AN ONLINE JOURNAL_
by Clake and Klake
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MORE: Randy the Cat
, Links (del.icio.us), Clake's Recent Books (del.icio.us)
Monday, November 27, 2006
Smooch Smooch Kablooie
posted by clake at 7:55 PM (1) comments
Last night, Klake and I rented the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. In short, we both recommend this film. It's very funny, with a quirky and interesting plot. Part of why I enjoyed the film so much is that it seems kinda risky - as in, a movie like this can either be great or a complete disaster. Robert Downey, Jr. is a burglar who stumbles into an audition while running from the cops, thus stumbling into a nascent film career in L.A., thus stumbling into a murder mystery that coincidentally involves a (sexy) childhood friend from his tiny Indiana town. After further stumbling and nervous yammering, along with the competent help of a P.I. (Val Kilmer cooly fagging it up as the aptly named Gay Perry) the whole convoluted plot takes some more twists and turns before a satisfying, pulp novel-style resolution.
As a side note: we actually have our Netflix account frozen during this busy holiday season. Last night's rental came courtesey of saved Coca-Cola points from the period wherein we drank way too much Coke. It's interesting to pull into a Blockbuster Video these days. It's what I imagine it would have been like going into a dealership that sold Fred Flintstone cars after the internal combustion engine was invented. As we pulled in to the almost empty lot, I turned to my wife, "This parking spot brought to you by Netflix!"
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Penny The Guinea Pig
posted by klake at 7:41 PM (0) comments
We put together the crib, then decided that we needed to test it with a seven pound animal. Penny reluctantly obliged. She wasn't very happy about it, she knows she is too old to sleep in a crib. 
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Tuesday, November 21, 2006
DayQuil days, but oh those NyQuil nights
posted by clake at 11:58 AM (0) comments
This post is a summary, for those of you who have not been living my life for the past week or so.
For years, I have rebelled against the idea of actually taking medicine for cold symptoms. "There is absolutely no cure for colds," I thought, "So what does taking this medicine get me other than more unnecessary chemicals in my body? No thank you, sir!" I opted instead to "tough it out", using the brave, tough guy approach of wandering around whining and sniffling. Occasionally, I would take something at night just so I could dang sleep, but that is all. This past weekend, on the tail end of a bad cold, Klake and I went on a trip to Shaumburg with her family and I chose to NOT be a miserable load and keep myself fully medicated the entire time. The result: I was far less miserable than I would have otherwise been and was able to enjoy all of the shopping and eating and hotel room comforts with everyone else. Grade: AAAA++++++ would dope myself with again!!!!!
Two of the best stops on this shopping trip were Ikea and H&M. Both are Swedish-based companies that focus on delivering stylish merchandise inexpensively, with Ikea handling furniture and home decor and H&M taking care of your clothing needs. No assembly required on the H&M stuff, though. I imagine I would buy a jacket whose arms I had to assemble myself using an allen wrench, if it was nifty enough.
In notable celebrity news: Michael Richards (Cosmo Kramer of Seinfeld fame, and weird janitor of UHF fame) was heckled at a comedy club on Friday and rebutted with a racist tirade. I hear it's on the YouTube (but pretty uncomfortable to watch). I guess he gave a long, awkward apology via satellite on Letterman.
Racism is not cool, kids - Unless it is the name of an adorable rabbit-cat hybrid animal that thrives on timothy hay, carrots, and hugs. When someone offers you racism, ask them to clarify which kind of racism they mean, and if it's the thing about hating black people you say NO THANKS!
Do you know what a PocketMod is? It's only the coolest low/high-tech way to keep yourself organized! I've been carrying around pocket mods for several months and will attest to their usefulness in keeping dates straight and to-do items in mind.
The comic strip Wigu will make it's return to the internet tomorrow, on a three-day-a-week update schedule. When Wigu was last on the web, some drastic changes happened in the characters' lives (the family's house burned down, Wigu's best friend was shot dead, and everyone's on the run from the feds), so it will be interesting to see where creator Jeff Rowland goes with that. Judging from his blog, he himself has some apprehension about picking it back up. In the meantime, Wigu's first print-only adventure The Case of the Missile Crisis, has been added to the online archives.
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Monday, November 13, 2006
Coloring With Limozeen
posted by clake at 8:17 PM (0) comments
Coloring is hard to do with the little laptop touchpad, but oh so rewarding with the Limozeen coloring book, care of Strong Bad.
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Saturday, November 11, 2006
Randy the Cat
posted by clake at 12:33 PM (0) comments
Today's Randy the Cat gives you a peek inside the womb at ten weeks. The fetus that is growing inside of Klake is further along than that, but there is often lag between concept and execution when it comes to these comics.
What this week's comic strip does not have is Randy himself. To make up for that, here's a happy Randy who wants to say hello:
Enjoy your Saturday! Klake is out shopping with her mother, so I am "just kicking it" (spending way too much time on the internet). It was during such unproductive internet time that I encountered George Carlin in this Google Video clip, telling me in exactly which ways we are all totally fucked. Hilarious!
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Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Your Forecast
posted by clake at 8:58 AM (0) comments
If you are in the Iowa City/Coralville area, or even anywhere else in eastern-ish Iowa I suppose, your high temperature today is predicted to be around 70 degrees, with sunshine all over the dang place. It is important that you get out of your workplace for lunch today and take a walk. In this season of the year, you really have to take advantage of every opportunity to expose yourself to natural light and warmth. There are little molecules in your brain that want to be released so that they can keep you healthy and happy, but they need your help to do that. TAKE THE FIRST STEP!
