Runkeeper, and Being Accountable

About 5 months ago, I decided to start running because I had been noticing my heart a little too much for my liking. Anytime I did any amount of physical activity (stairs, jog, walk to the fridge, lift a piece of cake), I noticed that my heart was beating a little too hard, and my pulse was seeming a little too fast. Going in to the doctor for a cold or an infection often yielded remarks like “Is your blood pressure always this high?” or “That can’t be right, let’s check that again.”

When I was in Jr/Sr high, I ran cross country for 3 years. I remember getting a physical where my blood pressure was so low they checked it twice (opposite of my more recent BP experiences). In those days, I could eat whatever I wanted with no repercussions because I was running 8 miles every day during practice. It was then that I learned the habit of eating an entire pizza all at once. But high schooler I am no longer.

I started realizing that I apparently do not have the body type to just eat what I want and not work it off. I am 28 years old, so I’m still fairly young – but I am not a kid anymore. I need to be proactive about my health. I am also not obese by any means – but if we are talking about BMI, I am solidly in the overweight category. To top it off, I have a kid (he just turned two). I need to be healthy.

So I decided to start running. And to make sure that it doesn’t disrupt my life timewise, I decided to run in the mornings, before I get ready for work. The only problem that comes up with this is my apparent inability to get up at 5 am with any consistency. I am working on it!

In any case, this is where Runkeeper comes in. It is one of many apps available out there that track your activity via GPS. If I initiate it before a run, it maps my route, tells me how long I ran, how fast I ran (on average), and how many calories I burned. This is the free version. I could pay a few bucks to get more features, but I’m not made of Runkeeper money. Are you made of Runkeeper money?

So here is my first (recorded) run, my longest run, and my most recent run.

Look at that progress! First of all, I got a shiny new Note 4 in May 2015, so the maps became much sharper since the GPS functionality of my phone was better. I promise, I didn’t cut through yards. The more accurate the GPS, the more accurate the mileage. So I started out running about a mile and a half. Now, I run usually in the area of 4-5 miles when I go. Not super fast progress – I’m not about to go run a half marathon or anything – but progress all the same. More importantly, even though I haven’t seen a very drastic weight loss (or any), I feel so much better. My legs feel stronger. I feel better (usually) about myself. My endurance is better. And, most importantly, I am not winded by common, everyday actions like walking up my front steps or chasing my son around the house. I haven’t been back to the doctor for a checkup yet, but I will soon – and I am confident (well, mostly hopeful) that I won’t get that same incredulous reaction when my blood pressure is checked.

Perhaps the best thing about Runkeeper (and other apps like it) is that it’s also a social network. I can add other people who have the app as friends, and we can compare runs. If I run with one of them, we can tag each other in the activity. That might not seem like a big deal, but running together is far better than running alone. When I run alone, I give up faster. I don’t run as far because I have no one there to hold me accountable. When I run with someone, it both keeps my mind off the horrible activity I am pushing myself through (because we are often distracting each other by talking), and it keeps me accountable because I don’t want to be the one to cut the run short (unless I really have to). Plus, every time I finish a run, my friends are notified – in this way, the app keeps me accountable by letting everyone on my list know whether I’m running or not.

It’s a great app – and I definitely recommend it. 10/10 would run again.

A Repost of a Repost

 

So I was recently tasked with writing a review of my favorite scene in a TV show / movie / whatever, and it occurred to me that I’ve already done that. This sort of thing comes up so often, in fact, that I’ve already written a post about that review. So here it is! Reposted (from a repost) from 2/5/11, slightly edited.

Enjoy.

---

I'd like to talk a little bit about my favorite movie, mainly because I've just recently decided (or realized) what it is. It's Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Why?
Because towards the end of the movie, in the scene where they find the Jaguar Shark, there is more emotion in Bill Murray's expressionless face than I think I have ever seen on an actor's face ever. And that scene is when you (or I, I guess) realize what the movie is actually about. It's not just a quirky, dry comedy about life on the sea, and it's not just a love story, and it's not just about revenge or rescue.
It's a story about a guy who just wants to be admired, like he used to. It's about a guy who just doesn't care enough about anything anymore to care about anything anymore. And then he starts to. It's about a guy who, at the end of everything he's ever had, finds a little something else to have.
And then he loses it, and it's too much. Everything is too awful and beautiful and meaningful and meaningless and he can't decide which he wants to believe, because he believes everything and nothing, and he just wants the world to leave him alone for a while. Provided that it still takes care of him.
And then everything breaks again. But as its breaking it's fixing everything that's been wrong with his life. And at the end, he is happy in his misery.
That's what I see in Bill Murray's expressionless face at the end of that movie.
If you haven't seen it, you need to watch it. And if you have seen it, but don't really understand what I'm saying, you should watch it again.
And if you've seen it, and you hate it, then I guess that's ok too. We just have different tastes.

A Picture a Day for a Week

Sunday, May 24

Today we went to the Hesston Steam Museum in Hesston, Indiana. It was pretty cool - they have many vintage/refurbished steam engines of all kinds - trains, sawmills, cranes, and a popcorn machine (I had no idea such a thing ever existed). We took the kid for rides on some of the trains. He had fun, but got a little sick of it after a while.

