December 2005 Archives

The Day I Hate The Colorado

By
Max Univers
on December 30, 2005 10:26 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
This is the one day a year when I hate The Colorado. One day out of 365 that I wish I drove a beat-up little Volkswagen Golf or something. This is the day the tax, title and registration are due.

All $446 of it. Good lord. That's more than my payment. That's one giant chunk of change, I don't care who you are.

I read somewhere that the average Nebraskan forfeits 40% of their paycheck in taxes. I believe it. My property taxes are still pretty low, because its still valued on the empty lot my house was built on. When its fully taxed, I shudder to think about what it will come to -- probably $300 a month. Ridiculous. And to think I chose to stay here after graduating college. The lesson as always is I am an idiot.
Continue reading The Day I Hate The Colorado.

Remember the Alamo? Good lord no

By
Max Univers
on December 29, 2005 10:24 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
I'm an impartial third party, just a college football fan. Let me preface what I'm about to say with that. And by saying that because even if I don't root for the Huskers, life is easier when they win. So here's my impartial take on the Alamo Bowl, or at the least the second half that I watched casually after getting home from the Qwest Center.

Michigan got jobbed last night. Pure and simple. Those Sun Belt refs were completely in over their heads, and it was painfully obvious in the 2 quarters of the game I saw after I got home from the Jays game that they were unprepared for the speed of the game. The fact that so many atrocious "no calls" took place for both sides was disgraceful -- the lack of pass interference on the Nebraska corner in the end zone when his arm was draped across the receiver's back, for one; the Nebraska interception that was ruled out of bounds before replay overturned it, for two -- and also that Michigan had to burn two timeouts to force replays was a real shame.
Continue reading Remember the Alamo? Good lord no.

Tony Soprano Beats Jimmy Kimmel In Coin Tossing

By
Max Univers
on December 28, 2005 10:23 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Today is the "Holiday Potluck Lunch", which means everyone brings in something to share and eat together. There is some fabulous smelling dishes in that breakroom, which is why its so heartbreaking I can't go. I have errands to run for AIGA, like getting labels for event postcards. Wendy's or BK instead of homemade taco soup sucks. But alas. The venue for the event got a non-renewal notice from their landlord just a month before the event, with postcards already printed. So we have to improvise and slap "Venue Changed!" labels on 1500 postcards. Fun times!

I meant to run the errands last night after volleyball, but I was pretty upset by the time I got there and wound up staying afterward to drink a few beers and watch football. That first game was hell -- just me being all surly after a long day, smacking the ball 10 feet past the court, cursing under my breath, good times! We lost the first game after I personally lost us five straight points by hitting the ball into the ceiling or past the end line. One of the guys made a comment to me as we left the court, but I just ignored him...
Continue reading Tony Soprano Beats Jimmy Kimmel In Coin Tossing.

An Atari For Christmas

By
Max Univers
on December 26, 2005 10:18 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)


Christmas morning, 1983. I'm 5 years old, and waiting for me under the tree was a bright shiny Atari 2600 with a selection of games. Pac Man, Keystone Kapers, good times. We hooked that thing up to the old RCA Victor Console Television in our basement, and my dad and I played PacMan in 27" color greatness. Do you know how big the pixels were on a 27" TV? Me neither, I was 5.

Christmas Eve, 2005. 22 years later, I'm 27 years old and waiting for me under the tree was a bright, shiny Atari Flashback with 40 built-in games and two controllers. No Pac Man, no Keystone Kapers, still good times. I hooked that thing up to my old Philco Woodtone 20" Television in Polyfro Studios, and I played Pitfall in old-school greatness. The pixels are 1/2" by 1/2". Sadly, it does not contain "Custer's Revenge".
Continue reading An Atari For Christmas.

Nice.

By
Max Univers
on December 22, 2005 10:17 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Continuing my theme for the week of one-word titles -- screw that "search engine friendly" descriptive title crap one of the BeA authors is always pimping -- this one is titled simply "Nice." Because I'm a nice guy and spent my bonus on other people. Because I goaded a guy into hooking up with a girl that was chasing him. Because I told a perv to stick it. Nice. You bet.

--

Tonight, I'm going to bust out the grill -- its a warm 50 degrees and my "official" company gift, a stainless steel briefcase filled with steel BBQ accessories like tongs, spatula and meat thermometer, is begging to be tried out.

