Ooo! I’m too cool for embedded video! I want the link to the YouTube page!

A lot of folks have been blogging about Mother’s Day today — and I’ve been reading some wonderful accounts on blogs and on Twitter about the thoughts and the actions which are occurring. It’s also nice to see pictures from the present and past as people honor their moms.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter today, you may have noticed that today is a tough day for me. as I’m still getting used to life without my mom. Something very cathartic happened earlier today which found me really having strong emotions about the day and my mom’s memory. Transcribing these emotions in words felt too limiting, so I decided to push myself against my comfort zone and try vlogging instead.

I apologize for the poor lighting and sound quality — I just wasn’t willing to re-record this. The pictures I show towards the end are quite blurry; I’ll take a still shot and post it to the end of this blog a little later.

Thanks to all of you who have been so supportive of me today. You have no idea how much it means to me.

And I assure you that I’ll be more upbeat and funny-looking in my posts for the rest of the week. Pinky swear…

EDIT: Since they didn’t come out so well on video, here are the pictures on that wall…

This is my parents and Av — taken towards the end of 2004. He was two months shy of turning two.

This is a picture of my mom (left) and socKs’s mom (right) taken at our wedding reception. Both of them had a great time.  And both socKs and I have been very fortunate to have wonderful relationships with our respective mothers-in-law.

These are the Beatles.

Why a repeat post?

Well, I’ll be totally honest: since TequilaCon ‘08, the traffic on my blog has gone through the roof. Thank you all for reading and commenting. And I apologize for taking a long time to get back to you all in the comments, but I assure you that I will continue to respond to all of your responses.

Anyway — a few weeks back I talked about the rotating headers which adorn the top of my blog. Many of them come from my obsession with Google Maps, Google Earth and Microsoft Live Maps, which I use to find all sorts of landmarks.

Let’s see if you can guess where each of these locations are…

(Yes. Some are obvious; some are not as obvious. Be as detailed as you can. Winner gets due praise on my blog.)

The reason I’m reposting this is because I had zero entry submissions last time. Zilch. I’m guessing that this was the case for two reasons: I didn’t have very many readers to start with, and I didn’t offer a flashy prize to the person who could guess the locations of the most pictures. Now I have more readers.

And a prize.

Yes — up for grabs this time is a Mighty Kite mini-kite! This is a small kite that will fit in a handbag, comes with forty yards of line, and is pre-assembled. Fun little toy, You can read more about it at Woot, the place where I picked up a few of these: Mighty Kite mini-kite.

HERE’S WHAT TO DO: Instead of posting your answers to the reply section of the blog, go ahead and email me no later than Tuesday, May 13 with your answers to: contest @ Shiny’s Takeout dot com (without the spaces and punctuation, of course). I’ll tally results and post the answers on Wednesday — as well as identify the winner with the most correct identifications. (If there is a tie, I will pick randomly among the folks at the top.)

Ready, all? Here we go! (Oh — and click on each to enlarge)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

I have about fifteen more. Let me know if this is interesting enough to do again…

A good friend and I were talking about mix tapes over the past two days. The level of conversation was actually escalated to the point where I told (threatened?) her that I would make her a mix tape — not a CD, a playlist, a pre-loaded iPod or an SD card. A cassette tape with about 90 minutes of music on it.

Of course, this was seen as problematic. Not because it would have been considered a slap in the face to technological advancement. Nope. It was more along the lines of her not having anything to play the tape on in her home. I guess she got rid of the Sony Sports boombox in obnoxious yellow. (Yes — we have one.) Or, perhaps, she hocked her “auto-dub” double cassette stereo system years ago at a yard sale, not considering the future magic that would be Shiny’s mad cassette mixing skillz. So it looks like we’ll have to settle for a mix-CD instead.

