White 'n Nerdy

Courtesy Warren, there's a nice article on the success and staying power of "Weird Al" Yankovic, who has very much been a favourite of mine since I was a child. I can vividly remember borrowing LP after LP of his stuff from the public library, borrowing cassettes from friends, buying albums, and so on. I used to laugh my ass off at his material when I was younger, especially at a group outing (for Narbo's birthday one year) to UHF when it hit theatres back in 1989. That was one of the first movies I remember nearly memorizing, and I still quote it to death these days.

A number of weeks ago I was listening to the commentaries for season 8 of The Simpsons, amongst which was the Mr. Sparkle episode. Gedde Watanabe played a very minor role in that episode (he was the english-speaking person at the Mr. Sparkle factory who spoke with Homer on the telephone). The writers on the commentary expressed great joy at being able to work with him as he also played The Donger (Long Duk Dong) in John Hughes' Sixteen Candles in the mid-80's. While I clearly remember that role, and love it, I'll always remember him as Kuni no matter what other work of his I see. Even now I can't get the red snapper scene out of my mind.

So today I went to crib with the retired members of my uncle's union and in no time flat got my butt kicked by geriatric after geriatric. I'm not a fan of losing in the least, and even though the tournament is meant to be fun, I still get irked if I don't finish in the money. I can accept it (albeit reluctantly) if I at least break even for wins (4 wins out of the 8 games), but today my partner and I could only muster 3 wins. After coming in first overall last time (to the tune of over $50 profit, yay), one gets accustomed to doing well. Still, realistically, one should not expect to get paid given there are 26 teams playing and only 4 places paid. I got very few decent hands (about as many as I got nothing, which I suppose is good as that meant I got nothing very little) and that certainly doesn't help, but although I said nothing at the time, I was a little bothered by my partner playing rather poorly in a lot of spots (not paying attention to the count and playing cards that were inappropriate, leading into far too many runs and other silly situations such as playing a 3 after a 9 was led, etc.). We're none of us perfect, and frankly I made a big blunder by missing 4 points for a run in the first game (which at least we won so that wasn't a huge deal), but still, one should really focus on what you're doing. After all, if it was all for fun, why would we keep score?

After that, I came home with a headache and had to lay down for a while before I went over to Rob's place to help him move some furniture around. A few days ago I'd promised his girlfriend I'd lend a hand as she's not able to move things being 8 months pregnant, so I was over there for a few hours moving things around. It was mostly unpleasant as I'm far too out of shape to be doing much heavy lifting and shifting of couches and desks and dressers and such, but the sucky part was the bickering and fighting going on between Rob and Gail. Oh well, things happen I suppose. Still, we got things as complete as possible given there are pending events yet to happen (the buying of new couches, for instance). So, no more of that sort of thing needs to be done for now.

At least the day is over now and I can relax and hopefully watch Smallville from earlier tonight. It would have been a nicer day if Ottawa had won their game against the Avs, but at least the Cards beat the Mets in the NLCS (I find it hard to root for New York-based teams for any sport). The NHL season is still very young, but it's highly disappointing to see the Sens sitting in next-to-last in the Northeast Division. I hope they pull their socks up on Saturday against the Devils. Hell, the Oilers are running a close second to Minnesota in their division, and they'd probably be faring better if the Wild weren't one of only two teams with a (still) perfect record.

Oh well. There's still lots of time for the Sens to pick up the slack and do some damage. I just hope the loss of Chara and Havlat isn't too large for them to be a contender. That being said, I still think it was a dumb move for the Sens to let Chara go to a division rival as that could damage them more than if he had gone to say a Western Conference team (like Havlat did), but it is what it is.