nerd it up again

if you happen to be on your computer RIGHT NOW (monday the 31st of march), then head over to jrwatchesstartrek.blogspot.com for a live geekfest.

enter: gorthon

So far I've only achieved one life goal: learning double-dutch.

Another life goal I have is to participate in some kind of table-top role-playing game. My good friend Pete, who is part of this geek cabal known as the Homestarmy, graciously talked to some of his best nerd friends about it. I guess they've been looking for an excuse to start playing again. Hopefully, in the next little while I'll be clutching a 20-sider.

Here's a clip from Freaks and Geeks (my new favorite show starring James Franco). In it the role-playing geeks become cool because they welcome the cool kid from school into their group. If everything comes together, I would be honored to make Pete and his friends cool by my presence.

my beloved is gone!

I think this is a good thing. I think we'll both come out of this better in the long run. Doesn't mean I'm particularly happy.

final fish finally

Alrighty. I finally finished the YouTube version of the Fish Sandwich Fest '08. This is the best version. It's far shorter, tighter and has graphics to display the rankings as they happen.



Click here to go to YouTube.

tales from tivo vol. 1

Recently in conversation I proudly stated that with the exception of seeing who's on Letterman sometimes, I don't watch any programs at all on CBS. I was met mostly with agreement. I suppose some of my friends who were silent have a passion for CSI and Survivor.

Playing devil's advocate, Joe told me that I needed to watch Big Bang Theory. He then explained the premise, which sounds pretty good. It's about a really attractive young blonde who lives next door to four total nerds. I suppose it's sort of a sit-com version of Beauty and the Geek. He said he was going to TiVo it for us. He did, because while I sat down in front of the TV to have a bite, I found the program available for viewing.

First of all, the girl in the show isn't that hot at all. Second of all, the nerds are far more annoying than funny. Not that I'm a nerd or anything (I'm more of a geek), but I'd rather the nerds have a little more humanity to them. Funny concept, sloppy execution.

At the end of the program, TiVo recorded a couple of minutes of How I Met Your Mother, which is a show I had heard is pretty good. It actually sucked me in and fortunately I found the entire episode recorded as well.

I assume someone recorded this particular episode because it had a special guest-starring role by the great Britney Spears. Honestly, I thought she was really funny. She actually had a pretty small role, which may have helped, but I really commend her for making me laugh. The biggest surprise was the main guest-starring role by Sarah Chalke, possibly my favorite girl on television. These factors made this ep a really great introduction to the show for me.

I knew that Willow from Buffy was in it, as well as Neil Patrick Harris, but I didn't know that Nick from Freaks and Geeks (and the upcoming Forgetting Sarah Marshall movie) was also a series regular.

I've been meaning to extol the virtues of Freaks and Geeks for a couple of weeks now. Hopefully a post is forthcoming.

Anyway, a quick check on IMDb shows that a good chunk of Freaks and Geeks regulars have appeared on How I Met Your Mother. Apparently, the latter creators are huge, huge fans of the former.

So besides all that casting stuff, I thought the show was plenty funny. Excellent use of flashbacks, editing and timing. Plus, Doogie Howser is hilarious. There are jerks and then there are mean people like a grown up Doogie Howser that make you laugh your head off.

Yeah, so that's what I watched on TV.

fish sandwiches revealed!

Alrighty. This is the long version. I'm gonna cut it up some more and throw in some graphics, but in the meantime, this will give you the required fish sandwich information you'll need in the future.

lent advice

Before I forget, A&W Restaurant has the best fish sandwich in town. It's true. We did a blind multi-variable taste test. Photographic and video evidence are on their way.

I'm still probably going to go to Arctic Circle for my fish sandwiches, though.

prophecy fulfilled?

Anybody catch this sketch on Saturday Night Live two Saturdays ago?


It was Amy Poehler at her wackiest poking fun of some of those "Queer Eye" type fashion shows on Bravo! (also SNL New Girl was in it and I think she has promise). During the sketch, though, Maria pointed out a "curious lump" that she surmises may be some kind of unborn child.


It's common knowledge in the comedy world that Amy Poehler is married to Will Arnett (who is famous as G.O.B. from Arrested Development (and he also plays "Jonathan" in the official ninth best movie from 2007, Hot Rod (although it's quite actually third best))). If, the curious lump is indeed some kind of baby and if said hypothetical baby was actually caused by Poehler's actual husband then...

The forthcoming child will be THE FUNNIEST BABY EVER!

attention total nerds!

Right now, J.R. and I are recording J.R. Watches Star Trek For the First Time. If you're at your computer RIGHT NOW (Ides of March 2008 4 p.m. MST) then you can hop over there and join us live. If you're reading this later (perhaps on Google Reader), then you can't. Sorry and/or you're welcome.

plugged in even harder if that's even possible

Yesterday (3/11 Day) was officially the day that I turned on the A/C to the car. A few years ago I noted that St. Patrick's day was A/C day. Hopefully, the globe really is warming. My bones hurt in the cold.

Anyway, on topic:

When iPod Shuffles came out, I made fun of them hard. I couldn't stand the thought of no display to tell what songs are playing or how much time is left for the song or how much time is elapsed or what album it's from or what track or whatever. I live for stats like that. Some people need to know the media (and meta-media) they're exposed to. So therefore, I thought iPod Shuffles were for chumps.

