Amazonian Extras

Well, you heard me plug the BBC comedy, The Office before, and can I say real quietly that it is a show I watch at least an episode a week… usually more. I like to have it on in the background while I am doing other things. I have seen it enough to know what is going on by the music and dialogue. Yeah, yeah, small things amuse small SHUT UP!

Ricky Gervais, the genius behind the sitcom has a podcast that I’ve been listen too here. If you enjoy his humour you’ll enjoy this.

Ricky’s new sitcom called Extras (well season one anyway) is out on dvd. I had a viewing of the first season when it first came out, and enjoyed it, but spent the first 4 episodes reminding myself that he wasn’t David Brent anymore (the Boss character he plays in “The Office”).

Segue into why I love Amazon.com…

They are quick with their deliveries. They haven’t failed me yet. They have never taken longer than 5 days to get my purchase where it needed to be. My brothers gift got to him before Christmas, despite the fact they told me it probably wouldn’t make it until after New Years, and my Extras dvd has made it to my house today, in less than 5 days. Seriously… they’re good. Unfortunately, I do recall Amazon.ca being a little slack in the selection department, and having the rest of their catalogue on backorder half the time, but the .com (USA) and .uk (umm..UK) sites are awesome. That is all.

The Skinny

Started work again at “regular” time this week, so I have been baked. Each morning at 4:45am I go through about a 4 hour period of self loathing. I try not to thin about anything important during this time because I have no emotional defenses, and usually just upset myself over something very minor. The iPod provides noise and distraction.

Recently I have begun to listen to podcasts. And I don’t think I can get enough. What am I listening to? Let me fill you in:

Ricky Gervais (the creator and lead of the BBC version of The Office)
TSN
The Dsicovery Channel
The Movie Blog

and I have just subscribed to the The Bleacher Guy. It is supposedly a really good sports show.

Any of you gotten into this? What have you been listening to? You don’t need an ipod by the way, to listen to any of these. You can download them onto your computer or whatever.

And onto the rest of it….

Playing hockey twice a week now. We beat the team formerly known as the undefeated team on Sunday. Took it to them too. 7-2.

One of Jo’s cousins is getting married on Saturday, so we’ll be attending that, and hanging out with the extended family.

Speaking of weddings, I have our wedding video edited. Pooling the lads together to do the audio commentary will be tough, but I think it’ll be worth it. However, since I need to take naps in the afternoons again, this will push back the release date to February for sure.

For some reason Australians don’t eat chicken wings. I know. Boggles the mind. For our Superbowl party, I want to cook up some wings and introduce one of God’s greatest creations to the Land Down Under. The question is this:

Any of you have any kick-ass wing sauce recipes you want to let me in on?

(NOTE: This random facted post is how my brain works during the week. Sorry.)

Facts Are Facts

Ok, so I have broken out of my post tattoo non-posting to bring you something that already has made the rounds… but it stills makes me giggle.

By now, surely, you have come accross the Random Chuck Norris Facts website. If not, here are some of my favorites:

* Chuck Norris has counted to infinity. Twice.
* Chuck Norris does not hunt because the word hunting infers the probability of failure. Chuck Norris goes killing.
* In fine print on the last page of the Guinness Book of World Records it notes that all world records are held by Chuck Norris, and those listed in the book are simply the closest anyone else has ever gotten.
* There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
* A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris and that you will be handicapped if you park there.
* Chuck Norris once shot down a German fighter plane with his finger, by yelling, �Bang!�
* In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Chuck Norris could use to kill you, including the room itself.

I am pretty sure Doug mentioned something about Chuck a while ago, but I couldn’t find his post… and I even looked for it.

3 Options

So here is an idea of what the full black (least favorite of mine) and full red would look like. I will say that I like the red over the black. The black fill loses the design in it.

However, this is my favorite. Thoughts?

I Asked For A 13, But They Drew A 31!

So I finally got some ink done. I have been wanting a tattoo for a while now, but never really knew what I wanted and didn’t want to get just “anything” for the sake of getting a tattoo. I played around with a few ideas, but drew this one up on our honeymoon. I sketched it out, dropped it into Photoshop and learned how to use paths and the pen tool (which makes my life so much easier now). I am quite happy with it. I am deciding what I want for fill. I kinda like it open like this, but I think it would be cool shaded in too. I have a few weeks to make up my mind so no rush.

Here is a copy of the original design. We flipped it around for the final.

I wanted something to mark the huge transition in my life that was Australia. So this is why this looks the way it does.

On the top you have a half maple leaf as a shout out to the MotherLand. There are 5 points in the middle representing the southern cross found on the Aussie flag. The body is shark like / fetal position representing a rebirth… a new start. I tried to make it “tribalish” as a symbolism for the many friends and family that make up my world. Bang.

I am told that tattoos are addictive. We’ll see. This one hurt like a biatch. The parts up near my shoulder joint and onlong my triceps hit some “special” nerves and introduced me to some new feelings. Honestly… it hurt more than I thought it would. What can I say?

Made My Day!

From Weird Al dot com:

Holy cow… really? You mean the entire 13-episode run of Al’s 1997-98 CBS Saturday Morning kids’ show, in a spiffy DVD package with commentaries and junk?? Yes, that’s exactly what we mean. The good folks at Shout! Factory will be releasing it later this year… stay tuned!

How super freakin sweet! I can’t wait. Thank you Shout! Factory.

The Trip To Melbourne Part 2

A few years ago there were these online chats about the emerging church (this would be back in the beginnings of what people now know as the emerging church… for what it’s worth:) ) that I sat in on. They were hosted by the folks that run the Signposts blog from Melbourne Australia. I had made contact with a few Aussie bloggers before coming here with the hopes at some point meeting up. Phil & Dan graciously hosted us while we were in the Melbourne area, allowing us to hangout with them at their beach house. Jo and I were talking on the way down about how little I knew (since I was the point person in the family) about them. Kids? No idea? Age? Not really sure? Weirdos? Maybe? Usually my instincts are good and Dan & Phil were great. We got to ring in the new year with them and some of the members of their Jebus community. Although, we were so tired as we had just finished driving the Great Ocean Road that day, it was still cool.

Phil is involved with Forge in Melbourne and it was good to get his insights and ideas. Hopefully the next time we all get together there will be a bit more down time. Chalk up another blogger I have got to meet in person.

The Trip To Melbourne Part 1

I will comment on the pics and try and fill in the gaps later. Went to my first live cricket game while down south. South Africa vs. Australia. It was the last day of the test (the go 5 days) and because Australia had the South Africans 6/150 or something like that admission was free,as the Aussies only needed 3 more outs to win. We stayed for a couple of hours and to my surprise, it was pretty good. We sat in the shade and I had a tv monitor to watch the replays so I was happy. We are hoping to go to a one day match on February when they play in Sydney.

The Melbourne Aquarium had a “Monsters Of The Deep” exhibit featuring a giant squid that they froze in a block of ice. The Jellyfish room was amazing. I could have stayed and watched those things for hours. It is creatures like these that make me want to do something in Biology.

And this is one of Australia’s famous landmarks. My disgusted face conveys exactly what I was thinking. What. The. Frig? The story goes, this teamster got his wagon gummed up in a mud hole… broke something on his wagon… decided he had had enough and went off to lunch ONLY to find this dog sitting on his tucker box. And so this statue was commissioned back in 1860 something as a tribute to teamsters and their dogs… who may or may not sit on their master’s lunch box. Thrilling stuff huh?