March 2005 Archives

Remember back in school when they would do fire drills? Or for those of us in the midwest, tornado drills? Always ridiculous, but hey, anything to get out of class for a while, right? Kids need direction, because they're not mature enough to get to safety on their own accord.

Well, we had a tornado drill this morning at the office. In a professional environment. I don't know about my co-workers, but I can get myself to safety in a tornado without a drill to practice how to do it.

So when they made the announcement "The National Weather Service has issued a Tornado Warning -- All Employees Report to your designated shelter immediately!", I of course headed for the break room. There, I purchased a can of pop, grabbed a donut, glanced at the paper, and moseyed on over to the mailroom to report for the drill. At the doorway, I found our safety manager standing there like a track coach, whistle around his neck and stopwatch in hand.

"174 seconds, Univers. You would be dead!"

What's the name of that one show on TLC? While you were out, or something? well, that's my house this week.

A crew of workers is arriving this morning to decorate the house while I'm at the office. Except instead of decorating at their whim, they will be doing as I instruct.

OK, the crew is my family. But they will be making the place very colorful. I'm talking accent walls, shelving, hanging of paintings, and other tasks I could very easily do myself, but have been offered the opportunity not to have to. Which I of course accepted.

You bet.

I have changed my mind so many times on which walls to paint and what color to paint them that even I'm confused now. But I'm buying paint tonight so the decision is very close to being final. Pictures will follow later this week.

That's right. I got locked out of my own freaking house Friday night.

I get home, right, and I pull The Colorado into the garage. I close the garage door, and go upstairs, turn on the oven to preheat it for a pizza, and go out the front door to get my mail from the corner. I'm only going to be gone for a minute.

Right.

As far as I know, the house that I purchased is on Camden Ave. Which is kinda cool, you know, like Camden Yards where the Orioles play and stuff. But if you believe the street signs, I live on Candem Avenue. Which is, well, nothing.

That's right. The good ol' City of Omaha misspelled the street name on the signs! And not just on one -- on all of them! The one in front of my house says Candem Ave, and the one on the cul-de-sac at the end of the street -- the one pictured above -- says Candem Cir. Wow.

(Now, you may be saying, but Max, you're a graphic designer, you must have taken the sign photo into Photoshop and made it say that. Well, you'll just have to take my word as my bond that the photo is unaltered, other than some cropping to get it framed a little better.)

People keep asking for a photo of the house. Here ya go. Taken by someone, I can't remember who, in front of the "Sold" sign on the foundation as construction was commencing. Just look at that magical mountain of hair. Oooh.

Its been one week since the move and I still can't believe I own a freaking house. I mean, OWN IT. Meaning I can do whatever I want to it. But the first order of business is unpacking and finding my own stuff. Its all in boxes in the basement bedroom at the moment. I keep needing things, only to remember oh yeah, its in a box somewhere.

A man's got to have priorities. Sure, I could have put my closet away so I could find my clothes. Or I could have put away my bathroom stuff. But I did not. Priorities is the name of the game. That's why Sunday night, the first project I tackled was hooking up the Video Game Room -- the main room in the basement, which now features an old school Nintendo, a PS2, an XBOX, and an old original playstation, which isn't hooked up, but I had an open shelf and it looked pretty good sitting there, so it is. There is also a digital cable box down there, so when you're tired of playing and want to watch TV, but you're too lazy to walk up 10 steps to get upstairs to the living room, you can still pick from 200 channels. Yes, its a waste to pay for two cable boxes for one person. And yes, I don't give a damn.

A follow-up to the "being an extra in a movie" story from last week: we sat in a corner table all night, got filmed eating and drinking, and talked to the director for about two minutes. The next night I couldn't go, you'll recall. Turns out I didn't miss anything.

From Dick Herculanum:

I almost fell out of the window of The Colorado today.

Yep. See, I was at the Wells Fargo ATM in Regency, and its REAALLY low. Like, I bet it would be uncomfortably low for someone driving a Mini Cooper. So imagine what its like for someone in a pickup!

