Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Happy Halloween.

Click below to watch the commercial.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Where Do You Want To Live?

According to this list, 61% of the cities on the list are safer than Tuscaloosa. This place has about the same number of people as Sterling Heights, MI (my hometown). Only 4% of cities on the list are safer than Sterling Heights and it's a suburb of Detroit (99.7% of cities are safer). All of the largest cities in Alabama are pretty high on the list. The safest city in Alabama is Tuscaloosa and the most dangerous is Birmingham where 98.7% of cities on the list are safer.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Last Night.

There really aren't a lot of cool things that happen in Alabama, so when something comes around you have to jump at the opportunity. Good bands hardly ever come to this state. There might be someone worth seeing once or twice a year, while they are on their way to Atlanta. Last summer this state was lucky enough to host 311, Papa Roach, and Unwritten Law. Becky and I went to that concert and it ROCKED! I don't know if it's because I haven't been to a concert in a very long time, or if they really were that good.

Anyway, one of the few worthwhile performances in this state happened last night and Becky and I were lucky to get tickets to it. We tried months ago but it was already sold out. Yesterday afternoon I figured I would just check again. I really don't know why. It seems that they opened up some extra seats and we managed to get the last two of them together.

So, who did we see? Who was willing to come to this lame-ass state and entertain the minority of the population? One of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black!

This is probably the best picture of me ever taken.


My autographed ticket. John Bowman was the opening act. He's the guy on the left in the above picture. He was pretty funny, but definitely not as good as Lewis Black.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Garrett Ward Breaux.

I'm currently in New Orleans with Becky to visit her sister and brother-in-law who just had their first baby.

Here are the proud parents, Cathy and Mike, with Garrett.


Here's Becky with Garrett.


Look, I didn't drop him.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Tolerable TV.

I just finished watching an episode of Heroes on NBC. It's a decent show but it has a lot of plot problems. The biggest one I noticed on tonight's episode had to do with the blonde lady and her kid. She drove them both into the desert at night in a convertible with the top down. She parked the car and proceeded to use a shovel to dig up a corpse a few feet away from the car as her son was sleeping the back seat. Later she opened the trunk, removed two dismembered bodies and buried them. She didn't finish until what looked like noon, just as her son woke up.

Now even if this kid isn't a light sleeper, who wouldn't wake up with a trunk opening and closing a few feet from your head? Also, what kid sleeps until noon in a convertible with the top down in the desert? When I'm camping I have a hard time sleeping past dawn. It just gets too bright for me. If I was sleeping in the desert, I think the heat and dehydration would have woken me up.

My favorite character is Hiro, the Japanese guy with control over space and time. Peter is my second favorite, but the cop is growing on me. The character I have a problem with is the cheerleader girl. I have to say she is pretty damn lucky her power is to cheat death and have a Wolverine-like healing ability. I've never seen anyone get mangled more than this chick. Even Wolverine TRIES to avoid using his healing ability. This chick accidentally impales herself on sharp sticks, puts her hand in a garbage disposal, jumps off of grain silos, etc. Isn't self-preservation still one of the few instincts that humans have? Millions of years of evolution have hammered that into every fiber of our being, so wouldn't you still feel some doubt about your power even if you knew that you couldn't die? Personally, I would find it more plausable if this chick would think, "well I didn't die those other dozen times, but maybe my luck will run out the next time." That would definitely add a little more realism to the story, which I belive the creator was going for. Then again, he was probably just jumping on the comic-book band wagon and sold a half-thought-out idea to NBC. I read somewhere that he never read comic books and he wanted to get a more realistic take on people with powers. I don't think he succeded.

Anyway, this show definitely needs some more thought put into the storyline. Clearly, it's no Lost. It's a lot more similar to one of the creator's earlier attempts at a superhero tv show, Misfits of Science (I LOVED that show).

Happy Columbus Day.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Cool.

I saw this on the BBC News website. The caption reads,
Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity near the rim of Victoria Crater. Victoria is an impact crater about 800m (half a mile) in diameter at Meridiani Planum near the equator of Mars. Opportunity is the dot at the centre of the zoomed image. (Nasa/JPL/UA)




This is the view from the rover.



UPDATE:

Check out the astronomy picture of the day. Careful, it's a big picture.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Steamers.

Yesterday, Becky and I walked down to Steamers for her birthday dinner. The restaurant looks like a Joe's Crab Shack, only not quite so tacky (although it's not from a lack of trying). They have a main dining area that is a big open patio that overlooks the Black Warrior River. The dining area is decent, but the restaurant is in a bad location along the river. The bridge over the river for the highway is a stone's throw away. It's a good effort to have river-front dining though.

The food at this place was not that impressive. I had blackened Mahi with rice, a baked potato, and cole slaw. The Mahi and the potato were pretty good. The rice wasn't cooked enough so it was still crunchy and the cole slaw was bland.

Overall, I'd say save your money. It's pretty pricey for what you get, a so-so meal with an ok view.