Ya see what I am doing there?

In honor of all of the new wonderful comments I am receiving from you, my loyal readers, I give you Monty Python's Spam Sketch.

Customer:
Morning,

Waitress:
Morning.

Customer:
What have you got?

Waitress:
Well, there's egg and bacon,
egg sausage and bacon
Egg and spam
Egg, bacon and spam
Egg, bacon, sausage and spam
Spam, bacon, sausage and spam
Spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam
Spam, sausage, spam, spam, spam, bacon, spam tomato and spam
Spam, spam, spam, egg and spam
Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam.

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely Spam! Lovely Spam!)

Or Lobster Thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce
served in a provencale manner with shallots and aubergines
garnished with truffle pate, brandy and a fried egg on top and spam.

Wife:
Have you got anything without spam?

Waitress:
Well, the spam, eggs, sausage and spam
That's not got much spam in it

Wife:
I don't want any spam!

Customer:
Why can't she have eggs, bacon, spam and sausage?

Wife:
That's got spam in it!

Customer:
Hasn't got much spam in it as spam, eggs, sausage and spam has it?

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam!...)

Wife:
Could you do me eggs, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam, then?

Waitress:
Iiiiiiiiiiiich!!

Wife:
What do you mean 'Iiiiiiiiiich'? I don't like spam!

(Choir: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!)

Waitress (to choir):
Shut up!

(Choir: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!)

Waitress:
Shut Up! Bloody Vikings!
You can't have egg, bacon, spam and sausage without the spam.

Wife:
I don't like spam!

Customer:
Shush dear, don't have a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it,
I'm having spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans,
spam, spam, spam, and spam!

(Choir: Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!)

Waitress:
Shut Up!! Baked beans are off.

Customer:
Well, could I have her spam instead of the baked beans then?

Waitress:
You mean spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam, spam,
spam and spam?

Choir (intervening):
Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam!
Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam.
Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!
Spam spam spam spam!

I can't wait to see what they inspire me to write about next.  And if you are a real person reading my blog, leave a comment about the best spam you have received, or just say hi. I'd love to hear from you.

Disney buys LucasFilm: My Initial Opinion

Everyone has been asking my opinion on Disney buying LucasFilm and making more Star Wars movies. (At least 2 people. I know. Crazy.)  I realize I have been opinionated about this in the past, but now I am hesitant to say much.

Disney can restore Star Wars to the beloved series that it is if:

1. Cut CGI by 90%. Make sets. Use Models. Use actors. Even use puppets. The magical quality of the original movies was that everything looked real because it was. 
2. Make the Thrawn Trilogy into the next movies (please lock the ideas George has been retooling for years in a box and place it under the next theme park). 
3. Stop making toy designs first. Make a quality movie and the toys will sell themselves for years. Otherwise you have to keep making new content just to sell a toy that will only sell for a few months.

This could be the best thing ever for Star Wars or the  final nail in the coffin. Either way I will be happy. I will get quality content or I will be able to finally forget the entire series.

Chocolate

Back in July Kira and I participated in a Chocolate Walking Tour of San Francisco. I have always thought of San Francisco as a Seafood Town and had considered places like Hershey, PA to be Chocolate Towns. I didn't have any idea of what we were going to see or do, but thought that a walk around San Francisco would be fun and if they happened to have chocolate then it would be a lot of fun.  It was a whirlwind of chocolate history (and tastings) from around the world. San Francisco seems to have every kind of chocolate imaginable within a few short blocks.

The first stop on the tour was a place called Scharffen Berger. They gave us a quick education about their company and products and then out came the tasting samples. Wow. I wasn't tasting chocolate. There were berries and flowers and other unrecognizable tastes happening. I was amazed. I was hooked. Over the next few hours I experienced more of the same. My life was changed in a very good way.

Fast forward several months to today. I have tried chocolate from all over the world now. (Thank you to Fog City News and their wonderful selection of bars.) Some have been great. Some only enjoyable. Recently I came across a new bar from the company that started me on this adventure. A limited edition bar called Markham Valley. This chocolate made from beans grown in Papua New Guinea is excellent. A great chocolate flavor with wonderfully subtle fruit flavors that just make it probably the best chocolate I have ever had. Seek this one out while they still have some.

It's April

When did April get here? Wow. Well I have finally decided to fix the URL for my blog so you are now looking at the New and Improved Bizarre Ramblings of a Fool blog. It surprisingly looks exactly like the old blog and it probably will continue to look like that.

