The Dude on the Right ended up flying solo for this podcast, but even if The WGN isn’t there to help him through a Thursday, The Dude just looks to set up a contest about farts, wishes America had more talents about whistling, and thinks he can sing S.O.S. better than Pierce Brosnan. The Dude, sadly, is more fixated on people begging for money.
Category: Fun Web Sites
What’s New? A Podcast of: Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up! RV-ing, Penn & Teller, Movie Talk, Toilet Paper, and More!
Some travel issues delayed Stu Gotz getting back in town so
the podcast of "Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up!" was a day late, and even
with some extra time, well, The Dude on the Right screwed up the opening.
But that’s okay because they have lots to talk about, including some movie talk
about "Wanted," "Wall-E," "Presto," and "Letters from Iwo Jima." The Dude
relates to Stu that he really should get Showtime so he could see "Penn &
Teller: Bullshit," and Stu should also get Sirius Satellite Radio so he could
hear ABBA, 24/7, for a couple of weeks. Stu, on the other hand, relates
his woes of toilet paper at airports. They both talk about a fight at the
Cubs/White Sox Crosstown Classic, they talk about tattoos, and with the 4th of
July weekend coming up, they talk about how it looks like The Dude’s BFF still
won’t get to meet any of The Dude’s friends, even with the lure of REO
Speedwagon.
What’s New? A Podcast of: A Special Guest Podcaster, The WGN, Joins for TV, Comedian, Gun, and Socially Inept Talk!
The Dude on the Right was joined by The WGN for this Thursday podcast, and they talk about a lot of things. The Dude introduces The WGN to “America’s Got Talent,” the both talk about George Carlin, and The Dude learns that The WGN is making contacts for his future. They both talk about guns (how topical, what, with the Supreme Court decision today), family gatherings, and if The Dude’s family is socially inept. The Dude is also happy to hear The WGN knows who Night Ranger is, hopes the two of them might be able to see Radiohead at Lollapalooza, and fears he might get sucked in to “Dolphin Olympics 2.” Maybe The WGN is a worse influence on The Dude as apposed to The Dude being a worse influence on The WGN?
What’s New? The Dude sees “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and Fireworks, Stu Wonders if He Can Get “Wii Fit.”
The
Dude on the Right saw
"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" with someone who
doesn’t really like bugs, which, because The Dude is weird, actually made the
movie experience bring a bigger smile to his face, but in the end
it’s all about the review, and The Dude does what he does. Stu Gotz,
though, is back doing some typographical reviewing, maybe because his kids might
be a little too young to see the "Crystal Skull" movie, but that doesn’t mean
his family, or at least just him, can’t
get in shape thanks to the Nintendo "Wii Fit." Hopefully Mama
Gotz won’t let Stu shove the thing under the couch to collect dust bunnies.
The Dude saw movies and fireworks, Stu is probably trying to figure out
how to dry a sweater on a "Wii Fit." Such are different weekends.
You Don’t Need “Earth Hour,” You Just Need My Mom.
By:
The Dude on the Right
So, tomorrow, Saturday, March 29th, from 8PM to 9PM, if I want to participate in
"Earth Hour," I’m supposed to turn off all of my lights, but what confuses me is
that at the Earth Hour web
site there is a link of what to do when the lights are off, but the link
doesn’t really tell me anything to do during that hour. And with turning
off the lights are they expecting me to also turn off my TV and my computers,
which I consider essential appliances? And with turning off the lights,
and as they add, non-essential appliances, which must not include my TV nor
computers because I consider them essential, I think my microwave oven is
hard-wired so how am I supposed to turn that off? And with turning off the
lights and non-essential appliances (except my microwave), yet leaving my
computer and TV on because I consider them essential, and changing to energy
efficient bulbs, what if, during that hour when I’m trying to change my light
bulbs, I drop one of those new compact fluorescent bulbs, thereby releasing
toxic mercury into the air, how am I supposed to see what I am supposed to clean
up without the lights on? And with turning off the lights and
non-essential appliances (except my microwave), yet leaving my computer and TV
on because I consider them essential, and breaking that compact fluorescent bulb
that I can’t see how to clean yet breath in the mercury, when I fall down the
stairs and break my leg how am I supposed to call 911 since I unplugged my
cordless phone, which at the time I was unplugging things I considered
non-essential?