I bought an iPod Shuffle.


It's partly out of a justified necessity. I don't feel good working out (and snowboarding) with my normal iPod because I've heard that the big iPods have this danger of getting their internal hard drives scratched and useless after too much movement. My old mp3 player worked fine for this, but its uselessness in hooking up with a Mac made an Apple purchase necessary.

It has a cool clip built in so I don't need to buy a holder.

It's only 50 freaking bucks for the one gig model. It's only 70 for the two gig, but I'd go crazy filling up two gigs worth of songs that I can't see the song title to.

I could've gotten a Nano, which is flash-based like the Shuffle, so there's less danger of internal damage. I didn't because of cost and also because I'm kind of changing my tune about the non-display thing. Since I'm planning on using it for physical activities I figured it would actually behoove me to NOT have the tempting distraction of a display.

Here's my first pump-up playlist I entitled "partyyyy" (maybe I should've called it "pumtttt").

1. On A Plain -- Nirvana
2. Sweat -- Oingo Boingo
3. Flash -- Queen
4. Paranoid Android -- Radiohead
5. Guerilla Radio -- Rage Against the Machine
6. House of Jealous Lovers -- The Rapture
7. I Am One -- Smashing Pumpkins
8. Rusty Cage -- Soundgarden
9. I See Red -- Split Enz
10. Hyperactive! -- Thomas Dolby
11. Rag & Bone -- The White Stripes
12. Common People -- William Shatner
13. Date With the Night -- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
14. You're Gonna Miss Me -- The 13th Floor Elevators
15. Party 'Til You Puke -- Andrew W.K.

What do you think of my playlist? Are there other songs that you use to get pumped? What do you think of my songs? If you are unfamiliar with any of these, get familiar, because I really do listen to awesome music.

I took Yvette-a-tette (that's the name of the Shuffle. I named her after my other iPod, Yvette) to the gym today with this playlist. I must say that I only got up through "House of Jealous Lovers." Part of that had to do with my ending my 14-minute run with a little leg stretching while I attempted to let the machine take my pulse. I lifted my right leg up behind me and rested it on the treadmill's side hand-rail. I figured I'd do a little impressive gym stretching and decided to lift my other leg over onto the other hand rail. So I kind of attempted to get into this sort of "flying" position. That's when my left glute pulled. Hard. At least the machine wasn't running because the last thing I needed was to trip on the treadmill (again).

yrdraziw wen

So I'm working on some HTML programming basics and I'm coming across some pretty unique code. Anybody ever try out the "bdo" command? Yeah, it's the first for me as well.

It's funny. I've been thinking about modern computer science lately and I really do relate it to fantasy wizardry in a couple of senses. Perhaps it's because I've been playing so many old-school RPG computer games in the past few months. In those old games magic is performed in two separate ways. One way is with magical items or ingredients such as reagents or wands or something. Another way is through incantation, or simply through words. Although the items to perform the magic are obvious, both methods are still "magic" because the science of it can't be explained by commoners.

Now, fantasy aside, we get two types of people who work technological computer magic. One type uses hardware -- special devices or specific programs they've mastered in ways that bewilder the commoners. The other type uses programming or special words to manipulate the digital universe.


Is it any wonder computer geeks love fantasy role-playing so much?

© jonmadsen ¥28112 ÷ £14

at least itunes approves of us

It took forever, but iTunes finally accepted the J.R. watches Star Trek for the first time podcast. If you enjoy hearing my and J.R.'s and J.R.'s kids' voices, you should really go ahead and hit up our page on iTunes. Also, future live broadcasts of the show will be handled over on the blog page.

For those of you that don't know, my friend J.R. has hated Star Trek for 30 years, but recently decided that he will watch it all. This podcast is simply me helping him cope as he goes through the whole thing. It's not too dead serious. We actually joke around through most of it. If you hate Star Trek you could still listen and have a pretty pleasant time. In fact, hating Star Trek may even help.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun. Everybody should do it. We've already got three episodes in the can in which we talk about the first season of the original series.

So, to sum up:

J.R. watches Star Trek for the first time at iTunes

J.R. watches Star Trek for the first time blog

j.r. watches star trek for the first time volume 3

Planning to do this at 5:00pm MST.

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b-day party pics '08!

Here's a pretty good shot of Maria and me last night at my big giant birthday party.


So the party went down at Skybox. They were extremely accommodating. They got us a big table in less than 15 minutes and everything.

Unfortunately, we had a drastic shortage of party guests.


The hostess and the servers were understandably rude to us because the two of us monopolized a 12-person table for our entire meal. The event was really depressing.

Actually after about five minutes 20 of my friends showed up and we had to get some extra tables too. Monica even brought me a gift: Hotrod on dvd. I think I rated it as my ninth most favorite movie from last year, but honestly I think it's more like the third. I got the halibut and chips. After that we played on the awesome big-person arcade games. I played the life-size basketball shoot three times in a row and got major back sweat from it. I also played the football throw game and beat Clint by three points. Maria beat me on the motorcycle game because I have cycle-turn-dyslexia. There's also the sweet racing game where four of us could race at once. Plus I got to the third screen in Donkey Kong. We had a wonderful time, but I forgot to take pictures of all that.

The hostess and servers weren't really rude. They were, in fact, quite nice.