But it got me thinking: where are my mix tapes? Back in high school and college I considered myself, in very modest terms, mix-master Shiny. Where other kids my age were excelling at organized sports, academic achievement and getting girls, I would reign supreme over the home stereo system, learning exactly where to cue up the right track. I was the prince of the pause button. The Duke of Dolby B. Lord of the cassette inserts I would print out to make everything look professional.

In the summer of 1992, I spent time at my college buddy Roberto’s home — he had a setup with multiple CD players (!) and was able to let me do some of my own mixing and cross-fading. And I made a few choice mixes that summer. I was so impressed with myself.

Anyway — I found them in my closet. And decided to pull them out to see how they held up.

Notice the sleek Bookman font lettering on the laser-printed insert? The slick smoothness of the clear Fuji cassette shell? The sticker with the number 6 placed strategically between those two gear-shaped hole things? That’s professionalism, people. Here - let’s take a look at another viewpoint:

Not only that, but I decided it was time to dust off the mix tape and take it for a spin today. I wanted to see how it held up over time.

Yes, I drive a ten year-old car that has a cassette player in it. Our past few vehicles have undergone surgery to receive CD (and later, MP3-CD) players in them, but we later realized that it was probably more practical to keep the cassette player and buy an adapter for use with an MP3 player. Today I removed that cassette adapter and pushed in a real cassette tape. What would happen? Would all the tape unravel and gum up the in-dash system? Would I have to resort to listening to Kriss Kross make me “jump, jump” without a full dynamic range?

Surprisingly it wasn’t that bad! The tape was very muffled at that exposed portion where it had been stored in a dusty box for over a decade. But once I got past that portion, it actually sounded quite good! Well, good enough to blast and not notice a huge difference from the CDs or MP3 player fodder I was used to. (I will say, however, that I could discern no difference whether or not Dolby was turned on or off.)

So — I listened to it in its entirety! Over the duration of a commute to work and a commute home (during rush hour in the rain). Here’s the playlist for Shiny Happy Mix Tape: Volume VI:

Side A:

1. Thompson Twins - Revolution
2. A-Ha - Take on Me
3. Extreme - Play With Me
4. Frankie Goes To Hollywood - (some extended dance mix of) Two Tribes
5. Tears for Fears - Watch Me Bleed
6. Don Henley - Boys of Summer
7. Public Enemy - Fight the Power
8. Roxette - Joyride
9. Midnight Oil - When the Generals Talk
10. Joe Jackson - Steppin’ Out

Side B:

1. Nine Inch Nails - Head Like a Hole
2. Prince - Sign O’ The Times
3. Howard Jones - Life in One Day
4. Aerosmith - Love in an Elevator
5. The Art of Noise featuring Tom Jones - Kiss
6. ABC - Be Near Me
7. Yes - Survival
8. Kriss Kross - Jump
9. Concrete Blonde - Tomorrow Wendy

I generated quite a few thoughts listening to this compilation for the first time in at least ten years.:

* Again, the sound quality wasn’t too bad. Then again, my hearing isn’t what it once was, so that may be why I think so. I remember when CDs came out and I was so amazed by the brilliance of the music. Or maybe I just wanted to be dazzled. Why the hell am I talking about CDs anyway? Moving along…

* How did we survive with fast-forward / rewind at turtle-like speeds? Seriously — I wanted to skip through a track to see what was next. And that alone took me a minute and a half. It’s similar to being used to your TiVo and then suddenly going back to a VCR — and realizing that it takes 20 seconds to fast forward through a 30 second commercial. So, on the most part, I was stuck just listening. Even through…

* Yes songs really drag out for a long, long time. I used to be a huge Yes fan, seeing them in concert several times from high school through college and beyond. (I might even see the current lineup this summer.) And perhaps my ADHD has become even more fine-tuned, or now we’re living in more of an “on-demand” society, but their songs all seem to be too fuckin’ long. Don’t get me wrong — their songs are classics. Masterpieces. But they simply can’t be listened to during bumper-to-bumper traffic.