This thing is real nice. They must really like me here -- here's what I've received in gifts this christmas at work:
Continue reading Nice..

Karma

By
Max Univers
on December 21, 2005 10:15 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
A few weeks ago, we were sitting in the breakroom after work having a beer, watching the 1998 Rose Bowl on ESPN Classic -- hilarious because not only was it the year Michigan split the National title with Nebraska, thus pissing off every Husker fan who came in, but Ryan Leaf was the opposing QB for Washington State, thus adding an element of comedy to the whole thing. There's comedy, there's high comedy, and then there's watching Ryan Leaf quarterback the Cougars knowing what we know now.

Anyway, it was with that scenery that our story begins. While watching the 98 Rose Bowl that night, Eddie's cell phone rang and he didn't want to answer it. (Real name changed for the purpose of this story so as not to reveal his identity). The display read "TARA L.", a girl who he was apparently avoiding. Then it dawned on me who it was, and I implored him to answer. He replied, "If you want it answered so bad, you do it! Cos I'm not."
Continue reading Karma.

Football Helmet Decals

By
Max Univers
on December 21, 2005 9:17 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Editors Note: The following was originally published on BeA Design Group on December 21, 2005.

helmetdecal.jpg

A couple of months ago, I came across an article containing an interview with the guy whose small company manufactures the decals for all of the NFL helmets, and many of the college ones as well. With the playoffs and college bowl season upon us, I thought I'd share some of what I learned.

Continue reading Football Helmet Decals.

For Coke

By
Max Univers
on December 19, 2005 10:14 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
When I started my job in 2000, the company was still a completely family-run business, and not the giant quarter-billion-dollar corporation it has now grown into. There were still a lot of the old guard employed; by that I mean guys who had worked for 20, 30 years, and had great stories of the good old days of company jumbo jets, crazy parties in the basement bar, and other awesomeness.

One of them was such a unique character, he stood out even to my freshly-graduated from college eyes. Coke had started for the company in 1969, and had worked his way up from the warehouse into coordinator of safety, meaning he was in charge of everything from company cars and insurance to OSHA compliance and worker's comp claims. This guy was really nuts, but he cracked me up. His stories were epic, and I could sit for hours listening to them -- great storytellers have that kind of pull. And when it wasn't a great story, it was a tale of his latest scheme -- he always had some kind of caper up his sleeve.

Coke was a crude, country man, uneducated in the traditional school manner but smarter in the ways of the world than I will ever be. This guy could fix just about anything if you only gave him a coat hanger, some duct tape and occasionally, some baling wire. Yet he could never quite figure technology out, and would always ask me how things worked.
Continue reading For Coke.

Secret Santa '05: Time For Some Shots

By
Max Univers
on December 16, 2005 10:12 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
On Day Five of Secret Santa week, the entire office gathered in the breakroom. One by one, we went around the room, telling what we'd received all week, followed by our best guess as to who it was.

My guy guessed who I was immediately -- but not because of the designer notes I had been leaving each day. In the end, it was the NERF dart gun. Apparently, no one over the age of 30 would ever buy one of those, thereby eliminating everyone else in the office except me.

I pretended to be upset, but I can never stay mad for very long. Then I gave him his final gift, a $15 iTunes music store gift card, classed up with a big red bow slapped on top of it.
Continue reading Secret Santa '05: Time For Some Shots.

Secret Santa '05: Cooler Ranch Doritos Are The Devil

By
Max Univers
on December 15, 2005 10:11 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
This is gonna be trouble. Today, my Secret Santa got me a Giant 13 Oz bag of Doritos Cooler Ranch chips -- my absolute favorite. This is the size bag you would ordinarily buy for consumption with several meals. I'll eat the whole bag yet this afternoon.

Extrapolation Mathematics tells me if I were to do that, I would be consuming over 1500 calories, nearly 1000 of which would be from fat. Sounds deadly.

I'll be taking the bag out to The Colorado shortly, just to get it away from me.

As for me, I went shopping for my person after being at the bar for a while. If you haven't done this, there is nothing quite like walking the aisles of the Super Target while reeking like bar smoke.

