David's Tangled Thoughts

***Spoiler alert for the internationals*** After a year of anxious waiting (thanks Patrick ), I finally went to see Superman Returns . I have heard nothing but good things about it on the blogs and then the official reviews came in with good results. My sister even said it was great. So it being the second day of release, I went ahead and dragged Season to the 6:20 showing at Wonderland. (Who can beat $3.50?). Basically, it was decent. My excitement probably peaked at the opening credits. I had thought that the director, Bryan Singer was going to do a Superman movie that is separate from the previous films. Sorta like how Batman Begins was its own little separate movie. Nope, it came out with the same feel as the Reeves movies along with the music, the Fortress of Solitude, and Jor-El’s speech. However, given the obvious differences between the 70’s/80’s and the 2000’s, the movie didn’t feel like it was on its own nor did it feel properly connected with the predecessors. The plot had

Yesterday, I read one of the coolest posts ever. If I am fortunate to ever become a parent, I would hope that I would be able to be as awesome as this guy .

For those readers who have Cingular , I have good news! (As far as I know, that would make Season, Kacey, and John.) No—I’m not going with Cingular. However, I have codes that may get you a free ringtone or two. Pepsi Co. is selling pop with cap codes that you can enter at pepsismash.com . 1 in 3 caps have a winning code and I’ve got five caps. I can’t use them. Looking through the website, it appears that Alltel isn’t in on this program nor is the phone that I am planning to get compatible. So for the three of you (or maybe the lucky wanderer/lurker) if you get to this new post first, go ahead and use these codes: ********** ********** ********** (or it could be **********) ********** ********** Season, I don’t think they use the Treo but I could be wrong. Good luck. And let me know if you won. UPDATE 13 JULY 2006: I have deleted the codes because Season has already used them and has won something.

I’ve pretty much made the commitment to finally getting a service planned phone. A few days ago, I dropped another $25 into my pre-paid phone after only three weeks. When I do the math, I would still be paying less to keep going with the pre-paid option, but it’s so close that I’m willing to say, “Fudge it.” Let’s see my options: Cingular From what I hear, Cingular is a pretty good service provider. My friend, Season, has it and seems to be satisfied with the coverage. Coverage is the clincher for me. If I don’t have good coverage, I won’t use that service as you’ll find out in a bit. When I looked on their website, I seemed satisfied with what they offered in terms of contracts and services provided. Their coverage seemed adequate but I wasn’t too impressed with their rural coverage. And since I basically live amongst cows, it was enough for me to put it on the back burner. T-Mobile If it wasn’t for the lack overage, I would totally have gone with them. Their basic plans were

That pretty much described my condition for a few hours after my run with Kacey at the park. Oh and get this—I was about to collapse after a run of 1/4 maybe 1/3 mile. Ugh! This is what I get for not exercising in two freakin’ years. I honestly felt bad for asking Kacey to run with me because I know that she is stepping way below her level to run with me. But thank God for her. I need someone to do this with. You never know when you’ll need someone to make that 911 call. I’ll just work myself slowly up. My goal is to reach 2 miles and then to do it in less than 16 minutes. I’ll try to give you a progress report in August just before the Berrien County Youth Fair. Lord knows that any diet or exercise plan will be thrown out the window during those six days.

Ah, the perks of working in a candy store. My boss brought back some a lot of samples from the candy show that was held in Chicago for us when we had a general store meeting. Some of it was candy that the company president was thinking about carrying, some of it was old, and some of it wasn’t available to the general public yet. Take a look at those candies in the picture. That is probably a third of the haul that I took in. Yeah, some of it didn’t survive the journey home. Those handed painted gum bears haven’t been released yet. I don’t what the retail price of it will be, but I can tell you right now… that it’s not worth it. The Ritter Sports are, however. Good stuff and this time, the samples came directly from Europe and not the branch locations here in North America. The Strawberry Cowtails were pretty decent but I’m not sure if they will do well against the chocolate and caramel versions. The chocolate poprocks were interesting. Unlike the traditional rocks which pop right away

