Monday, January 31, 2011

At Least There's No Assembly Required

Today I ordered a pair of running shoes from Amazon. I got a confirmation email from them that included information such as my total, estimated arrival date, and the shipping address. Also, under shipping details, it said:

Order will arrive in 1 shipment

Blast. I was really hoping to get the left shoe on Thursday and the right one in mid-March.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Charlie St. Nah-No-Thanks

Yesterday I went downstairs to check the mail. Waiting for us in our mailbox was a new Netflix arrival. While still standing there, I opened it up to see what had arrived (most movies on my queue were added so long ago, I've forgotten what's on there and what's next, so each movie is a little surprise).

I opened the sleeve and out came Charlie St. Cloud starring Zac Efron. Without giving it a second thought, I returned the movie to the envelope, sealed it, and dropped it in the outgoing mail slot.

Crisis averted.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Savoring Our Faith

Tonight Sarah and I watched "Savoring Our Faith," a cooking show on the Catholic channel. It's a cooking show hosted by a Filipino Catholic priest.



I...honestly don't know what else to say.

Friday, January 28, 2011

A Series of Open Letters to The Yellow Pages

 



Dear Yellow Pages,


The party is over. Admit it. No one wants you anymore. You're free and people still opt out. Don't be that guy who refuses to admit everyone else has moved on to the cooler party down the street. It's starting to get sad. Believe me.


Sincerely,


Tom from MySpace


***


Dear Yellow Pages,


And we thought we had a majorly overblown sense of importance.


Sincerely,


The Cast of Jersey Shore


***


Dear Yellow Pages,


You're surrounded by injuns. This can't end well.


Sincerely,


Gen. Custer


***


Dear Yellow Pages,


Sorry.


Sincerely,


Google


***


Dear Yellow Pages,


Stop it. You're killing us.


Seriously.


Sincerely,


The Trees

Monday, January 10, 2011

Pictures of People Watchin' Movies

A couple of weeks ago, Sarah and I had some visitors from Indiana. Every Christmas Sarah's sister Stacy and her family (her husband Nathan and their three kids Dylan, Kayla, and Aubry) come out to Pennsylvania from the Hoosier state to spend some time with us. And by "spend time with us" I mean lounge around the house all day with us and play games.

This year was special because my brother Ray and his family (his wife, Piper, and their daughter Valencia) came out as well. We played a lot of games and then played some more and had a blast.

One of the highlights of our time together, though, was filming the final chapter in our goofy little homemade video series about a warped super hero, Terocus. We filmed the first episode back in 1992 with an oversized camcorder (you know, the kind where the video tape was an actual video tape) when we were a lot younger. I'm 40 now and my brother isn't too far behind and I'm proud to say we haven't matured a bit.

We filmed for a few hours over two days and I spent the following week after everyone had gone back home editing away. Sure, it's silly and inane and to be honest, probably only funny to those of us who were there, but I enjoyed putting all the pieces together.

I finished the final edit a few days ago and uploaded it to YouTube, only to have it rejected because of copyright violations which basically translates to: we used music by the Red Hot Chili Peppers over the end credits and didn't get permission from the president of BMG Music. I'm still not sure how some people get away with uploading entire videos and songs and we got screened for using a 40-second clip, but oh well. More than likely I'll just swap out the music at the end and re-post it soon.

But in the meantime, we wanted Sarah's family to see it. We sent them the file and then held a Skype session so Sarah and I could watch them watch it. It wasn't the most ideal of circumstances but at the same time it was really cool to be able to share the moment with them. I took some photos of our Skype session and it was a true technological Kodak moment.

So yea, I'll have the video up soon. In the meantime, swing by Terocus's fan page and enjoy the photos of our big premiere.

Hammer time.





Sexy Forever

It's true. Because we all know "sexy" means "84% synthetic products wrapped in stretched skin grafted from your butt."

Saturday, January 08, 2011

"Eclipse" Eclipse Cross-Promotion

This has got to be the worst most-obvious cross-promotion ever. I've never not enjoyed my gum so much in my life.

Friday, January 07, 2011

Sorry, PT Cruiser-Owners

As if we needed more proof that people who drive PT Cruisers are douches...

