I tend to watch more funny cat videos than funny dog videos; that's because more of the prior exist. I've got a theory about why this is. See, dogs generally have fun-loving, easy-going, goofy personalities; therefore they kind of relish in making asses of themselves. Dogs are typically like clowns.

Cats, on the other hand, are super serious. Where dogs are usually clowns, cats are stoic men in suits. And, like everyone, stoic men in suits eventually do dumb things. But unlike clowns, the stoic suit man hopes no one witnesses their mistake(s); and if anyone does, they do their best to act like nothing just happened.

So both dogs and cats do funny things, but I think it's funnier when cats do funny things, mostly because when they do do funny things, they try to act like nothing just happened.

Which leads me to our video for discussion, called Winston Isn't Normal. It is the anti-funny cat video. This cat is not funny and seems to revel in being an asshole.

As an addendum to the last post: oh yeah, Billy Mays died too.

A few months ago I wrote a sketch about Billy Mays, in which his life collapsed due to his inability to control the volume of his voice. Because of this he lost his job and wife, only to meet another woman who shared the same volume control impediment as he.

And with Mr. Mays goes my sketch.

Every human life on this planet can be remembered as a particular series of high points and low points. It's true that this is not always the most healthy way for one to approach life (read yourself some Eastern philosophy for more details) but nevertheless this sort of so-called analytic technique is omnipresent in human lives and deaths.

The same thing applies to the (very) recently deceased pop star Michael Jackson. He died at the age of fifty not long before I began writing this post.¹ Obituaries of his life that have been spreading faster than the swine flu have made it incredibly clear that Jackson's life was an extreme example of a life of ups and downs. Alongside the double platinum albums you've got Martin Bashir's less than flattering documentary of Jackson's equally bizarre life; it's impossible to not mention his accusations of pedophilia alongside his rapid ascent to childhood stardom.

And despite Jackson's life coming to an end, it's impossible to not continue asking the question that has plagued the latter years of his life: what happened? How did that super-cute little boy transform into an insanely talented performer and songwriter? Furthermore - and more pressingly - how did that insanely talented performer and songwriter devolve into nothing more than the punchline of countless cheap jokes?

More than a few armchair psychologists have suggested that hypervigillant attention paid to Jackson's life - both via the media and by his fans - are partially to blame. I can't help but side with these people. A quick caveat, though: my experience with psychology is limited to a class in both high school and college, not to mention some reading on my own free time and more meetings with psychologists than I'd care to mention. That being said: I don't think anyone in their right mind would suggest that spending too much time in the sunlight is a good thing. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to suggest that the same rule applies for the limelight.

It's an interesting coincidence that Jackson's death took place only a few days after Jon and Kate, the original octo-mom/dad, announced their divorce. I proclaim myself no more of a Jon and Kate expert than a psychology expert (in fact, I think I know more about psychology than Jon and Kate), but my first thought upon hearing about their divorce was that constant scrutiny by TLC and paparazzi cameras could have very well been placing an undue strain upon their marriage. In my mind, it seemed that too much limelight time did no good for Jon and Kate either.

You're probably getting the point I'm trying to make here: that constant attention by the media/adoring fans is not a good thing. This is not to say, though, that any media attention is a bad thing; nor is it to say that any major celebrity is destined to suffer an unglamorous fate. Nor do I think that Jackson's disturbing behavior/the Gosselin's divorce is to be blamed entirely on too much limelight time. The prior point is easily disputable (there are more than a few celebrities who have managed to have healthy lives) and the latter point seems to remove any personal responsibility on the part of the limelight's so-called "victims", which I think lets the world's Jacksons/Gosselins/Lohans off far too easily.

What I am trying to say is this: obviously, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Furthermore, it's become relatively clear from my examples - and I'm sure you could think of a few other names that would work just fine - that an excess of celebrity attention has the potential to seriously fuck with one's psychological well-being. And though I haven't made this point as abundantly clear, having only barely touched on it in the preceding paragraph: despite those who have not done so well with an excess of media attention, there are plenty of people who have managed to make it through life in a relatively healthy psychological state.

