Justin Case You Were Wondering...

End of Blog

2008-02-21T06:37:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to let you all know that I will now be blogging on the super blog www.johnvoightscar.blogspot.com I didn't necessarily need to announce this here, since I am blogging with everyone who reads this blog on the new site.

LOST in the sauce!!

2008-02-07T19:21:00.000-08:00

Its an unstoppable force. Tonight proved it. It is the best television show to ever grace the airwaves, BAR NONE. I just finished watching "Lost" and I admit, I am way too pumped up to objectively talk about it, but man it was great. I love this show more than Garfield loves lasagna.

No worries, there will be no spoilers in this blog. Not only did they add an entire new wrinkle to an already perplexing plot, but they added some of the greatest unrecognized talent working today. Ken Leung is going to be unreal this season. He was sweet in the few episodes he did in "The Sopranos" and he is going to rock in "Lost." Jeremy Davies was the best part of "Rescue Dawn" and that is saying something because Christian Bale was pretty darn good. Although those two are phenomenal, I think we all know that Lance Reddick, whom is already on the second best show on TV right now "The Wire," is going to be the coolest new character on the show.

After you all see this episode, there will be no doubt in anyones mind that Benjamin Linus is the most interesting, complex, and downright coolest character ever presented in a series of ones and zeroes. I would argue that he might be the coolest character ever dreamed up, but literature has some doozies.

If anyone thinks there were ever a better show; I would like to hear your thoughts. I can now make it through one more week before I need another fix. Now I must move on to another program, "The Biggest Loser"

Hedberg

-Escalators can never break down, they can only become stairs. Escalator not working, temporarily stairs, "sorry for the convenience."

"On your rock and roll TV"

2008-01-31T11:04:00.000-08:00

Just heard George Michael's 'Freedom 90"  Does it make me gay that I like that song.....A LOT?

Hedberg - "I use tartar control toothpaste.  I still got tartar, but that shit is in control.  I don't have to dip my fishsticks in shit."

Bloggarty, Bloggarty, Bloggarty...

2008-01-28T14:01:00.000-08:00

Well hello thar fellars, Long time no blog. I don't know why I titled the blog as such, just thought bloggarty was fun to say, so it must be fun to read. Well, lots has a happened since I last wrote. I went to Tahoe and did some riding and had the travel day from hell on the way back (this will be revisited). Tahoe was fun, snow was great, weather was chilly but not as bad as here, so all was good.

I saw Cloverfield, got a massive headache, and felt like vomiting. In order to really understand my pain, one must first understand that I am the same kid who had to take Dramamine to compete in the Bond tournament on my dorm floor Freshman year. Not competing wasn't an option, after all, I wanted to have friends. "T-Hall, Nineteen-Ninety-Eight, Y'all!" Overall, it was a pretty cool Monster movie, even though I watched 2/3rds of it leaning on my hand and watching it through my fingers to fend off projectile vomit. It didn't help that the stoner snowboarders in front of us snuck gyros into the theater. Not a great smell when you are reeling from motion sickness. All in all, good movie.

The trip back from Tahoe was absolute Hades. We arose at 3 in the AM to shower and hit the road for Reno for a 6:15 flight. First flight was Johnny on the Spot, wheels up at 6:20, looking to land in Salt Lake City at 8:15 with gaining one hour. Young Pimply-faced Pilot comes over loudie and says in ear shattering volume that there is some "inclement" weather in SLC, but we hope to be able to land, if we can't we may be directed to Idaho Falls, but we should be ok. Well, 40 minutes into the 1 hour flight, pre-pubescent comes back over the loud speaker and informs us that we are in a holding pattern for Salt Lake City and we hoped to be cleared for landing in 20 minutes, because if we are not cleared to land by then, we either have to, and I quote, "Attempt a missed landing in SLC, or head out to Idaho because we don't have enough fuel to circle for any longer." ITS A ONE-HOUR FLIGHT THAT CONTINUES ON TO TORONTO, AND WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FUEL! Come on, that is ridiculous. Toronto is a long way from Salt Lake. Anyway, we end up going to Pocatello, ID because Idaho Falls was too packed with other planes who couldn't get into SLC. I guess there was a plane that landed in SLC and slid off the runway because the plows couldn't keep up, so they shut the airport down.