Oh, and it turns out I'm a rather liberal shopper after the bar. I spent $25 on the final gift, which is supposed to be $10. Oh well. Today I got him a NERF dart gun. Trying to keep alive my streak of Secret Santas meeting their demise, I am...

Secret Santa '05: Attack of Comic Sans

By
Max Univers
on December 14, 2005 10:09 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
And on Day Three, I was attacked by the vicious left-right combo of Comic Sans and Bad Clip Art.


On the plus side, I get to wear jeans to the office free of charge one day.

Seriously, this is bothering me now. I thought I had it narrowed down. The De-Icer was unwrapped, just sitting in my mailbox first thing Monday morning. Unwrapped means its from a guy -- no woman I've ever known gives a gift unwrapped. Then a $5 BK gift card, from the North 60th Street BK? If it was Wendy's I would wonder about my whole unwrapped/must be a guy theory. But Burger King? Nope. Definitely a guy. And with an activation receipt on November 11, its from someone who was in town that day, and would be driving on North 60th. Looking back through old Weekly Itinerary PDFs (its good to be webmaster), I can narrow it down to one of three guys.
Continue reading Secret Santa '05: Attack of Comic Sans.

Secret Santa '05: Free BK!

By
Max Univers
on December 13, 2005 10:06 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Its Secret Santa time again. This is always great fun.

-The unintentional comedy of filling out the interests survey
-The drama of drawing a person to shop for, and of wondering who Continental me
-The fun of thinking of things to buy that person
-The anticipation of seeing what my Secret Santa buys for me
-The investigatory journalism that goes into figuring out who that person is

Good times. For those of you unfamiliar with the Secret Santa process, here's how it works:

-Everyone fills out a profile form, telling their favorite things
-A drawing is held, and each person is assigned someone to buy shit for
-You go out and using their profile, shop for them (small $2 gifts each day for a week, bigger $10 gift on Friday)
Continue reading Secret Santa '05: Free BK!.

Missed Call

By
Max Univers
on December 12, 2005 10:04 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Friday night, I stopped off at Cox after work to pick up a HD-DVR box. This is their version of a TiVo -- at $4.99 a month, its considerably cheaper however. I've had DVD recorders for years; I was one of the early adopters to the technology, back in 2002. The one I've been using for the past year and a half has a hard drive in it, so you can record shows without a DVD. But you have to set the timer manually. What fun is that?

So I bring home this new box, hook it up, and...it doesn't work. I can get the High-Def channels, but nothing else. So like 10 of my 200+ channels come in. Great. I call their tech support line, and they're typically clueless. After trying one thing, they gave up and wanted to send out a tech. Whatever.

After we hung up, I toyed around with it for five minutes or so, and ultimately figured the problem out myself. Pretty bad when you're smarter, or at least, more tenacious than the tech support people...
Continue reading Missed Call.

The Lion, The Witch, The Wardrobe, Tony Orlando, and Dawn

By
Max Univers
on December 8, 2005 10:01 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
I will preface this by saying that I didn't even know The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was real until about a month ago. The first time I'd heard of it was during college, in an episode of South Park where Cartman is giving a book report on it. The title sounded so ridiculous, I just assumed it was made up. Then I see a trailer for a movie by that name, and I say to myself, "Self, I'll be a mustachioed man in a brown suit quizzically holding a banana! That's a real story? Wow!"

Never figured I'd see it, because its exactly the kind of fantasy genre I usually do not enjoy, plus its a kids movie. A movie about a wild animal, a witch and a matching pantsuit? How is that entertaining? (I would discover about 30 minutes in, much to my relief, that the movie takes place in Europe, where a closet is sometimes called a "wardrobe". This wardrobe is the warp zone into the fantasy world of Narnia.)

Lo and behold, Cliff calls 90 minutes before the show offering a free ticket to a pre-release screening sponsored by Radio Disney and Lite Rock 101.9 -- what, classical jazz 90.9 was out of marketing dollars? -- and, never one to turn down a potentially entertaining spectacle, I said yes.
Continue reading The Lion, The Witch, The Wardrobe, Tony Orlando, and Dawn.

I Convince My Mother To Buy an iBook

By
Max Univers
on December 7, 2005 9:58 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
My parents have been in the market for a new laptop for about three months. Meaning, my mom has been looking around -- my dad, god bless him, operates a computer like a rooster operating a toaster. She's the more tech-savvy of the two.

