Schwarzenegger

This is a video of some of Arnold Schwarzenegger's  DVD commentary from his movie Total Recall. I don't know if this was the first (only?) time he's ever been asked to provide commentary for his movies, but it's absolutely hilarious. He simply describes what's going on the whole time. And his accent just makes it even more amusing to listen to.

Viewer's Warning: there's a brief bit of female nudity at about 2:21, and a fairly grotesque (though obviously fake) image of a guy's eyes bulging out of his head around 3:55.





It makes me want to ask Rob Reiner if I can do the commentary for The Princess Bride DVD and just say things like, "...this is a wonderful scene, it's where the man in black is trying to climb the Cliffs of Insanity and Inigo offers to help but the man in black doesn't know whether or not to trust him. And this is when he decides to trust Inigo and gets pulled up to the top."

My Shower Routine

This is about as accurate a comic as I've ever seen.

Stephen Colbert Occupies Wall Street

My friend Leah sent me this video. I watched it at work and laughed until I had tears. Then I had to explain to my co-workers why I was crying. It was sort of awkward.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Humorous Pictures

Here are some pics from around the internet I've discovered and found amusing. (The Facebook one is my personal favorite.)

A birthday post and its translation into another language

A came across THIS tool the other day, which takes a chunk of text you've written and translates it into "12-year-old on AOL" language. So, below is a birthday blog post, and underneath that I've included the "translated" version (in blue).

Elizabeth had a birthday last week. We celebrated by going to a "dueling pianos" bar. It was the first time either of us had ever been to such a place. As it turns out, "dueling pianos" is code for "there are two pianos on the stage and two guys play together while singing all different songs and taking requests." In other words, there was no real "dueling" at all. It was still fun, though! We enjoyed ourselves.

A couple of nights later we enjoyed an evening out with some friends we really love. We went to Red Robin. If you register one of their loyalty cards you're given a free appetizer (of the 11 people in our group, I think 8 of us had loyalty cards and ordered free appetizers). Our waitress was fabulous. Since Elizabeth and I are cheap, we ONLY ordered appetizers and ate them as our meal.

This week I had a birthday. We went BACK to Red Robin, and we both used our "free birthday burger," also available when you register a loyalty card. So, for the second time in 6 days, we got to eat at Red Robin and pay only for our server's tip. In addition, on my birthday we had free breakfast from Chick-Fil-A (they're offering a free breakfast entree every Wednesday during the month of March). I also used a coupon from Caribou Coffee to get a free birthday drink.

We basically use our birthdays as a way to eke out every free item we can possibly get. Fun, huh?

12-year-old-AOLer version of the above blog post:



3LIZAEBTH HAD A BIRTHDAY LAST WEK!!1!! WTF LOL WE CALABRAETD BY GONG 2 A DUALNG PIANOS BAR!11!!1!1 OMG WTF IT WAS TEH FIRST TIEM 3ITHER OF US HAD EVER BAN 2 SUCH A PLAEC!1!1!11 OMG AS IT TURNS OUT DUALNG PIANOS SI CODE FOR THAR3 R TWO PIANOS ON TEH STAEG AND TWO GUYS PLAY 2GETH3R WHIEL SNGNG AL DIFERENT SONGS AND TAKNG R3QUESTS!!!11! OMG WTF IN OTH3R WORDS THEIR WAS NO REAL DU3LNG AT AL!!1!!!!11 WTF LOL IT WAS STIL FUN THOUGH!!1!1!1! WTF LOL WE ANJOYED OURSELVAS
A!1!!!1!! OMG LOL COUPLE OF NIGHTS L8R WE ENJOYED AN EVENNG OUT WIT SOME FREINDS WE RILLY LOV3!11111 WTF LOL WA W3NT 2 RAD ROBIN!111!11 WTF IF U R3GISTAR ON3 OF THERE LOYALTY CARDS UR GIEVN A FRE APETIEZR (OF TEH 1 PEOPL3 IN OUR GROUP I THINK 8 OF US HAD LOYALTY CARDS AND ORDERED FRE APETIEZRS)!!!1!1!1 OMG WTF OUR WATERAS WAS FABULOS!1!!!!1 WTF LOL SINCE ELIZAEBTH AND I R CH3AP W3 ONLEY ORDERED APATIEZRS AND AET THEM AS OUR MEAL
THIS!!111 OMG WTF LOL WEK I HAD A BIRTHDAY!1!!11 OMG WTF LOL WE WANT BAK 2 RED ROBIN AND WE BOTH UESD OUR FRE BIRTHDAY BURGER ALSO AVALEABL3 WHEN U REGIST3R A LOYALTY CARD!!!11 OMG LOL SO FOR TEH SACOND TIEM IN 6 DAYS WE GOT 2 3AT AT R3D ROBIN AND PAY ONLEY FOR OUR SERV3RS TIP!1!!!!1!1 IN ADITION ON MAH BIRTHDAY WE HAD FRE BR3AKFAST FROM CHIK-FIL-A (THEYRA OFARNG A FRE BRAAKFAST ENTRE 3V3RY WEDN3SDAY DURNG TEH MONTH OF MARCH)!!!!!! OMG LOL I ALSO UESD A COUPON FROM CARIBOU COFE 2 GET A FRE BIRTHDAY DRINK
WE!!1!1! OMG WTF BASICALY UES OUR BIRTHDAYS AS A WAY 2 EKA OUT EVERY FRE IETM W3 CAN POSIBLEY GET!1!!1 OMG LOL FUN HUH?!??!?!? LOL

Black Friday

Before this morning I hadn't seen a goose in six months. All day today huge flocks of geese have been flying overhead and honking like crazy.