Anyway, I was doing my Olympian-Gymnast-Routine, hanging 2/3 out of the window, and it was going OK, if not unpainfully. I got the card in, pushed the buttons (had to guess on a few since at the angle I was hanging, the screen was not totally visable), and then the money popped out. And I about popped out the window.

Fazoli's for dinner. Talk about an adventure. My brother and I got into a vicious breadstick war, wherein neither of us would give. We matched each other stick for stick for some 30 minutes.

In my defense, I was provoked. The young waitress gave him two sticks, then turned to me, and when I said I would also take two sticks, she mocked me by saying I was copying him. So of course I gave her the mischeivous eye and asked for a third. And it was on!

The waitress girly kept provoking me. My brother's wife kept rolling her eyes.

A bakers dozen of sticks later, I was the winner. And that's all that I'm going to tell you about this story.

I finally got my computer hooked up tonight, along with my internet connection and my digital cable. First music choice in The Townhome: The Monkees Greatest Hits. Hopefully I won't regret that choice years from now.

But that's neither here nor there. The bitch was that when I hooked up my Digital Cable, the box had reset itself because I waited too long to hook it up. Apparently you have 48 hours after activating your account at a new address to activate the box. Otherwise, mutiny!

After griping about how I never win any free songs with the iTunes Pepsi promotion, I have determined that its a Southwest O thing. See, I was 6 for 20 on DPs purchased near my old home in the southwest suburbs. Then I move to the northwest suburbs, and I'm 4 for 4, with one winning cap missing. So anyway, my bank is up to 10 songs, and I'm going to cash them in. Any suggestions, readers? Otherwise, I'm totally spending them on something old cool like the Doobie Brothers or Eddie & The Cruisers.

This post brought to you by the mysterious "MSHOME" network in my apartment building. Stupid Windows people, allowing someone like me on an iBook to mooch off their internet connection.

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Apparently there are 32 more teams playing in the NCAA Tournament today. But its over, really. Like I care about Crap University taking on Suck State.

And yes, Creighton got eliminated last night. In case you couldn't tell by my tone.

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St. Patrick's Day was spent at Clancy's here in Omaha. After my brother and I moved a significant amount of stuff in the morning -- we both drive pickups and we filled them to the brim -- it was decided we needed a drink for our efforts. That and a girl he teaches with was complaining that she was at the bar and no one else showed up...

So one green beer led to two, and two led to three, and pretty soon I had to take off my left shoe to use my toes to continue counting. Not because I'm an amputee that has only two fingers, but because after 10 beers, I needed that toe to keep the count going upward from 11.

At least something cool happened this week. I officially signed away the next 30 years of my life on a brand new $132,000 townhome on Tuesday. Don't think that doesn't freak you out, realizing that for the next 30 years, come hell or high water, you're on the hook for $1000 a month. But the consolation is that the house is absolutely freaking awesome. Its brand new, meaning any damage that happens, I will have done it and have a good story about how it happened!

Since my grandparents were visiting to do the walkthrough with me (my Grampa once built a house with his BARE HANDS! so who better to inspect construction? Exactly!), I did not spend the night at the house Tuesday. But I absolutely did the next night. In a sleeping bag on the living room floor, I did. Sure, my nice cozy bed was waiting for me at the apartment, but this was my house, and by golly, I'm staying there!

About an hour in, I realized this was a colossal mistake. A greivous error. That floor is damn hard. Since this was a spec home, meaning they built it new without a buyer waiting, they apparently used a cheap pad under the carpet. And its freaking hard, at least to aging hips like mine. I'll be 27 next month, and on that night, I felt like my hips were twice that age. Soreness everywhere.

But last night, I slept on Makeshift Bed #2, the futon. And it was good.

This post brought to you by some idiot in my apartment building, whose unsecured wireless internet network has created the hotspot which makes this post possible.

