The NBC's hospital comedy Scrubs is syndicated and as such Comedy Central recently added it to its lineup. This of course means that, on any given day, one can catch at least four episodes back-to-back.

For the uninitiated, this is a very good thing, I assure you.

The humor of the series tickles me just right. Just the other day I caught an episode ("Her Story") in which Elliot (Sarah Chalke) and Dr. Clock (guest star Heather Graham) explain to Turk (Donald Faison) and J.D. (Zach Braff) the meaning of the chorus to Dr. Dre's "Still D-R-E". Thanks to the magic of YouTube, you get to enjoy it too.



Ain't the Internet grand?

In this day and age it is hardly surprising that nearly everyone has a blog. I just discovered today, for instance, that even Lisa Whelchel (Blair, Facts of Life) keeps a web log.

And I used to think I was special.

The utter ubiquity of blogs has apparently caused the phenomenon to trascend the human experience and gain a foothold in the machine world. That's my overly verbose way of telling you that Xboxes can blog now. It's an undeniably odd statement, I know, but true nonetheless. The usefulness of the service is debatable, but it is free and mildly entertaining. Your XBOX rejoices when you play games, and whines pathetically when you don't. Here are a few excerpts from mine:

Kato's Xbox - 1/13/2007

I told Kato 'Hey man, it is time to play games' and for once he listened. Gamer score is 2410. He rocked out to Rainbow Six® Vegas, and then he tried to watch TV, but I killed the power... If I can't have him, no one can.

Kato's Xbox - 1/16/2007

My power supply almost exploded! Kato turned on the juice and we did some serious gaming! 2535 points of total gamerscore is pretty good. Admit it. That is a boost of 125 points over last time! He rocked out to Rainbow Six® Vegas winning 2 achievements, and then he went to get some food. I told him to bring me back something but I got seriously dissed.

Kato's Xbox - 1/24/2007

I read online that someone called me all 'emo' for complaining about Kato in my blog... what is with everyone and their labels? And in other news, no gaming yesterday... in case you were wondering...

We all know what this means, of course. SkyNet can't be too far behind.

The other night I was laying in bed, my body ready for sleep but my mind still parsing the day's events. How can I fix that snafu in my new Blogger template? What do I have to do tomorrow? Can Senior Citizens be harvested as an alternative energy source? You know, the usual.

Feeling not quite ready to succumb to sweet, sweet slumber, I channel surfed for awhile until I settled on The Food Network. If it had been Rachel Ray I would have kept going--way too peppy for that time of night, and I think I might have gagged if I had to sit through her insufferable "Yum-O". It was, instead, Alton Brown. I like him. I find his presentation to be amusing. I decided to let him live.

Some of you may have caught my fatal mistake already: Watching a show about food in the middle of the night (after having finished working out, to boot). This particular episode was all about popcorn. I was pulled right in and by the end of the segment I was practically drooling. I could almost taste the buttery salty salty butter goodness on my tongue. I wanted to lick the television. The fear of electrical shock and "dusty tongue" dissuaded me at the last minute. I shut it off and cursed the Food Network.

Damn you Alton Brown! I was perfectly content and you had to ruin it by tempting me so. It was the most sinister of temptations, too: the snack. There is something about snack foods that make them seem incredibly appealing no matter what the situation. You could be sitting on the couch bloated after Thanksgiving dinner and if someone said, "Hey want some popcorn?", you'd invariably blurt out, "Dear, god, yes, I'm famished!" I seriously considered hoping out of bed and making a bowl. "Just a few handfuls", I thought. "Just enough to sate the urge. It can't hurt... you need it. You deserve it." I resisted.

But it was hard.

And do you want to know the worst part? Last night I turned on The Food Network... just hoping he'd be there to tease me again.

I defy you to refute the awesomeness of this papercraft Optimus Prime. I am ever in awe at the creative prowess of some individuals. The best part: it comes with the pattern and instructions to make your own! I'm definitely going to have to print this baby out and try it myself.

</fanboy>

As I stepped on my shoelace today getting out of the car and almost face-planted in front of my building, I thought to myself, "What's the deal with shoelaces?" I also thought to myself, "I wonder if the Great DiMaggio ever had a bone spur?" but that's hardly relevant to this story.