* My taste in cover songs has really changed. I used to love the Thompson Twins’ cover of the Beatles’ “Revolution.” And now? I think it’s a lame excuse for a track to hook people to buy their album. This was the same album with “Lay Your Hands On Me.” Why didn’t I put that on instead?

* I can’t think of the song “Take on Me” without imagining the awesome (for its time) video in my head. Self-explanatory.

* Early Extreme rocks big-time. We’re talking about before the “More than Words” era. The song I chose is on the “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” soundtrack. Excellent, indeed! The song really holds up, while…

* Early Tears for Fears tries too hard to be The Cure. Or the other way around. But it’s pre-goth goth. The song I chose, “Watch Me Bleed,” is on an album called “The Hurting.” Then again — one of the other tracks is the original version of “Mad World” before it was covered for that Donnie Darko movie.

* Damn, the Cold War was kind of unnerving at one time, wasn’t it? The Frankie Goes to Hollywood song had little sound clips from fallout drill recordings. I was too young to remember most of that, but I do remember the video with Reagan and Andropov (I think?) impersonators beating the shit out of each other in a boxing ring. Oh — and there’s also Reagan impersonations in this version of the song. Remember when everyone was doing the Reagan voice? That could have made me millions in a different era…

* Midnight Oil was more politically aware than Bono ever was. The scary-looking bald dude even got a seat in Parliament! I wish they were recording more…

* Remember when we thought that Concrete Blonde was bad-ass because they had that strong-sounding woman lead singer? Now — just not so much. Sorry…

* Howard Jones should go on tour. I saw him on “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” a performance show which has has-been singers singing the hits of today as covers. I forgot which one he did, but he was stylin’. He looked really old, though. But in his defense — he is.

* Love In an Elevator is really quite a brilliant song when you think about it. The musical composition of it combined with the orchestral blends and vocal harmonies make it quite exceptional.

This is really a great mix-tape. I might give it away as a prize or something for a future contest…

So — anyone else have any mix-tapes from yesteryear? What songs were on it?

Tonight we celebrated socKs’s birthday — at the Cheesecake Factory!  ’twas fun.

Spoons on noses! A great way to pass time while waiting for one’s meal! (And even more fun when you take the spoons off of other people’s tables…)

Birthday cheesecake! Chocolate peanut butter cookie dough.  Leftovers still in fridge. Film at 11.

In honor of her birthday, socKs decided on a meme she wants everyone to participate with,  So, here we go:

(1) What is your birthday greeting for socKs?

(2) What is your full name?

(3) What is your social security number?

Here — I’ll go first:

(1) “Happy birthday! We love you lots…”

(2) J. Michael Shinzyczki

(3) 543-97-8426

Folks, I’m completely beat. My attention span is totally whacked off. I’m sorry it’s so long and going everywhere, and I’ll likely fall asleep two minutes after I finish.

(everyone in unison now… that’s what sh…)

Today was a regular Monday. Just like any other Monday.* Work was extraordinarily ordinary. I did, however, have Twitter up and was periodically checking replies to this blog. (I apologize for not responding to everyone yet; I promise I’ll get to you in the next few days.) I talked to a bunch of awesome folks with whom I had spent this weekend.

I checked the Wordpress stats for my blog. My readership for today was three times higher than my previous high. And that was when I posted my list of guys I would go gay for. Wow. Thank you all for dropping by. I’m sure that the numbers will drop substantially, but I hope some of you stick around, pick up my feed, and comment. And I’ll do the same with my new found TC friends.

I did notice that a sizable portion of my visitors came from one specific blog — one called Uppercase Woman. The blog is authored by a fellow participant of this year’s TequilaCon, Cecily, with whom I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking for quite a while. It was quite nice - Tattoos were being administered and tater tots were being shared. Cecily stated on her blog that I look younger than 36 — which means that my trusty Clairol “Just for Men” was working just fine. Thank you, Cecily. I haven’t had time to respond to your latest blog entry, but I will do so tomorrow. You covered quite a bit (as did those who replied), and I want to make sure my reply is comprehensive.