We sat on the runway in the plane in Pocatello f0r 3 hours because there was no terminal to get off into! Pocatello is about the size of, hmmm.... lets go with Litchfield, yeah Litch sounds right. Anyway, so they reopened the airport in SLC and after supposedly fueling up in Poc, we headed back to where we were supposed to go. 10 minutes later, we were in another holding pattern. Clearasil, comes back on the speaks and tells us that we are holding and haven't been cleared and since we don't have enough fuel, we may have to go back to Pokey. "Not enough gas," I exclaim, "We just fueled up." Evidently, just a few drops. I think the pilot, forgot his credit card, and only had a Lincoln, so he squeezed the pump gently for 5 bones, hoping to avoid the classic 1 cent oversqueeze. So Archie Andrews comes back on and tells us that he begged and pleaded and they are going to let us land. Great!

So we land, meanwhile, in Pokey, my dad had called Glady (family go-t0-gal) to find us a new flight, because we obviously missed our connection. Upon arrival in SLC, we are informed that there are 2 more flights to Minneapolis and there are absolutely no seats available and the stand-by list is about 50 deep. Gladys, had found a flight to Fargo arriving at 5:30 with room and a connection to Mpls at 6:30, putting us home at 7:30. Which we were able to get on. We went to the gate of the next flight to Mpls to see if there was any chance of us getting on it, there wasn't. Delta had booked Scott and Chelsy to leave the next day and Alisha and I to leave two days later! What a joke, they had us staying there til Wednesday. Unreal.

Meanwhile, our flight to Fargo was delayed from 3:00 to 5:00, so we had 3 hours in the airport to kill, so I housed a quiznos and kept reading. Well we got to Fargo at 7:45, if you remember from an earlier paragraph, our connection was at 6:30, but we saw that the flight was delayed. It left at 7:40. So, we did what any hardened Northeners would do. We walked out into the -14 degree ground temp in Fargo, pulled as hard as we could on the frozen doors of our rented mini-van and started the 4 hour drive to Shangri-La (my bed). The drive was pretty smooth, dropped off LZ in Glenwood, and kept on crusin. Got back to the cities at 12:30, picked up FDR at 1, and was lights out by 2:00.

It was a long day, but I read the entire book of "Into the Wild" and 1/3 or "Into Thin Air" both are excellent. We got our bags the next day and we have moved on with our lives. Fun trip, poor travels.

That is all...be back soon.

Hedberg - This shirt is dry clean only, which means, ITS DIRTY."

High School Aromas

2008-01-14T07:56:00.000-08:00

I take off to go snowboarding tomorrow for almost a week. I hope I'm not gone long enough so that I can smell what my house really smells like when I get back. I hate that. I like not being able to smell what I smell like. You know what I mean! Don't act like you don't. You all know back in high school that your friends smelled just like their houses.

Is it just me or was T.O. dressed like Michael Jackson from the Thriller video in his sobbing press conference last night?

Tubby Time is Central Standard!

2008-01-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

Its all happening.... Direct TV is in my house right now as I wordplay! For realsies! I am really excited, even though there is nothing really to watch on TV now. This is something TV related that is actually NEW happening in my life, which makes me happy. I ditched the Comcast monopoly for DTV because I wanted to watch my beloved rodents play some roundball this year on Big Ten Network. I also secretly wanted to hep the Hubbard guy CEO build his dream house on the St Croix river, ruining the beautiful view from across the river in Wisconsin (see Star Trib article)

Gopher Hoops is going to be great this season. Last night, Tony B, Jim, Chris and I went to the big ten tilt v Northwestern at the Barn. It was pretty sweet even though the goph's looked a little sluggish in the second half they still pulled out a 20 point victory. The barnyard (student section) was the fullest it's been since 1997 and they were excited. I have always felt that the Barnacles was a better nickname for them than the barnyard, but I guess I don't get to make up student section nicknames in Minneapolis. Here are some examples of them if I did have the honor:

Hamline - "The Rowdy Roddy Pipers"

Macalaster- "The Unshaved Pit"

St. Thomas- "Altar Boyz"

Normandale CC - "The 13th Grade"

The four of us received "Tubby Towels" upon entrance to the game, these are in the line of "Homer Hankies". After we got these towels, we immediately started to do handkerchief magic tricks with them the entire game and it never got old, in fact it still isn't old. Nothing feels cooler than stuffing a handkerchief into a tight fist to make it disappear.