Monday, May 25

Went for a run in the woods today, on a short leg of the Wabash Heritage Trail. It was super humid and gross.

Tuesday, May 26

This morning Clark decided to do some reading on his own. Reading is a full-contact sport.

Wednesday, May 27

Today I got a Surface Pro 3 to use for work. It's awesome.

Thursday, May 28

Last day of school! Some kid thinks I'm an octopus or something.

Friday, May 29

Today we took my mom to lunch at Scotty's Brewhouse to repay her for babysitting. I had a burger topped with jalapeño poutine. It was dopelicious.

Saturday, May 30

Open bars make for fun weddings.

Wirebirds (A Very Short Story)

 

Today I felt the curve of the earth.
The horizon bowed at my feet.

 

- -

 

     “You see that?” The old man was talking, breaking the silence in which we had until then uncomfortably existed, amongst the smells of leaky exhaust and ancient leather. “That’s where you want to be.” I looked, but couldn’t see anything important. “Up there, boy! On the wire.” He pointed.
     “The birds?” I had no idea what he was talking about. The light turned green.
     “The ones on the wire.” There was a flock of birds in the median. Most of them were on the ground, pecking and eating and jumping – busily doing bird things. Some of them, about twenty or so, had perched high above the rest on a phone line. “That’s where you want to be,” he repeated, “up outta the shit. Up where you can breathe.”
     I looked at my grandfather – really looked at him – and for maybe the first time in my life I saw him as the person he was. Not as an occasional giver of money and interminable stories, but as a flesh-and-blood human man. A man who had scraped and fought his entire life to live in his own tiny house in the poor part of a town that had grown up around him. A man who should own the respect I had never thought to give him.
     A horn sounded behind us. “Grandpa? The light’s green.”
     “Ah shit,” he said, and stepped on the gas – too hard. The old truck lurched, stalled, and coughed to a stop. “Go around!” he yelled, waving his hand out the window. He laughed, and looked at me. “What was I talking about?”
     “Birds.”
     “Oh yeah.” He turned the key, the engine sputtered to life and we continued on. “Birds.”

     We finished the drive in a very different kind of silence than the one in which we had started.

 

- -

 

Gravity’s weight had me defeated,
and the core of the earth – I could feel its heat.
-Attack in Black

 

---

 

---

Spoiler: Long and Embarrassing

When I started college in 2005, I did what a lot of people who start college do: I looked at a guitar and thought “Oh yeah. I’m gonna learn me some of that.” So I learned a couple of chords from my friend Rob and decided I was a musician.

Now, what I should have been doing had I been actually serious about learning a new instrument was actually focus on learning that instrument. Instead, I focused on writing lyrics to songs I would never record or sing – because I am not a good vocalist and while I practiced guitar long enough to develop calluses on my fingers, I did not practice long enough to learn more than three chords and definitely did not practice long enough to be able to sing and play at the same time.

But I did learn enough to transition between those three chords (It might even be four)! As you can hear in the following clip:

Why I am not rich and famous, I will never know.

So guitar was evidently not my thing, nor was it going to be. Not because I was unable to learn how to play, but because I lack the motivation and discipline to learn an instrument when there are things like video games and television in this world.

I am very good at playing video games and watching television. I would enter into a television-watching contest if there was such a thing. Maybe there is. Stay tuned.

In any case, I did continue to write lyrics to songs that would never exist. Poetry was kind of my thing the first two years of college. Maybe I was kind of angsty. Maybe it was being on my own for the first time in my life. Or maybe it was because I really liked writing poetry. Who knows? I eventually grew out of it.

Whatever the reason, I have decided to share some of this potentially embarrassing writing with you, my very few readers. Keep in mind that I was very heavily influenced by bands such as Something Corporate (& Jack’s Mannequin), Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, Zox, Linkin Park, Jimmy Eat World, Copeland, etc. Please don’t judge too harshly.

Keep in mind too that these were supposed to eventually turn into songs – my friend Rob had a good singing voice, and he was the one teaching me to play guitar. I (maybe even we) had dreams of becoming a famous singing/songwriting duo someday, which were probably crushed when I decided that playing video games was way more immediately gratifying. Anyway – to the embarrassing things!

---

CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT
(Influence level: Linkin Park)
(Embarrassment Level: HIGH)

Hiding in the shadows
You are all the same
Dancing in the moonlight
Playing twisted games

Drawn towards the perilous
Burning with desire
Throwing caution to the wind
You fuel the darkest fire

Children of the night
You were angels, angels
Come into the light
And rewrite your life

Sometimes I imagine
That you are just a dream
Slinking, sliding, slithering
You make me want to scream

Running blindly through the muck
I’m giddy with the fright
I curse the silence of the moon
You trap me with delight

Children of the night
You were angels, angels
Come into the light
And rewrite your life

Forgotten by society
You shun the modern world
Living in proximity
Your words are never heard

Banished to the darkness
Your pain just never ends
Forgotten by your family
And Hated by your friends

Children of the night
You were angels, angels
Come into the light
And rewrite your life

Not trying to be normal
Not trying to fit in
Looking past the darkness
To see the light within

---

POLITELY BRUISED AND BROKEN
(Influence Level: Something Corporate)
(Embarrassment Level: Moderate)

Politely bruised and broken
You are lying on the floor
Too nice to speak your mind
To willing to give more than he deserves

