The URI! Zone

List Day: 10 Least Favourite Things with "Star" in the Name

2013-05-21T10:00:00Z

Dancing With the Stars

Star Trek

Starbursts candy

Star Wars

Starcraft II, Part II

"When You Wish Upon a Star"

Homestar Runner

Starship Troopers

Star Fox (SNES)

Gospel renditions of the "Star-Spangled Banner"

Have you answered the URI! Zone census for a chance to win $10? The drawing will be this Thursday night!

Weekend Wrap-up

2013-05-20T10:00:00Z

The first half of the weekend was quiet and nondescript. We sat on the back porch with a pinot grigot on Friday night, diligently waiting for the cicadas to arrive, but all we saw was a fearless skunk boldly rooting around in the backyard like a truffle pig.

On Saturday, I went to Costco for the essentials, such as five pounds of steak and a new badminton net (after nine years, the original net looks like public school gym equipment). I then worked on Bugler in the afternoon while Rebecca did female stuff like yoga and haircuts. We had a late dinner at Taste of Burma and then watched 30 Rock until we fell asleep.

Sunday afternoon was the huge NOVA graduation, for which we spent a half hour sitting on Braddock Road waiting to turn left into the Patriot Center with PTSD flashbacks to the Nissan Pavilion. We were also in front of an old white guy in an Audi who became cartoonishly upset when it took five cycles to get through an intersection and smashed down on his car horn when I refused to "block the box". I gave him a Miss America hand wave out the window, and his Vesuvian blood pressure probably formed several more arteries in his chest cavity by the time we had gone through.

There were roughly 1200 students graduating on Sunday, which is apparently the largest community college graduating class in the country. I think we cheated a little though, since they bind all of the neighbouring college campuses into a loosely allied cluster of feudal city states under the Northern Virginia banner. I had a $6 box of nachos and a $4 coke to go with my $0 seat close to the action, and listened as the two of the four chosen name-callers horribly mangled any names that weren't in English or Spanish.

Getting out of the Patriot Center was much easier than getting in, and we closed out the evening with an early diner dinner at Denny's around the corner in Fairfax.

How was your weekend?

Today's Birthdays

Cate B.

PT Day

2013-05-17T10:00:00Z

Rebecca is a PTA!

Today's Birthdays

Laura M.

Review Day

2013-05-16T10:00:00Z

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Justified, Season Three (free on Amazon Prime):
The third season of Justified remains pretty strong, although the continued influx of LOST refugees in bit parts is a little distracting. I also didn't appreciate the character of Limehouse as much, since I kept getting distracted by his former roles as Bubba Gump and the annoying guy from 24. However, the characterizations across the board continue to be strong, and it remains a tight ensemble show. Towards the end, the plot got a little too complex for complexity's sake (almost like a heist movie), but the season as a whole had a satisfying arc tying everything together.

Final Grade: B

My Name is Hannibal by Hannibal Burress:
Hannibal Burress pops up often on my Mitch Hedberg Pandora station. His humor is a mix of off-the-wall observations and storytelling, with a very satisfying delivery. I liked his second album slightly better than the first.

Final Grade: B-

Animal Furnace by Hannibal Burress:
This album has a little better flow than the first. One joke is annoyingly rehashed from the first album, but otherwise, I enjoyed it.

Final Grade: B

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (R):
We found this movie to be unexpectedly entertaining, having had no expectations going into it. Take the film noir / murder mystery genre, add Robert Downey Jr.'s wry commentary as the unreliable narrator who occasionally breaks the fourth wall, and allow him to play off of Val Kilmer as Gay Perry, the Gay PI, and you have a couple hours of good laughs, if not an Oscar-worthy production.

Final Grade: B+

Memory Day: Snapshots

2013-05-15T10:00:00Z

This picture was taken in 1983. I suspect that my expression was caused by my suspicion about the reality of the porthole in front of me.

Today's Birthdays

Weird Search Day

2013-05-14T10:00:00Z

or "How I Stumbled Upon the URI! Zone"

Currently, the ratio of searches for ear training cheats to legitimately insane searches is about 12 to 1.

chef boyardee rapist
It is unclear from this search whether this misanthrope was given the name because he did unspeakable things to canned lunches or because he left a can behind at all of his crime scenes. Alternately, he could bear more than a passing resemblance to the iconic logo, although that giant chef's hat would definitely increase wind resistance during his fleeing activities.

mnemonic wiseowl shotgun presentation

This mnemonic device is often used in elementary school gun demonstrations to emphasize the fact that you should never point a loaded gun at someone's face.

is chip mcneill gay
I can't authoritatively answer this question, and I don't think it matters. However, I will admit that his solos get a little gay after the 15 minute mark. Not every jazz solo needs to be the bebop version of Flight of the Bumblebee.

bird poops in cindi lauper's mouth
I'm sure that that was a Night To Remember.

real information coolmint icebreaker used in a crime scene
Power tip: apparently, you can modify your Google search to cut through all of the BS by prefixing "real information" onto your search query. In this case, we would discover that the Chef Boyardee Rapist avoided detection for so long because his breath never smelled like Beefaroni.

pepperjack shiraz bolton
This sounds delicious, but I also kind of hope that it's the name of Michael Bolton's daughter.