I do want to touch upon an experience she wrote about which I shared. Something which is quite personal, in fact. Something which I’m guessing we have in common with other bloggers — including but not exclusive to those attending TequilaCon or BlogHer or many of the other face-to-face gatherings out there.

As much as I like to spin it otherwise, I’m an introvert. In person I’m shy — painfully so at times.

Part of it, I guess, is that I have a fear of being socially aloof. I don’t want to be the guy who brings a conversation to a screeching halt for some reason. Or who makes creepy eye contact. Or breaks eye contact inappropriately. Or stays with a conversation just a bit too long. Or tags along with one person too excessively. I don’t want to be the guy people talk about in whispers once he leaves the area.

I can’t imagine I’m the only one in our community who gets self-conscious like this. It doesn’t happen when I blog, nor does it occur when I’m participating on a BlogTalkRadio show. Perhaps it’s because what I portray there is a more scripted version of myself. I don’t have to worry about longer periods of silence. Or being distracted by something else when my ADHD kicks in. In person I often cover by joking around — which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

But more often than not, I’ll retreat into silence. I don’t want to be the guy who says something wrong — so I simply won’t say anything. Oh — and I can be terrible with names. I never want to get someone’s name wrong, and I so often miss that window where I have license to ask the person what his/her name is.

(Afterthought: I was thinking about this a bit more — I have had a history of trouble with hearing at times. That’s a post in itself — especially since my Dad has had sever hearing loss for as far back as I can remember. But it makes it difficult not only to hear parts of certain conversations, but also to filter out extraneous conversations, noises and Bon Jovi songs.)

This weekend was an experiment for me — one where I would be forced to break out of the shell. I came not knowing anyone aside from those with whom I had conversed online for, perhaps, a month at most. A room
full of people, a few of whom I was really looking forward to meet. But what would happen next? What would I say after the first two minutes of conversation?

Don’t get me wrong — I was really excited about this weekend, and was looking forward to it immensely. But I was also quite scared and nervous.

But I think I did okay.

In fact, I think I did more than okay. I think I was a rock star.

Now — that might sound pretentious. But keep in mind where I was coming from. I really have trouble schmoozing people in social situations. It’s tough when the music is loud. And when you don’t know anyone. And you don’t know if there’s a proper in into conversations. And when you feel like everyone else knows everyone else. And when you arrive, like I did, on your own. I was thankful for a few things that were able to help out, such as lanyards/nametags.

But I suppose it was the friendliness and openness of everyone there that made me feel okay about just joining people in conversation. Perhaps it was the potential “out” of being able to cut all ties and never see anyone again if I really made that much of an ass of myself. But I did it. I actually did it. I introduced myself to at least half of everybody there. And it was rewarding. I was able to meet a whole bunch of great people.

This was not easy for me.

Thank you all for being accepting of who I am. And for making what was potentially a frightening situation one something special. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one there with wacky social hangups who felt at home with a bunch of bloggers.

We now return you to the obnoxious, mean-spirited, callous Shiny already in progress…

* from a very cool song called “Regular Daydreams” by Peter Himmelman. Very cool song. In fact, here:

Direct link to YouTube for all you cool RSS cats…

I now realize that I use “absolutely” as a crutch word far too much…

It’s May 3! Yes, a three! And although this will likely be a busy day, I still have an obligation to write my list. For those of you unfamiliar, a list pops out of me like a parasitic alien from my abdomen whenever a date with a three rolls around. So far today I’ve woken up and given the kid a bath. I still need to pack, shower, shave, gas up the car and twitter my brains out before I head up to Philadelphia. So — without further delay:

Top 8 Things Not to Say at TequilaCon ‘08 (If I Want a Fighting Chance of Being welcome at TC ‘09)

8. “Yeah! I’m the guy who’s following 50,000 people on Twitter. Have a problem with that?”

7. “Don’t you people have anything better to write about than yourselves?”

