kapgar

Here we go round, round, round...

2009-07-13T06:53:27-05:00

Balance... coordination... a Jedi needs not such things.

A regular human being, on the other hand...

You pretty much know not to expect much out of the day when, immediately after getting out of bed, you catch yourself from falling flat on your ass not just once, but twice. And I hadn't even taken a step yet.

Imagine my terror at the realization that I had to shave this morning. Yes, I made it through without incident, but don't ask me how. I barely remember doing it.

In instances such as today, shouldn't mulligans be allowed? I know I don't play golf, but I understand the concept of a mulligan and I like it. It's a great idea that needs to be applied to life as a whole. And I'd love to take one today. My schedule of appointments at work is pretty light.

So to whom would I need to appeal to just declare today a bust and claim a mulligan?

And how many mulligans do you get in life? 1? 2? 3? Do we get one on life's "front nine" and another on the "back nine"? Oh how I pray today's would be from the front nine of my life. I'd hate to think I've transitioned to the back nine this early.

You know your blogging is bad when your wife looks at you, as mine did last night, and says, "you haven't even blogged since last Wednesday" and truly seems disappointed by this fact.

Yeah, that's bad.

Easy as 1-2-3...

2009-07-08T11:25:40-05:00

Hey everyone. Hope you're having a very happy 7/8/9 Snippet Wednesday. Don't forget to make it an über-celebration by going hog wild for a whole second at 12:34:56 p.m., too!

Obsessed?
I was driving behind a little PoS car this morning when I noticed an odd license plate. It said "TWI HARD." I wasn't quite sure how to take it until I read the license plate frame that declared "My heart belongs to Edward" and was accompanied with a litany of bumper stickers in the rear window including "I like my men cold, dead and sparkly" and "My other car is a shiny, silver Volvo" (Edward's car), among others. Yeah... obsessed much? I've got one thing to say to that and I'm going to let the Count from Sesame Street do it for me...

Rollin'
Also on the way to work, I was driving up a hill when I saw a can in the road up ahead of me rolling uphill. Yes, uphill. That had to be some strong wind. Not that Illinois is full of mighty hills by any stretch of the imagination. Heck, I live in an area where "mountainous" is used to describe any natural formation that is greater than 100 feet above sea level. Ah, scenic northeastern Illinois!

Redesignland
Did I mention that Tales From Redesignland has returned? Oh happy day!

1901
A couple weeks back, my Pitchfork buddy Eric introduced me to a French alt/electronic band called Phoenix by way of the video for their song "1901." I was hooked. So I purchased the "1901" single... only to receive a copy of it free the next day as part of a Facebook indie rock sampler. Go fig, eh? There's something to be said for patience.

Deck'd
Tweetdeck supports multiple accounts simultaneously now??? Oh, this is dangerous. Seriously dangerous.

Rochambeau
And in pure LeSombre tradition, I will save the final Snippet for myself in anticipation of the day when the apocalypse will be determined by a game of Rock-Scissors-Paper (and I hope the other guy picks "paper").

They got me; public enemy number one...

2009-07-07T19:56:59-05:00

Did you know that there are professionals out there in the world tasked with causing you pain? Seriously. You willingly go in there, contort yourself in all kinds of wild positions while partially disrobed, have someone climb all over you, and then lay there and grunt as they just jack your body in all kinds of directions and do things that your body wouldn't normally do. Oh, and did I mention that the first time you go in there, they take semi-naked pictures of you??

And we pay them to do this to us!

I'm in shock. I really am.

What's worse is that Katie and I have signed up to go along with this.

What's even worse than that is that Katie and I enjoy it and feel great afterward and want even more!

Oh, we're such dirty birdies.

I never thought I would ever go along with such physical abuse. It's unnatural. It's cruel and unusual. And I would think the Geneva Convention has some regulation against it. But alas, they seem to have circumvented the rules and get away with these barbaric practices on a daily basis.

It's inhumane!

Freakin' chiropractors.

(I guess it does soften the blow a bit knowing that the physical therapist there looks like a pre-arrest Yasmine Bleeth)

[NO SPOILERS, I SWEAR] Don't you hate when a movie lets you down? Especially one you were looking forward to seeing? That was the case with me and the newly released Public Enemies. Katie and I saw it with my parents on Sunday and I was thoroughly disappointed.

A disjointed and difficult-to-follow timeline of events, odd camerawork (they used digital cameras when traditional film would have worked out so much better for a period piece such as this), uninspired action sequences, a bad script, and completely unsympathetic and wholly unenjoyable characters on the part of everyone involved... yeah, this movie had it all in spades.

That last part is what I don't get the most about this film. Director Michael Mann is known for making his characters, even the worst of them, somewhat sympathetic. In Collateral, even though we're supposed to like Jamie Foxx's put-upon cab driver, I also really enjoyed Tom Cruise's dark assassin. In Heat (one of the most brilliant cops-n-robbers flicks EVER), I couldn't tell you if I liked Al Pacino's cop or Robert DeNiro's robber more because they were both fantastic and well written and brilliantly performed. That diner confrontation between the two remains one of the greatest pieces of filmed dialogue ever, IMHO.