In this day and age, I find shoelaces to be a perplexing appendix to modern footwear. In an era of tear-away pants and male bust support, shouldn't we ditch this dinosaur of shoe fastening technology and embrace a twenty or twenty-first century advancement? Personally, I think shoes should go the Velcro route. It's been around for over 50 years but hasn't caught on as a staple of the adult shoe. As a kid I had them and they were awesome. Allow me to enumerate the advantages:

1. Simple action allows for quick shoe application/removal. No more of this knot-tying and untying nonsense.
2. Simple action allows for on-the-fly adjustments, without relacing, retying, etc.
3. Never have to worry about stepping on untied or overly long laces.
4. Never have to buy new laces because the old ones frayed or got dirty from dragging in the mud.
5. That awesome schzzzip sound!

To be fair, there are a couple of known disadvantages:

1. Velcro straps sometimes accumulate fuzz (this could open the market for Velcro lint removers, though).
2. Snipers/Ninjas must wear traditional laces, or not try to field-adjust their boots, for fear of giving away their position.

I think the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. I say, down with laces! Embrace the straps! We could eliminate Shoelace Trippage (S.T.) in our lifetime!

I walked past a movie poster this evening and I had the thought that I think everyone has had recently: What's up with Eddie Murphy and his obsession with wearing a fat suit in every movie? Can we categorize this as an eating disorder? Or an acting disorder? "Actor's Bulimia" perhaps?

On a more meta topic, updates have been sparse this week. I have been working hard on the new design for the blog. It's turning out pretty well but I don't think I'll have all of it finished for another week or so. Hopefully it will meet with your approval. The only comment I've received on it so far was that it needed more cowbell.

I'm not really sure what that means.

"I want young men and women who are not alive today... to know and see that these new privileges and opportunities did not come without somebody suffering and sacrificing for them"
"Whatever, nigga."
The above is the opening to an episode of the animated series The Boondocks entitled "Return of the King". It's a pretty powerful statement of how the sacrifices of some can be all but forgotten.

Rapper Heavy D echoed a similar sentiment on the track "Letter to the Future" off his 1991 album Peaceful Journey:

-Martin Luther King had a dream...
-Who cares?
-That's exactly what turned his dream into a nightmare.

Hopefully apathy will not undue all that Dr. King and others have worked for.

I recommend you check out that episode of The Boondocks--it's one of my favorites and is both humorous and poignant. Last year I think I summed up my thoughts on Dr. King and this day pretty well, so I won't reiterate it all here again. Have a read, if you're interested.

I encourage you to take a moment and watch, listen, or read his "I have a dream" speech. Let it remind you why we have a day in celebration of this man.

I also encourage you to check out a very poignant story posted last year on Bill Harris' Dubious Quality blog about his young son and Martin Luther King Day. It's not particularly long and tugs on your heart-strings just right. Give "To Remember" a read, it's worth it.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

Dear God, if I have to see that Dodge Ram "Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots" commercial again, I think I'm going to stab my eyes out with a pencil. Or a robot, whichever is within reach.

Seriously, Dodge. We get it. Your Ram is tough. Somehow, the participants of a child's game from the late 60's have come to life and, seeing the ultimate futility in their metallic deathmatch, have broken free from their handlers and their ring and chosen to rampage through the streets, rockeming and sockeming anything foolish enough to stand in their way. Of course, they are no match for your over-sized monstrosity of a vehicle. I can't help but read between the lines, though, Dodge. Are things not going well at home? I mean, clearly you are overcompensating. And since the Ram almost certainly represents the male member, I can only speculate on the true meaning behind an equally gigantic robot pounding on it. Trying new things, are you Dodge? Maybe something you read on the Internet?

Regardless, I'm tired of the commercial. It's like I can't escape it. During the abysmal Ohio State/Florida Tostitos BCS National Championship Salsa Game Chip Bowl Ole (or whatever it's called) I do believe the commercial was shown no less than 2,000 times. At one point in the first half I'm pretty sure Florida even called one of their two Dodge Ram Official Times out (sponsored by Dodge) in order to "Grab Life By The Horns". I'm also pretty sure Ted Ginn Jr.'s injury on the first play of the game was caused by an over-sized and overenthusiastic Rock'Em Sock'Em robot. But that may have just been my mind's way of dealing with the loss.

