Very Specific Advertising

Gmail's Adsense must not be very good. I got an ad show up that said "Are you Johnny Depp?" I don't know what made Google think that I was a famous actor but am flattered.

Only Dead to the World

It has been a long time since a post has graced the likes of this small corner of the Internet. My life has been pretty busy, including a week trip to the cabin with the entirety of my Dad's side of the family. Between Saturday and today, I was in a car nearly 30 hours (21 when I was driving). Now that I am back at home, I compiled a new set of Africa photos. Again, I'm not feeling too big on writing a lot recently. Enjoy the photos.



Look forward to animal shots and my Canada album. When I get around to it... lots of life decisions are being made with the better half. They require a lot of attention and will probably be voiced here in the near future.

Africa Pictures Part I

I have created a place for Africa pictures at http://www.stoleetech.com/africa/ and have placed the first album of photos on now. The smallest album is the babies album. Here's a sample:

Transformers: The Movie

No, it's not the one you're thinking about.

Last night, I found myself in Lincoln with Clay and Jesse watching the animated Transformers movie from 1984. It was hilarious, especially the soundtrack. When I eventually get to seeing the new movie, there better be a point where "You've got the touch! You've got the power!" plays in a distant radio or something, preferrably a car radio during the inevitable "cruising" montage.

Also, I never thought that I would witness robots fighting and then dancing to "Dare to be Stoopid" by Weird Al.

OCD du Jour: Left Turns

Katie's lunch has been delivered by yours truly for the past week. Driving through the suburbs of KC has led me to a disturbing pattern: I avoid left turns as much as possible. Katie thinks this is a strange obsession, but understand the following ideas:

1. Right turns can regularly be made even during red lights.
2. Left turns can only be made on green lights, sometimes even only left turn lights.
3. When turning on a green light, you are turning onto a road who has a red light, so the next light you hit will be timed to be red as well.

Overall, this leads to an effective delay until the red light after the green light that let you turn. If I can drive a few hundred feet farther and make two right turns in order to miss a left turn, I will take it.

This obsession does not occur as much in Lincoln, since there are enough one-way streets that left turns are the same as right turns. I find that the learning curve of one-ways is overcome by the efficiency they present after they are committed to memory. That model does not work in suburbia, however. The only roads worth taking are a mile apart and therefore must be two-way.

Popcorn is okay, occasionally

My fiancée's taste in movies affects my entertainment habits. She isn't as picky (read: snobbish) about premise and cinematography as I try to be. So, when she told me we must watch "License to Wed" based solely on the fact that we are engaged, I released myself from all expectations and tried to have a good time.

And a good time was had, indeed. Besides the random moments when I wanted to yell "He/She is in the Office, too!" there were bits of glorious humor. The couple is pretty basic as far as characters go, but the situations they are put in push them past the awkwardness, the embarrassment, and finally the threshold of common decency.

Robin Williams plays a challenging role in Reverend Frank. Some people don't understand the character enough, I believe. The obvious thought would be that he is a pervert priest who wants to get in Mandy Moore's pants. The balance between possible creep and believable saint is an important plot point.

Despite the formulaic setup, I find the creative situations present a comedy that required more thought than Will Ferrell running around spouting pop-culture references of the week. Also, any gross-out humor that exists tickles the funny bone of the five-year-old inside instead of shocking your mother. Definitely stick around for the credits, too.