Gopher basketball being good is also great for Sterbs. The place was packed tighter than Chris' upper lip was with chew back in the Sally's days. I am still surprised he didn't swallow more snoose when he was leading some lecherous Phi Sig out the door in his patented Sally's strangler. It is fun to see the place full, even though I felt like I was in the way the entire time I was their last night.

Heading out to the Minnewaska area for a couple meetings Friday and then to catch some monster Northerns this weekend and gather some more info for Josh and my upcoming Mockumentary about Ice Fishing Derbies, called "Derby Days." I am hoping it has enough buzz to land Richard Dreyfuss in the crazy old codger role. "I'm Richard Dreyfuss, I told you I didn't want wear the damn mask! I was in Jaws!!"

That is all for now.. Everybody give JB "knucks" for me.

Hedberg-

I don't like Pepperidge Farm bread, because that shit is wrapped twice. I don't need another step between me and toast.

The Jamie Foxx Paradox

2008-01-03T08:17:00.000-08:00

Alisha and I watched The Kingdom the other night and it got me thinking. Is it just me, or do you guys kinda find it hard to hate Jamie Foxx? I think I hate him.....I'm pretty sure I hate him....Do I really hate him? I have seen and read interviews with him and I can't stand to listen to his arrogance. As a human being, I think he is an ultra prick. Why does he have to be so talented?? He can sing, dance, and act better than 99 percent of all earthlings and he is also really funny. These things being true, he is a reverse racist arrogant asshole off of the silver screen. I understand his feeling against white people and frankly we deserve it, but we just want to love your films and music. I have similar feelings about him as I do about a number of fictional characters. Ben on Lost, come on! You know you want him dead, but you can't possibly imagine the show without him. The Others without Ben are like the Vikings without All-Day. I don't like Prison Break (never missed a frame of the entire series) but I couldn't watch the show without T-Bag. They ridiculously brought him with to the prison in Panama and I let it slide because I love to hate him. How can you not love a guy who made a Vet sew his hand back on? These characters are to my fictional world what Jamie Foxx is to my real world. I will see everything that he is in, but afterward I will murmur under my breath about how much he bugs me while kicking my empty 72 ounce cup of soda. So please contribute other both real and fictional characters in your eyes that fit what I like to call the Jamie Foxx Paradox. To me, he is the real life Sylar.

Hedberg -

If the number 13 is unlucky, then I think 12 and 14 are guilty by association. I also think the letter B is unlucky because it's basically just a smooshed together 13.

Writers Strike...out.

2007-12-30T10:44:00.000-08:00

Hey all. I know this may sound insensitive to all those involved, but Jesus Christmas just settle the damn writers strike already! I came home last night after a busy hockey game at Sterbs and I wanted to enjoy the sweet drug that is new episodes of Network and Cable TV Shows, and all I had on the box were 3 old (and will never be watched) episodes of Women's Murder Club and 1/3 of this weeks Amazing Race. Damn the NFL for running long and making me have to look at Andy Rooneys fat face! Just so you know, I have 4 DVR's and I give everything a chance, hence the Women's Murder Club. This strike is getting completely ridiculous for a number of reasons.

First Reason - The real losers = America

There are people who bust their asses all day long just so they can come home, have dinner with their families, and kick back in the La-Z-Boy and take in some of the poor timing and butchered comedic stylings of one James Belushi. These people need this. They have to go back to the jobs and co-workers they hate the next day and the only thing that is letting get rid of some of that pent up anger is TV. I am sorry but new episodes of "Which midget will you Marry" will not release that aggression. I know my friends and I love September-May, because TV can be amazing. Even better than the movies. I would watch 2 new episodes of Lost before any new movie release... no contest. As long as the greedy executives and the pimply-faced pajama wearing overweight writers can't agree, America Loses.

