Raging Against The Machine (And Winning!)

So I thought I had officially lost my mind completely today. Turns out I'm still just the garden-variety nutjob I've always been.

I recently purchased the first season box set of Six Feet Under DVDs, and I was trying to figure out how in the hell to access the fourth episode.

Now, if you look at the packaging, it looks like the first four episodes are on disc one, because they're all listed in a nice big black box that says "DISC ONE," and the rest of the episodes also seem to be listed disc-by-disc.

So after watching the first three episodes and not being tired, I tried to access episode four. Except I couldn't figure out where the hell I was supposed to go to access it. I was fucking around with the DVD for 10 minutes, muttering and cursing at it, and couldn't find anything.

I felt like Ozzy Osbourne, fucking around with the giant remote and cursing "this fucking space-age crap."

Figuring this was a common problem, I came to the computer to try and figure out what the hell I was doing wrong. I IMed everyone that was online to see if anyone else had these discs, and nobody did. I did end up having the following amusing conversation:

Me: it's driving me nuts! :)
Megan: i'm really not seeing how this could be too difficult, especially for someone who works with all kinds of fancy film machinery stuff
Me: the problem is in the design of the menus...there doesn't seem to be an option to access the 4th episode
Me: of course, i say that because i can't operate it :)
Me: clearly, this is someone else's problem

I seriously began to think I was losing it for a minute or two. I graduated from fucking film school five months ago, and I couldn't even operate a damn DVD player. I poked around on Google and HBO's website, trying to find answers, and nothing.

Then something occured to me: Maybe it's on disc two.

I put the disc in, and when I hit the episode index, voila! Four episodes, including the infernal one that purported to be on the first disc.

I still feel like something of a dumbass for not thinking of that sooner. However, I feel comforted because when I showed Katy the packaging, and asked "Which disc would you think Episode 4 is on, looking at this?" she answered disc one.

See, I'm not totally insane! Just stupid!

Oh, wait...

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Tony Kornheiser has broken out the Choking Dogs column.

A bit of background, for those not from DC.

The Washington Capitals are usually a reasonably competent hockey team. Competent enough to make the playoffs, even get to the Stanley Cup finals when I was in high school, but usually only competent enough to get to round 2 or 3 and then choke.

This year they didn't even get that far, going up 2 games to none on Tampa Bay, then proceeding to fall to pieces and lose the next four games (including all three home games).

Granted, the last game was triple-OT nail-biter in which they put up a hell of a fight, but they still lost on a power-play goal that came from an unbelievably stupid too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty.

Every year since I can remember, Kornheiser (who most people probably know as co-host of Pardon The Interruption, which, Fox be damned, is the best damn sports show, period) writes a column showcasing how the Caps have earned the title of Choking Dogs this year.

For hockey fans from D.C., this is a treasured moment. One might ask, whatever shall we do if we ever actually win a Stanley Cup?

Hahahahahahaha.

Thanks, Tony. At least Caps fans have something to look forward to at the end of the season.

What Every Classy Home Needs

And think, this could double as a festivus pole!

Thanks, as usual, to Dave Barry

Excercise The Demons

I need to start exercising. I'm so horribly out of shape right now it'd be funny if it weren't so sad. So I'm looking at my exercise options, and they look approximately like this:

Join a health club
Advantages: Lots of different exercise options, like a pool and various machines.
Disadvantages: Costly, hate working out in front of people, not really motivating.

Purchase some sort of home exercise object
Advantages: Only have to pay once, it's at home so it's easier to use.
Disadvantages: Nowhere to put it, it's at home so it's easier to ignore.

Join some sort of sports team
Advantages: Easier to get motivated when you have a team to play for.
Disadvantages: Have to fit work schedule around games/practices.

Start taking Tae Kwon Do again
Advantages: Really good workout, self-defense knowledge helpful, progression through belts motivates easily.
Disadvantages: Hideously expensive, have to figure out work schedule too.

Start running or biking
Advantages: Can be done on own schedule, dirt cheap.
Disadvantages: Will turn knees into gumbo, gets kind of chilly in winter.

Continue sitting on ass
Advantages: Cheap, easy, works in all seasons.
Disadvantages: Will remain fat and out of shape, plus ass still kind of sore.

I'm leaning towards joining a sports team or taking up Tae Kwon Do again, since I'm much more motivated by doing something that isn't simply doing something for its own sake. Plus, these things feel more like sports than workouts. And workouts just feel silly to me.

I guess I just have a problem with the idea that running on a treadmill is satisfying. I guess after a while of getting used to it, it would be. And I was happy when I swam 1km a day when I was a junior in high school...I don't know.