Wake up and smell the flowers dear,
You need to get away from  here
Before you die

You’ve all-important vows
You think are worth the toughing-out
Too loving to let go
Too ready to miss out on a better life

Try hard to make it on your own
You would be better off alone
You don’t need this

Without him you are elegant,
Unstifled, bright and pure.
Too pretty to be real
Too certain to be sure your life is right

Look up and see the newborn sun
Give that bright smile to everyone
Give it a try

Your life becomes a cancer
That will rot away your heart
Too simple to be dangerous
Too familiar to be part of what you hate

Can’t tell you how you’re supposed to feel
It’s something you need to reveal
All on your own

Your secrets are a cure
That helps to only make it worse
Too blind to see the faults
Too blessed to be cursed, you are so young

You are so young

---

ASYLUM
(Influence Level: ???????)
(Embarrassment Level: Moderately High)

Come inside to see
All the things you’ll never be
Look around and you will learn
When your dreams begin to burn

You call yourself my friend
But your laughter never ends
You are laughing with my pain
But your laughter is insane

Can’t you see that I’m about to snap?
Helplessly I fall into your trap
You twist my words so I can’t say a thing
You bind my ears so I can’t hear you sing

I step so carefully
On the surface of the sea
Jump above and try to dive
But I fall into the sky

Can’t you see that I’m about to snap?
Helplessly I fall into your trap
You twist my words so I can’t say a thing
You bind my ears so I can’t hear you sing

I feel your sick delight
In the darkness of the night
You fooled me for so long
Now I find I don’t belong

My life is caving in
Around the places I have been
Put my mind up on a shelf
And please come save me from myself

---

SPARKS
(Influence Level: Dashboard Confessional)
(Embarrassment Level: Fairly low)
Still one of my favorites.

The city whirls around me
Fills my head to burst
The sidewalk melts and I dive in headfirst

I wake up and I’m driving
Your picture on my dash
I see it and I smile for what we had

The radio sings to me sadness
While the full moon shines in through the glass
And I want to go to sleep so bad it hurts
but first I need to be sure that you’ll be there

I pull into a dark house
I never want to leave
The hospital bracelet hides beneath my sleeve

My thoughts lie down beside me
They whisper to my heart
But I can’t change how everything’s my fault

The radio sings to me sadness
While the full moon shines in through the glass
And I want to go to sleep so bad it hurts
but first I need to be sure that you’ll be there

The city whirled about me
We were spinning in the street
I could feel the sparks beneath my feet

The city whirled around you
You were flying through the air
The last thing I remember was the smell
Moonlight on the flowers
Was the sight
Spinning in the street
Of your hair

---

AMNESIAC 
(Influence Level: Jimmy Eat World & The Calling)
(Embarrassment Level: None!)

Misty Monday morning
You walked out of my door
Memories are slipping
What do we do this for?

Cry out for an answer
Helpless futility
Memories are slipping
This life isn’t free

I picked it up and I tried
To fake your brutality
But the thing you never realized
The answer was always me
Cry yourself to sleep tonight
Look inside and you will see
Your strong guilt-free exterior
Is breaking at the seams
And the thought of me is haunting all your dreams

Feelings buried deep
Locked away forever
Memories are slipping
Ties you tried to sever

Living on your own
You are living all alone
Memories are slipping
What good have you done?

Look where we are now
Did you know that it would end like this?
Did you know we were bound to miss?
Tangled in all this bliss
Like this

You are wasting time
You wasted all my life
Memories are slipping
It serves you right

---

So there you have it. Some embarrassing pieces of my past. Although those last two (Sparks and Amnesiac) I actually still like quite a lot. My previously-mentioned friend Rob actually sat down and recorded a rough take of Amnesiac with guitar and vocals that I think is pretty dang good considering it was recorded in one take sometime in 2006 on some kind of potato microphone. With a little polishing and practice I think it would sound awesome.

To leave you, here’s a video of that very recording with some doodle I doodled after he recorded it.

 

P.S.
To double-leave you, here is a short poem that was actually published (front page!) in one of the Purdue Exponent’s student literary editions, so I was fairly puffed up for a few days after that.

THE BACK OF YOUR EYELIDS

What do you see on the back of your eyelids?
What do you see in your dreams?
Follow a road to the back of your mind
Where nothing appears as it seems;
Where your unspoken secrets are living their lives
And only in sleep are they free.
How can a question be answered with yes?
How can we answer with no?
Setting a price on the weight of the world
Is like standing a candle in snow.
And the melting puddles of our tired lives
Will steam up to the stars and glow.
Have you ever really looked out the window?
Have you ever looked at the scene?
We’re building a bridge to the end of the world
Just to fall back into the sea.
And everyone’s lives are one and the same
The killer, the preacher, and me.

For those with nothing else to do.

 

 

Let's talk about alcohol. More specifically, let's talk about what I would consider to be my first drink. Of alcohol. Of something alcoholic.

Excluding, of course, the occasional glass of champagne or limoncello at family gatherings, my first drink was a glass of Bloomington's own Oliver "soft red" wine after a calculus exam. I was twenty, which is a year younger than the legal age but several years after (I am sure) many of my peers. That first glass with friends turned into a game of wine shot glass checkers with friends, which turned into a pretty amusing walk back home.

