• Danger Mouse – Who doesn’t love an international spy, especially one who happens to be a mouse with an eyepatch? And who could forget the mini-episodes contained within each DM episode featuring Bananaman? Watch the intro
• Scooby Doo’s Laff-A-Lympics – Probably the ultimate collection of Hanna-Barbara characters ever brought together in one place. Three teams compete each episode in a variety of competitions. Technically this first aired in the late 70’s, but you could still watch the reruns in the early 80’s and any kid watching cartoons probably saw this. Watch the intro
• Turbo Teen – A kid who turns into a car and back into human form when touched with hot or cold water. In my mind this was a much bigger show than it was (I even had the lunchbox back in kindergarten!). If you want to talk about a show almost no one remembers… mention Turbo Teen. Watch the intro
• Photon – You don’t get much campier than a teen laser tag idol who gets recruited by space warriors to fight against the bad guys. Wait, this suddenly sounds exactly like the laser tag equivalent of ‘The Last Starfighter’. Live-action, which means all the clips of the space monster fights et al are just as quality as watching a battle in an episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. No, wait, this was worse. Essentially a huge marketing ploy for the Photon home laser tag toys.  Watch the beginning of an episode

Now we’re talking about some obscure 80’s shows.

Being sick always sucks, it’s not like being infirmed is some joyous event in any other season. Maybe it’s not only battling the outside heat but also just the feeling of true lost potential due to the fact that you’re sick when it’s summer. Let’s face it, while there admittedly is a lot you can do outside in the colder months there is much more that you can do when it’s nice out. In the winter, I’d probably be lying on my couch anyway since it’s so darn cold out there; I just wouldn’t be blowing my nose as much or have that tight feeling in my chest or have the raging headache. In the summer… I can’t even begin to list all the things you can do. On the perfect day, it almost seems like the possibilities are endless.

Recently I’ve been caught saying that the phrase “burning the candle at both ends” doesn’t nearly describe my activities as of late. It’s more like I stole the wicks off of a half-dozen menorahs, transplanted them all into the candle, and then lit all of them. I’m sure that now that I’m past the ACT my body is merely telling me that I’ve been pushing it too hard, and I’m not one to disagree. But I wish my body could be a little less obnoxious in its methods for getting the point across – maybe just a few days of “wow I’m tired, I need to go to bed early” would have done just fine.

Tournament this upcoming Sunday, fingers crossed I can kick this thing before then. I seem to already be on the upswing after only 48 hours, which is a good sign I think. Off to get another rare 8+ hours of sleep to continue on my road to recovery.

There are a few things in the writer’s theory that I don’t completely agree with, or some things where I think he took a few too many creative liberties stretching what we know into an “answer” in the theory. But overall? I think there’s some really good stuff in there and if nothing else it makes for a good read. Make sure you also continue beyond the theory and read the Q&A as well as the Rebuttals for further explanations surrounding different points presented in the theory.

Season 4 is making good strides towards giving us some answers… or at least leading us down the path towards answers by finally beginning to address some of the core questions. I will be sad when the show finally comes off the air after Season 6, but at the same time I’ll be happy to have most of the questions behind us and know what the heck was really going on. Next week the show comes back from the writers-strike-induced midseason break, and from there on out it’s new episodes every week until the finale. I’m psyched.

This being their second year putting on the event, it was obvious they had learned some things from last year. Number one, they brought in bottled water which was clutch. Last year they didn’t have anything bottled on hand and most of the people there were complaining about the water in the pitchers “tasting funny” since it was, truly, just tap water from a kitchen in the back of the Elks Lodge where the event was held. They also brought in some beer as well, which was a nice change of pace even though I am a wine fan. One of the distributors had some Dogfish Head on hand, where I got to experience their seasonal Aprihop for the first time. WOW is all I can say; what a great brew. It’s very reminiscent of Magic Hat’s #9, only it seems to hit all the right notes even better than the #9 does it. Another “Apricot Pale Ale”, Aprihop just really surprised me and I will definitely be buying some of this in the near future.

Last year I came away from the event with two wines I simply had to pick up after having them at the tasting: I will also preface most of the rest of this post by saying my wife and I are primarily white wine drinkers, so don’t expect a lot of input on the red wines that were at the tasting. Clean Slate is a gold-medal winning German Riesling which just does everything right, and the Viognier by Pepperwood Grove really helped to turn me on to Viogniers on the whole. Neither are what you would call “expensive” either, by any stretch. The Clean Slate carries a sticker at or around $10-$13 per bottle (if you can find it at your local store – fortunately it’s easy enough for most distributors to just pick up the phone and order it for you), and the Pepperwood Grove is actually a value label produced by Don Sebastiani & Sons that you can pick up for $7-$10 per bottle. And again, the Clean Slate is a top-notch Riesling without any of the sharp or dry aftertastes that many Rieslings-gone-wrong possess, and the Pepperwood Grove stands very tall in my opinion against a lot of $15-$25 bottles.

