Make A Wish


In case you haven't heard, the Make A Wish Foundation is going bankrupt because of ONE. LOUSY. KID!!!

...or is it?

Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation With Wish For Unlimited Wishes

Crazier than Joe Who's What?!?

Yesterday I was "sick as a dog." I felt "beaten like a stepchild." I called out sick, but I think my manager thought I was feeding her "a cock and bull story." I guess my lying skills aren't "up to scratch." But I don't care. I wouldn't care for "all the tea in China. "

No, I'm not going crazy, I've just been hanging out at the net's newest cool-kids hangout! Forget MySpace, Facebook or any one of a million XXX-rated websites, this one's got it where it counts: I'm not too sure exactly where it's got it, but I'm sure some folks out there will find this website enjoyable. Dig it here!

RIP Jim

This is an article from my hometown newspaper, The Daily Record. The article is about one of the kids from my graduating class in high school who died two days ago in Colorado, the victim of a snowboarding accident. Now, Jim and I weren't best friends, we weren't even very good friends. But Jim was a good kid. He was an athlete and an academic. I was about as far away from those two social circles as Rosie O'Donnell would be from a weight loss clinic, but we still knew each other and he always treated me with respect. Heck, this kid treated everyone with respect. I haven't thought of him since we graduated but having read the article, I miss the kid a lot. He was a good guy. Makes you think: Life is Short, my friends. Make the most of it and enjoy the hell out of it. Tell everyone you love that you love them because they may not be here tomorrow. Here's the article (by the way, there are quotes from Shane Force, a kid my mom used to babysit when we were little kids):

Jefferson grad dies in accident at Colo. resort

Family and friends mourn death of James McLean, 33

BY MATT MANOCHIO
DAILY RECORD
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

A 1993 Jefferson High School graduate who helped lead the Falcons wrestling team to victory and who went on to become a doctor was killed in a snowboarding accident over the weekend in Colorado.

Dr. James P. McLean, 33, of Leawood, Kan., was killed Sunday at the Breckenridge Ski Resort after a snowboarding jump went awry, according to published reports. McLean, who died of a neck fracture, was employed by the University of Kansas Hospital, where he was working as a physiatrist, a doctor specializing in sports medicine and rehabilitation. Funeral arrangements are pending.

"He was a great kid, a fine, upstanding young man," John Cinotti, Jefferson High School's vice principal, said Monday afternoon. "He always did the right thing."

Cinotti learned of McLean's death Monday morning and said he was not only an outstanding wrestler, but played linebacker for the school's football team.

"He was an excellent wrestler -- either third or fourth in the state back in 1993," said Cinotti, who was the school's football coach at the time. "He was very intelligent. He had a great head on his shoulders. He helped people. There wasn't a bad bone in his body. He was just very kind to individuals."

McLean's brother, Justin McLean, 32, of Bedminster, described his older brother as "just a very energetic, happy, positive person who just had the most positive approach to life," during a Monday phone interview. "And I think he tried to get the most out of it that he could."

McLean said his brother was always busy.

"He worked incredibly hard in academics and athletics, but he loved it," McLean said, adding that he believed his brother was only five years old when he set his sights on practicing medicine.

"The first time he wanted to be a doctor was when he had pneumonia when he was a very young kid and he was hospitalized for that," McLean said. "I know there was a doctor who made an impression on him even at that young age. Since then I remember ... he always wanted to be a doctor."

Dennis McCulloch, a spokesman for the University of Kansas Hospital, where McLean was an attending physician for the organization's rehabilitative medicine program, said McLean had been at the hospital for only eight months, but in that short time had gained the attention of the staff.

"He was going to head up an expansion of our spine program at the hospital," McCulloch said. "He had only been there since June, but the expansion of the spine program was a high-priority project for the campus. So it's quite a prominent position.

"He was very thought out, and we had high hopes for this initiative because of his leadership," McCulloch said.

McLean completed a fellowship at the Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago, McCulloch said. Both his medical schooling and residency were at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark. He was single.

Details of the accident were not available Monday, as spokesmen for law enforcement agencies and the ski resort were not available. The Kansas City Star reported that McLean was wearing a helmet, had become airborne and landed on his head. The Denver Post reported that he was provided with life support by the ski patrol and taken to Breckenridge Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. The coroner ruled the death as accidental, the Post reported.

McLean is survived by his parents, Jim and Jackie McLean, who reside in Richardson Texas. His brother, Justin McLean, was a Falcon wrestler from 1991 to 1994 and a member of two state championship teams, as well.

Justin McLean said his brother went on to compete at Rutgers University and was the captain of the wrestling team there, as well.

"He was just a great human being and a great asset to society," Cinotti said. "It's such a shame that we lose a person like that at such a young age who had so much to contribute."

Shane Force, 34, of Montville, graduated a year ahead of McLean at Jefferson and was on the wrestling team with him. He said McLean finished fourth in the state in both his junior and senior years, and was one of the leaders of the 1993 Jefferson Falcon team that ranked first in the state and country.