Once I had discovered that having a few drinks was in most respects very excellent, I was all about trying new ones. I had my first shot of terrible vodka (unchased because chest hair) at a party with high school friends, first beer at a similar party, probably while playing beer pong. I did not really understand the dangerous potency of liquor though, and drank far too much of it on a couple of occasions. Learning to drink when the only people around you are college students is not a great idea.

Still, having a cold beer or a well-mixed cocktail with friends (especially in the summertime) is the best. Nowadays I prefer a nice cloudy wheat beer, though most will do in a pinch. Tequila, whether by itself or in a classic margarita is my liquor of choice, with bourbon right behind. To leave you, here are a couple of my favorite cocktail/drink recipes - if you are so inclined.

Grilled Pineapple margarita
Made with mezcal rather than typical tequila, this is an amazing summer cocktail. Enjoy with friends, or drink the whole dang pitcher by yourself – preferably on a beach at sunset.

Mexican mule
Tequila, ginger beer, lime. Great combination.

Old fashioned
I prefer to use Woodford Reserve in my Old Fashioned, but Knob Creek or Jim Beam will do just fine.

Whiskey Smash
Ditto on the bourbon (see above).

New York Sour
Don’t get freaked out by the raw egg. It’s totally fine.

My Time in the 205/285

In the fall of 2006, I was starting my sophomore year of college at Purdue. It was to be a very important year for me, in several different ways – and most of those ways hinged on a couple of very important classes.

I was clearly awesome. And hella skinny.

EDCI 205 (Exploring Teaching) and EDCI 285 (Multiculturalism & Education) are two required courses for education majors at Purdue. I believe 205 is the first early field experience education students participate in although I could definitely be wrong about that. 285 basically exists to make us aware as human beings (but mostly as teachers) that we will come into contact with many different types of people, and how all these cultures will mix together in different ways but we have to teach them anyway. Or something. It was a long time ago.

The important thing about these two classes in the fall of 2006 is that they were being taught by two friends, Bruce and Sybil, who decided that instead of teaching two separate classes of the same group of students, they would just teach their sections together. I’m not sure if it was the clear enjoyment of what they were doing they brought with them every day, the in-depth discussions about our field experiences, or the frequent debates which would inevitably erupt between Bruce and members of the class who didn’t totally agree with his point of view (always fun to watch), but that class has cemented itself in my college experience.

Of course, it’s also the class where I met Mike – who I soon found out was in the Crazy Monkeys, an improv comedy group I saw during my freshman year and for some reason thought to myself “yeah, I could do that” despite having done nothing like it ever before. Becoming good friends with Mike during our time in the 205/285 led to me auditioning for and becoming a new member of The Crazy Monkeys later that semester. It is completely fair to say that my life would be absolutely different than it is now had I not met Mike and made that decision to try out. Almost all of the friends I either regularly hang out with or stay in frequent contact with came from my time in the Crazy Monkeys. To say it was a major component of my college experience is an understatement. It defined who I was and who I would become in many parts of my life, and I am very grateful for the time I had with the group. Improv is still a huge part of my life, and I am not sure what would have replaced it had I never tried it out.

But wait! The 205/285 Mash-up Bruce & Sybil Variety Hour was also the class where Mary and I met each other, and through a mutual friendship with the aforementioned Mike, became close friends. Most of our time together was doing mutual friendship things, like getting McDonalds Happy Meals or going to see comedy shows on campus. It wasn’t until the spring semester that things got real real. Bruce announced at some point during the fall that he would be teaching a different class in the spring – EDCI 490 (the title was something like “Continuing Issues of Multicultural Education”) and that we were all welcome to take it – and that it could be worth graduate credit if we didn’t have an elective slot for it to fill.

So I decided to take that class – and so did Mary. And probably nothing would have happened between us at all but for one tiny thing that happened one day. Mike maintains that he had some kind of behind-the-scenes puppet master nonsense going on – which may have been part of it, admittedly. The catalyst for what would come next, however, came one day when I got to class and saw that Mary had sat in my seat. For whatever reason, we always sat with our desks in a circle in that class – I think Bruce liked having discussions better that way – and I always sat against the back wall near an audio cabinet. There was no real reason, it was just where I sat the first day and things like that have a way of staying.

Anyway, Mary was sitting in my seat. And I said “Hey, you sat in my seat!” And she said “So just sit next to me.” And I did. And so in February 2007 we were dating, in June 2008 we were engaged, in June 2009 we were married, and in August 2013 we had a son.

I’m not sure if the content of the classes was that memorable or had any profound effect on me as a person. The field experience was just visiting a school – and having been in school all my life, it was about what I expected. Learning about different cultures is always important, but not only was I attending a fairly diverse campus, I have been brought up to be a tolerant and accepting person (or so I like to think), so it was just reinforcement of what I already practice and believe.

What really made the 205/285 important for me was who I met and where they led me. Meeting Mike and Mary took my life where it needed to go, and I would have neither the friends nor the experiences that surround me now. I would be a completely different person, and I am not confident he would be the better for it.

In fact there’s absolutely no way.

Chili. Again. I know.

