantly it wasn't fast food or food service at all, something I wanted to avoid and to this day have never done. It also afforded a great opportunity as the reason I wanted a job in the first place would now be cheaper with an employee discount.

I wanted a TV for my room. More specifically I wanted a TV and VCR for my room. My parents would not buy one for me so I would have to obtain it on my own. Prior to turning 16 that would have meant saving up an entire summer's worth of lawnmowing money, which admittedly was a bit too much to ask at the time. This job meant affording these things after only about a month of work.

I bought these things right away, I believe with my second paycheck I received from American. I of course set them up immediately and got excited that night. The other nice thing was that American closed at 9pm so I would usually get home around 10. This was important.

The reason I wanted a TV in my room, not the only reason but the reason, was because I wanted to watch Conan while I went to sleep. I would often fall asleep with the show on and because I didn't want to miss it at all I recorded it every night with my VCR. I would watch what I missed the next morning while getting ready for school.

My senior year of high school I had current events. Our professor was pretty laid back and let the class pretty much be a free for all of ideas and conversation. My main contribution to this class was to bring in any political discussion/skit/anything from Conan and play it for the class. It wasn't something I did every day or even every week, but often enough that anyone who took that class with me probably remembers me for that specifically.

Years later I'm 25 and living in Chicago when Conan announces he is doing a week of shows at the Chicago Theater. I get excited until it's announced that the tickets will be free in a random drawing of entrants. I honestly had planned to buy tickets for every night. I entered my email and told everyone I knew to do the same. In the end I got one pair of tickets. Marty and I got to sit and watch in amazement as a man drove off Marina Towers, Dave Chappelle had a funny interview, Conan played the blues, Norm couldn't make a basket, and Common performed to close it out. It was a blast that I'll never forget.

Now I'm 28 and Conan gets his chance on The Tonight Show. I hadn't watched an actual episode of The Tonight Show since Johnny left. This was exciting for me. I DVR'd the first week of shows and watched them. Conan, true to his word, kept his unique style of humor in the move West.

Admittedly over the years his style had been honed a bit into something probably more suited to the palette of a wider audience. His early shows/years were filled with nonsensical humor and pacing that were so oddball it was wondered if he could find an audience soon enough to not be cancelled. His last years at Late Night were filled more regularly with poking fun at celebrities, but it still often had a bizarre slant or offbeat timing. Also there were still gems that would not be found on any other show, for example Conan visiting the baseball recreation society, a clip Conan himself has identified as probably the best thing he has ever done.

I have not been religiously following the Tonight Show. I probably caught a handful of episodes over the last seven months. I've probably caught part of the show once a month or so. My life has changed at this point where I really won't be around often or am busy even late at night. I don't DVR the show regularly because I would not be able to keep up and old episodes would sit unwatched until my memory was filled. All that being said I still think Conan is the finest talk show host on television.

This whole Leno/Conan business at NBC is troubling in part because the message seems to be that the network believes in Leno more greatly than they believe in Conan. They know their market and numbers so they would know best but honestly I can tell you that if someone asked me right now that I could either pay to watch Conan or watch Leno for free I would choose Conan every time.

Conan will be fine, at NBC or somewhere else. I know this and so does everyone else. As I sit and write about this I just miss the nights when I would drift asleep hoping for an appearance by Pimpbot 5000, when it seemed like the show was made just for me and that's all that mattered.

Needing this today

Five things that have made me happy today:

1. Fielder's pokey paws waking me up.
2. Cass's PJ pants
3. Strawberry/banana Kefir
4. News that Gas is ready to play

5.

I'm choking on my own rage here. (2009)

The above quote is in honer of the Simpsons 20th Anniversary.

GOOD

Movie: Where the Wild Things Are
A delightful movie that really hit where it was aiming: this is how it feels to be a kid. Out of control of you own emotions and trapped in your own world. Max creates a beautiful escape. The animatronic/CGI Wild Things looked amazing.
Runner-Up: Up
*special note: I didn't see a ton of movies I wanted to: Hurt Locker, Fantastic Mr. Fox, A Serious Man, The Informant, Inglorious Basterds, Big Fan, Up In the Air so this pick could easily change.

Television: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
This past/current season may be the best the show has ever done. Last season they almost seemed to go too big with things, closing with a musical finale that was well done but didn't feel in the spirit of the show. This season they returned to a more grounded focus (although they had some broad episodes like The Gang Wrestles for the Troops) on the five main characters. Frank got more insane; DeVito will do anything I think.
Runner-Up: Better Off Ted

Music: Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Peppy dance beats, good singing, very very catchy.
Runner-Up: The Thermals - Now We Can See

Athlete: Albert Pujols
.334/.427.628. That's Pujols's career line. Those are his average numbers. If he plays ten more years at this rate he could hit 800 homeruns. Of course we'll see a decline at the end because people don't hit more homeruns after they turn 32 than before right?
Runner-Up: Prince Fielder (yay)

BAD

Movie: The Orphan
Silly plot, bad acting, boring pacing, and you know what terrible lighting too.
Runner-Up: Obsessed

TV: Jersey Shore
This is not one of those "They are so terrible it's interesting" things. They are not interesting at all. Stop giving bad people TV shows.
Runner-Up: The Jay Leno Show (I swear if this schedule redo goes through Conan should just walk.)

Music: The Boxmasters - Modbilly
See here.

Runner-Up: Chris Brown the human being

Athlete: Tiger Woods
Although I will admit that it amuses how everyone is saying how this mistake(s) is going to cost him so much money. He has a billion dollars. Even if his endorsements stop right now and she takes half he still has 500 million dollars. I want you to comprehend how many lifetimes you and I would have to work to make that much money.

Runner-Up: Donte Stallworth