Thursday, January 06, 2011

"Killer" Game

This photo was taken in the middle of a game of Killer Bunnies with Sarah. I don't know what's scarier: the fact that I can actually understand what this jumbled mess means, or the fact that this jumbled mess is only being played by two people.

Either way...good times.

[caption id="attachment_2481" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="A game of Killer Bunnies, complete with nine expansion packs."][/caption]

A "Precious" Moment

Sarah and I ordered a pizza this weekend and I went downstairs to the lobby of our place to wait for the Dominos guy to arrive. I was sitting on the bench in the little vestibule where you swipe your passkey to gain entrance to the building when a car pulled up. I got excited, as pizza still makes me happy.

It wasn't the pizza guy, though. It was a woman getting dropped off. She was a large, heavyset black woman who looked like she could be Precious' older, more-miserable sister. I said hello and she grunted in response.

I hoped she wouldn't ask me to let her in the building. That's always such an awkward situation: Someone you don't know asks you to let them in the building. I don't want to be a jerk and say no but at the same time, that's also sort of the idea behind having a locked door.

Then she said something to me I couldn't understand. Not that I couldn't fathom why she would say such a thing to me, but I literally couldn't understand the words she was saying. It was like her cheeks had gotten so fat she had given up trying to enunciate words and just blew air out of her mouth and sort of moved her lips to not-really form the words.

"Pardon?" I said.

"C'n I sit next toyoo?"

"Sure," I said, scooting over as I wondered how much weight the little bench could hold. She plopped down and I felt the wooden slats of the seat nearly give. I smiled and played with my phone.

"D'you live here?" she asked me.

"Yep. I like it, it's nice and quiet," I answered. She said nothing. She just kind of sat and stared at the wall across from us. Was she going to go in? Why hadn't she buzzed anyone on the intercom to let her in? Was she going to wait until I got up and went in and try to sneak in while the door is open? Or, even worse, was she going to take my pizza from me?

I decided to try to break the silence. "Do you live here?"

"Huh?"

"Do you live here? Visiting friends or family?"

"No, I don't live here."

And then she pulled a bag of McDonald's out of thin air and begin to eat. She was a mouth breather, and the more she ate, the heavier her breathing got, until soon the lobby was filled with the sounds of her breathing mixed with the sounds of her eating. And she was not a quiet eater. It sounded like a plastic bag filled with Jell-O was being torn apart by a rabid raccoon.


Almost as quickly as it had started, the feeding frenzy was over and she stood up with a simple, "OK." Then she pulled a passkey out of a pocket, swiped it across the sensor, and walked into the building.

What just happened? Who was this lady? If she didn't live here, why did she have a key? And if she had a key, why did she eat her food in the lobby in the middle of winter? Was she not allowed to eat McDonalds? Were there people upstairs she didn't want to share her McDonalds with?

What did I just witness?

Saturday, January 01, 2011

2010: How My Blog Did

So, what brought you to The Blog of Ed in 2010? What brought other people? How many of you were there? And do I owe the Landis' a royalty check? The fine folks at WordPress - and by "folks" I mean "automated computer people" - sent me this detailed look at The Blog of Ed and I thought it was pretty interesting. Maybe you will, too.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers


Featured image

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 45,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 5 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 192 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 799 posts. There were 151 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 61mb. That's about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was May 28th with 1,238 views. The most popular post that day was Cynthia Nixon's "Gay" Marriage.

Where did they come from?


The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, mahalo.com, en.wordpress.com, djlandis.blogspot.com, and blogger.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for patrick dempsey, cynthia nixon, cornflakes, corn flakes, and bob saget.

Attractions in 2010


These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1

Cynthia Nixon's "Gay" Marriage May 2009
8 comments
2

Of Pizza, Milton, and Patrick Dempsey September 2008
1 comment
3

Of Corn Flakes and Stupid People March 2008
10 comments
4

The Top 10 Animated Films Ever Made July 2008
11 comments
5

Who Asked for More Saget? April 2009
2 comments

Looking back at this info makes me a little sad... mostly sad about the fact that people are apparently still actively searching online for Bob Saget information. Come on, people, if we keep encouraging him, he's not going to go away!