Random Thoughts

What would you say if I told you there was karaoke for dancing instead of singing? Crazy? Or perhaps just the best idea you ever heard! I have been to paradise, and its name is Eye Toy Groove. This is the best thing since the Hulk Hands. Unlike the Hulk Hands, this game can be played by up to 4 people. You see yourself on-screen thanks to a little web cam thingy, and you touch the smiley faces to the beat of the song you picked. The best part is the “freestyle” phase were you flail around like an idiot in a frantic effort to get as many points as possible (the more you move during freestyle, the more points you get). The game lavishes your freestyle with trippy special effects. And it records your freestyle so you can watch it at the end of your turn. There’s just a little wrinkle. The game strips out all the special effects in the recording, so it’s just you in your living room looking like you suffer from some kind of mental disorder. Can you say HILARIOUS? I knew you could.

I brought the game with me to L.A. when I was sent there to do the Stacked promo for Friendster. I had a secret hope that I would play with Pam, Paget, Renee and the other babes of Stacked. Alas, it never happened. Does the Make a Wish foundation fulfill requests like that? I’m not dying of anything, but maybe they sometimes grant wishes just because of how good a wish it is. I mean, come on that’s a pretty good wish.

What is Balderdash?  Balderdash is hours of fun in a box.  And it doesn’t vibrate or inflate.  Balderdash is a game, albeit a poorly named one.  Oh Balderdash game company, please fire the person that named this game.  Or make them spend a full day reciting really bad product names — like sticking a dog’s nose its’ own poo.

Why do I love this game?  Because it requires a bit of a crazy brain.  And my brain is just crazy enough.  The name of the game here is making stuff up about real things like fake definitions for real words nobody ever heard of, or fake plots for real movies nobody knows.  If you and your friends are remotely creative, this may be for you.  Let’s play a round.  I’m drawing a card randomly.  OK, the word is "furuncle".  Nobody knows the real definition, right?  Great.  Now everyone make up a definition.  I’ll wait…

OK, now I’m going to read what you wrote.  And I’m also going to mix in the real definition.  Which one do you think is the real "furuncle"?

• The exclamation made when one has a winning hand in the card game "Hedge Your Bets".
• A term used in science fiction literature to describe an inexplicable gap in time.
• A skin disease caused by the inflammation of hair follicles.
• A needle bearing tree common in Australia.

the answer is here

Movies
are fun.  I like to add in little enhancements to my made-up plots,
like saying the movie starred Gary Coleman and went straight to video.

My toilet is breaking.  It’s not quite broken yet.  It’s breaking.  Something is going on in there and it’s making noise while water is churning and bubbling a bit in the bowl.  Vera and her sister got to experience the bubbling bowl firsthand when they came to visit.   Vera called it my new jacuzzi.  I hope she didn’t take a dip while she was visiting.

I have visitors from sunny southern California.  They were aghast at the cold cloudy weather here.  I don’t understand why we can’t fix that.  I mean, they can move water to areas that have no water.  Why can’t we move hot weather to places that have cold weather?  Let’s just pump in the heat from those sweltering suburban inland areas.

Or maybe we should build giant fans on top of Twin Peaks.  The fans will face the ocean and blow back the fog.  We’ll get nicer weather AND we’ll have a new landmark that people will come from all over to see.  Have you seen the giant fans of San Francisco?  They’re amazing!  Bring earplugs, though.

The down side of growing up in a family that isn’t affluent is that you have to figure a lot of stuff out for yourself.  I’m not sure what the up side is to growing up in a family that isn’t affluent.  Maybe it’s that you get a lifetime of good material for your blog.  Anyhow, back in the dot-com boom I noticed people getting rich from stocks.  I wondered why nobody told me, "Eli, buy  stocks — you’ll get rich".  I eventually figured that one out and I started buying stocks.  Things were looking pretty good until the crash.  Then I wondered why nobody told me "Eli, don’t buy stocks at the peak of a bubble".  Now I know.

I’m in the middle of planning some travel to Spain and I’ve discovered Mallorca. Why didn’t anybody tell me about this island of clear blue waters, dramatic cliffs, and historic towns with sidewalk cafes.  I’ve been to Barcelona twice and nobody ever said, "Eli, there’s this amazingly beautiful island just a ferry ride away — it’s called Mallorca".  Sheesh.  Pipe up, people!

My upstairs neighbor is crazy.

I’m not really sure what’s going on in the bedroom above my bedroom, but I’d love to know. Around 11:30pm the commotion starts. Heavy things being dropped on the hardwood floors. Not just one heavy thing. Several heavy things. One after the other. Then there’s what sounds like furniture being moved around. This goes on for a while. And it isn’t a rare occurrence, either.

I sit in my bed and ponder what he could possibly be doing up there. I mean, I just walk into my bedroom and undress and then hop into bed. Maybe I should be moving my bed around more often. Am I supposed to horde heavy things in my bedroom? Why didn’t anybody tell me that. Clearly I don’t have enough heavy things that need to be dropped nightly.

Have you ever gotten well into your day and then realized you put your underwear on backwards? Just checking.

When I pump gas, I watch the fee racking up as I stand there. I’ve noticed that no matter how high the price price per gallon is, the fee always seems to move at the same rate. I think the gas pump people have configured their machines to pump gas more slowly if the price goes up. I think they don’t want you to watch numbers flying by incredibly fast with a dollar sign next to them.

I’d start timing how long it takes to fill my car to prove my theory, but at the very least I’d look insane and at the worst they’ll think I’m planning some kind of terrorist act and I’ll wind up like that poor guy on the London tube.