Saturday, October 31, 2009

Boo!



Halloween was fine here in Westerville. The girls got into their costumes, which I count they have worn no less than three times BEFORE Halloween occurred, which I think is a great success. Grace had on her full vampiress regalia--complete with frightful wig and yellow fangs. Sarah was in full spy mode with her black outfit and makeup. And Hannah was as cute as every as a walking, talking lady bug.

Me? Well, I had on my wizard outfit that I have used many times in the past. But this time I was a Wiizard! (See the Wii remote in my hand in place of a magic wand?) And, yeah, I made that up on the spot.

Lynda took the kids trick -r- treating and I stayed on the porch with Hannahbug to give out the candy. Normally I blog the night away on my laptop. But with the battery being suspect and all the outdoor outlets devoted to decorative lighting, I twittered an facebooked my way through the evening with my trusty iPhone. The only technical mishap of the evening was my inability to download the "Thriller" song to my phone via the home network. (I had planned to play it on a loop to add a scary element to night. Oh well, maybe next year.)

Head on over to this list of tweets (in case you don't follow me habitually) so you can find out what you missed.

    Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Up in the air!

I posted some more audio ramblings over on my Twitter feed.

Listen to it now via this URL: http://twitter.com/dtm1971/status/5267910587

The picture below isn't everyone's Halloween costume in full--especially Hannah (obviously). But it's the best photo I could acquire at this moment. I took this at Inniswood last Sunday during the Halloween craft fair.



-- Posted From My iPhone (so, I apologize in advance for any typos I missed)

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

My latest insane idea

Yeah, I'm at it again--creating stuff I shouldn't create and thinking about doing stuff I probably shouldn't do.



There will be more . . . much more . . . (I hope) in the coming days.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Doing a meme that I stole

I swiped this from my friend G's semi-updated blog.

And since I've got nothing better that I can coherently put together right now, I'll calling an audible and punting. (Hey serious football fans . . . can you both call an audible and punt? I'm thinking not.)

Anyway, it's self explanatory . . . and (possibly?) semi-illuminating?

If you're surprised, let me know.

( ) Gone on a blind date
(x) Gave blood
(x) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Mexico
(x) Been to Florida
(x) Been to Hawaii
(x) Been on a plane
(x) Been on a helicopter [It was in Hawaii.]
(x) Been lost
(x) Gone to Washington, DC
(x) Ridden in a police car [I've written about this before. The infamous night I went walking with Stan Parker.]
( ) Hugged a homeless person
(x) Swam in the ocean [And almost drowned in two inches of churning ocean. But I think I've written about that as well.]
( ) Swam with stingrays
( ) Been sailing in the ocean
( ) Cried yourself to sleep
(x) Played cops and robbers
(x) Recently colored with crayons
( ) Ran a marathon
( ) Sang Karaoke
(x) Volunteered at a soup kitchen
(x) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
( ) Seen the northern lights
( ) Been para sailing
( ) Been on TV
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't [I'm sure I have, but I must have blocked the memory to protect my self image.]
( ) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(x) Fed a Giraffe [My annual zoo membership allows me to indirectly say "Yes."]
( ) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Fired a gun
(x) Danced in the rain
( ) Been to the opera
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(x) Serenaded someone
(x) Seen a US President in person
(x) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(x) Watched the sunrise with someone
( ) Driven a race car
(x) Been to a National Museum
( ) Been to a wax museum
( ) Eaten caviar
(x) Blown bubbles
(x) Gone ice-skating [But those who went with me have blocked it out to protect their image of me.]
(x) Gone to the movies
(x) Been deep sea fishing
( ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
( ) Lived in more than one country
(x) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
(x) Seen a falling star and made a wish
( ) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
(x) Seen the Grand Canyon
( ) Seen the Statue of Liberty
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise
(x) Traveled by train [But strictly in a tourist capacity, not as a way of life.]
( ) Traveled by motorcycle
(x) Been horse back riding
x) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
(x) Been to Disneyland/Disney world
( ) Been in a rain forest
( ) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Swam with dolphins
(x) Been to the Olympics [I've been to the Special Olympics, immediately following the mainstream Olympics.]
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
( ) Swam in the Mediterranean
(x) Been to a Major League Baseball game
( ) Been to a National Football League game
( ) Swam with sharks
(x) Been White Water Rafting
( ) Written a book or screen play
( ) Been to a Tournament of Roses Parade
(x) Lived in more than one state - like whoa
(x) Become a parent [Why else do you think I've colored with a crayon recently? I'm no artist.]
( ) Been Bungee Jumping
( ) Been to Vegas
(x) Been to a minor league baseball game
( ) Worked on a political campaign
( ) Been to the top of the World Trade Center or Empire State Building
(x) Ridden a Subway [Washington D.C. Metro--see above--and Atlanta's Marta]
( ) Been to your High School Reunion

Monday, October 19, 2009

At the heart of it all? Awesomeness

My internet world is pretty narrow. And those things that I blog about that are directly related to the internet itself consists of, I guess . . . Harry Potter, the Green (vlog)Brothers & assorted Nerdfighterness. And, I guess, television . . . but that isn't strictly reliant upon the internet.