Suddenly "Earth Hour" has become very complicated, but, as I
reflect back on my life, I’m thinking none of us need an "Earth Hour" to help us
remember to turn off the lights, we just need our Moms, or at least my Mom.
You see, my Mom is the Queen at knowing when we leave lights on, no matter what
part of the house. She will be sitting in her living room chair, see a
large glow as we are leaving the kitchen, and tell us to go back and turn off
the light. She will be sitting in her living room chair, see a subtle glow
from around a corner, bounced off a door and a ceiling, leaving just a smidge of
brightness on a wall that shouldn’t have a smidge of brightness on it, and say
"Did you leave the light on in the bathroom?" She will be sitting in her
living room chair, seeing the remnants of light (and I swear light leaves
"remnants" on your clothes, especially when you are coming from the basement),
thus instructing you to go back downstairs and turn off the light in the laundry
room at the opposite corner of the house. "Earth Hour" pales in comparison
to the "turning off the light" power of my Mom.
Since, though, Mom is in Ohio
and I am here in Illinois, there I will be, tomorrow night, with no lights on,
although my computer, TV, and microwave will still be working. I’ll be
inhaling toxic mercury complete with a broken leg and a non-working cordless
phone, still wondering what I should do with the lights off because the Earth
Hour web site never gave me instructions on something to do during that hour.
And if those Earth Hours folks had at least said something like "Plan to be with
the one you love, turn off all of your lights, pretend it’s a blackout, and do
what you would do in a blackout with the one you love," or in the words of
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, "If you can’t be with the one you love, love the
one you’re with!", well, I’m thinking the worst of my problems might begin to
show about three months from now.
You know what, screw that being with the one
you’re with in a forced blackout like this "Earth Hour," and I suppose the word
"screw" isn’t the appropriate word. Maybe it’s better being curled up at
the bottom of the stairs, with a broken leg, inhaling mercury, knowing my TV,
computers, and microwave still are working, rather than child support some nine
months from tomorrow.
The thing is just listening to my Mom will resolve all
of these potential problems – Turn off the lights and wear a Jimmy Hat (my Mom
is hip, she has an iPod). Listening to her saves money, and future money.
Maybe we just need to listen to my Mom rather than worrying about turning off
the lights for an hour and not knowing what to do.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
Flickr, Picasa, and Scanner Dilemmas.
By:
The Dude on the Right
As I’m trying to pay attention to "American Idol" tonight, with the dudes
singing classic songs from the 70’s which so far have been bad renditions of
songs from Fleetwood Mac, Andy Gibb, Queen, Foreigner, and The Carpenters, I’m
also in a quandary because I can’t get my film scanning stuff like I want.
First off, I finally scanned all of my concert negatives, got them digitized in
a decent resolution, and slowly plan to update the photos on the website with
the higher resolution versions I now have. That was the easy part, with my
old HP Photosmart film scanner.
But
then I decided I wanted to start digitizing older photos (like this cute girl on
the right), and old negatives, and post them on the internet for family,
friends, and anyone to see, and I have run into many questions, and many
choices.
As far as posting them on the internet, I started by setting up a
site at Flickr, but I have to say that as much as I like it, and would pay the
yearly fee for unlimited stuff, I am worried about the potential takeover by
Microsoft and what that might mean to the photos I post. I also looked at
maybe using Google’s Picasa instead, but from some quick things I have read
there are some copyright/publicity issues Google might be able to enforce.
And as I was investigating Flickr vs. Google, I came upon a bunch of other sites
that seem to do a similar thing, namely set up family photo albums. I’m so
confused.