This all leads to my big question: has anyone ever tried to do a in-depth report about the effect that fame/excess media attention has on people? Something regarding why certain people end up faring poorly and others ending up okay? Perhaps it has something to do with the ever-complex nature/nurture debate; maybe it has something to do with the extent of one's fame; or maybe it has something to do with factors I'm barely aware of.

Again, I'd like to put on my not-a-psych-major hat again to reiterate that my answers come off as rather half-assed. That, though, is because I'm far more predisposed to ask this question rather than to seek it's answers. The latter part would be someone else's job.

All I can say now is this: it's a damn shame that the life of a brilliant songwriter had to be marred by countless oddities. It's a damn shame that a seemingly once healthy family of eight is now dissolving. It's a damn shame that we've had to witness both. It's a worse shame that we'll probably witness worse in the future.

¹ - I should note that I feel ridiculous writing these words; this isn't because I'm writing an honest-to-God sincere post about Michael Jackson, but instead because I'm even bothering with this expository stuff. It feels totally redundant for me to label Jackson as a deceased, let alone a pop star; I'm relatively certain you already know these things. In fact, I think you'd literally have to be living devoid of the most archaic means of human communication to be unaware of Jackson's existence (not to mention his existence's abrupt end); his albums and singles continue to sell incredibly well around the entire planet to this day.

Last year I (sort of) chronicled my attempt to make it through The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. That was something like 30 hours worth of music; it took me a little over a month to make my way through the list if I remember correctly. It was a neat experience and not as daunting as I'd expected it to be; if anything it introduced me to some new music and taught that music was playing in the background of my life more often than I'd imagined.

So that project is now acting as a sort of precursor to my new summer music project: to listen and rate every song on my iTunes library.

I remember when the first iPod came out that my whole family was a little incredulous. "1000 songs?" we said. "Who would need to carry around a thousand songs with them?" As it turned out: lots of people - myself included. After having had an iTunes library since late 2003, I've accumulated 4414 songs. You could listen to my library for a little over ten days straight without hearing the same song twice.¹

Somehow over these years I've managed to keep my library relatively clean. There's album art for every song, along with all the prerequisite info: song title, album, artist, genre, as well as ratings, something I do for shuffling purposes.

I've slacked off on this latter thing, though. This is for a myriad of reasons; sometimes I forget to rate songs, sometimes I just forget to listen to them. It turns out that 1527 of my songs - a little over three days worth of music - are ratingless. That's a little over a fourth of my library. It also happens to be a shit ton of music.

So you've probably guessed the new project at this point: I'm trying to listen to and rate all of those songs. I'm going to do my best to listen to nothing but these songs until I'm all done. In the meantime, I'm not going to allow myself to import any new songs to my iTunes library, which'll be good for both my wallet and my sanity. So let's see how this goes.

Also: I made a video that involves The Big Comfy Couch.

¹ - Now that I think about it, this isn't entirely true; I've got a few different covers of single songs on my iTunes library, not to mention a few odd duplicates thanks to Greatest Hits CDs.

Our family has a lot of inside jokes. Like most inside jokes they are encapsulated within easy-to-repeat one-liners. Among them include:

• "Wanna sit here? Want some butter?"
• "Did you eat yet? No, did you?"
• "It's the black girl's fault."
• "That's no yady, that's my wife!"

The last one is thanks to my older cousin when she was about three. I wasn't quite born yet, so I can't tell the full story, but apparently she once made quite a fuss when she told a joke with the punchline "That's no lady, that's my wife," sans prior speech impediment. Apparently the hilarity came mostly from the fact that she was three and telling a joke beyond the typical knock-knock/what-do-you-get-when-you-mix-an-x-with-a-y mold.