Of course, I am involved in some internet-based stuff at work, but I don't talk about it much. (In general, I don't talk about work stuff in my blog for very sound, covering-my-ass type reasons.) But today some of those limited worlds collided in nice ways.

Last week one of my colleagues wrote a piece about Teen Read Week (which is going on now). As part of the celebration, teens go on the internet and vote for the YA book that they like the most. And yesterday, Teen Read Week's celebration the WWE (whaaaa?!) announced the winner.


Of course, the only way to describe this is . . . awesome!

If you've been reading me for the past year, you know how I dove into the Brotherhood 2.o obsession and have read Green's books. I've enjoyed the books immensely and am glad to see Green rewarded.

But what makes it even more interesting is that he is going to be in the Columbus area tomorrow! Some people from the office . . . but probably not me . . . are going to see him and maybe get some photos from the event (possibly even a brief interview reaction?) to serve as a great, news-worthy, follow up for btw.

This makes me very happy.

And to close, here is a video from Mr. Green in reaction to the Balloon Boy madness of last week. (I am happy to say I was NOT one of those who obsessed over the events described. But I do agree with what he says about it.)


For further insight into the nature of television, here is another interesting Green video.

DFTBA!

Gyrowheel Eliminates Training Wheels in Kids' Bikes

If we get this for Hannah, she'll be the luckiest kid on the face of the earth . . . or at least in our family.

[h/t and all text swiped directly from Gizmodo]
*********

Rarely one invention can save Humanity from annihilation, and push the world forward a couple of centuries in one go. The Gyrowheel is not it, but to millions of children worldwide, it'll feel like that. Check it in action:

LIke the Segway, the Gyrowhee uses gyroscopes to stabilize an object on wheels, using them to detect the when the vehicle is out of balance. Unlike the Segway, however, the Gyrowheel has a disk inside that spins in whatever direction is needed, creating a force that stabilizes the bike, even at low speeds. It's not the wheel itself that moves, it's the disk inside. According to Gyrobike, the manufacturer, this is called 'gyroscopic precession.' I call it 'black magic.'

Gyrobike says that their 12" wheel—which will be available on December 1 for around $100— will make any kid learn to ride a bike in 30 minutes to an hour, teaching "correct riding technique" in the process. A 16" model will be available in spring 2010.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Resurrecting another theme

I decided to resurrect another item left on the wayside tonight.

I posted some thoughts over on my sister site Raising the Awesome Family, this time focused on the trials and opportunities inherent in the holiday seasons.

More specifically, I thought I'd throw out some ideas about Halloween. You can read all about by clicking here.

And then enjoy this video of holiday insanity at the Boo at the Zoo event.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Bucket hat & "Prisoner" shirt


If something is going well, don't change it I say. So, I'm back again tonight with another entry in The Clothing Project.

Tonight's entry? My Skyline Chili bucket hat and my new "Prisoner" inspired Glarkware t-shirt. They don't go together, but I thought I'd put them together for the purposes of this entry. And maybe my stream of consciousness composition style can lead me down synergistic paths that I can't foresee as I finish typing this sentence. Ohhh, can you feel the excitement?

So, the hat is older, and that is where we'll start.

I won this hat in a church auction approximately seven years ago. This was when Lynda and I were still living in Hilliard on the city's west side. We were toiling (and I DO mean toiling) along in the small Episcopal church there. Besides work and our (at that time) family of three, the church took up a lot of our energy. It was a small congregation and we were always trying to find ways to grow the membership and stand on our own two feet as an operating unit. Over the years that we lived in the area and attended that mission church, Lynda and I served on just about every position there was . . . except for priest. (And, there were Sundays that I almost served that function. But don't worry Mom--or Father Rick--I didn't attempt to consecrate anything.)