Then came the problem of a scanner. My old scanner was an HP
Photosmart S20, which has served me well through the years, but it doesn’t
handle the medium format film that my mom had stored in a box. So, today,
I went to get a new scanner, based on a lot of reviews I read on the internet,
and even though I like the scanner (it’s an Epson), the software for it sucks,
and I’ll be damned if I’m going to spend more money for scanning software.
So, sadly, tomorrow, I have to hope the store will take it back, and then I
suppose I’ll go back to an HP scanner (I loved the software that worked with the
Photosmart), I just hope the HP folks kept the same format for the software (or
at least close) that I am used to, and that the scanner works like I need it to.
Now don’t get me wrong, for most people the Epson software will be fine, but for
me, and my photos, it blows (and if the Epson folks want to know why they can
e-mail me), because all I really want to do, before the rest of my older
relatives pass away, is to find out who all of these people are in photos that
are tens, and twenties, and maybe even thirty or forty of years taken before I
was born, and if it takes me that much longer to get the photos digitized and
posted (like the Epson software leaned itself to), those relatives will be dead
before I find out.
If you’ve got any suggestions for digitizing old negatives,
medium format (up to 6 x 12), or if you have an internet site you love for
posting your family scrapbooks, please let me know. Right now I have to
figure out how to box up my Epson scanner I bought, hope the store takes it
back, and then hope again that if I buy the HP version the software will be to
my liking. With my luck the new scanner won’t scan worth a darn but the
software will be great.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
I’ve Suddenly Realized I’m All Over the Internet World, and I Don’t Know Why.
By:
The Dude on the Right
The Super Bowl is over and we found out that Bill Belichick must have had an
important meeting to get to at the end of the game. Super Tuesday is over,
and I feel bad for my mom because Ohio seems to be a pivotal state again in a
Presidential election and that means she will be bombarded with ads for both
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. I also read they are even planning to
hold a debate in The Buckeye State – lucky O. Hi. O. And speaking of ads,
one of the latest iPhone ads touts the ability of using your iPhone with
Facebook. I would like to admit that the ad enticed me to set up a
Facebook identity, but I actually set one up over the weekend, before the ad ran
–
And I don’t know why.
I say "I don’t know why" mostly because I should
just use this website to say anything I have to say, but suddenly I have found
that I have a presence in multiple locations in the internet world, and maybe
it’s starting to get out of control.
Early on I was able to give myself the
same name on a variety of IM sites, places like AOL, Yahoo!, Google, Messenger,
and Skype, hoping to, I don’t know, instant message people, but then I found
that I rarely did, even when my "buddies" were online. Now I just check
the sites every month or so to keep them active, but I’m still hoping to utilize
the "talk" feature of one of them to let you, if you listen to my podcast,
actually "call" in during a podcast recording (let
me know if you might be interested in being a part of a future podcast).
I’m also a member of a music message board that is very informative, and I love
to read, but I rarely post because by the time I read something and have an
opinion about it, someone has already posted the same opinion I have (and I hate
to be a "Me, too!" kind of poster), or worse, someone misunderstands what I was
trying to say, posts that I am scum, and I don’t have time to get in a message
board shouting match trying to explain my point of view.
I have a
MySpace page
that I try to blog about things I don’t think entertainment readers care about,
mostly about my struggles with losing weight, and every now and then throw a
comment to my sister, niece, or nephew, but in the land of MySpace I only have
85 friends, and lately the only friend requests I get are to be the friend of
some hot chick trying to get me to join her web site where I can only assume she
gets naked if I give her my credit card number.
We, meaning the Entertainment
Ave! website, have a
presence in Second Life, a virtual world that has recently been rocked with
a bank scandal (it can even happen in the virtual world), and at the time when I
bought some virtual land and built a couple of virtual buildings, I had plans on
how to use it, namely as a gathering place for people to talk about concerts,
movies, and TV, complete with a virtual bar called Squirrelly Georges. I
actually have two names in Second Life, one for business (DudeOnRight Mannonen)
and one for fun (Drewman Zapedzki, and not that kind of fun, even though you can
have sex in the virtual world), but sadly I haven’t been building much there
lately though I’m hoping to change that now that I have digital versions of all
of my concert photos (more on that in a later blog).