I do hope to have some new posts soon as I will soon be flying to the East Coast to take in the sights and sounds of New York City and Washington DC.

Desert Bus for Hope 4

How far will a people go to raise money for sick kids? If those people are the world renowned LoadingReadyRun comedy troupe, that distance is from Las Vegas to Tucson and back until people stop paying them.

Please stop by their website http://desertbus.org and make a donation to a good cause.

GAMING FOR THE GREATER GOOD

Desert Bus 4 Drives Forward to raise money for BC Children’s Hospitals

Victoria, BC, Canada – November 15, 2010

On November 19th, the fourth annual Desert Bus for Hope charity video game marathon will roll out – bigger and better than ever before. Last year’s marathon collected more than $140,000 over six days, and all proceeds were donated to Child’s Play, a charity that donates over a million dollars to Children’s Hospitals worldwide every year, including Vancouver Children’s Hospital and Victoria General Hospital’s Pediatrics Ward.

Desert Bus for Hope is a video-gaming marathon broadcast live on the internet by LoadingReadyRun, a sketch comedy group from Victoria, BC. In the Sega CD game “Desert Bus”, the player controls a virtual bus that drives an eight-hour-long strip of highway between Tucson, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, on an endless loop. The game is a “verisimulator”—a tongue-in-cheek parody of other simulation games—which attempts to approximate the real-life situation of driving a coach bus as closely as possible, including the associated tedium. The player is required only to ensure that the bus stays on the road: if they crash, they are towed back to the start and have to try again. Originally part of “Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors”, Desert Bus is considered by many to be the most boring video game ever created.

Viewers are asked to donate money via the desertbus.org website, and as the dollar total rises, so does the length of time the team must continue driving the bus. According to Paul Saunders, one of the founding members of LoadingReadyRun, “The mixture of generosity and spite is a really powerful thing.” Viewers are encouraged to participate by e-mail or by live internet chat, where they can ask questions of the crew, make requests, bid on donated prizes and become an active participant. To view the telethon, donate money, or find more information, please visit www.desertbus.org.

LoadingReadyRun is an online sketch-comedy group based out of Victoria, BC. They produce a new short film every week, which can be viewed on their website, www.loadingreadyrun.com.

For more information or for interviews, please contact:

Kathleen De Vere, Event Coordinator
Desert Bus for Hope
250.589.8208
Kathleen@loadingreadyrun.com | media@desertbus.org ###

Fantasy Football Week 10

Its been a while since I posted my first blog about Fantasy Football. In the first 10 weeks of the season I seem to have figured out something. I am 9-1 so far. Its been interesting and I have definitely watched more football this year than I have since I worked at Radio Shack and had the games on every weekend.

I highly recommend getting into some kind of Fantasy Football League with friends. Even if you don't have a lot of knowledge of football its a great way to learn more.

Fantasy Football

Some of my friends over at the Audiobuzzed Podcast have had a Fantasy Football League for a couple years and this year I have joined them. While I may have participated in a few football pools in the past (to amazing failure) I have never participated in a Fantasy Football League before. I have never been someone that pays much attention to statistics in football. Every time I would try to use the numbers to predict the winner of a game it never worked out. I did far better either picking alphabetically or based on the match-up of the mascots.

I'm actually excited about football season this year now. When I was a kid I loved to watch the 49er's play every week. It was the height of the Joe Montana years and the start of the Steve Young years. How could you not love to watch the amazing action? But then with coaches retiring, quitting, or getting fired every few years and the whole question of ownership of the team happening, the team went in to a deep downward spiral. They soon could not win. Random street gangs would tease the players and play keep away with the team ball. Sad times had fallen on San Francisco and I just lost interest. I'd still watch a game every now and again. When I got an HDTV I watched a lot more football because it was so cool to be able to see blades of grass on the field.

I'm excited to see how this season goes now. Since I have players from so many teams I think I will be watching a lot of football just to see how they do. Do I need to bench a player? Do I have any players on my team that I think might be terrorist sleeper agents? When exactly do dragons, orcs, gnomes, and elves come into this? So far its a lot more Football than Fantasy.

Well if you have any tips for what I should watch out for, let me know. I need to go read these scouting reports on my players. Wow, this guy pays way too much for his cell phone, but his girlfriend is cute. I wonder what the wife thinks about her.

{Originally posted to bizarreramblings.wordpress.com on September 7, 2010}