ANYWAY . . . one thing we did to raise some money once was an auction of items and services. It was a silent auction. The kind where you walk around, placing your bids on a sheet of paper beside each item up for grabs. You then can come back later and see if someone has upped the ante on your bid and whether or not you want to raise the price further. It was at this auction that I bought a nice piece of art made by a church member that is now hanging in the house. But, the hat . . .

The hat was part of a set of items--the bucket hat in all of its yellow, Skyline chili glory along with a golf towel. I won these items, not in the silent auction itself, but as some other sort of prize that I don't now remember why I won. But, I did and I've worn the hat off and on again ever since. There was once a time when I tried to convince myself that this would be my regular golfing hat. But it didn't really take because 1) I don't play golf enough to need a "regular" hat and 2) I've convinced myself that the hat looks best on me when I'm sporting a beard--I guess it's some sort of slacker motif that I've got in my brain. And since I don't have the beard now . . .

But, that isn't really the reason I wanted to bring the hat into the Clothing Project discussion. What I haven't brought up yet is the logo for Skyline Chili that is the hat's whole reason for being. Have you heard of Skyline Chili? (Chances are, if you aren't from the Midwest or live in the Ohio area, you haven't.) Its a chili franchise that originated in Cincinnati. I had never experienced it until I moved to Ohio. I ate it once, disliked it immediately, and have never gone back. I've even gone so far to say publicly that I won't EVER go back!

Now I know that this is upsetting to some of my Ohio readers. Heck, I might even be alienating them from ever reading WWYG?! again, but I've got to be true to myself. I don't like the taste of the chili and question the use of some of the spices that are in the "signature" chili recipe. (I am never good at identifying individual spices in foods, but something . . . maybe cinnamon? . . . just doesn't belong according to my tastebuds.

My dislike of Skyline Chili is not new to my friends and lunch companions at work. Whenever they get a hankerin' for some Skyline, the head across the street from the office, grab some of the mini coneys or a chili "threeway" (or whatever it's called), then come back to the lunch cafeteria ready to extol on the greatness of the Skyline experience. The cult is so strong that they even claim the cheddar cheese to be out-of-this-world good. Now, I've had the cheese, because they bring back extra in little dime bags to load up their coneys with, and I'm here to tell you that there is absolutely NOTHING extraordinary about this cheese. But they won't hear it. They claim that the cheese is special. They can't quite explain to my why this should be so. It simply is. I shake my head and disagree.

So, there is item #1. A Skyline Chili bucket hat that I have convinced myself only to wear on a golf course when I'm bearded. And I guess I must also wear it ironically. Picture that psychological/sartorial stance if you will. Any artist that can draw it will get special mention on the blog!

Item #2? My brand-spanking new Be Seeing You shirt from Glarkware.

Normally, Glarkware has good ad copy on their shirt pages. Sadly, this one didn't bowl me over in any way. But, no matter. I guess that is why I'm here tonight.

Those in the know will recognize that this shirt is a reference to the Prisoner TV show that I enjoyed watching this past summer. As I prepare for the AMC remake of the series set to premiere next month, I had to take an opportunity to get another excellent t-shirt to add to my collection. I can thank Lynda's brother M. and his wife A. for their generosity as this was an early birthday present for me.

I'll wear it in good health. And if I can find any way to wear it other than ironically, I'll try to do so.

But, until we meet again . . .

. . . Be Seeing You!

Sunday, October 11, 2009

These old socks

Back to one of my old themes today, focusing on my oldest pair of socks.

I bought these socks back in college. I think it was my freshman year at Georgia Southern. there are some things about that trip that I remember and that is what I am going to write about today, not the socks themselves which are pretty ordinary tan colored elastic socks that straddle the line between casual and dress. I haven't worn them all that much over the years, which is why they are still around about twenty years after the original purchase. Truth be told, there are things about the socks that I don't particularly like--especially how difficult they are to pull off of my feet. But maybe I'll get back to that.

The occasion of the sock purchase was something of an ordinary Saturday in the Spring (I think?) of 1991. My first year of college was coming to an end and I had been living in the dorm with my old high school friend G. On this Saturday, either because we needed clothes (not likely) or we needed something to do (more likely), we decided to drive to Savannah to go to the mall. Statesboro had a mall, but it wasn't much of one--though not as bad as my hometown's mall, which had been in steady decline for the last several years. Savannah, however, was the most "urban" area in this part of Georgia and therefore, had a mall to go shopping in when necessary. Plus, it was a manageable roadtrip for a weekend afternoon and got us off of the campus and out of our dorm rooms. (You can see that while we did have friends, we weren't burning up the social circuit at school. We just weren't those kinds of people.