Also in the forecast, our Links page (linked at the top of this page) has undergone an overhaul. Our links are now hosted at Del.icio.us for easier linking. Enjoy this opportunity to spend some time at places on the internet where I like to go. Let me know if you have a Del.icio.us account because I think I can add you to my nerd network. I think that's how it works, anyway.
Looking ahead for our long-term, precision Futurecast: Democrats will have a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives next year. Also, democrats have won hell of lots of governorships and might even take control of U.S. Senate. Locally, democrats have taken over Iowa and would like to talk to you about the minimum wage. Jim Leach (R), who has been a U.S. congressman representing my district in Iowa for about a zillion years, was deposed by Dave Loebsack (D). He will be missed by a lot of people, as he was a nice and generally moderate republican, but we're cleaning out the house and that means a lot of republicans have to go to make room. Jim Leach (R), thank you for putting up with the crackpot, form e-mails I've sent from advocacy websites about media regulation and stem-cells and whatnot. Be proud that you are going out in style, Mr. Leach: still well-regarded, well-liked, and free of scandal.
On the satellite map, you'll see that a high-pressure system coming down from the Canadian prairies is causing a reduction in my wife's morning sickness. This is a good sign that she'll be able to continue with a healthy diet and grow a happy baby inside her.
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Sunday, November 05, 2006
MST3K
posted by clake at 7:56 PM (0) comments
If you knew me in high school, you are probably aware that I am a fan of the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3K fans in general have a unique dedication to this program. Unfortunately, I didn't have cable during the show's run on Comedy Central. That, in combination with the fact that it was only run in syndication for a short time (available on my local, crappy CBS affiliate), made it so I didn't really have the opportunity to participate in the worldwide tape-trading community. But now, there's the wonderful phenomenon of The Inter-Web 2.0, where it's as easy to post a video online as it is to accidentally cut yourself shaving. With that, I give you some options I've discovered for watching MST3K using only your webternet connection. (I won't mention Bittorrent because that would be the obvious way to share television over the internet. Also, though the speed of download and quality of the files would be outstanding if I got them through bittorrent, I'm nervous that I'll download one movie and then start getting cease-and-desist orders.)
There are a bunch of MST3K episodes and shorts available on Google Video (and also YouTube I would assume, though I haven't taken a look yet). Sure, that means you have to watch them online - OR MAYBE IT DOES NOT! You can copy and paste the URL of a Google or YouTube video into this website I found and download it as an .avi file. Unfortunately, because of some cruddy thing Google does to the file header or something it won't play in the usual suspects - Windows Media Player or Winamp. However, you can download the stripped-down program Media Player Classic and freely play these files. Why download these episodes at all? Because then you can play them back at full screen, and they'll stream better when played locally, and you're an MST3K fan, therefore you are something of an obsessively retentive nerd. (Try to keep that under control, by the way: There's a whole, wonderful world out there.)
Also, if you have the media player Winamp, not only can you listen to internet radio from thousands of Shoutcast stations (and some select XM stations), but some nice folks have put up what appears to be a 24-hour video stream of MST episodes. (Click "shoutcast project" in the sidebar.) The video quality is mediocre. It's watchable, but you will definitely not mistake it for a DVD or even VHS tape. But still, the coolness of being able to do it is worth giving it a shot.
And yes, I have done more than this with my weekend. I drove to Cedar Rapids with my wife to buy rabbit litter and have a meal, I made bean bruschetta, I wrote a kick-ass cover letter, I transferred all three episodes of my old public access show to DVD (okay, that's another nerdy one). I have a rich and full life.
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Saturday, November 04, 2006
Catbox
posted by clake at 3:20 PM (0) comments
Randy the Cat has returned at long last with a new comic strip!
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Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Some Real Big-Time News
posted by clake at 9:12 AM (0) comments
My wife and I are having a baby in May! This comes as a shocking yet pleasant surprise to most of the people who know us, since for years we expressed no interest in mixing up our genes and then doing the Mommy and Daddy thing for whatever comes out. Neither of us has ever been an older brother or sister, we have very little experience with children, and we're both terrified of poverty. But in the past year, we have achieved a level of stability in our life that we have long sought and in this state we found ourselves able to seriously entertain the notion of being parents without great anxiety. It's still a big deal, and it's still turning our life in a very new and often unpredictable direction, but it's also very exciting to us! After a lot of discussion, we felt that this was something we really want for ourselves and found that after several years of marriage we were not only able to visualize ourselves as parents, but as GOOD parents.
At this time, I really want to stress the important role that the network of family and friends that has grown around us has in our decision. Without the support of so many amazing people, parenthood might still be a rather terrifying proposition for Klake and I. We are terribly excited about the impending experience of being parents and the time we will spend with our child. In addition, though, it is an incredible feeling to imagine the contributions that all our family and friends will be making to the life of our child: The nurturing and doting of Grandmas C. and L., the lessons in automotive maintenance to be imparted by both Grandpa J. and Uncle J., the contagious passion for reading of aunt R. and so many other aunts and uncles, the interest in math that might just rub off from Uncle E. (and the weird sense of humor that the kid may be in danger of picking up from same), the musical skill and advanced punsmanship of Aunt E., the artistic ability and highly-detailed design sense of Aunt K., the respect for animals and overall good-natured attitude of Uncle P., the experience of riding in a truck or washing a tractor with Uncle C., the enthusiasm for the Hawkeyes of the entire Clake family - I could write this list for pages and pages.
I guess what I'm saying is, please babysit for us. Anything in the fridge is yours.
Seriously, though, even though I already sent out an announcement email, I just wanted to let everyone in our lives know that you are one of the reasons Klake and I envision this endeavor succeeding in producing a well-adjusted, curious, and kind human being.
All the best,
Clake
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