"He was just a really hard worker," Force said. "I think football encouraged him to lift weights a lot. He didn't have a lot of God-given talent, but he was in the weight room lifting every day. He worked very hard."

Force said another aspect of McLean's character was his giving side. McLean in the last year finished his schooling and residency and likely had a lot of student loans, Force said. That didn't prevent McLean from regularly contributing money to the Jefferson Wrestling Alumni Association to help the current wrestlers.

"Every time we had a fundraiser he was one of 20 or 25 who would donate," Force said. "That said a huge amount about him."

Force described McLean as a soft-spoken teammate who excelled using a particular wrestling hold.

"He was king of the front headlock," Force said. "He'd do it eight to 10 times a match and nobody could stop him. He was amazing at how he could catch anyone with that."

Tim Hennessey, 39, of Charlotte, N.C., was an assistant coach in Jefferson when McLean wrestled there, and agreed with Force's assessment of their friend.

"I would say Jimmy was probably ... not the most talented kid in the room, but through incredible work ethic and kind of a can-do attitude ... be brought an unparalleled work ethic into the room every day," Hennessey said Monday.

Hennessey said McLean's headlock was so masterful, he'd use it to win matches by taking down an opponent with it, letting him back up on his feet, and then taking him down again with the same fast move, thereby piling up the points and victories.

"He just got so good with this front headlock," he said. "He was in unbelievable condition. It was literally unstoppable."

Hennessey also said McLean was one of the top students in the class of 1993, and an intense listener.

"Whether it was just listening to you telling a story, or something unrelated to wrestling, he was just so focused and listened so, so well," Hennessey said.

Did Anyone See the Ninja Parade?

If you've never visited The Onion, you should go there now. If you'd rather, here's a quick description of it on Wikipedia.

Anyway, I was there the other night checking out the videos - most of which are pretty funny, by the way - but this one really had me rolling. Check it out and check out the other videos as well. Enjoy!


Ninja Parade Slips Through Town Unnoticed Once Again

Some people ought to put a little more thought into ad placement. Take this link, for example: 15 Unfortunately Placed Ads. You have to look all over the page being shown to see exactly why the ads are "unfortunately placed," but it's worth it because some of them are darn funny. Enjoy!

Man, I suck at Trivia. Check out this site. You simply try to attain the highest score possible. Just register with an email address and you're in. It's a tough game, though, because for each correct answer you receive anywhere between one and twenty-five points (most questions I got correct had point values below ten). But for every question you get incorrect, you get ten points deducted from your score. Three incorrect responses in a row ends your game. So far my scores have been -38 and -5. I hope that you fare better than I have. Good luck!

C.Y.A.

This site has a moral...or does it? You decide.

Click Here.

'Tis The Season

Hey folks, here's a neat little page that lets you create your own snowflake.

"So what?" you say. "There are lots of snowflake makers on the web! For instance, there's Make-a-Flake, Snow Days' Create Your Own Snowflake, Flake Central's Snowflake Maker, or the Snowflake Designer. What's so special about the snowflake maker you're recommending, loser?"

Well check it out and be amazed. This one rotates your snowflake creation in 3D. And you know how people these days are so in l-o-v-e with anything 3D (from Beowulf to The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3D)!!!

It's okay with me if you really aren't impressed with this snowflake generator because, at the end of the day, it's just one snowflake generator out of a potential 73,100 snowflake generators that Google could find so I'm sure that there must be at least one out there that is better than this one; I'm just too lazy to try to find it (this one returned as the third search result, though).

I spent a great portion of my childhood watching TV. Some folks may say I spent too much of my childhood watching TV. Looking back, at times I feel like the kid in the opening credits to Dream On, and I start to think that maybe those folks were right because a lot of my childhood memories are in some way tied to television.

For instance, I remember taking karate with my sister and the Rossi's in 1981, the year that The Greatest American Hero premiered, which quickly became my favorite show during its short-lived run. I also remember talking to my friends in school about that show and The Fall Guy, starring Lee Majors. I remember writing episodes to Manimal, Automan and Whiz Kids in third grade (1983) with my buddy, Rob Willard. My friend Dave and I used to discuss Pee-wee's Playhouse back in sixth grade (1986), and in 1987 I developed a crush on Kimmy Gibbler of Full House when that show premiered. I became friends with Adam Repka the year The Facts of Life (thankfully) went off the air (the year was 1988. We were in the 8th grade).

See what I mean? Should I go on? I can relate everything to movies, as well, but this post is about television shows because I found TelevisionTunes.com Check it out. It's a lot of fun. I found so many shows I had not thought about in years and it was really cool hearing their theme songs again. Enjoy!

Yikes, check out this site. It's called Blue Ball Machine (minds out of the gutter, folks). It's fun to watch where the balls go, just keep in mind that they wrap around the screen from bottom to top and side to side.