All right. I know I’ve blogged about chili once or twice before. But my recipe for chili has gone through a few changes for the better. When I read that original recipe, posted long-ago, I shudder to think that someone might have read it and actually made that pot of muck. It’s not actually that bad, but there are some order and technique issues that I have since figured out and improved upon. As my wife said earlier tonight – my chili is a metaphor for my ascent into adulthood.

I am pretty sure she was kidding.

Anyway, I made chili tonight. It was excellent. I have leftovers if you want some.

YOU WILL NEED:

• 1 onion
• 1 green pepper
• 1 jalapeño
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• spices:
  • chili powder
  • cumin
  • garlic powder
  • garlic salt
  • oregano
  • thyme
  • dill
  • bay leaves
• 1 lb ground turkey
• 1 lb ground beef (85/15 or higher)
• 6 oz tomato paste
• SPECIAL SPICES
  • ground chipotle pepper
  • cocoa powder
  • cinnamon
• 12 oz beer
• 2 (15 oz) cans diced tomatoes
• 1 (15 oz) can stewed tomatoes
• 1 (15 oz) can black beans
• 2 (15 oz) cans great northern beans

YOU WILL NEED TO:

1.  Chop up the onion and peppers.

Use a jalapeno’s worth of canned slices if you don’t have a fresh pepper. No biggie.
Try to get the dice fairly small, but not tiny. It all depends on how big you like the chunks of things in your chili. I’m okay with some chunk.

 

2.  Combine them in a medium-to-large pot over medium-high heat with some cooking oil.

 

Add the minced garlic after a couple of minutes, when the onions and peppers start to soften. Let that cook for about five minutes, stirring fairly often.

3.  Add the meat and spices.

  

Chunk the meat up and mix well with the onions and peppers. Liberally add spices to your heart’s content. Do not skimp on the chili powder and cumin. You can never have enough. I promise. Cover the lid and ignore that pot for about 5-6 minutes. Lift the lid and your meat will be cooked! Magic.

4.  Add the tomato paste and SPECIAL SPICES.

   

I know a lot of people who use tomato sauce in their chili. They’re wrong. We’re not making minestrone here, people. Stir the tomato paste until it coats the meat, and now is when we add the special biz.

Add a good heaping tablespoon of cocoa powder (trust me), a good heaping tablespoon of cinnamon (I promise), and add a nice coating from one end of the pot to the other of the ground chipotle (zomg). OH YEAH. Stir that biz in.

Let it cook for a solid 5 or 6 minutes, still at medium-high heat. We want to cook off most of whatever liquid we have left and let the tomato paste get a nice toasted flavor.

You’ll smell it when it’s ready.

You’ll know.

5.  Pour in the liquid gold.

 

Not Velveeta! I swear, if you put Velveeta in this - -

Pour in a can or bottle of whatever blue-ribbon-winning beer you happen to have on hand. It will help to de-glaze the bottom of the pot, and it will make your chili damn good. Put the lid on and let that cook down for around 15 or 20 minutes. Stir it during commercial breaks.

6. Tomatoes, Beans, and Bay

 

Add in your tomatoes, beans, and a bay leaf or two for your grandpa to find in his bowl. Stir it in, turn it down, and let it sit. Cook this for at least half an hour (more is better) on low heat. Stir it during commercial breaks, or when you get spawn-camped. I like to leave the lid cracked open so the steam can escape and the chili can reduce. The longer this cooks, the more liquid is released, and the better it tastes. What you’re eventually left with is a nice, thick chili with a smoky, deep flavor from the chipotle and chocolate – with a little spice kick from the cinnamon you won’t even consciously notice but will definitely appreciate.

7. Eat Dat Chili

Serve it up with some crackers, sour cream, and sharp cheddar. Eat like a king for a week.

Favorites of Favorites

I was trying to think of my favorite episode of my favorite TV show, and I couldn’t even decide what my favorite show was, much less my favorite episode. It has occurred to me that I like too many things. I can’t help it; I am constantly finding myself liking pretty much anything and everything. Food, movies, activities, music – I can usually enjoy whatever’s in front of me.

Except bananas. Super gross, people. Get over yourselves.

Here is a list of shows I like, with a little bit about my favorite episode(s) from each one.

FRIENDS
Friends is a great show. I think a lot of people who don’t like Friends (or worse, nothing Friends) probably didn’t spend a large portion of their childhood watching it. We had the whole set on DVD, and I may have spent a Winter break or two marathoning it.

My all-time favorite episode of Friends has to be the one with Pheobe’s wedding. When I was a kid, I thought it was awesome. They got married outside! In the snow! And there were steel drums, which I was kind of obsessed with for a while. Besides, Paul Rudd plays one of the best recurring characters on the show – Crap Bag.

SCRUBS
I was big into Scrubs for a while, but it kind of became a poster boy for shows that gasp on long after their expiration date – even though the last season was pretty great (but let’s be honest, it was a different show).

I have a tie for what were, I think, the best moments in Scrubs – the episode(s) dealing with Brendan Frasier’s character dying, and the episodes dealing with Dr. Cox losing several patients to Rabies-infested organ transplants. Scrubs was such a campy show much of the time, so the serious or sad episodes really stood out and allowed those characters to show emotions not often seen from that style of comedy.

