I watched Buried last night. Could also be called "Ryan Reynolds lies in a box and gets emotional on the phone". There were some moments of excellent acting and some interesting camera work. The reviews I read talked about how you just couldn't stop watching it after you start. And it was like that, but not in a good way. It's like my attention was being held hostage. It wasn't fun. Not great dialogue (though not bad either), and only one character on the screen the whole time. The only reason to watch is to see what happens to the guy, and that didn't really pay off in the end. One review compared to to a movie called Open Water, so I'm going to skip that one too.

A lady posted in the laundry room that she's looking for someone who will walk her kid to school in the mornings. It would be nice to have something to wake up for besides shuffling over to the computer and reading the news. But I don't have any babysitting experience, and I probably don't fit the expected profile. Plus if it's raining and cold out (like it was today) I'd probably try to call in sick, and if the kid had any symptoms of illness I'd instate a 6 foot rule. I'm not your mother.

me: I probably wouldn't join your food group.
Eric: We'll have an O'Schell night! We could make hot pockets... and poptarts!

This morning I set up my regular alarm clock, and then also set my phone's alarm to go off on the other side of the apartment at the same time. It's like training a monkey here. It's sorta working.

Some useful trivia for you: triangulation versus trilateration. This caused me some problems last week because pretty much everyone incorrectly describes GPS and other locating systems as using triangulation, and I end up with the one guy who thinks his system is novel because it uses trilateration.

This week is quite busy for me, I'll be back on here next week.

(From the last time Whitney was off visiting Europe 18 months ago. She's there again right now.)
(4:29:07 PM) me: you're gonna be missing out on doug's last concert in nyc. i'm bussing up tomorrow for it.
(4:29:16 PM) whitney dickens: i know :(
(4:29:22 PM) whitney dickens: im a loser sister.
(4:29:28 PM) me: yep. bad sibling.
(4:29:30 PM) whitney dickens: but, once you get married you have better things to do.

I had another post written up about hairstylists at the hair cuttery, but it was very cynical so I deleted it.

I'm watching some of Good Will Hunting. One of the biggest mysteries in the history of film: how did Matt Damon and Ben Affleck manage to write a good script? I guess if you set a million monkeys typing in a half million rooms, two of them somewhere will type out a good script. Though Ben Affleck also wrote Gone Baby Gone and The Town, so he must carry a brain somewhere above those gorilla shoulders.

It seems more than a little mean to tell someone that the best part of your day is in the morning before you see him, when you're hoping to not see him. I don't think I'd tell my best friend that. Even in the context of that scene it seems mean. Sure, I hope my friends lead successful lives. But even if I was stuck in prison with a friend I don't think I'd hope to wake up each day to find him gone. Well, in prison maybe I would, if I really wanted what was best for him. Hmm. No, I think a last goodbye is always nice. A meaningful handshake to conclude an experience. That always makes for a much better parting.

(from Deadwood, when Richardson is caring for a sickly Farnum, who despises him)
Farnum: Could you have been born, Richardson? And not egg-hatched, as I've always assumed?

For the past year I've used an electric toothbrush and I've always thought that the little light on it is light-sensitive. When you turn off the bathroom light it knows there's nobody in the bathroom and it automatically turns off its charging light. Handy, right? It's like a little reverse night light. Then today I set up a fan in my hallway, where the nearest power outlet is in the bathroom, and I discovered that the fan powered off when I turned off the bathroom light switch. Duh! I can't believe I never knew this. In two seconds, so many mysteries were solved! This is the reason that my razor is sometimes curiously uncharged when I leave it charging over night. And that other electric razor that I got frustrated with and threw out because its battery refused to charge, it was never given a fair chance.

(from a washington post article's comments)
not worth the finger strength I used to click on this article

I'm listening to Fiona Apple. Remember her from the 90s? Dan once tried to tell me that she was good and I think I instinctively called him a girl (this was high school). This is the first time I've given her a chance and it turns out that it's pretty decent stuff. She kinda drawls on but it's very smooth, sorta like jazz, which I usually don't have the patience for but I'm exceptionally tired today so maybe that's helping.

(comments about the X-Men: First Class trailer)
The best part of the trailer was seeing Magneto in his full gear and watching Azazel Teleport. I also like the way Magneto was crying when he was trying to lift that ship at the end. I totally understand how he feels, I tried doing that before and got a real big headache.

I just found out that Ravi, my old freshman year roommate is having triplets. I got invited to the baby shower, which is irregular because I'm a man, but Puja invited me to her baby shower too. So maybe it's co-ed in Indian culture. The baby shower invite said nothing about triplets. I had to find out through facebook hints. I was thinking of dropping off a present and skipping out on the baby shower, but I'm not going to buy 3 presents and not get some Indian food out of it.