They wanted a Dell, because they're cheaper, and because the IT guys at her office were feeding her head full of lies about the Mac. I was furious. They'd had a few Windows machines over the years, and at one point or another, they all were inundated with viruses and the like. After I moved to Omaha nine years ago, I grew tired of doing tech support over the phone, fixing the wrath of some 12 year old punk programmer. Two summers ago, I'd had enough. I went to CompUSA and bought them an iMac, threw it in the back of my car and drove back to Fort Dodge with it.

Now, sure its nice to be financially stable enough to go plunk down $800 on a fit of rage and not really think about it. But what's really nice is that in those two years since I hooked up that iMac, the tech support questions have been nonexistant. None. Everything just works like its supposed to, everytime, just like turning on the TV. No viruses, no mysterious behavior, just working computerness. Good times.

So I was flabbergasted at the thought of once again having to deal with frantic calls at night after a virus had deleted her documents, or some spyware had grinded the machine to a halt. Especially after buying them that $799 iMac.
Continue reading I Convince My Mother To Buy an iBook.

Dancing With Myself

By
Max Univers
on December 5, 2005 9:55 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The band at our Christmas Party Friday night, a '70s and '80s rock cover band with an Accordion player, was disappointed that no one was dancing. So they decided to have a dance contest to get the dancefloor rockin'. As they played a polka-tinged version of Mony, Mony (the irony of a cover band covering a version of a song Billy Idol himself had covered!), they bribed the 150+ people in attendance to come dance. No one was taking the bait. You know what that meant.

***

I'm a great humanitarian. I mean these guys were dying up there, yelling the alterCliff lyrics to Mony, Mony, imploring people to dance, and no one would go. I felt bad for them. Someone had to go up there. I looked at the guys I was talking to and said, "You know, at least one of us has to go up there. Lets go have a dance-off. It'll be classic." They were all too chicken.
Continue reading Dancing With Myself.

Generic Pizzas, Fork-Legs, and the Wrath of Frodo

By
Max Univers
on December 2, 2005 9:54 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
The other night, I'm in Hy-Vee and I was getting groceries. They were kind of high on my favorite, Jack's Pizza -- 3 for $10 -- which is outrageous. I noticed a similar looking product that was 5 for $10, the price that Jack's used to be for years. Hy-Vee brand pizza. Hmm. Looked the same...put 2 of them in the cart. One three-meat, one pepperoni. You bet.

I'm checking out, and the girl ringing me up is extremely chatty. I used to do that crap, so I know how dreadfully boring it can be if customers don't want to talk. So I always do. I was also on my fifth can on Coke Zero for the day, so there's a chance I was high on caffeine. I did have a headache...

Anyway, we chatted about the virtues of Eye Drops and how its so good when it hits the corner of your eye. Then the pizza. "Are these any good?" she asked. I said I wasn't sure, never had them before. But at 5 for 10 bucks I figured I'd give it a shot. "Not quite ready for the commitment of a full 5 though. I'll try these two out first."
Continue reading Generic Pizzas, Fork-Legs, and the Wrath of Frodo.

Europe...Doesn't Rock?

By
Max Univers
on December 1, 2005 9:52 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
A year ago, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post for BeA Design Group about Europe's "The Final Countdown" album art. As I've said many times, while I mocked it at first, the damn thing has grown on me. The artwork is not terrible; far from it, a solid example of that particular period in popular music.

Well, lo and behold, the original illustrator for CBS Records, Les Katz, commented this morning to me on the post.


Among the things we learned:

-Europe is/was the "snottiest little blonde haired music narcassists"
-The artwork was the bands' concept, not his
-I need to "get a reality whats important check"

Nice.

***

I certainly hope Mr. Katz didn't think I was disparaging his work in that piece, cos that wasn't the intent. The Superman 2 theme just kind of stuck out to me when I ran across that album cover, and making a few jokes about it and pretending to figure out how the idea happened did get a good discussion going.

His tale, actually, is a fine example of Client/Designer (or in this case, illustrator) relations. But Cliff explains that so much better than I could, so read his comment for that.

***

Apparently, Europe doesn't Rock. They are snotty, rude, and narcassistic. Still, that album is pretty good. I have to admit that much.

You bet.
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