MR. SHOW
I will admit, I have not seen all or much of Mr. Show. But I have seen a few episodes, and my hands-down favorite is still the first one I ever saw – Season 1, Episode 2. Bits of it can drag – but I think you get that with most sketch shows. This episode is my favorite because it contains most of my favorite Mr. Show moments – Senator Tankerbell, “The Joke” musical, and that last Pit-Pat commercial is great. All it needs is F.F. Woodycooks!

PARKS AND RECREATION
It is extremely difficult to choose my favorite Parks & Rec episode – partly because the storylines often last for several episodes, but mostly because the show is so great that specific moments don’t often stand out as being greater than any others. 

But I think I would pick Season 3, Episode 16 – Lil’ Sebastian. An overall excellent episode, it’s nudged over the line by this amazing song. Listen to it. Get it stuck in your head.

(If anything, watch this clip of the cast singing the song just to see Gjlarry Gergich and April Ludgate totes making out.)

COMMUNITY
First, Community was a great show with an aimless last season. It felt like they didn’t really know what to do with it after the main characters graduated. But they had to graduate sometime right? It was weird.

But there were some seriously excellent single episodes that I enjoyed more than the rest. The season-finale paintball spoofisodes were always a lot of fun. 

My favorite episode, however, is “Digital Estate Planning” – episode 20 from season 3. The cast members are put into a video game to help Pierce earn his inheritance. Or something. Anyway, it was cool.

CUTTHROAT KITCHEN
Okay, this is not the kind of show I’m sure you would expect to find here. Alton Brown’s torture kitchen has a pretty standard format, so there’s not a huge amount of variation (apart from individual sabotages, which are usually pretty great).

But the best episode I’ve seen (and I think I’ve seen almost all of them) was a celebrity chef episode where they played for charity. It was heat three of this “Superstar Sabotage” series that lasted several episodes. This episode in particular is great just because of the final challenge. Eric Greenspan must out-lemon-bar Johnny Luzzini, one of the best pastry chefs in the country.

I don’t want to spoil it, but Eric starts the round with all $25,000. Johnny has $100. You can see how this turns out. Watch it to find out for sure.

THE WALKING DEAD
The Walking Dead is a crazy good show. Based on the Walking Dead comics (which are also crazy good), it follows a group of survivors in a zombie-apocalyptic world.

I won’t go into too much detail, mainly because I don’t want to. There are too many great episodes to choose from, so I will just name my favorite storyline. I love what we see as we follow The Governor, one of the deadliest characters we meet in the show, after his failed first attempt at taking over the prison, our main characters’ stronghold (for a while).

It’s an excellent bit of character development (warning: link contains graphic content from the show) which ultimately ends in more tragedy – deviating as the show often does from the comics, while still fulfilling in some way those major plot points the readers expect from the show.

Side note, the show version of the governor is a much more nuanced and imposing character than the comic version, who didn’t last long at all. The casting choice of the 6’3” David Morrissey to play the role was smart, as his height alone makes him an authority figure. If you don’t watch The Walking Dead or read the comics, none of this will make sense, but maybe it will pique your interest. Great bit of storytelling.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, MODERN FAMILY, PEEP SHOW
These are some of my all-time favorite shows, but I can’t name a favorite episode. The storylines of Arrested Development and Modern Family often span multiple episodes or even seasons, making it impossible for me to pick a favorite. I have favorite moments from certain episodes, but as far as entire episodes go, I just can’t do it. Similarly for Peep Show – which is crammed full of hilarious moments and lines – I can’t pick out one episode that stands above the rest. These shows are just too all-around good for me to choose.

 

So there you have it. Some of the favorites from my favorites. Turned out way longer than I expected, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Thanks for reading!

Forgotten Corners

I had a music blog for a while. It was a Tumblr. I think I started it as just a way to share specific songs I liked with people, but it turned into kind of a song review project. In my recollection, it did not last long – but apparently it lasted almost exactly two years – from April 2010 to April 2012, after which I just stopped posting.

I probably would have kept it going, but it didn’t get much traction – there are a lot of zero play posts. And to be fair, I wasn’t a very active Tumblr user.

Still, it’s fun to go back and look at what I wrote. There are these forgotten corners – little pockets of the internet where I’ve left my mark. It’s exciting and a little sad to discover them. I had an MSN Live Space for a while, but I think that’s all gone. I wonder if my Myspace is still there, but I have forgotten my username (is Myspace even still a thing?).

It’s probably how I’ll feel in ten years when I find this blog. (Zing.)

Anyway – check it out if you have the inclination. tmarksthemusic.tumblr.com

Going Without

I decided to go a week without mobile games. My phone would be used solely for communication and the internet – yes, I am aware that that still constitutes a huge timesuck, and no I don’t care. It’s my thing I can do what I want.

DAY ONE – 2/15/15

Day one was pretty easy. We were driving pretty much all day (traveling back from WI visiting family). I wrapped up my one loose end – leaving my Clash of Clans clan (Purdue Alumni – Boiler Up!) so my lack of participation wouldn’t harm our war performance – and began my dry week. Not surprisingly, there was not a lot of temptation to use my phone for games during the 8 hours of traveling (Left WI at 11 am Lafayette time, arrived home at 7 pm). We finished up the night with some board games with friends – another welcome distraction from my lack of distraction.