6. “You know — maybe next year we should try this at an alcohol-free venue…”

5. “Hey Avitable — you really haven’t tapped that Britt girl? What the hell’s the matter with you?”

4. “So — it’s a cartoon guy and a cartoon monkey. What the fuck’s supposed to be so cute about that?”

3. “Disney World? You’re going to Disney World with your family? with their track record on foreign manufacturing I think that’s a pretty selfish move on your part…”

2. “Battlestar Galactica? Booo-ringggggg….”

1. “So — when’s Dooce showing up? I’m pretty much here just to meet her…”

Go ahead. Ask me what my five-year old son’s favorite movie is.

Hell - ask his mom. His grandparents. His teachers at school. His friends at school. All of the parents of his friends at school. Every single one of them will tell you the same thing: there’s no performance steamier than Marlon Brando’s sex romp called Last Tango in Paris.

A close second, per my kid, is Disney’s Cars. Which, I must admit, is a really, really good movie. Most of the Pixar films are, in fact, because they reach different audiences on so many different levels. Cars was a bit more unique because it went into some uncharted territory for Disney, but it was embraced by the racing industry to the extent that everyone who had anything to do with motor vehicles at the time got a part — from Richard Petty to the Car Guys on NPR. The jokes were clever and, at times, way over the kids’ heads. (George Carlin plays a VW Microbus who brews his own “green fuel,” if you get my drift.) I can find something new almost every time I see it.

And that’s a whole lot of times. Because the kid wants to see it. Over and over and over and over again. He has his rituals — sometimes reciting the dialogue alongside, sometimes recreating the races with the cars he already has, and often asking us lots of “why” questions which we simply can’t answer. (”Why do cars need pit-stops?” “Why isn’t Route 66 on the map anymore?” Wikipedia has been keeping me one step ahead, but barely.)

Anyway, we get a kick out of his rote memorization skills. These evening he surprised me by starting our nightly ritual of Counting the Omer a few steps ahead of me — as he had already memorized some of the Hebrew! Which we certainly didn’t punish him for, even hough it had nothing to do with the Cars movie. But we also like his imitations of Cheech Marin and, of course George Carlin, both of whom have pretty big parts in the film.

Of course, George Carlin’s character, Fillmore, is the icing on the cake. He’s dead on with phrases like “I’m not the only one who’s seeing this, am I man?” when Lightling McQueen is hurtling through the air. Also, his observation late at night watching the town’s only traffic light: “I’m telling you man — every third blink is slower.” Or his explanation as to why his “organic fuel” hasn’t swept the nation: “It’s a conspiracy, man!”
The danger of this is his frustration when we make him do something he doesn’t want to do - and he comes back with It’s a conspiracy, man! Hard to get out of that one…

For the past three days, he’s been repeating a phrase: ‘Gallack Fiore. He’s playing with us and wants to know if we want some. You know — if we want ‘Gallack Fiore. We had no idea what he was talking about. He would answer “You know — from the Cars movie!” As if there was an entire scene revolving around this phantom ‘Gallack Fiore. We still had no frickin’ idea.

But finally — this evening socKs and I decided to own the night. We asked which character said “‘Gallack Fiore.” Look - the kid is five years old. We don’t expect his diction to be perfect, but at least it’s usually something we recognize. But this time? Not so much.

Anyway, it was (of course! Duh…) Fillmore’s (George Carlin’s) line. But still — we had no idea what this was.

Tonight we struck back. We watched the entire movie on the DVD player at five times the normal speed. We made sure he would focus — so he could let us know which scene exactly we kept on misunderstanding.

And finally? We got there. What he had been pronnouncing as “”Gallack Fiore was actually “Organic Fuel.”

‘Gallack Fiore <–> Organic Fuel. It all makes so much sense to me now. I thought maybe the kid was learning Klingon on the side or something…

And it was somewhere around this point that I decided to record a new audio commentary track for the film “Cars” starring the kid and his dad, both watching the movie carefully. Think of the market potential! The secrets! The new volabulary!