I also have a
LinkedIn
account which has actually helped me re-connect with some college friends,
and I’m included in an internet social site for the fraternity I am member of,
Theta Xi. I was a member of a Yahoo! Group for the those from the class of
1985 of Lorain Catholic High School, but I opted out of that when one of my
classmates decided that every day was a day to post about his political beliefs.
I’m tempted to rejoin just to see if he has toned things down a bit on his
postings. I also have a Classmates account, though I haven’t visited that
site in over a year because I don’t want to spend the few bucks to get "better
info" on old classmates, although, sometimes, I am tempted to see where an old
girlfriend might be.
And if that isn’t enough of an internet presence, now
that I’m done with digitizing my concert photos, I’ve been thinking about
setting up a Flickr account as I digitize the rest of the photos I have, many of
which will deal with photos from college, photos from high school, photos I took
for the hell of it, and photos of days before I was born so that relatives and
friends around the world could see them. The monkey-wrench thrown into
this, though, is what the hell would I do with that account in the end, and now
that Microsoft is trying to buy Yahoo!, do I want Microsoft, somehow, in charge
of my pictures?
And don’t get me started on the various RSS feeds I read.
If
that isn’t enough more, now that I’m a member of
Facebook I’m not really sure what to do there, either, or whom I should poke
(you can do that on Facebook, but do I really want to "poke" people?).
Maybe it’s just that I want to be the coolest 40 year old with a presence all
over the world, or at least through the internet, but the crappy part is that
most of the 40ish year old friends I would like to re-connect with, well, they
don’t seem to be as cool as I am and don’t have accounts on MySpace, Facebook,
LinkedIn, Second Life, various IM sites, or the world.
Maybe I should just
Google them, or get younger friends.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
A Selfish Weekend with Friends.
By:
The Dude on the Right
I wish I had a good reason for the lack of postings the last few days, but
really it was all about selfishness. As happens every early December, this is a
weekend that a bunch of friends from college, including myself, get together for a
weekend in Chicago. Folks fly in from New Jersey, some people brave lousy
driving conditions, but the weekend is culminated with a fancy-shmancy, or at
least just a nice dinner, at one of the many fine-dining establishments in the
Chicago area (this year is happened to be an Italian place called
"Scoozi!").
I won’t go into too much about the weekend as I think Stu Gotz
and I will go into some things tomorrow for our Weekend Wrap-Up! Podcast, but
the weekend always gives some interesting events, and sometimes things for
future blogs. A few years ago a group of us came up with a new religion, which
if I could ever find the bar napkins we wrote most of our core beliefs on, well,
if you thought the story of
Xenu and Scientology
is a little bit out there, well, our religion has that beat, and might be a
little more fun. But this weekend wasn’t about religion, and as I reminisce this
evening of a fun weekend filled with seeing old friends, it was also exciting
because for a group of us as we broke out of our predictable selves and
discovered a couple of new establishments, namely
"Reagle Beagle"
(Nice meeting you, Andie!) and
"English",
both places being enjoyable, different in their own right, and hopefully longer
reviews will follow at a later time.
For Stu I think I will fill him in on how I tend to humor myself in my own
head with different scenarios I came up with over the weekend, but for some
future blogs there might some topics like:
Sure the weekend kept me away from some important news and rumors like
Britney Spears being pregnant, mourning the death of Evel Knievel, and paying
attention to college football where, depending on the latest BCS standings, The
Ohio State Buckeyes might find themselves in the BCS Championship Game after
all, leaving The Rose Bowl for USC and Illinois, and the folks at FOX are close
to breathing a sigh of relief of the ratings disaster of a West Virginia v.
Missouri match-up. Oh well.
As being selfish can sometimes cause I am now left with so many things to
catch back up on, so many things to post, and I still don’t know who got booted
off of Survivor last Thursday, though I hope to fire up my TiVo later and at let
the catching up begin.