DAY TWO – 2/16/15

Today was a little harder. I did not turn off my app notifications, so my phone was going off every hour or so with a game asking me to come play. Here is a list of the games currently installed on my phone:

• Clash of Clans
• Trivia Crack
• Crossy Road (kind of an updated Frogger)
• Androminion (Dominion for Android)
• Spaceteam (needs to be played in a group anyway)
• Bike Race
• Chess Time
• Flappy Bird (the one and only)

I don’t play all of them every day – but I do spend an awful lot of time playing games and not paying attention to what is happening around me. Clash of Clans is especially time consuming. Trivia Crack, Space Team, Bike Race, and Chess Time are at least games played with people I know in real life.

Many of these games are also games I play on my tablet – which is also off limits for the week. So today, I kept myself busy with a haircut, brocery shopping (grocery shopping with your bros) with my son, and a trip to the mall.

DAY THREE – 2/17/15

Had to add the Stumbleupon app to the list of things I’m not allowed to use for the week. If you're not sure what it is, and you like your free time, don't look it up.

DAY FOUR – 2/18/15

Wednesday wasn't too bad. I had after school responsibilities, and then after dinner and some kid time, I went to improv practice - so I didn't have too much down time. Still, I am being bombarded with the game notifications I didn't think to turn off when I started this. Clash of Clans in particular is a bad one. Other games may notify me when it's my turn, or when a game has expired because of my absence - but CoC just keeps saying "Come back! We miss you!" I think we need to see other people, Clash.

 

DAY FIVE - 2/19/15

I had to stay after school again today to coach my math team, so that kept me busy for a little bit. When I got home, I made pork chops with asparagus and cornbread for dinner. It was pretty tasty. I am noticing that, while I am dealing with not playing the games fine (no withdrawals or anything), I’m still using my phone just as much. Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. are all keeping my attention just as much.

 

DAY SIX - 2/20/15

Friday. Friday! I had an improv show at 8 pm (call time at 6), so I didn’t have very much time at home. Spent most of it hanging out with my kid, making dinner, then getting ready to go.

 

DAY SEVEN – 2/21/15

I kept busy on the last day. We took the kid to a swimming lesson in the morning, then I played racquetball with friends around eleven. We cleaned the house a bit, then had friends over for games (more like an interminable round of Monopoly) later in the evening. Again, there was plenty of phone use. Just had to ignore the game notifications.

DAY EIGHT – SUNDAY 2/22/15 – AND FINAL REFLECTIONS

At last, the day came when I could once again… forget about the whole thing and not realize I could play games again until Sunday afternoon. Ah well. I guess it didn’t have that much of an impact.

I learned that I am probably going to use my phone for entertainment whether I can play games or not – this may or may not be a bad thing. I see a lot of people go on technology-free binges, staying off all electronics for an appreciable amount of time to glorious effect. This week was not one of those. But there have been a few repercussions:

• I am currently locked out of my clan in Clash of Clans. They are set to “closed” status and I have no way of contacting them. So I have no choice but to check in and ping myself against their doors every so often in hopes of getting in.
• I have lost/forfeited about ten games in trivia crack due to inactivity, making me the laughingstock of my small Facebook friend circle. What a dunce.
• Friends are passing me up in Crossy Road scores and number of unlocked characters. Again, laughingstock.

Despite the obvious negative outcomes of this experiment, I am actually none the worse for wear. I am noticing a slight freedom, however. I used to check my social games (the three above most often) several times a day – this was spurred on by the almost constant barrage of notifications I would receive from those games, reminding me to play. I could go on about the ramifications this has for society as a whole, but the thought of doing that makes me kind of tired. All I will say is that it’s kind of nice to force the realization that none of those things actually matter. I don’t need to worry about checking my Trivia games before 48 hours pass or I lose the game – because it’s just a game, and I can start a new one. None of it is real.

Thanks for reading! Post over. Now to play some Clash.

Cats and (Briefly) College

I think I can say I’m a cat person. I’m also a dog person. I don’t discriminate. But this post is about cats. Mostly one, but there are others in there.

When I was in the fifth grade, I asked for a cat for my birthday. (I am pretty sure it was the fifth grade. It could have been the fourth grade. I am almost positive it wasn’t the third or sixth grade.) I got two! Some family friends had just had some kittens in their barn, so we took two of them. We named them Charlotte and Rosie. They were purdy cute.

     
Charlotte.                                                Rosie.

I remember waking up with them curled up on my face, or crammed up against me under the covers. They slept with me when I was sick on the couch. Charlotte used to sit on the back of my dad’s recliner and watch our fish tank (pictured). And then they got fleas.

Cats get fleas. It happens a lot. But it affected Rosie a little differently than it affected Charlotte. She developed a weird skin rash and started licking the fur and skin off her belly. She started laying in the litter box for hours (we think because it felt good on her skin). We finally had to take her to the vet to be put down. It was pretty sad. But to be honest, I was a kid and  she grossed me out.

We still had Charlotte though! And as a stupid kid, I would alternate between being really nice to her, and tormenting her. She spent a lot of time in the basement, sitting on the rafters in the last room. We would chase her down with pool noodles whenever we wanted to play with her. I think this was around the time she started to become less social. She would scurry across rooms, hurrying from my room upstairs, to her litter box in the basement, to her food in the laundry room. I don’t think she felt comfortable in open spaces – partly I am sure because of us chasing her around, and partly because she was terrified of my dad. I have no idea why. I think he had loud footsteps.