(from a user review of Prison Tycoon 4, talking about trying to signal the guards that a prisoner's escape hole is behind a pillar)
I clicked the pillar, and I get the building edit screen... grrrrr..... Get the Guard selected again, and try to click the hole.... WORKED. He runs over to the hole... then STOPS. IT's time for his coffee break, so he turns around and walks toward the bunk-house! You would think stopping prisoners from escaping would over-ride his break time.... They must be UNION Guards.

I tried watching Amelie tonight. I really tried. Watched about an hour of that nonsense. This is probably what the rest of the world thinks when they try to watching something like Ace Venture with subtitles. Just a bunch of weird characters being weird and none of the humor gets across the cultural barrier. Do we really need voice-over telling us what random things each character likes and dislikes? I guess someone thought it would add more depth to the characters. "This old man loves de-boning chicken with his fingers! Look at the satisfaction on his face!" Oh, French people. Also it seems unhygienic to allow passing people to stick their hands into your sack of wheat. Even though Amelie likes doing it, she should show a little self-discipline when walking through the market. Maybe that's just me.

Apparently it's difficult to do work and watch a movie with subtitles. I'm reorganizing my netflix queue now to postpone any further foreign movies until April.

Also, I've decided that I'm switching to diet soda. The pepsi I just drank has 300 calories of sugar. That's more than I'd burn if I went down to the gym tonight and used the elliptical until my shirt was dripping sweat. Something I'm definitely not going to do tonight.

(comments about a copyright infringement lawsuit defendent who wrote an impassioned not-guilty plea in response to claims that she downloaded the movie Far Cry)
mogbert: She doesn't sound like she has kids. Also doesn't sound like the type of person who would enjoy an Uwe Boll film, as she used complete sentences and didn't appear to be lobotomized.

This entry would be titled "Joe goes suit shopping" if I were still titling blog entries. My godfather has given me a few suits over the years but many of them don't fit me anymore. I've gained 25 pounds since he first started giving me suits; it's a trend I'm going to have to stop if I want my clothes to continue fitting. Anyway, I've been doing some online suit shopping, which seems like it'd be less time-consuming but I'm not entirely sure that it is. But it's easy to do because my measurements appear to be fairly standard, for a tall skinny guy.

I kinda like the speckled wool suit look, but those are hard to find right now. There's this one from J. Crew, this from Brooks Brothers, and this from Jaeger, but none of them are available in anything close to my size. I especially like how J. Crew pants sizes top out at a 30 inch inseam. (I'm sure they had longer pants before, but why not just include the full length and let people get them hemmed to fit?) I know they're more fall-style suits, so I'll check again in the fall if I'm still interested.

Instead I got this rust-colored suit. (My credit card rewards are exceptionally efficient for brooks brothers, so I got this suit on a heavy discount.) I like the material but I'm not totally sure about the color. It looks good on that white guy but I'm not sure about how it meshes with my complexion. Maybe I'll post a photo of it.

I also got a couple darker suits from Macys.com. Macys is supposed to have decent suits with a very hassle-free return policy, and the mall is on my way to work so returns are convenient. There's a pretty big sale going on now too (my order was 40% off), so I ordered a few things.

I got this Sharkskin suit, and it fits well but I don't really like the material so I'm going to return it. This other Tommy Hilfiger suit also fits well, and I like the subtle striping. The jacket had a white thread sticking out near a button that I tugged on and a 1/2 inch dangling white thread turned into a 2 inch dangling white thread. I could almost hear the jacket unraveling from the inside out. So I'm exchanging the jacket. Finally, I got this DKNY 3-piece suit. It's, eh, okay. Nothing really great about it, and compared to the Tommy Hilfiger suits, the underside of this suit's armpits are very low. You can kinda tell from that photo if you look closely. The jacket restricts your arm movement, which I don't enjoy. So I'm returning this one too.

I'm really going to be pushing the boundaries of Macy's return policy. If it turns out to be really hassle free I might order this three-piece suit after I investigate the complaints one reviewer had about the pants' pattern emphasizing the zipper seam. The Tommy Hilfiger trim fit really suits me. I've been thinking about ordering this cotton suit from J. Crew in case it's brutally hot at Courtney's wedding, but J Crew is definitely not inexpensive and no suit material is going to make 100+ degrees comfortable, so I'll wait on that.

(I'm running late on a case so Micros suggests that I just ignore it and "accidentally" send out the same response I sent before)
me: yeah they'd call me, i'd be like "ooh, mistake, sorry". then like a 50% chance they'd call my supervisor and tell him I'm incompetent.
micros: Nah, we wouldn't do that, as long as you agreed to withdraw it and reset the response date.
me: but i think if i was the attorney i'd complain. you're being too forgiving on someone who isn't doing his job. if someone just sends you the same action for totally wrong claims he's wasting everyone's time
micros: In my experience complaining about examiner incompetence doesn't get you anywhere.