The problem is, though, nobody can quite remember what the actual joke in question was. My family can only remember the punchline. Come to think of it, she may not have actually said an actual joke. Maybe all she said was, "That's no yady, that's my wife!"

So last night we went on a quest to figure out what the joke actually is. It involved lots and lots of Googling. Our conclusion, though, was kind of pathetic. We determined that the joke was (probably) written by Henny Youngman. We also determined that we're not alone; everyone else knows the punchline, but nobody seems to know the joke.

We set our neighbor Mrs. Dwyer on the trail after our patience ran through. The only joke she could find was this:

"Two men walk into a bar. One man turns to the other and says, 'That's no lady, that's my wife!"

I am doubtful that's the actual joke, but I don't think anything can beat that.

A conversation at the drive-thru today:

ME: So where do you work?

HER: Wells Fargo. Mortgages. I talk to customers on the phone.

ME: Ooh. Sounds like buckets of fun.

HER: Oh! (sarcastically, as if she is forcing this from the bottom of her throat - like a cat trying to cough up a hairball. It kind of actually sounds more like "HOH!") It's awful.

ME: I bet with the economy it must be particularly bad.

HER: You know what the problem is? All these people were buying million dollar houses they can't afford! And then they call and complain.

ME: Yeah. People just haven't been living within their means.

HER: Or under their means, for that matter.

ME: True.

HER: And they all want to talk to a manager.

ME: Your manager must be swamped.

HER: Well, I can't put them on there with them. It's not like there's anything he can do. I mean, besides - it would be preferential treatment. We can't do that.

ME: I see.

HER: But you know who's the worst on the phone? The middle easterners. (in a bouncy stereotypical Indian accent) "You are killing me! You are killing me!"

ME: (attempting to reply in a tone that implies no sort of judgement either way whatsoever) Hmm.

HER: Like I said, you shouldn'tve bought that million dollar house then.

ME: Here is your drink.

So I was working today and I realized that this is the last year of the decade. Or at least I think it is. It's weird. A decade is ten years long, but we mostly only count nine years of that particular decade. For instance, there's the range of 1980 to 1990, but most would agree that 1990 falls into 90s terrain rather than that of the 80s.

Anyway, there are 198 days left of this particular decade. Then the 00s - the aughts? - will be done. This seems like it's of particular significance, but I'm having a hard time reasonably articulating why.

My main thought at work, though, was that I think come the tail end of this year I'll try to make a list of awesome (and notably unawesome) movies/games/music/moments of the decade. I am not sure why but that somehow just feels like the Right Thing To Do.

As a college student it is very rare that I actually go out to a movie theater to see a movie. This is something I've discovered about college students; few of us - or at least the ones I hang out with - go to movie theaters. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's the price thing; maybe it's because we're too busy doing other things.

I also very rarely go to movies in the summer. I'm not too sure why this is, either. It's not a concious decision, like I'm saying, "Oh, summer movies? Tripe." It's just something that doesn't happen all too often.

That being said, I'm a little amazed that I've managed to make it to a total of three movies this summer. The movies in question:

Star Trek - This, I think, is the textbook definition of a good summer movie. It's familiar, funny, full of action sequences, and not too heavy of a thinker. You could maybe say that a summer movie is the filmic equivilent of a one night stand: enjoyable in the moment, but you don't intend to ever see it again. In fact, seeing it again just tarnishes the near-indescribable specialness of it; this is especially so with Star Trek. My mom, having grown up on the original series, wanted to see it earlier this week. My sister and I had already seen it and enjoyed it very much, so we were willing to go again. And I quote my sister after we left the theater (after my mom's rant about polititical corectness; specifically, how they changed "where no man has gone before" to "where no one has gone before"): "I didn't like it as much the second time." And I agreed. That's not to say that this is a bad movie; instead, seeing it a second time just causes the minor logical fallacies everpresent in Good Summer Movies to pop out at you a little bit more.