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I'm in the midst of moving my stuff over across town and into my new townhouse, but I somehow found ten minutes to come over to my apartment and do this post. Its important.

My official tournament picks!

And for what its worth, I am putting my money where my mouth (or my fingers) are -- these are the actual live freaking picks that I submitted not five minutes ago into our office pool. So there.

Tonight, I make my cinematic debut. I have been cast as an extra in the motion picture "86'd", currently filming in Omaha. My role is simple: eat dinner and then stick around the restaurant to drink, while the movie in filmed in the foreground. Yep, I'll be that guy...the goofy guy in the background of the shots.

All of my life I've wanted just one line in a movie. I'm not greedy. That guy in The Naked Gun who stands up in the crowd at Dodger Stadium and yells "Hey, It's Enrico Pallazo!" -- if I could get a line like that, I would call it a career.

Incidentally, I love it when producers credit extras based on their line, not on their character, since most of the time you never meet extras and therefore don't know the character's name. The Naked Gun does that. One of the reason the movie kicks ass.

But back to the task at hand. They're filming at M's Pub in the Old Market, so the deal is this: eat at one of the best restaurants in town, and basically hang out for four hours while the actors do their thing. They will pick some of us to act in short scenes, so there is a chance I could get a line and get my Enrico Palazzo moment.

You bet?

Good draw for my Jays -- the West Virginia Mountaineers from the Big East Conference. Yes, WVU is hot right now, and many prognosticators had pegged them as a potential sleeper. But I am the only prognosticator that knows what's up. And I am telling you right now, Creighton wins this game.

West Virginia shot 890 three pointers this year. To put this in perspective, Creighton shoots a lot of threes, and they shot just under 700 for the year. Furthermore, Creighton shoots them at well over a 40% clip, good for fourth in the country, while West Virginia shoots a respectable but lesser 31%.

The Mountaineers have no real inside post threat. Their bigs like to shoot jumpers and threes. This plays into Creighton's hands because their big weakness all year long has been with bigs that dominate them inside.

And its a 10-7 game. The percentages on that? The 7 seed wins 54% of the time, meaning the 10 pulls the "upset" 46% of the time. This will be no upset, folks. Creighton wins, because they are the better team.

So as we're celebrating Monday night at the bar, one of the local TV stations announces U2 is coming here to Omaha in December as the third-to-last stop on the fall leg of their Vertigo Tour. Needless to say, it would be fantastic to go hear the boys from Dublin in person again. I saw them in Ames on their PopMart stadium show tour in like '94 or '95, and it was fabulous. But anymore, they sell out every venue so damn quick, I have a snowflakes chance in hell of getting tickets...

And as I have established earlier this week, I do not offer up my left nut for anything. Having already given up my glorious long hair for something else I really wanted, I'm left with nothing to barter. There's always eBay, but it ain't worth that kind of cash.

Suddenly the Double Rock Tour of Def Leppard and Bryan Adams is looking pretty good. Probably could get in to see that one. Now if I can just convince myself Summer of '69 is better than New Years Day...

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Ooh! Aah! The majesty of the almost-videoey-quality of the animated GIF!

With just over one minute left, Johnny Mathies of Creighton steals the ball and dunks the Jays into the NCAA Tournament...

Let me get one thing out the way before we go into how much Creighton kicks ass.

Virginia Commonwealth and Old Dominion are terrible schools that ought to be ashamed of themselves. They caused me to dent the front of my TV cabinet. Why?

They had the audacity to go overtime in their 6pm game, causing one Max Univers to not be able to see the first 8 minutes of the Creighton game at 8. By the time ESPN cut to St. Louis, it was 8:24. The bitches! Actually, I called them worse names than that. The people watching the game with me, or rather, watching VCU and ODU battle it out to see who gets to have their ass kicked by Kansas in the first round, were quite amused. I had to go dig out my swear word dictionary at one point to get new material, as I ran dry around 8:12.

