Video of the Week

Above is Andy McKee, phenomenal guitar player from, Topeka, KS  If you like to hear some good acoustic guitar have a listen.  This one, "Art of Motion" is my personal favorite with "Drifting" a close close second.  You can find others on his record company's YouTube channel, just search Andy McKee.  It's pretty amazing how he appears to turn the guitar in to bad and almost makes it "sing."  Enjoy.

Cold Weather

I'm done with it.  Last Saturday blue sky sunny and 60+, this Saturday cloudy 40s and a chance of snow...  I'm so ready for winter to be over.  Chicago in the summer is great but this back and forth is for the birds.

I just hope weather warms up for the run next week because running in the cold is no fun for anyone.

And PS just noticed the wind picked up.

Currently Listening to:

Three Days Grace

Battlestar Galactica

There are some shows out there that one hears about and they are dismissed without much thought, particularly when those shows are on a channel like SciFi.  Because, lets face it when someone says the SciFi channel you like I probably would have dismissed it as well.  Then I watched a few (by a few I mean season 1) and I'll have to say it was nothing like what I expected.  I expected aliens, lasers, and vintage SciFi channel terrible acting.  Much to my surprise, the plot was very intriguing and the acting was pretty good as well.  I found myself enjoying the show immensely.  I fully intend on joining NetFlix to finish the series (there are 4 seasons total).  One of the best and most refreshing things about this show was that the creator had a definitive end.  None of this dragging things out introducing new characters and outlandish plot lines just for the sake of extending the series.  The plan was for four seasons and that's what was provided.  It's off air now, but if you are a fan of Star Wars, the Matrix, etc I'd highly recommend this series.  It's kind of a throwback style show that is very very entertaining.

For those who check this out and like it rumor is that the creators are going to release a new series that is a prequel to Battlestar called Caprica.

Monsters vs Aliens

Okay... I'm 27 years old. But I absolutely can not wait to see Monsters vs Aliens. I mean in what is sure to go down as the greatest summer of movies ever for movies as far as I am concerned (Wolverine, Harry Potter, GI Joe, Transformers 2, Terminator 4, Star Trek, and I'm sure I'm missing one or two) I am really looking forward to this cartoon. I was lukewarm about it as first and just said ehh another cartoon comedy. HOWEVER. I saw the "making of" special on HBO while on the road this week in Visalia, CA and the cast of this movie will be absolutely hilarious. Add to that the fact that it is being presented in 3D and I'm sure this will be awesome. 

Let's start with the Monsters:

Reese Witherspoon

Seth Rogan

Hugh Laurie

Will Arnett

The Alien

Rainn Wilson

The Humans

Stephen Colbert

Paul Rudd

and last but not least...

Kiefer "I SHOUT ALL THE TIME" Sutherland

Video of the Week

Family Guy is one of my favorite shows, as you may have noticed by Stewie looking over the blog here.  The above video clip is the perfect illustration of why I like it so much.  The total and utter randomness of the cut scenes, and... well lets face it the entire show is random and Seth MacFarlane is a genius.

One of the Least Productive Days of the Year

Ladies and gents welcome to one of my favorite days of the year and the beginning of two of the least productive days on the the office calendar.  That's right day 1 and day 2 of the NCAA basketball tournament. Games begin now 11:20 AM and run ALL day.  With the glorious Internet facilitating work procrastination by offering 100% free streaming video of all games.  I'm currently working and watching Butler/LSU (LSU jumping out 9-0 early), I love the Internet.

This day added to the fact that I just returned from a two week vacation spells certain disaster.

Man I wish football would go to a tournament...

Heading Home

Bittersweet to say we are heading home in about 10 min. (Wed. 18th, 2009, 11:30). Getting ready for time travel. We depart Sydney Australia at 2:15 PM on Wednesday and land in LA at around 11:00 AMish on Wednesday. Overall it was a pretty good vacay saw lots of sights and did lots of cool things. I'll have some pictures uploaded soon so you can see a little bit of what we saw.

Currently Listening too:

Disturbed: Back to it, if you haven't checked this album out, it is amazing. Track titled Inside the Fire has a very interesting/sad story behind it. Listen closely to the lyrics and I'll tell you the story later. Off to the airport!