So that’s precisely what we did. I present you, ladies and gentlemen, with the viewers’ commentary of “Cars.” Make sure to start just as the Disney logo is appearing on the screen right after that “The Audience is Listening” thing.

I’ll even let it be a free download. I’m just waiting for it to render in my audio application. Better luck next year…

EDIT: socKs corrected me on this one after inquiring with the kid this morning. The corrected phrase has been updated. Makes a whole lot more sense now, doesn’t it?

Oh — and here’s an MP3 of the commentary for those who are interested — all 1 hour and 50 minutes of it.  If I get enough requests for a FLAC version of it I’ll post that as well. :)  Enjoy the spasstic coughing from me and the pleas from my son for a granola bar about 63 minutes through…

This is simply an intermission for my not-so-regular series where I will be exploring the shallow origins not only of my vegetarianism, but my journey to follow up nineteen years later and re-evaluate whether or not I should continue being one. If you’d like to catch up, you can do so by reading:

Chapter I: The Legend of Shiny - An Introduction
Chapter II: Acquired Memories
Chapter III: The Celery Stalk

Today is just a reminder that I’ll be restarting this series quite soon — and, along with it, my quest for Robin, the girl I pretty much became vegetarian for nineteen summers ago. Exciting, no?

A few days ago I included a video clip from an amazing film called Wet Hot American Summer. Released in 2001 as a project from former members of The State and Stella David Wain and Michael Showalter, the movie parodies summer camp movies of the 1980s in a smart, sassy way on the opposite side of the scale from the Scary Movie series. The film stars, among many others, Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Michael Ian Black, Ken Marino, Bradley Cooper, Molly Shannon, Marguerite Moreau and, in possibly his best film role ever, Christopher Meloni as the Vietnam vet turned camp chef.

It’s a brilliant film which is incredibly crude and inappropriate, but in a smart way. The deleted scenes reel shows quite a few takes that didn’t make it in because the material was just too raw and involved the child actors portraying real campers. The following video is a two-scene montage which depicts exactly that.  It answers a question likely asked of all camp kitchen staff by the annoying vegan kid who won’t eat the burgers at the camp cookout, and Chris Meloni speaks for cooks everywhere who grin, bear it, and serve the kids with love and affection.

(NSFW for language.)

Have a wonderful Friday. For those of you who are traveling, travel safely. Looking forward to meeting some of you on Saturday! And remember to eat the @$^&! corn!

It’s April 30 — a date which has the number 3 in it. Hence — time for a list. And it will be the last list you’ll see from me for a while — at least until another date with a 3 appears in the Gregorian calendar. Which happens to be May 3. Less than a week away. Gosh!

I had a wonderful list planned for today. Something which involved music. Something which a lot of folks can get into and relate to quite well. But my plans were altered last night when MetalMom affected my world.

She… She tagged me. And as much as she probably thought it was a good tag, it may very well have been a bad tag.

Allow me to show you where on the doll I was tagged:

But I’m a survivor! And the show will go on. Hence:

Top 6 Unspectacular Quirks About Shiny

Quirk #6: As a teen, I once got “cock-blocked” by Meredith Baxter-Birney.

Quirk #5: My dad taught me an introduction to computer programming in BASIC when I was 5. Back in 1977.

Quirk #4: Funky talent: I can associate almost any area code in the USA/Canada with its state/province. By heart. Including (but not as well) the really new ones.

Quirk#3: Although I don’t snack on them like this as much now, I used to love eating frozen green beans — straight from the freezer.

Quirk #2: I collect baseball caps with team logos from now defunct leagues (Such as the WLAF and the XFL.)

Quirk #1: I’m obsessed with music “mash-ups” — to the extent that I can listen to a song and find a completely obscure mash-up match for it.

There we go! Since I’ve been told I need to tag six people, I’ll be a tad more discreet and tag those of my friends who recently contracted genital warts within the past month. You sexy hot bitches know who you are!