Then comes Public Enemies with the supposed good guy being BI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale) who is tasked with bringing in public enemy numero uno John Dillinger (Johnny Depp). With a story such as this, it would be easy to show either of them as the good guy or the bad guy based on their actions and intentions. Dillinger is bad because he robs banks and shoots people, but he's got that Robin Hood quality in that he never takes money from the people struggling their way through the Great Depression, just the bank's money. Oh, and he's brutally loyal to the people who remain loyal to him. Purvis is good because he's trying to do the right thing by fighting crime in a lawless era, but he could also be just the opposite because he and his team use all kinds of questionable methods to achieve their end result.

What would make us as viewers waffle in our perception of each character would be their backstory or some key bit of information about their lives that we could take to heart to make them either loved or loathed.

And Mann gave us none of that. Both characters were just plain boring. We got little story on them whatsoever. We were just inserted into the middle of the action as it played out (much was the same, in my opinion, of Mann's Ali; although the fantastic acting by Will Smith saved it somewhat for me). And that made this movie no fun for me at all. I really just wanted it to end.

I would ask for my money back on the ticket, but my dad paid for it. Oh well.

Gave proof through the night...

2009-07-05T12:33:42-05:00

Katie and I hope you all had a great Fourth of July (whether you observe the U.S. Independence Day or not). We had fun with Katie's brother and his girlfriend at the fireworks in St. Charles, IL. We were going to head up to the Wisconsin Dells, but the weather kinda battered down that plan. So we stuck around here and just did our normal thing. And we loved every second of it.

If you weren't able to see any fireworks of your own, here are a couple videos I captured on my Blackberry for you to enjoy. Surprisingly good quality for a phone-based video camera. I was impressed.

Pyrotechnic Uber Fun from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Pyrotechnic Uber Fun, Finale from Kevin Apgar on Vimeo.

Oh say can you see...

2009-07-03T08:56:12-05:00

I'm having a lot of trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that not only is tomorrow the U.S. Independence Day, but that we're already halfway through 2009. Just another half to go before we're making contact with the alien races according to bad Roy Scheider sci-fi films.

But the problem is that since the Fourth of July falls on a Saturday, a lot of employers are not sure just how to deal with giving days off to employees. I am off work today, the day before the holiday, since I'm an 8-5, Monday thru Friday office rat. Katie, who for now only works Monday thru Friday, but for an employer who is open seven days a week, won't see a day off. Her day off would be tomorrow, but since she doesn't work Saturdays, she gets nada. That sucks. So I'm here at home typing to all of you while she toils away at work.

What to do... what to do...

Wake-up? Check.

Check e-mail? Check.

Catch up on Google Reader? Three-quarters of a check.

Shower? (sniff) Nowhere near a check. Yet. I promise I'll get to work on this one, not just for your sake but my own as well.

I think I might also check out my neighbor's garage sale that started up this morning. I saw him out placing signs last night and, as much as I used to love garage saling (can that actually be a verb?) with my mom as a kid, I haven't been to one in years. And I'm told, with the economy in the shithole state it's in, garage sales are totally en vogue. Maybe I should join the hipness and go a salin'.

Do you all garage sale at all? Any cool finds? My curiosity is piqued.

But first, I will shower, and I will download my free Star Spangled Banner from Amazon's MP3 store. Yep, you read right. In honor of the holiday, the Amazon MP3 store is giving away one free copy of any version of "The Star Spangled Banner" that they have in stock. Just click on the link above and follow the instructions. There are a ton to choose from. Once I hit number 400 in my browsing, I gave up looking. I had no idea that song had been recorded so many times.

And, shockingly, as much as I thought I'd go for, say, Jimi Hendrix's classic rendition or one from KISS's Alive performances (Ace was on fi-yah playing that one), I instead nabbed one by Branford Marsalis and Bruce Hornsby that was recorded for Ken Burns' Baseball documentary series. This recording really takes me back to my documentary filmmaking days (well, not that I made one on my own, but I was part of a team that made one in grad school). Not to say I'm a huge Ken Burns fan, but the use of music in Baseball was so fantastic and so memorable that it's pretty akin to how Quentin Tarantino chooses music in his movies. Anytime you hear the song afterward, all you can think of is the scene from the movie where it was featured. Just try to tell me you can listen to "Stuck in the Middle with You" by Stealers Wheel and resist the urge to lean over and nibble on your neighbor's ear.

Yeah, okay, anyway. So head over there and nab your favorite version now. Offer ends July 6.

Nuh uh. No way. Not a chance in Heaven or Hell.

Well, maybe I would. But I would have to do some severe steeling up of my gut first. Holy Christ a mighty! Welcome to the new Sky Deck on the outside of Chicago's Sears Tower (fuck Willis Group Holdings).

Stupid SkyDeckChicago Flickr group didn't enable the Flickr photo sharing option, so I did it myself! But I still followed all their linkback rules. So ha!

Update: I did find some cool swag at the garage sale! Checky check!