It was great to see some old friends again, and in about a year from now I
will most likely be selfish once again because sometimes old friends are more
important than posting things on the internet.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
Entertainment Ave! has a Movie Theater in Second Life.
By:
The Dude on the Right
My
Labor Day Weekend has been fun-filled, and I’ll talk with Stu Gotz about it
tomorrow for our “Stu & The Dude’s Weekend Wrap-Up!” podcast, but one of the
things I did accomplish was actually build something in the Internet realm of
Second Life. Our staff
member, The Dude on the Left, says Second Life is dead, but Entertainment Ave!
has some virtual property, and a sort of vision for it, so with property in
hand, and limited building skills, our first building to be functional is
“The Movie Theater.”
As I slowly work in building our little virtual community,
“The Movie Theater”
seemed like the easiest to begin with, allowing virtual people to view, on our
virtual big screen, our latest episode of “Stu
& The Dude Reviewin’ the Movies for You!” as well as marquees directing
people to our Interneted posted reviews.
If
you’re not a Second Lifer, I suppose this blog doesn’t mean much to you,
probably just wondering “What the hell is ‘Second
Life’ and why does The Dude on the Left think it’s dead?” But Entertainment
Ave! now has a virtual building, and it works, and although it doesn’t show
movies, only reviews, we still call it “The
Movie Theater.” If you are a Second Lifer, and you want to chill for about
five minutes, head to our
Movie Theater,
relax in a seat, and see why Stu Gotz pissed me off while reviewing "Blades of
Glory."
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!
Budding Engineers Giddy as Little Schoolgirls, Thanks to “Calvin and Hobbes.”
By:
The Dude on the Right
I had a lot of topics I was thinking of blogging about today, and I suppose if I
started at the beginning of today, through my typing now, you would have been
enlightened by my thoughts on how I thought Barack Obama could have
vaulted himself into "everyman" territory at yesterday’s Democratic debate at a
sweltering Soldier Field (let’s just say "dressing for the weather" rather than
"dressing Presidential" – hell Bill Clinton played a saxophone!), how Stu Gotz
figures the New York City council is on the verge of over-goofing the Chicago
City Council with their supposed proposal to ban the words "bitch" and "ho,"
and how I still get excited watching a Space Shuttle take off.
And so, instead
of intellectual things, this blog is about a comic strip – "Calvin and
Hobbes."
Sure, "Calvin and Hobbes" has been out of print for quite some
time now, but thanks to the internet, and the site
gocomics, I get to
again relive the fun Calvin and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, have, on a daily
basis. I guess I have Google to thank for this because it was when I set
up my Google home page that I found the gocomics site, and sure enough, they had
a "Calvin and Hobbes" RSS feed, providing me a link, everyday to a classic
strip.
Now sure, that’s not that compelling, but yesterday was one of the
strips that even made budding engineers giddy as little schoolgirls. I
vaguely remember the day, it was back in college, at the fraternity house where
I was a member, and Stevie gathered some of us together to test something
seen in a comic strip. I don’t remember exactly who was there, it might
have been Odie, Gumby, or maybe Shithead, along with
myself, but I don’t think Yoda, Tosh, Elmer, Markie,
nor Hammy were around. T.P. was probably back in New Jersey,
Flange might have been at 7-11, and Laughing Boy was probably
sleeping. But there we were, some of us, with Stevie, in probably the 2nd
head, to see if maybe the world’s most brilliant engineer, Calvin, had stumbled
onto something of utmost importance in the world of toilets and toilet paper.
And, as budding engineers, we had to test the scientific experiment over and
over again, at different toilets, do some modifications to our own control
groups, and sure enough, Calvin found a way to make young adults giddy as
schoolgirls.
Not wanting to infringe on some copyright things I won’t post the
actual comic here, but if you want to do your own scientific experiment at home,
thanks to Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes,
this link should take you to the comic that brought a giant smile to my
face yesterday. As stressful as college can be, something as simple as
toilet paper can bring good times. Good times. Go ahead, try it at
home, but depending on your toilet and toilet paper, be sure to have a plunger
around, just in case.
That’s it for this one!
I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!