NCAA and other Tidbits

I've had a pretty busy couple of weeks, so I'm going to resort to the cop-out "bullet point" method of blog posting to get people up to speed on the world of Marc.The coolest thing I've done in the last few weeks would have to be going to watch the Boilermakers play in the NCAA tournament. I will state for the record that while basketball is clearly inferior to football, I do enjoy watching college hoops much, much more than the NBA. I follow Purdue basketball more in passing, so I knew they were in the tournament. But it wasn't until Tuesday afternoon that I discovered that Purdue, being a school in Indiana, was in the "Western" division, which was being played in Washington D.C. on Thursday afternoon. I figured that this was too good to miss, so I cut out of work early to go to the game. We got the cheapest (worst) tickets we could find (notice that in the picture we're in the second to last row of the Verizon center- to see our view click here) for about $50, and since they're sold in two-game packs we got to watch Xavier beat Georgia before watching Purdue humiliate Baylor. I would've liked to see the second round game as well, but this time Purdue-Xavier was bundled with Duke-West Virginia, so the cheapest tickets were like $250 each- and I didn't want to pay that much to watch us lose in person when I could just watch it on TV. Now, the place was crawling with scalpers before each game, but we aren't too familiar with the local ticket resale laws and I really didn't want to end up in the slammer. Other notes from the game:

I (of course) like to judge a school by their band. Purdue was fine as always, but the song selection could've been better. Baylor, on the other hand, weren't the best musicians but played a really fun set, including "The Time Warp" from Rocky Horror. I was entertained.

Ramya likes to watch the cheerleaders, and she pointed out that the Georgia cheerleaders were slutty. I though it was funny she mentioned that, because back in college when we met Georgia in the Outback Bowl I was dating a girl on the Purdue dance team, and she said the same thing. She added that it's a common trick to act slutty to cover up poor dancing. See? Learn something new every day. Ramya also wondered if the two Purdue cheerleaders from the Motor City Bowl ever got together.

Finally, after the game we stopped in to the National Portrait Gallery which, in addition to being across the street from the arena, happens to be one of locations Ramya and I hit on our first date. Anyway, the main reason we went in was to see whether or not Stephen Colbert's portrait really was hanging outside of the third floor bathrooms. Turns out yes! And for what it's worth, the presidential portraits exhibit was pretty fun. As was "RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture." Yes, RECOGNIZE is in all caps.

In other news, Ramya and I are pretty hooked on the Guitar Hero. The most recent development is that they finally started selling the Wii guitar separately so that you can buy it without buying a redundant copy of the game. We saw it in Best Buy, and I did the standard "Let's think about it for a little while and if we still want it later we'll come back" (which is what I do for a lot of my purchases), but Ramya was not having it. So now that we each have our own guitars, what's the next step? Personalization, of course!Now, some may think that giving your plastic video game controller a custom paint job is a little too much. To those people I would say "You are clearly just jealous of our awesomeness." I mean, look at these bad boys! Ramya went with a very appropriate pink guitar with a red lightning bolt, while I tried to recreate the Purdue football helmet. I was going to try to put the "P" logo on as well, but when I beheld the simple elegance of the stripe (and the way it incorporates the Wiimote) I decided to leave well enough alone. I'll also mention that for the above picture we did not intentionally dress to match our guitars, which shows how appropriate they really are. If you want some in-process pictures, check the Facebook gallery here.

I've been doing a lot of driving as of late, and I've been making use of a couple of CDs that I finally got to [cough] borrow from Carly: Evita (Madonna/Antonio Banderas version) and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Chicago/Donny Osmond version). I already had the Broadway Joseph, but I just plain like the Chicago arraignments better. In any case, I had forgotten how much I love musicals- I like the way the whole thing tells a story, and there are several reoccurring themes throughout the songs. I told Ramya that I was on a big Andrew Lloyd Weber kick, and she said "Oh good. That's not gay at all."

I just got back from Chicago this afternoon, and I'll tell you what sucks: Advantage Rent a Car. I've never had Advantage before, so I did my homework ahead of time. All the rental cars at O'Hare are off-airport, so I went to the website to make sure I would know how to get to the hotel from their branch (even though the website specifically says the have an "in-terminal location," which they don't). When I retrieved my luggage, I went out to the curb where all the rental car shuttles pick up. After waiting for several minutes without seeing an advantage shuttle, I asked a, I don't know, traffic director guy if this was where the Advantage shuttle picked up. He answered no, I needed to go way the hell over to where the hotel shuttles pick up and get on the "Fast Track" parking shuttle. I did so, and got on the Fast Track bus after confirming that this was how to get to Advantage Car Rental. Turns out "Fast Track" is a third party airport parking place, and Advantage has a rental counter in their dumpy ghetto location. Here's the thing: How in God's name was I supposed to know to do that? Every other car rental place has their own shuttle. But to get to Advantage, you have to take the Fast Track Parking shuttle, which has no Advantage markings on it whatsoever. And does the Fast Track Parking shuttle pick you up at the parking shuttle stop? No- you can board it at the hotel shuttle stop. I'm just really surprised that no one's complained about this yet. I would've said something to the lady at the counter, but she was having a pretty hard time all around. Including, but not limited to, typing in my address. I told her my street name, and she didn't understand. I tried again, no dice. She said "how's that spelled?" I said, like always, "Silver, like the metal." She said "Oh, silver, like the metal... How's that spelled?"