So, of to Savannah we went. I don't remember many of the particular details of that trip. I guess I could make things up--the songs we listened to in the car, the sorts of conversations we might have had, but I'll try to stick to the things I do remember. I remember that I bought these socks in the Gap store and along with the socks, I purchases a thick sweatshirt/hood pullover that was a bright mustard yellow. Looking aback on that purchase now, i really wonder what I was trying to accomplish. I have a few yellow things in my closet--even today--but I'll admit that yellow is hard to pull off, especially in cold weather wear--which at the time I thought this hoodie/sweatshirt thing was. In actual fact, it was probably intended as something for those kids who were aspiring to be white boy rappers like Marky Mark or (God help us) Vanilla Ice. I, I hope you realize, was aspiring to be none of these things. I was probably simply attracted by thew bright yellow color--a color that said "Look at me!!"

(I know that this is a undercurrent of many of the clothes I wear . . . wanting people to take notice. But, moving on.)

So, I bought the socks and the obtrusive sweatshirt. What is funny is that I had an uneasy relationship with both items of clothing for as long as I had/have them. The sweatshirt is long gone to some charity donation box and the socks, as I said, I still have. But I knew that the sweatshirt wasn't quite me as soon as I got back to Statesboro and tried wearing it some. It's color was a bit too "Look at me!" and it wasn't sized correctly for me. (I say this like it is the shirts fault that I picked it in the wrong size.) It was always a bit big, too much for me to pull off in so many different levels. And as I've gotten older, I find that I like clothes that fit me tighter. I think they just make me feel more secure, more in control of what I'm doing than things that are too loose, too baggy, too outsized. (As usual, I push myself to be "outsized" at times, but find that I don't like it when I'm there. I want to pull back and slide into the crowed a bit more.)

That day was one of the first times I went out and purchased my own clothes--and I guess I learned a few things as I lived with those choices. You may find it remarkable that I was nineteen years old and had such limited clothing purchase experience. But, well, in the past I went with mom to get things and I just wore clothes for a very long, long time. I didn't go out in search of clothes that often. Maybe that was the reason that I still remember the day out of all the other weekends that we did things in college. Maybe it was because I came away from this taste of independence with nagging regret that I couldn't quite let go of. Maybe it's just because I saw the socks this morning and some of these memories came back and I decided to sit sown and write about it finally. Maybe it means something, maybe it doesn't. But I'm glad I took the time while sitting out here on the sun-dappled patio to put it out there.

It felt good to blog a bit again.

Let it be the start of a new commitment.

(Man, that is sappy! But I'll leave it there.)

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Why So Angry, "Matrix?"

That, up there in the title, is my four-word review of "Wanted."

But, since I'm not writing this on Twitter, I'll strive for a few more words to sum up the film with slightly more precision--not that this film needs anything like care or concern. It was out there to make teenage boys fork out there money and sell some popcorn.

Now, you're probably wondering why I am getting to this film SOOOO late. I mean, it was in summer movie theaters two years ago, or something like that? Well, my answer to most everything (this included) is "I have three kids." I'll just leave it at that for now. Can we get back to the review?

Oh, and I could say SPOILER ALERT here, but . . . come on. Haven't you already seen this?

As you might surmise from my title above, this film owes a strong debt--perhaps its entire cinematic existence--to the Matrix trilogy. And there are many things about Wanted that made me think of Neo and his happy band of resistance fighters.

First, our main character Wesley lives a life of desperate anonymity. He's a ignorable drone in a cubicle office, doing other people's work for them. He hates it and he is heavily medicated to counteract his frequent anxiety attacks--most of which are triggered by his over-the-top office manager who terrorizes him with her stapler and bombastic voice. (Let's just say this lady ain't "Joan" from Mad Men.) But, much like Neo, who was also once an anonymous cube jockey, Wesley discovers during a strange encounter with a mysterious lady at the pharmacy (instead of a leather clad mystery lady at a rave), that all is not as it seems.

The pharmacy lady is Angelina Jolie, all tatted up and packing heat (weirdly shaped guns with joints that let her fire at 180 degree angles). Of course everyone knows she doesn't really need this . . . but that comes later. Jolie is "Fox." She saves Wesley from an assassin in a pharmacy shootup that would have made John Woo happy. The fight goes outside and morphs into a car chase that wasn't as inventive as the highway scene in Matrix 3 . . . or even the subway fight between Spidey and Doc. Ock in Spiderman 2. But no matter. The chase only propels the plot along more to the point where Wesley finds out that he is descended from a group of medieval assassins who can do freaky stuff like bend bullets (like Beckham) and that, they think, gives them the right to kill whomever they want.