Second Reason - The next Loser = My Friend Josh Carson (this is a selfish reason to end a strike, I know.)

Josh moved out to LA to become a writer and then the strike happened. He is now completely screwed. He has no money, so he has to get a temp job that he could have gotten here and paid much lower rent. He can't work as a writer or he is then labeled a scab and will never be able to write when the strike is settled. This all results in Josh being mopey and whiny, which we who love him, know that he gets this way. Josh is very funny and writes a great blog, but we lose, because when he's like this he's not funny and then he writes blogs pondering his existence and everybody reads them and pukes on the keyboards of their Macs and VAIOs and there is a lot of cleanup involved. Plus I have waited to see him as an extra on "Desperate Housewives" for a month. How many episodes can you have about one Tornado??

Last Reason - Its pretty Unsolvable

The wants of the writers and producers is a very complicated problem. I have a hard time believing that is will get solved quickly. The writers want a cut of internet revenue, but the problem is, nobody can put a number on what that amount is. The argument to just give them a percentage is valid, but we know that the AMPTP didn't get to where they were by giving away percentages of an amount that no one knows how large it is. Quite the paradox. I have a suggestion... President Bush goes before the legislature presenting "The Jack Bauer Bill" It will declare that enough is enough and 24 must be on FOX by no later than February 1st.

So here's the plan. Nick Counter, put out the cigar, shower of the massage oil, tell your driver to bring the Maibock around front and get to the table. Patrick Verrone, take off the PJ's its 1:30 PM, put on some respectable clothing, doesn't have to be a suit, that would be too painful for you. Take of the ball cap, comb your hair, hop on the razor scooter, fold it up and meet Nick at the table. Now both of you, agree to disagree and shake hands. Everyone will forgive you once they find out that the kids in "How I met your mother" wake up and realize they don't have a mom and they are adopted because Ted Moseby is so obviously gay.

The only good thing that has happened for anyone in this strike is that the pasty white pizza eating writers are actually taking in sunlight and getting exercise on the picket lines.

Have a great NYE.

Hedberg -

"My Friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana. I said no, but I want a regular banana later... so yeah."

Welcome to the Blogosphere, bitch!

2007-12-29T10:29:00.000-08:00

Hello.... this is weird for me. I have never been an internet person. I don't "Myspace" or "Facebook" and I also think it's strange that those are usable verbs in the English Language.

I overheard this at the Sterbs not long ago:

Waitress to bartender - "Do you myspace?"

Bartender - "No, but I facebook."

Waitress - "Cool, but I can't believe you don't Myspace."

As this was going on, one of our 60 year old regulars was looking at them like they were both from Melmac and they were about to dig into a nice meal of cats. (sorry for the obscure Alf joke) Although, I followed the conversation it was a bit irregular.

Anyways, back to the point, I am not very internet savvy, but I do dabble in the blogosphere. I have several close friends who write frequent blogs and I really enjoy reading them. (links available) One of my many New Years resolutions is to keep a journal so that I can remember my life in a few years. I have a good short term memory but not a great long term one. I always get frustrated when my friends talk about grade school like they are still being yelled at by the playground lady to "GETUP AGAINST THE WALL!" and I can't remember half of how the stories go, even though I lived them. I figured a journal will fix this, and I figured a blog is a good way to share my journal with my friends and whomever wants to read. As a side note, like my friend JB, I still hang out with a lot of my high school friends so this will be laden with inside jokes.

So, I feel ok, that I almost have my first blog in the books. Since I am new to this world, please give me some tips on how to not suck it up in the future. Thanks for reading and now I feel vulnerable.

-JZ

I will end every blog with a joke from my favorite comedian, Mitch Hedberg, who died recently. Not only to spread the genius, but also to keep his memories alive. So, as promised:

"As a comedian, you have to start strong and end strong. You can't be like pancakes; when you start eating, they are great, but by the end you're fuckin sick of them."