This year if I had to pick a “top two” again, these would be my picks. The first one to catch my attention was from an organic brewing company named Organic Vintages: the Badger Mountain Riesling (~$11-$13) really was quite good and I want to pick up another bottle soon to see how I like it outside of the “tasting” environment. The second was yet another Riesling called Flying Fish [pdf] (~$12-$15), which was a little too “wet” for my liking on a daily basis but was still very tasty and I think would complement certain foods very well. I was mostly surprised that these two were two of my favorites because while I may be primarily a white wine drinker, Rieslings on the whole tend to be very “stereotypical” and have a harsh, tangy/dry aftertaste that really isn’t all that appealing to me. But these two (as well as the Clean Slate) break that mold so I’m opening up to them a little bit more. Who knows, there could be other wines out there that I haven’t been willing to try simply because they were Rieslings and they could have been extremely enjoyable if I had given them a try.

Another thing that was kind of cool was that the Flying Fish, as well as an Argentinian Malbec called High Note ($10-$14), were both only being first publicly tasted (at least locally) tonight at this event. While the High Note wasn’t my cup of tea, I still had to give it a shot knowing it was brand new on the market.

After making our way around the main area we went upstairs to the VIP room to sample some of what they had up there: a lot of red wine dominated the tables in the VIP area so it was mostly a bust for us, but my coworker (who was also there) found a cognac he fell in love with up there so I suppose the trip to the VIP area was worth something to someone in our group anyway. All in all it was a good time.

Today I spent pretty much the entire afternoon and evening raking around my property, taking care not only of what leaves had been trapped under snow most of the winter but also what had been trapped in with the bushes and plants next to the house and also which had piled up in one particular corner of the fence in my backyard under a large cluster of trees. By the end of all of it I took probably 8 huge loads of sticks down to throw in the pond behind out house and filled 10 (ten!) 30gal/50lb bags with leaves which are now sitting next to the garage waiting to be disposed of. After finally removing all of that from the upper layer of my lawn, I also got to drop a load of Scott’s Turf Builder With Halts Crabgrass Preventer on the front and back yards. Depending on who you listen to, that should possibly be dropped after you’ve moved the lawn at least once: but some sources say that isn’t necessary and since we have a day or two of rain on the horizon today was the perfect opportunity to drop the stuff in the ground.

Last year I kept up with some minor upkeep on the lawn, but this year will mark the first year of truly doing what I can to get my lawn in tip-top shape. Beyond that, the wife and I have begun our talks about which plants will be staying or going and all of the plants in front of the house will be getting an overhaul – on top of redoing the edging and just overall trying to clean up the curb appeal of the home while at the same time trying to settling on something without too much maintenance. Neither of us are really “flower people”, so a few bushes and some mulch and I’ll be more than happy. Plus redoing the “island” that contains a dogwood, a holly bush, as well as a few other scraggly overgrown plants will be a nice upgrade as well.

We also will soon be putting a call in to a tree removal service to get estimates on what it would take to remove some of the birches from our property. The trees are nice to look at, but one cluster of three very mature trees was planted two feet from the front corner of the house and the branches above continue to grow out over the roof: one of the trees in the backyard is leaning back towards the house and in fact was touching the sliding glass door during one of the ice storms when it got weighed down: and another one on the side of the house is leaning out towards my neighbor’s house. That final one especially is NOT something I want to deal with if the tree ever fell and landed on my neighbor’s house or car. We didn’t initially plan to make a tree removal process a “big deal”, but as we walked around the yard looking at things we realized just how bad shape all of the birch stands were in around the property. Like many other things in our home, the former owners of 10 years didn’t seem to have done much around the place (they didn’t really let anything fall into a state of disrepair, but it seems like they also didn’t do much in the way of “home improvement” either) and the landscaping was one of those items where that fact really stands out. On the bright side, we likely wouldn’t have to pay for removal since I have at least two friends with wood stoves who would be more than happy to get some birch wood to dry out and burn next year.

Congratulations my friend, you’ve just succumbed to another episode of DSLS; the symptom of spending such an extraordinary amount of time pressing your elbows into your thighs that you have successfully reduced your circulation to practically nothing. As the blood begins to flow through your legs again, your legs slowly feel numb and as if they are not your own. How do you cope? Do you ride it out, knowing that you will only be able to walk again once enduring the excruciating pain of your nerve receptors coming back online? Do you hit yourself in the thigh, sending shockwaves of feeling rippling down your leg as you force the blood to move swifter through your veins? God only knows that if you stood up right now you would do only one of two things – immediately fall over as you realize that you have no control of your legs, nor can they hold you upright by themselves at this moment in time; or be forced to support yourself on the sink, trying not to put too much weight on either leg and wishing dearly that feeling would just come back so that you could continue your life as normal.