For the record, I think ODU won, and I'm pretty sure the band Kansas, old as they may be, will beat them badly in the first round of the tourney next week.

My all time favorite player, Jamar Howard, cries into his shirt after losing again to Creighton, which is pretty girly. Or maybe he's just blowing his nose into his shirt, which is pretty gross. Either way, Jamar, you lose.

I am incapable of writing anything close to rational about tonights Missouri Valley Championship -- I hate SMS that much. So in the interest of sanity, and of staying out of prison, here are some emails exchanged over the weekend with my old college roommate, discussing not only Creighton in the MVC Tourney, but some other sports topics as well. I'm sure he won't mind!

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I am not a morning person. Anyone who has known for any length of time knows that if you want to have a legitimate intellectual conversation with me, wait until 9:00 when I've had a couple glasses of water and I'm fully awake. Talking before then, well, you never know what you'll get from me.

Don't worry, I do have a point here.

7:30 am this morning. I'm standing locking my apartment door, and I can hear the unmistakable auditory tones of a coat rustling behind the door across the hall. I know a girl lives there, but I've never met her, and I'm not about to this early in the morning. So I quick hurry and scurry out the fire door at the end of the hallway and try to sprint down the staircase to my truck and freedom.

But this girl is quick. She chases me down, and wants to talk. "Is that your Colorado out there?"

"You bet," I answer. See, in the morning, two-word answers are king. Actually, I'm a big fan of 'you bet' anytime of day, really, but particularly in the morning.

"That's an awesome truck. I'm thinking about buying one. You like it?"

See, this is where I need some safety flares or something. Because this kind of Spanish Inquisition at the ungodly hour of 7:30 is just not fair.

So I'm driving in to work today, and the old 80's on 8 XM channel plays the, um, homo-est song ever. No, I mean, seriously. Eddie Murphy's "Boogie In Yo Butt". Its a rap song all about putting things in your butt. Yep.

Don't believe me? Check out the lyrics:

Here's a few:

So I'm out antique shopping last night, looking for an old bench I can refurbish to place in the entryway of my new house, and I came across a complete set of Return of the Jedi Burger King glasses from 1983. $15. Seemed like a good deal, but I don't really collect Star Wars stuff.

I'm more excited about the current BK promo giveaway myself. Old handheld Activision Atari games. Kaboom!, Grand Prix, Tennis, and Barnstorming. The catch: they're the free toy with kids meals.

Anyone know a kid that would like a free lunch so that I can have their kids meal toy?

You know, I'm going to see how strict that age limit thing is on kids meals. Actually, I'll just lie and tell them its for my son. What, I'm 26, I have a house, I could be a parent! I mean, my dad was like 23 when I was born! How would they know? They wouldn't. Exactly. Awesome. You bet. Kids meals here we come.

"The newest QuarkXPress 6.5 features were designed to blow your doors off. Making Adobe cry like a baby was just an added bonus."

This snide little card set arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Probably because I'm a registered Adobe InDesign user and really don't make any secret about it. Seems Old Man Quark is tired of Adobe stealing away market share with a superior product. So their idea of stopping the exodus is to cop an attitude.

Nice.

They continue.

Massive dunk by my boy Dane Watts in a December game vs. Wyoming

Just like the TV networks on election night and their early "calls" and "projections", based on our calculations, Polyfro.com is now able to project that Creighton will be in the field of 64 as an at-large team.

"Great things Monday for Creighton. Blue Jays win and Wichita State loses to Northern Iowa, and Creighton is unbeaten against both. Why seeded here? Creighton now with second-best MVC profile. Have beaten exactly who they needed to."

That according to ESPN's Joe Lunardi, their resident Bracketologist. He's got Creighton pegged as an #11 seed in the Syracuse Region playing Cincinnati (what traditionalists would call the "East" region).

So this means the late season surge by the Jays has earned them an at-large bid into the big dance, at least according to ESPN's expert. Nice.