I heard that if it storms on a wedding day, there will be good luck. Well, it rained on Saturday but let up just in time to be pleasant for the ceremony and reception. I'll take that as being good luck all around. The ceremony was great. The Gillettes remarked on how much pageantry was involved. Apparently, their church's ceremonies are shorter and to the point. I guess Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches are a little too alike. I like a little bit of pageantry. The only thing that I didn't expect was communion. This Episcopalian church practices open communion so they welcomed all baptized Christians. I can not begin to express how happy I was over that. My church practices closed communion and I have not been able to participate in the Eucharist for over a year. Maybe I should consider converting but I think I need to sort myself out before making such a decision. The reception was held at the Century Center. When I got there, I immediately looked for Amber G. Most

I can not stress the importance of good preperation. I tried finding a good wedding present on Thursday and came this || close to buying a spice rack. A spice rack! Also in the running were wine glasses, a picnic basket, and trash can. (It was a cool looking trash can, honest.) It may seem like no thought goes into it, but how can you beat a gift card? If there is something that they didn't get at the wedding and yet is something they need, they can always use a gift card. At least, that's my justification of it. Some other tips-- dry clean your suits at least one week before using it. I got lucky. Also, make sure you have a tie that matches well with the rest of what you are wearing. It saves a trip to JC Penny an hour before actually needing it.

In the summer of 2002, I was living in Mason Hall up at Michigan State University watching the World Cup at an ungodly hour of the morning. Football (I will try to use the more common term for soccer in this post) isn't a popular sport here in the United States and so it wasn't surprising to find me and the German student living two doors down being the only ones watching. Four in the morning is late--even for summer college students. The 2002 FIFA World Cup was the first time I sat down to watch a game of football. Well, that's not quite true. I've seen games on TV before but was bored to tears watching people kick a ball around endlessly. This time, however, I got into it and began to look at it more as a strategic game. I actually began to enjoy it so much that I probably woke some people up on my floor a couple times. Now that the 2006 games are up, I'm not sure if I want to watch it. The games are on in the middle of the day so time definitely wouldn't be a

There are moments when I could pull out my camera and take a picture. A picture is not only worth a thousand words but can be a nexus of a thousand thoughts. While I was walking toward the barber shop, I walked past Hollister where I saw an obese kid sitting on the steps. I wanted to take a picture because this guy was sitting there, eating his frozen dots. Behind him were the mannequins of incredibly fit people. I’m talking about muscles that begin to look grotesque. The contrast was something that I wanted to capture: fit and unfit. Reality and image. I will not dance around it—I hate Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch. While American Eagle and Aeropostale are virtual clones of the other two, they don’t provoke me much. It’s that exclusion is the image that Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch give out. Every time that I go past one of their stores, I feel like I can’t shop there. They might as well throw up a sign that says “You must be thin, beautiful, and rich to ent

I haven’t been terribly busy but I haven’t been in the blogging mood for a bit. The trip to Muncie went fine. It wasn’t the best use of company money to send me down there. I wasn’t able to do much in the way of improving the store. I wouldn’t mind going to some other store as I really do like the traveling bit. I got to go through Fort Wayne for the first time in my life. Not exactly thrilling, I know but I’ve never been to the UP either and I’m meaning to go to that someday. I’ve been trying to set up a way to go running this summer. Kacey used to run with me when I was in AFROTC and since we still live near each other, I think it would be good to get together with her. It’s totally my fault, but so far, we can’t seem to get it going. Shoes, work, time, that sort of thing. It looks like the tennis games might be on hold for a while. Season broke her foot on her trip to NYC a little while ago. I saw her last night and she seems to be a lot better from the last time that I sa

...why didn't I think of this? Why not spend 06/06/06 in Hell? "Would you like to know more?"