Do geese have a "black Friday" too?

Stolen cars

Here's a list of the 5 most frequently stolen vehicles on the road (according to some official agency that apparently has the authority to make these claims).

Since a "1996 Jetta with lots of cracks in the windshield and a sunroof that you have to manually roll open with an allen wrench" isn't on the list, I probably don't have to worry about my car being stolen.

In case you're wondering, Elizabeth, they also don't list "'99 Grand Am with a weird sporadic clicking noise," so your car should be fine too.

Nothing at all

I'm laying in bed, nursing a minor skin irritation and playing games on my iPod Touch (or as some people call it, to my utter frustration, "iTouch"). I'm blogging from my iPod just to see if it can be done at all efficiently. The answer, in case you're wondering, is sorta. :)

Great Song

This is a song I want you to hear. There's nothing to the video, this was just the easiest way I could find to give you the audio. It's called "The Scotsman," and a local radio show used to play it every Friday morning at 7:45. I always looked forward to it. Please leave comments letting me know what you think!

I'm ashamed

If you're a Rohde brother, this post needs no comment at all.

If you're not, just skip this completely. Nothing to see here.

Nicholas Sparks: Gag me with a spoon.

When I was in college a female friend of mine overheard me bad-mouthing Nicholas Sparks (I probably wasn't really "bad-mouthing" him at the time, because I didn't know anything except that he wrote the book that A Walk to Remember was based on, which I'd watched and thought was cheesy). This friend loaned me the book and told me not to judge until I'd read his amazing work. I read the book in an hour or two... and thought it was cheesier than the movie.

Since then I've seen one other movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book (and I didn't realize it was based on his book until afterward). It was Nights in Rodanthe. It was worse than A Walk to Remember. I've also seen probably most of The Notebook (in bits and pieces here and there... never more than a half-hour chunk of it at once). As far as I can tell, it's pretty much the same.

But apparently, in a recent interview, Nicholas Sparks criticized such authors as Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen, and William Shakespeare because they write predictable romances that are all basically the same story over and over again. He writes "love stories," not romances.

THIS is a very, very funny article that puts multiple Nicholas Sparks books/movies side by side and compares their story lines. They're all pretty much identical. It's hilarious, and I encourage you to spend a few minutes and read it.

As a teaser, check out the image below, describing the complex steps of putting together a Nicholas Sparks screenplay.

The phenomenon of time zones

This is blowing my mind a little bit, and so I want to share:

There were two babies I know of that were born at the end of last week. Tobiah was born on Friday morning at around 6:45 am. Andrew was born Thursday night around 11:30 pm. But Tobiah is older. How is this possible?

Tobiah was born to a couple of friends of ours who are currently doing missions work in China, so when he was born on Friday, March 26 at 6:45 am, it was sometime in the afternoon of Thursday, March 25 here in Denver. Andrew was born in Denver later Thursday night. Therefore, Tobiah's birthday will, I assume, always be recognized as March 26, but he is older by a few hours than Andrew, who's birthday is March 25. I think it'd be weird if they grew up and became friends and told people their birthdates but that Tobiah was older. It'd confuse people for sure.

Story

Once upon a time there was a monkey-boy named Arnold. Arnold loved to run, bike, and swim. "I think I want to compete in a triathlon," Arnold said one day. So he began looking for a triathlon he could enter.

It didn't take long for Arnold to realize that monkey-boys weren't allowed to compete in any of the major triathlons. In fact, after a week of searching high and low for any triathlon willing to accept him as a competitor, Arnold was at his breaking point. "Why can't I compete in a triathlon?" he wailed. "I love to run, bike, and swim! A triathlon would be PERFECT!"

Arnold cried and cried for almost a month before he got a very odd phone call. "Stop crying," said the voice on the other end. "I know of a triathlon that will accept monkey-boys, but if you want to compete in it you have to do exactly as I say."

"I'll do anything," bawled Arnold.

"Take the number twelve bus to Pikawhanna Avenue on the north side of town," said the mysterious voice. "Then walk five blocks west until you come to Mr. Jimbob's Shrimp Shack. Tell the woman at the counter that you've come to see Gerald McManusMcGillicuddy Franklinsville. She'll tell you what to do next." Click. The voice had hung up.