For my final travel note, there were about 7 Navy people attending this meeting, of whom I was the only one who had ever been there before. They asked me what was a good place to stay, and I told them I like to stay at the Residence Inn (I love that dang Residence Inn). Of course when I get there it's totally under construction. So, go me being the experienced guy- send everyone to a torn-up hotel.

Okay, that's it for now. Have great weekend!

O'Really?

While driving home tonight I saw that one of the many, many homes for sale in my neighborhood is now looking for renters. The weird thing is that there's a big old sign out front that says "For Rent By Owner." Now, I'm familiar with "For Sale By Owner," the alternative being that a realtor is selling it. But who would be renting out a property besides the owner? Maybe that's a normal term. Anyway, it reminded me of this real estate flyer we picked up while waiting a ridiculously long time to be seated at The Captain's Table*:You may notice a certain theme to these house descriptions (you can click the picture to see it bigger). The puzzling thing is why they went with an over the top Irish theme on this particular flyer- because it was only a month until St. Patrick's Day? Because it's O'Brien Realty? Whatever their motivation, the titles run the gamut of effectiveness while beating the reader over the head with their Irish-ness.

For instance, "Great Place for a St. Patty's Party," "Save Lots o' Green Here!!" and "Lucky Townhouse Under 250K!!!" are very lame, yet still kind of give useful information about the place. The townhouse one even ups the ante with not one, not two, but three exclamation points. Be sure to read it three times as loud as the Patty's party one in your inner monologue.

I'll call the next grouping "Vague Irish-themed compliments." It includes "This House Sham-Rocks!!" and "Pot o' Gold at the End of Rainbow!" The latter gets bonus points for bailing on the "let's substitute -o'- for -of-" theme by the second half of the sentence.

Alas, Ms. Kleponis saved the best for last with the grammatically flawed "Leprechauns Hide-out!" The omission of the possessive apostrophe makes it read like a sentence about the actions of leprechauns rather than an incredibly lame house description. Plus, what was the thought there? Is someone going to peruse the real estate ads and think "Well, this house isn't really what I wanted- but it does say that a Leprechaun would hide here, so I'm in?" I guess I'm just not made for advertising or real estate.

* My favorite local seafood place. Although, it sort of lost it's "Hole in the wall" status when they stopped using plastic patio furniture throughout the restaurant and actually got wooden tables and chairs. Incidentally, after we ate they asked for an e-mail address to sign us up for for the e-mail loyalty club- I reluctantly gave it to them on the promise that we would be mailed coupons for things like a free dessert. They have proceeded to spam me pretty regularly, but my favorite part is that their e-mail address is thecaptain@yougotmeals.net.

Can I see some ID?

We can all thank my friend Shelley for this gem, which caused our group to cease all productive work for about 20 minutes yesterday. This site, the National Badge Company, is a legitimate business that makes badges for all sorts of different groups, agencies, service organizations, what have you. But here's the thing- you can preview any badge you want before ordering it! This has endless potential, and has proved to be a steady amusement for two days now.

First I made one that said Navair, and our division code, and then "Engineering Ninja." Then Chris stepped it up with this masterpiece:Which lead me to create the one up top, and generally started the whole trend, including Shelley's best work:We all thought Shelley was purporting that she could hurl airplanes, but she clarified that she meant that she hurls while on airplanes. And does she ever.

Now, the disturbing thing is that we could order any of these badges if we were willing to cough up 90 bucks. Makes you think twice about the badge as a definite sign of authority...

So go ahead and try your own. I'll warn you, it's a little addictive!

By the way, happy Pi day!

Oh, the Huge Manatee!

Okay, I know that puns are the lowest form of humor, but my boss had this hanging on his door and I literally laughed out loud when I saw it.I mean, tell me that's not hilarious. I dare you.

Temperature Hysteresis

It's been pretty cold here as of late. It seemed like we were on our way to spring, and then bam! Below freezing for a week. So today was a nice surprise- it warmed up quite a bit and was sunny. Still, I was a little surprised to see kids in my neighborhood outside hanging around and skateboarding in shorts and t-shirts. I checked the temperature outside: 48 degrees. I mean, yes, it's 28 degrees warmer than yesterday, but is it really time for shorts when we're still sub-50?

This is a phenomenon that always amazed me in college. If it got down to 70 in the summer, people would break out the coats and hats. And yet, the first time it got up to 60 in the spring people dressed like they were in a heat wave. Call me crazy, but I don't think I've ever done that. Cold is cold regardless of season.

Anyhow, I'm working on a real post- I just thought about this on the way home.