Up - Alright, fill in the blank: Pixar are masters of _________. There are lots of possibilities here; masters of films that entertain parents as well as kids, masters of CGI, masters of modern animation, etc. But I'd go with this: Pixar are masters of storytelling. Case in point: the silent montage at the beginning of Up, in which we witness the lifespan of a marriage. A lot has been said about this part of the movie: that it's touching, that it's a tear jerker, etc. I don't have a lot to add to this particular discussion, except for this: it's really awesome. It could be a short film all unto itself.

And oh yeah: this is a great movie. Maybe one of Pixar's best.

The Hangover - Where Star Trek is the ultimate example of a Good Summer Movie, The Hangover is a fantastic example of a Good Dumb Comedy. Here we witness a group of friends try to make sense of what exactly happened while they were drunk last night. There's so much going on here that The Hangover almost borders on being a mystery movie; and like most mystery movies, the aren't quite as fun as the mystery itself.

And oh yeah: Zach Galifanakis steals this movie, playing a more batshit version of his stage persona.

Things I Overheard An Old Man Say To His Ladyfriend/Ladyfriend-To-Be Whilst I Was Eating at the Waveland Cafe

• Did you see the newspapers? A lot of these countries despise us. And I don't know why. We didn't do anything.
• I think I saw you at the cemetery on Memorial Day.
• I don't remember as much about my mother as I'd like to. But I can remember her rhubarb cream pie. I'd kill for one of those.

Today has just been a treasure trove of nostalgia. Spent a couple of hours going through children's books with my sister. We finally organized 7/8ths of our library and gave away books that we didn't have much of an attachment to. After we dropped them off we stopped by Crestview to go on a little tour of the playground.

All the standard tropes about revisiting places you frequented when you weren't of double digit age applied to this particular visit. Some things have changed, some have stayed the same, everything looked a lot smaller, etc. And of course you can't forget the reminisces. We discussed mean recess duty teachers, blacktop only days, the climbing wall that lasted all of four years - which, by the by, was eventually torn down because all of the little gripping rocks fell off and it became nothing more than a giant upright slab of concrete; leaving the thing up would be like openly admitting that they were trying to use the playground equipment to kill the dumb ones.

Then a thought hit as I drove away. I started this blog whilst going to school there. Admittedly it was during my last 100 days of attending elementary school, but still, the fact remains that I started this blog whilst in elementary school and that kind of blows my mind.

I'm aware that my anniversary posts are full of enough nostalgia and amazement that I'm still doing this to last us for the entire year; still, the thought of this all really gripped me.

A website called MyLifeIsAverage has recently come to my attention. Absolutely hilarious stuff. I like it way more than FMyLife.com, which has been making the rounds on the intertubes for the past few months. My reasons for liking the prior site more are as follows: one, it's funnier. This, I think, is thanks mostly to its relatability and mundanity. Plus, stories like "Today, I was having sex with my girlfriend. She yelled out the name Tommy. My name is Tommy," have a Mitch Hedberg-esque matter-of-factness to them.

My second reason: no schadenfreude. Some of the stuff on FMyLife is really sad stuff. Yeah, I have chuckled at a few of them, but the chuckling is always followed by a sharp pang of guilt. The part of me that likes things to be funny goes, "Awesome!" but the (often times far too) sympathetic part of me goes, "Oh no."

Another awful side effect of FMyLife is the proliferation of the phrase. I've seen too many Facebook statuses to count that end with "FML." The problem is, though, is that the statuses are usually nothing more than "Person Y lost their keys. FML." This bothers me - (implicitly) adding the words "fuck my life"to the end of something like that makes the writer come off as far more petty than they actually are. To understand why I think this requires that we briefly break down the phrase "fuck my life." I realize that this is probably going to come off as incredibly goofy, but I guess that's unavoidable.