Arnold didn't know what to do. He hadn't had time to grab a pen and paper while the voice was giving instructions, and he didn't think he could remember everything. But he was going to try. He drove to the Franklinsville exit and turned north by the Long John Silver's, then he took the number five bus twelve blocks to Gerald Avenue. Once there, he couldn't remember anymore instructions.

"Oh well," he thought, "maybe fate just doesn't want this monkey-boy to run in a triathlon.

THE END

Things I...

These lists aren't exhaustive by any means. I've left off many of the more obvious (I love my wife, I hate the Washington Redskins) and focused more on the "you might not know..." category.

Things I LOVE
Whitey's ice cream
The smell of a rainstorm (as Gerbert might say, "It's like the world just took a great big bubble bath!")
Clean stand-up comedy (harder and harder to come by)
Seeing a good movie at the theater with a bucket of popcorn in my lap
Playing with little people I'm related to (I'm thinking specifically of my nephews and my under-15-years-old siblings)
Hanging out with my family
The Far Side (comic strip)
New insights and understandings about the Bible and the Christian life
Listening to good music
Singing good music
Viewing live on-stage musicals and plays (!!!)
Rain
Coffee

Things I HATE
Lolly-gagging at the grocery store (or any store)
Drivers who put the safety of others in jeopardy
Dentist visits
Adults who can't be bothered to pick up after themselves
Being on-call for anything
Huge snowstorms (I don't mind having snow on the ground, but 12-inch DUMPS that alter every plan you could possibly have are annoying)

Things I DON'T UNDERSTAND
Perfectly healthy, physically able people who use the automatic door-opening button intended for use only by the disabled.
Why can't everyone be an analytic learner like me? Thousands of arguments would be avoided (and no one would ever discover anything new again...).
People who claim to LOVE pizza and then leave their crust laying all over the plate. The single most important determiner of how good a pizza is is its crust. Eat it! Or give it to me! Don't just lay it there on your plate until you throw it away.
Saying, "We need the moisture" in reference to huge snowstorms that are about to hit our city in February. I grew up in Iowa. I totally understand "we need the rain" comments, because the state pretty much exists because of corn and soybeans. What does "we need the moisture" mean in February? Who's got crops that are going to dry out in Denver if we don't have a blizzard every couple of weeks? And don't tell me "Skiers need the snow." It can snow in the mountains without touching Denver. Plus, the fabulous computer-minds of humans have developed machines that generate their own snow.

Things I WANT
A bicycle
A motorcycle (I promise, I'll break the two-wheeled vehicles streak soon)
A tripod for my camera
A carrying case for my camera
A solid wood Louisville Slugger baseball bat (don't even ask why)

Drugs and Booze

On my way to work each morning I pass a medical marijuana place right across the street from a home-brewing supply store. I call it "Sinner's Row."


(I don't really call it that. I was making a joke.)

pods

"Pod" and "ped" are confusing little sets of letters. They often have to do with feet. A biped is a two-footed animal. A podiatrist is a foot doctor. A tripod is a three-legged object used to support something. The pedals on your bike are where your feet go.

But sometimes they don't have anything to do with feet. A pediatrician is a children's doctor (whether the child has feet or not). A pod is what peas come in. Pedantic means academic (sort of).

So what's the deal?

pants

I don't ever wear dress pants. Like, ever. But I own two pairs of black dress pants. I haven't put either of them on in probably well over a year. When I think of dress pants I usually think, "None of mine fit me," because I don't remember being comfortable in dress pants since my Aunt Misty's wedding which was sometime in the mid-1980s... and I don't actually remember that, but I'm sure I was comfortable because the pictures of me from that wedding are so gosh-darn cute.

Anyway, my little brother (I should say, my younger brother) is getting married in a week and I'm supposed to wear black dress pants to the wedding. I tried on the two pairs I own today... and they both fit quite well. So I'm excited.

(Yes, you read that correctly. This is an entire blog post on me having two pairs of black dress pants that fit nicely.)

marching

Do you realize it's March? It kinda snuck up on me. March is a good month because it starts to get warm again. And because both Elizabeth and I have birthdays this month. And Spring Break always comes in March. And Jase and Rachel are getting married (which doesn't happen every March, but it's happening during this one).

Happy March to all.

Bathroom material

As some of you may know, I've been trying to start a collection of the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader books for some time now. For my past couple of birthdays I've received Uncle John's Bathroom Reader puzzle books as gifts, which are fabulous. This past Christmas I received my very first conventional (if you can call them that) Bathroom Reader from my wife. I read it straight through (I'm not much for reading on the pot, to be honest). It was fabulous. Still, I feel like my "collection" is rather dismal, considering I have just one book and two puzzle books from the series (they've got dozens of them).

Anyway, all that to say this: The Bathroom Reader website is giving away one of their books (winner's choice) HERE. There are 7 different ways to enter to win, if you're so inclined... but if you enter this contest and win a Bathroom Reader all because you read about it here on MY blog, I hope you would consider donating your winnings to my library after you've read it yourself.

Numa Numa

It must be five years now since this video took the internet by storm. And I don't think I'd watched it since then. I still laugh my head off every time.