So Dodge, please do us a favor, and maybe cut back on the crazy amount of ad time you're purchasing. I'm sure your product is wonderful, and the commercial was amusing the first hundred times or so, but gives us a break. I think you made your point: Ram beats Robot. We get it. When I have saved up the money and find a parking spot large enough, I will purchase your vehicle in anticipation of the innevitable Human/Robot conflict.

Until then, let me watch my football (and everything else) in peace.

Some television shows have a specific naming scheme for their episodes. Friends, for instance, called most of them "The One With/Where ..." and Scrubs uses "My ... " or "His/Her ..." I wonder if one could apply the same scheme to blog post titles. WITFITS certainly doesn't have much of a running theme when it comes to titles. They usually fall under one of two categories: exceedingly simple or a bit too obscure.

Maybe I should start. I could go back and relabel all of my stories. You know, like "My Buck Rogers" or "My Dick In A Box" or "The One Where I Want To Punch The Mac Guy In The Face" or even "The One Where I Think I Work For The Onion".

Actually, that would annoy the ever living crap outta me. Forget it, I'm not doing it. Er, at least, not again.

For Christmas my very good friend gave me the NYKO GameFace 360, a kit for making your own custom faceplate for the Xbox 360. For those who don't own the console, the faceplate on the front of the 360 is removable. This fact appeared in much of the marketing hype from Microsoft before the launch, even though most gamers would probably agree that they only care if the system is fast and plays games well. Still, you can buy replacement faceplates if you want to spruce up the look of your system (though there aren't too many out there--yet this Halo faceplate is very cool) and NYKO sells a kit whereby you can design and print your own.

The kit is a pretty cool idea and this first implementation is decent. I won't waste your time or bandwidth giving my review (others, like CNET, have already done so). Rather, I'll tell you that I've already finished and printed my first design.

Following up yesterday's post, I present to you my first attempt at a Transformers (2007) Movie Xbox 360 faceplate. The image links to a larger version meant for printing on NYKO faceplate cards, if you happen to have the kit and like the design.

The image itself came out pretty well, I think, though it's not highly modified from the source material. The eye of the Transformer is placed where the power button is on the 360 (and in the original photo it is actually half an eye--I modified it to make it look like a full one even though it's covered). I was able to print directly from Photoshop (they have a PSD template available on their site) without having to use their software, and only had to make a few minor adjustments to the print options to get it to line up correctly. It printed well, but I'm a little disappointed in the design now that I have it on my box. The black, grey, and blue look really nice on a monitor, but they are quite dark when printed. Where my console sits it doesn't get a great deal of direct light, so you can't really see much of the coolness from the couch. If I were to do it again, I think I'd lighten it up a bit and make the text as large as possible.

It's somewhat disappointing that the front of the console has so many slots (seven or so to punch out in the design) leaving very little room to work with. For abstract patterns this really doesn't matter (or for companies who can make their own faceplate that continues the pattern onto the moving parts like the buttons, memory card doors, etc.) but for more interesting subject matter it's pretty tricky. Even still, it's cool that you can do it. If and when I make more, I'll post them on WITFITS for interested parties.

As regular readers are certainly well aware, I hold a special place in my heart for the original Transformers cartoon of my childhood and that I have, let's say, a raging hardon for the upcoming movie.

It's a new year, I thought I'd juxtapose sweet memories with inappropriate frat boy slang. What'dya think?

Recently the preview trailer was released, which actually shows something of the movie (unlike the teaser trailer which didn't show any footage). If you haven't seen it, you must check it out. It's got me all excited, even if I'm not exactly thrilled at how my childhood heroes look when realized in CG. Still, a glimpse of the back of Optimus Prime's head was enough to set my heart a flutter.

Again, let me say that if Michael Bay screws this up, I will hunt him down and... I dunno... turf his lawn or... refold all of his maps wrong. Something like that. Something evil.

I was quite happy to find that the original voice actor, Peter Cullen, had signed on to intone Optimus' weighty lines. They even had a contest where fans could suggest what they'd most want him to say in the movie. To my delight, they have posted the top ten, as spoken by Prime himself. Hearing "Autobots: Transform and roll out!" again brings back fond memories.