Here's a nifty little distraction: it's called Man in the Dark. Use your mouse to move him around. Have fun!

Think you know your nerds? Or are you more familiar with your fellow psychopaths? Take this quiz to find out. By the way, I don't need to know how you scored; just stay at least 500 feet away at all times, killer!

I was a totally different person in high school and college. I was extremely shy and unsure of myself. I was single just about every fucking minute of those consecutive 9 years (with the possible exceptions of the summer of '92, and the fall of '96 through summer of '97, which I'm still trying to figure out if they count. If you want clarification, let me know; I may or may not respond). Pretty sad, eh? That's okay, you can agree with me. I guess part of the problem was, well, I'm still trying to figure that out, too, but whatever it was that was bothering me, I'm over it now. I can talk to just about anybody about almost anything. And since I'm so far removed from the dating scene, I figured that this would be something fun to post; something that I should have read 15 years ago. It's an article called Asking For The Date. This is truly the best advice I never received.

Here is a link to a clock. Big deal, you say? Check it out here. It's really neat...for the first few seconds, anyway. After about 10 seconds or so it gets tedious. But at least it's a novel approach to time keeping. Enjoy!

Check out this video. It's a guy painting a portrait of Bruce Lee in a very unique way. Dig it here.

Aaah, drinking games. Where would my college experience have been without them? Check out this list of drinking games, especially if you're tired of the same-old drinking games. Have fun!

Here is statistical proof that Pac-Man exists.

Calvin and Hobbes was one of the best comic strips ever.

I still mourn the day Bill Watterson decided to end the strip. I'm very glad, though, that he ended it when he did because the worst thing that could have happened to the strip is that the humor of it, the heart of the strip and all of the characters, could have gone stale.

Take, for instance, another perennial favorite, Garfield. Garfield has been in existence for almost 30 years (it will be thirty years in 2008). How many more Monday jokes, pie jokes, Jon's ill-fated dates, attempts to mail Nermal to Abu Dhabi, etc, do we have to endure? Sure, it was cute the first few hundred times, but when is enough enough? Make no mistake: I am not bashing Garfield. I love Garfield and I like the fact that he's had a hit cartoon series, seemingly countless books and two live action movies. I'm happy for Jim Davis and I hope Garfield lives on for years. But I'm tired of reading it in the papers. In fact, most times, I skip it.

What Bill Watterson recognized was that as an art form the comic strip in general had devolved into simple sketches of mostly talking heads and not much else. There was hardly any development of characters and there were very few, if any, actual story arcs. Most daily strips ended with a quick joke or a silly pun. Watterson also was keenly aware that the medium as a whole could be so much more.

Bill Watterson filled the strip with vivid story arcs that dealt with so many different real life themes ranging from secret crushes to bullying to revenge, even death (think of the baby squirrel story). He treated his characters with the utmost respect and developed them more than just about any other comic.

And the panels that he would draw, especially the ones where Calvin was fantasizing, were simply incredible. From the golden age comic book styling of Calvin's alter-egos, Stupendous Man and Spaceman Spiff, to the hard-knock private eye, Tracer Bullet, who perpetually inhabited a life straight out of a film noir, Watterson showcased the very potential (and responsibility) that every comic strip artist has, and that the comics are not just filler; comics have a rich history that seems more and more to be taken for granted in exchange for a quick punchline and a syndication deal.

All this and I haven't even touched on Bill Watterson's fight to keep Calvin and Hobbes as a non-commercial entity as he felt that commercializing would have cheapened the artistic value of the product it was selling. But that whole battle is enough for another entry at another time. I've rambled long enough.

I don't expect that you're as much a fan of Calvin and Hobbes as I am, but here are some really good Calvin and Hobbes links for your perusal, which are the reason that I started writing this entry in the first place.

Simply Calvin and Hobbes
Calvin and Hobbes: Unplugged
Calvin and Hobbes Wonderland
Calvin and Hobbes.org
Calvin and Hobbes Unofficial Website
Calvin and Hobbes Making Snowmen
Bill Watterson's Wikipedia entry
An Interview with Bill Watterson
Drawn Into a Dark But Gentle World (this is a short essay Watterson wrote that was published prior to the end of Peanuts. A beautifully written homage)

Hey folks, you have to check out this video! It's called Man vs. Kids.

Now, I know that some folks would fail to find the humor in this, but to hell with those folks; this is hilarious. The sound effects add a lot to the humor of the video. Enjoy and have a great weekend, everybody!

Here's what you've all been waiting for, folks: a graph that explains why people are attracted to one another, given two distinct attributes, and the likely results of such attraction.

I'd like to think that I fall within the middle-third of the graph, top to bottom, which I assume would be classified as 1 Standard Deviation of the mean if you want to get statistical about it, but historically, I think I'm more of a left-third kinda guy - or several standard deviations of the mean - who especially inhabits the gray area at the top of the graph.