Maybe I'm just making up excuses to keep myself from actually doing anything about working out. I've done it before, and I'll probably do it again.

I have to see what my financial and time situation is like after I've been working for a while. Then I'll have a better idea of what I can afford to do and what I have time to do, which I can then compare to what I actually want to do.

And by then, of course, I'll be way to busy to do any of it. And so the cycle of life continues...

Attention Film Nerds

A story on that kickass Honda Commercial from a couple days ago.

Caution: Student Government At Work

The Northwestern student government had its yearly elections last week, and, as usual, they've posted the complete list of write-in candidates, which you can view for your amusement here.

Had I been eligible to vote (I assumed I'm not, since I graduated in December), I would have voted for Sexy Lesbians.

Some of my other favorites (all unaltered):

President
- Disband ASG (3 votes)
- Scrooge McDuck (2 votes)
- MacGyver (1 vote)
- Respectable Dildo (1 vote)
- Taxi Drivers From Cancun (1 vote)
- The Baby Jesus Butt Plug (1 vote)
- candidate of mass destruction (1 vote)
- oven mitt (1 vote)

Exec VP
- Grimace (23 votes)
- Your Friendly Neighborhood Ego (3 votes)
- My Left Nut (2 votes)
- Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf [Iraqi Information Minister] (2 votes)
- Mike Fong or anyone who can actually do this job with a hint of competence (1 vote)
- Need A. Job (1 vote)
- derek jeter's ass (1 vote)
- sexy bisexuals (1 vote)
- A Plate of Collard Greens (1 vote)
- A Red Foosball Goalie (1 vote)
- A herd of wild goats of the Serengheti (1 vote)
- Alberto Fujimori's left ass cheek (1 vote)

Academic VP
- I love to Fuck Goats (2 votes)
- Jolly Green Giant (2 votes)
- I should have gone to Harvard (1 vote)
- I'm so high right now (1 vote)
- I'm tired and want to go home. (1 vote)
- maybe someone older than 12 (1 vote)
- 1993-94 Winnipeg Jets (1 vote)
- Dee Fenestrator (1 vote)

Student Services VP
- Adam Forsyth vomited all over my suite & never apologized (2 votes)
- My Left Ass Cheek (2 votes)
- Jesus (2 votes)
- My cheating ex-boyfriend and his tiny penis. (1 vote)
- Standard ASG Resume Builder (1 vote)
- TEMPURA...Deep fried (1 vote)
- asg sucks the respectable dildo well (1 vote)
- rumplestilskin (1 vote)
- why did i waste my time on this? (1 vote)

Actually, I think many more people than the one person who voted as such were thinking that.

Attention Stoners

The history of your holiday yesterday.

What, you forgot? Big fucking surprise...

Adolescence Revisited

I bought the DVD set of My So-Called Life, and it's brought about a weird revival of adolescence in my life.

Katy started out watching the DVDs on Saturday afternoon, and by Saturday night, there were about five or six of us parked on the couch, watching and reminiscing about how everything used to be a BIG FUCKING DRAMA! that nobody else could possibly understand.

Especially not your parents. Except they had their own weirdo dramas of their own, that you didn't much care for unless they effected your BIG FUCKING DRAMA! of a life. Every little decision you made, every Geometry quiz you failed, was the end of the universe.

You thought you knew everything, but things kept creeping up on you to remind you that you didn't: The sudden realization that everyone...has sex! The math teacher...has sex! The english teacher...has sex! And they could have sex together! Except, eeew.

You couldn't really go many places or do many things, so you made shit up. So after we watched, we ended up participating in yet another ritual of wasted youth: Going out in someone's borrowed car and getting food at ridiculous hours, then driving around aimlessly.

The section of life we're going through right now is another profoundly uncomfortable period. We've finally gotten comfortable with school, and now we're ripping ourselves away to go someplace else and get paid to do the same shit we've been paying to do.

We're leaving a lot of our friends, meeting new ones, trying to figure out what the hell we're all doing with our lives, and if our dreams can become reality or will forever remain wishful thinking. It's Adolescence II: The Revenge Of Your Hopes And Dreams.

And then you look back at things that remind you of your first crack at adolescence, when an unsightly zit, and not a missed rent payment, was your biggest problem.

And you laugh, because the older you get, the more you realize you don't know. When you were 15, you had it all figured out. Now that you're 21 or 22, you realize how much shit there is to know in the world, and what a hilariously insignificant slice of it you know.

But at least now, you can drink to forget about it.