As we're all aware, the word "fuck" is super versatile. One of the New Oxford American Dictionary's definitions of the word notes that it can be used to "express anger, annoyance, contempt, impatience, or surprise" - and that's just for the exclamatory use of the word fuck. As a verb, it can, of course, mean "have sexual intercourse with (someone)", but in the FML context it means "ruin or damage (something)" - the something in this case being one's own life.

This, I feel, is heavy stuff. When one says "fuck my life" they are essentially saying that they wish to ruin or damage their own life as a result of whatever's just happened to them, may it be their girlfriend shouting out another guy's name during sex or getting a 72% on their test. Perhaps this comes off as melodramatic - then again, I don't know if anything I discuss here can be any more melodramatic than the phrase "fuck my life" in and of itself - but it seems to me that the phrase "fuck my life" is a mini (albeit purely verbal) longing for suicide.

Skeptics reading this are probably going, "Actually, no, it doesn't mean that - people who say 'fuck my life' don't all harbor a death wish" - which is true. Everyone is guilty of lightheartedly using very heavy words. For instance, I've jokingly said "goddamn you" to a few friends, though that has never meant that I wish that person to be eternally condemned to the bowels of hell.

So conclusion: "fuck my life" is a pretty serious and heavy phrase. Users of the phrase probably haven't taken the time to consider its drastic implications, and thereby don't actually mean what they're saying, much in the same way that when I say "goddamn you" I don't mean it literally.

Still, though; whenever I hear someone say "fuck my life" I can't help but hear the phrase for what I believe it truly means, which makes me temporarily judge the person saying it in a rather unflattering light. To me, for a person to say "fuck my life" after their phone dying is a little like a person screaming in unadulterated rage when they learn that the DVD they wanted isn't at the video store. It comes off as an overreaction, and worst of all, it seems like the person overreacting isn't the least bit aware what they look like when they're doing it.

E3, the annual mini-orgy of the video gaming industry, takes place this week. Microsoft took the stage earlier today to show off some stuff for the XBox 360. There was plenty to see, but the two big things in my mind were The Beatles: Rock Band¹ and an interesting new technology for the 360 that Microsoft has codenamed Project Natal.

There's a video that explains the concept behind Natal far better than words can, but for those of you who are lazy/anti-YouTube², here's how it works: you plug in a sensor bar containing two cameras to the bottom of your TV. These two cameras somehow manage to note every movement you do in front of the TV - basically, full body motion capture. If you kick, your character kicks. If you spike the volleyball, your character does so, too. It's a little like the Wii except holding a little white piece of plastic (or wearing one of those crazy VR headsets/bodysuits) isn't necessary.

Sound too good to be true? That's because it probably will be. I have to admit, Jordan and I watched the video and our general consensus was "holy shit", but that wasn't all we said. Rather, it was, "Holy shit...if this actually works." And frankly, I'm not sure how (or if) that will happen.

Gyroscopic technology a la the Wii relatively simple from a technological standpoint: you hold a little thing. When you move, the little thing moves, and when the little thing moves, your game console notes accordingly.

Not so easy with full motion capture. This would require a camera to be continuously analyzing what's going on in front of your TV. So it'd have to keep thinking stuff like: was that a guy who just walked behind you or did you lift your arm? Did you just crouch or did your dog run in front of you? Did the entire upper half of your body just disappear or does the lighting system in your living room sort of suck?

It's worth noting that the Natal video begins with a disclaimer: "Project vision: actual features and functionality may vary." This mantra isn't Microsoft's alone, but in my experience, Microsoft has done this so many times that they may as well trademark the phrase.

I really want this to work. If it does, I will be amazed - hell, I'll probably buy a 360. But that's a big if.

¹ - I've got to admit that there's something slightly disconcerting about watching 3D animated versions of the Fab Four strum along to some of the greatest pop songs of all time when they move like they belong to the Chuck E Cheese All-Star band. Anyway, I'm super excited about this one, but I can totally understand people's skepticism; I quote my dad: "They must be really desperate for money."

² - And if you are anti-YouTube, then I'm not sure why you continue to read this blog.