It was around this time – high school – that we brought Charlie into the house. Charlie was basically a stray. One of our neighbor’s many street cats had kittens. She moved the first one to a new place after they were a few weeks old, went back for Charlie, and forgot where she was going. We watched her walk around the backyard – Charlie dangling from her mouth – looking for that other kitten. So my mom decided he would be safer inside with us. (we found a few dead kittens scattered around the yard that summer. She was not a clever cat.)

Well, Charlotte took one look at this tiny yellow kitten, and nope’d right out of there. Hissed right in his face and walked into my bedroom. The thing was, Charlie loved spending time in my room. As he grew (and he grew a lot), he soon dwarfed Charlotte in size. Charlotte weighed about 7 pounds at this time. Charlie grew to about 20. So there were many nights that I was woken up by those two cats freaking out on my bed. Charlie would sleep by my feet and Charlotte would sleep up by my head – and they would often just sit and shriek at each other, then fling themselves around the room. It was super annoying.

But then Charlie became an outside cat – he was, after all, basically a stray, and never really got the hang of a litter box. He never really fit inside all that well. Plus he peed by all the doors all the time. So he went back outside – but he stayed in the yard. He was decidedly ours.

When I went to college, Charlotte stayed behind. No pets in the dorms. Apparently she just sat on the edge of my bed until I came home, months later. My parents had to move her food, water, and litter box into my room. There was basically a small quilt of cat fur on the foot-end of my bed which marked where she spent her time. She was a sad panda.

 

I started dating Mary early February of my sophomore year at Purdue. The next school year, my mom called me and told me that I should probably take my cat. My apartment at the time didn’t allow pets, but Mary’s did! So Charlotte went to live with Mary and her roommate. She acclimated pretty well to college life, and they were nice enough to keep her litter box in their living room. Or in their apartment at all. It’s not the nicest thing to keep in an apartment, especially in a living room. It’s just a box of poo.

Anyway, after we graduated, I went to live in the apartment above Mary’s parents’ garage for the summer, because we were getting married. Charlotte came with me. We thought we’d lost her while unpacking, but it turns out she had somehow squeezed herself through a 1-inch gap and was hiding underneath the washing machine. She came screaming out the first time I turned it on. We lived in that mini-house together for about three months, until Mary and I landed our teaching jobs in Lafayette.

So we all moved to Lafayette! We found an apartment right downtown, and Charlotte of course came with us. This time her litter box was right by the front door, but it was a hallway and when the door opened it was kind of behind it – so it was all good. It was a nice apartment, and Charlotte seemed very happy. She was starting to open up – actually coming into the living room when people were around! Though she did tend to keep to the top of the couch.

In the spring of 2010, we decided to buy a house. There was a tax credit up for grabs, and savings be damned! Charlotte came with, and I can honestly say she might be the happiest she’s ever been. For the first few weeks after moving, we’d find her hiding under the covers of our bed – just a small lump in the middle. Slowly, she adjusted to her new surroundings. I was able to pick her up and hold her for an actual amount of time for the first time in my entire life (and hers!). She started sitting on my lap. She started sitting on Mary’s lap. She sat on a friend’s lap last week! She is a changed animal. Maybe she is getting old (17 years is, I suppose, a lot for a cat).

But if we’re going to talk about cats, we have to talk some more about Charlie. Remember Charlie? The cat we brought in from the mean streets of Clayton, Indiana? Well, a couple of years after buying our house, my parents divorced and sold their house – and the yard went with it. As my mom was living in an apartment that didn’t allow pets, Charlie came to live with us. And we promptly lost him, because we didn’t know how to keep a cat from leaving the yard to find his actual home. Fortunately, I had put a collar on him before leaving him in the yard, and 8 days after he disappeared I received a phone call from someone who lived about 5 blocks away. Charlie was found! And after a night in the garage, he seemed content to stay.

Charlie was with us for a solid two years, during which he came into the house twice. On one of those visits, Charlotte decided to corner him in the bathroom and start a fight. Five pounds vs. twenty. Charlie went back outside, and Charlotte went to the vet to get the hole in her stomach stitched up. Could have been worse I suppose.

In May of 2013 he developed some pneumonia after being under anesthesia for a haircut (a yearly necessity – his hair developed terribly mats in the winter). Faced with thousands of dollars in medical bills, we were forced to put him down. He sat right between us when they did it – all shaved and sad looking. It broke me down - I sobbed all night. I didn’t think it would affect me so much – but he was something special. He was one of the nicest, biggest cats I have ever met. But hey – as my mom said, he had two extra years with us that he probably wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

So that’s my cat history. I did leave out the cat who walked into our house in Florida during a rainstorm and never left (we named him Cat), but if we’re being honest, I barely remember that cat. He did used to sleep with me in Florida, and he did ruin some brown shag carpet after we moved to Indiana. Good times.

Anyway, nowadays Charlotte has to compete with our kid – but to tell the truth, she seems to enjoy his torture. She likes to be around him, even if sometimes he gets a really tight grip on her tail or a chunk of skin. She is getting old (like I said, 17!), but I think she’s still got several good years to go.