Damn you, Professor Layton. Damn you Advance Wars, Picross, Mario & Luigi, Tetris, Puzzle Quest, damn all of you games past present and future that inflict this wretched condition upon me.

credit to ShortAttentionGamer (RIP) for the image

The next hour was very long. Still not seeing very straight, feeling very pulled back from my surroundings, I was getting a bit nervous about “what if” something had happened to my appendix or something else. After talking with my boss who is also a volunteer EMT, he told me to take off and go see the doctor. Off I went, about an hour and a half after I started not feeling well, and I called my doctor to see what he said. He of course wasn’t in, but the nurse I spoke with said that per the symptoms I was describing that I would probably be sent to the hospital for an exam even if I came to the office and that I would be best to just go straight there.

I opted to head back to the hospital in town, in case I did get admitted I figured it would only be 5 minutes for the wife and baby to come over and see me. And a very long story short, I spent about 4.5 hours in the hospital without ever getting a real diagnosis. I had almost all the symptoms of a burst appendix, at least in the early stages. Fever, feeling of having to go to the bathroom, pain near the belly button which eventually moved lower and down to the right. But even after going through the physical exam and then being subjected to a CT Scan, nothing showed up to indicate anything was wrong. The doctor told me even if it were something like a kidney stone, at least that would have shown up on the results. So I was sent home and told to keep an eye on the pain and to come back if I started feeling worse again.

During my stay in the hospital the fever had started subsiding (I’m not sure if that was a natural occurance, if the Tylenol had a hand in that, or perhaps it was the ice-cold saline they pumped through my veins) but it was still a strange series of events. And today I still have occasional pains in my lower right midsection, but nothing like what I was experiencing yesterday.

Overall I did manage to learn a few things during the adventure though. First, I learned that hospitals are scary places. Not because of how big or how sterile they are, or anything like that. No, they’re scary because you realize that they are just as disorganized as any other place of work and when you’re trusting these people with your health and well-being, it’s just a scary prospect. I learned that they recently changed the Contrast liquid that you need to drink and that it really didn’t taste as bad as the horror stories that I had heard. In truth it tasted a bit like a powdered health drink I had at the gym when I was up at Sugarbush last Fall – only I think the Contrast drink was meant to taste “as good as possible” and that other stuff was meant to taste “good”. I learned that CT Scans make your body feel very strange while they are being run. And I learned to never, ever again let a nurse put the I.V. port into my dominant wrist ever again. The nurse allegedly couldn’t get into the vein on the back of my hand, so instead I got stuck in the wrist. Mind you, this is my right wrist and I am a righty. I drive stick, I use the mouse all day for work, I play racquetball, and I have a disc golf tournament coming up this weekend. And while the pain and/or discomfort has mostly subsided from having it in my wrist, I was not a happy camper being stuck there and having to leave it in for over 4 hours.

Anyway, who knows what was or is wrong with me. But until I’m in more severe pain I guess I just have to grab a straw and suck it up.

With that the show had lost my interest. I went on with life, and time moved on until Season 2 began to approach. My buddy Modeps started ranting about how he couldn’t wait for Lost to come back, and we discussed my brief affair with the show before I had moved on from it. He assured me that the Jurassic Park feeling was put to the side in short order and the show had begun to focus on other things, and suggested that I give it another chance. Being as I was unemployed at the time, I made liberal use of my bandwidth and a lot of “friends” on BitTorrent and grabbed the first full season. I caught myself up to where I had left the show in no time, and found myself going episode to episode in rapid succession, not wanting to take a break for fear of wondering what would happen next.

The breaks were inevitable, but I still made short work of the first season and was right on board for Season 2. Since then I have been a firm devotee of the show, and it is quite honestly the only show on television that I have to watch. (Just ask my wife.) Even when the ride gets bumpy, I’m back week after week for more. And in some ways I kind of laugh at some of the other fans I talk with/work with; “man, I was hoping for answers last night but nothing happened! They just made more questions!” Uhh, duh? That’s the way this show works – or have you guys not been paying attention?

That said, it has gotten under my skin some of the creative liberties that the producers have taken in the show (there is no chance that the Hydra was on a second island – an island that no one seemed to know about even though it should be in plain sight from about 1/3 of the main island’s coast or from up on the mountains), and while it seemed like they were starting to run out of steam a little bit those feelings all went away when the Season 3 finale hit. Wondering what on earth you are watching all episode only to find out “Holy crap, this was a flash FORWARD!” And the flash forwards in the first three episodes of Season 4 have also been a very welcome change of pace. I suppose something like this was bound to happen eventually; there really is only so much back story that you can provide about the different characters on the island. And the subtle comments made in the flash forwards that you know are going to make sense once this whole thing wraps up after all six seasons have run their course? Absolute things of beauty and they just keep you on the hook begging for more.