Great Barrier Reef

Just got back from Cairnes, Australia where we were SCUBA diving along the Great Barrier Reef for the past 3 days. Initially it was only going to be 2 days of diving and one night on the boat, but at the last minute we ended up booking another night and getting in 12 dives over the course of 3 days and spending 2 nights on a boat at sea. It was great, saw sharks, rays, turtles and even an octopus. The whole experience was very surreal, I spent over 6 hours under the water, which is just not natural. Every dive offered new colors, new fish and a new experience. It was very voyeuristic because we just swam along and "intruded" on these fish observing them and it was almost like the were wondering what the heck we were doing there, like they knew we didn't belong. There's really too much to tell about this part of the trip, at least by typing. But below are a few highlights:

• No sea sickness!!!
• White Tipped Reef Sharks!! Really wanted to see a shark or two and got my wish, the last dive I ended up about 2-3 meters from one, very cool
• NEMO!
• Night dives were pretty freaky. Total darkness plays havoc on your senses but the ocean life is awesome when the lights go out. Some fish are smart and follow divers around and use the diver's flashlights (torches) to hunt. Literally, you spot light a smaller fish and these huge fish will bolt past you and eat the little fish. As the divemaster so eloquently put it "spotlight a little fish and death will occur this night."
• Octopus sighting in the day, very rare, apparently these guys are night movers but we were lucky enough to catch one during the day.
• Felt drunk for 2 days after getting off the boat. Turns out 3 days at sea messes up your equilibrium pretty bad, I felt like I was swaying back and forth for quite sometime.

I'll probably have a few picture posts or links when we get back, we got some really good pictures from the boat. Fingers crossed that the underwater camera picks turn out!

SCUBA and Wine

Had my first true SCUBA experience the other day. Very very surreal. I mean staying 30 feet under water for an hour swimming with fish is pretty wild when you think about. It was very cool, words can't really describe it and the funny thing is that the best is yet to come when we head North to the reefs tomorrow (Tuesday). It should be a real treat.

Also took a wine tour the other day, bought 4 bottles, but if it weren't for darned import limits I'd have bought a few cases. Australia, particularly the Hunter Valley region is known for its Shiraz grapes and the wines we sampled did NOT disappoint. I even found a few whites that I particularly enjoyed. Bad news is that 3 of the wines we purchased they recommended cellaring for another 3 - 5 years to get the truly "big" taste out of them. Patience will be tough but I think we're going to try to hold out.

Another funny thing, they eat kangaroo. I assumed it was rare and protected, but apparently not, it's sold right there in the grocery next to the minced (ground) turkey and beef. It looks a lot like buffalo in it's make up and low low low fat content so I'm guessing it tastes similar.

I'm going to have some pictures but can't really post them from here since our computer isn't here but will get some up from our travels when I get back.

We saw Watchmen the other night, and I don't have time to give it its proper writeup now (but I will later), but in two words: amazingly unique.

Running update: Ran 6.5 miles today. Sydney coastal region is NOT flat, it was pretty intense!

Greetings from the Future

After 17.5 Hours covering 10,000+ miles I made it to Australia! Haven't done much exploring yet but I did swim in the ocean for about 2 hours, it was awesome, save for the fact that I won't be able to put salt on anything for the rest of the year due to all the salt water I swallowed.

The plane ride, surprisingly, was not as bad as I thought it was going to be, overall it all went pretty smooth only one hiccup involving an incident with beef jerky, more on that later. The last 3 hours were probably the worst, but other than that it was just a lot of sleep, some movie watching, and more sleep. The sleep made the time transition very easy, so it was pretty seamless, even though I'm a day ahead, so if you think about it, I am writing to you from the future. Which I find pretty darn cool, because I am nerd like that, (for your reference I am writing this Thursday, March 5, 2009, 4:41 PM). Now about beef jerky, turns out you can't bring beef jerky into the country... So at customs this morning I watched them chuck $10 worth of delicious turkey jerky into the trash. It was sad.

One interesting thing was the hamburger I had for lunch here in Sydney. Now you might say, Ben how can a hamburger be that different? Well I will tell you, It had beets on it. That's right beets. Now being an outsider I gave it a whirl ordering the burger as is (except for tomatoes, sorry they are gross in all countries IMO). Surprisingly the beets gave it a little sweetness that when mixed with the BBQ was pretty tasty. Am I going to put beets on my burgers when I get back... absolutely not, but I am glad I gambled and tried this local twist.

Video of the Week

This is an old video I dug out of my YouTube favorites, but it is such a good one that I figured I'd bring it back out.  In the era of steroids, arrests, contract hold outs, and general athletic "preschoolish" behavior, it is refreshing to know that there are stories out there like this.  Even though it was several years ago, I still think about it often as a bright spot in athletics.