The bullet bending and the fact that they get their orders from a loom.

Yeah, but its the Loom of FATE!!! Don't question its thread count!

Anyway, I've probably already spent more time of this review than was strictly necessary. So maybe I'll throw some questions and observations down at this point:

1. The healing pits remind me of Ra's al Ghul's Lazarus Pits. I'd say that this is quite intentional, since Wanted originated as a comic story. But I think they wanted them in the movie because it allowed the principal actors to be scantily clad often and dripping wet as well. (Remember that the audience is teenage boys . . . though they only showed Jolie in a healing pit once. But you only need once in the trailer, right?)

2. Speaking of Jolie. I didn't count, but she only had twenty five or thirty lines of dialogue in the whole film. If they were smart on the budget, they could have handed her the script, let her memorize it in the makeup chair while her body tattoos were being applied, filmed all of her scenes in one day, then let her go.

3. And speaking of talking . . . or the lack thereof. Inanimate objects had more to say in this film than Jolie. Early on, when Wesley is triumphantly storming out of the office to face his destiny, he smacks his best friend (who's also cuckolding him with his girlfriend) across the face with a computer keyboard. As the letters fly through the air (in slo-mo "bullet time") they spell out F@CK Y*U. Later, when Fox is bending a bullet, it has the word GOODBYE etched into it. I assume that the keyboard thing was never intended to be assumed real, but was the bullet pre-etched? And why would I even wonder about such things in a movie where bullets can travel in circles or be shot accurately from approximately 20 miles away.

Anyway, I won't go on. Except to say that while this movie did own its cinematic style, its basic story outline, and many other things from The Matrix, it replaced the slick futuristic "cool" of Neo and the Gang and substituted a whole lot of anger and gore. I guess that allows it to appeal to a different subset of the nerd audience, but it mostly turned me off. I could (in a bizarre way) aspire to be Neo, but I would not want to be Wesley.

Monday, October 05, 2009

More Rotten Apple

Picture of the Genius Bar in the Apple Store R...Image via Wikipedia

Regular readers of WWYG?! know of my abiding respect and admiration . . . and . . . well, base jealously of a certain Mr. James Lileks.



So, file this one away in the "my life imitates his life & art" or something similar to that.



You see, I am heading back to the Apple Store tonight to try and find out what is (continuing to be) wrong with my iBook G4 laptop. The geeks and tech snobs out there are probably already throwing out basic reasons why my laptop is bad--behind the times, underpowered, plastic body, etc. But leaving aside the fact that my tech is not cutting edge, there is a specific functional problem that I THOUGHT I had solved.



When I went back a week-and-a-half ago to pick up my repaired computer, I felt confident that the faulty logic board had been replaced and it would work again. So, imagine my frustration this past Friday afternoon when I was again confronted with a kitchen tile-sized hunk of uselessness as the laptop would not turn on AGAIN.



So, do I go back tonight and ask for WHY the expensive repair I previously contracted and paid for was not done properly? And do I certainly hold firm in the expectation that I won't pay another cent for work not done right the first time?



Yes, yes I will.



But I'll also go knowing deep down inside that I've since read (on the Interweb chat pages) that this is a common problem among iBook G4s. Something about finicky soldering of things on the logic board that give way when the (portable!) laptop is flexed too much and things come loose. And after reading a few pages of these problems and attempts to repair and suggestions on how to solder things yourself and add on shims (!!!!), its a wonder that my three-plus year old laptop had made it this long without messing up before now.



So, here we go . . . wish me luck.



Oh, yeah. What does this have to do with Lileks? Well, I hope I have better luck with my service experience than he recently had with his.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

HIMYM is Seinfeld

In honor of my brother Mike, who is celebrating a birthday today, I take some time to investigate the connections between one of my favorite TV shows (How I Met Your Mother) and one of his favorite TV shows (Seinfeld).

Happy Birthday Mike! And happy birthday to Virginia as well! I hope you both had a great day.

**************************

So, last Monday I taped How I Met Your Mother as I usually do. (Because it comes on at 8 and I'm usually involved with bedtime duties, I always tape it.) Once they were in bed, I came down, rewound the tape, and realized that the local CBS network had some weird malfunction so that the laugh track and the music track were operating . . . but the dialogue track was not.



Oddly enough, at first I thought it was some sort of thematic silent film episode. But after it continued for about two minutes with no dialogue cards between pantomimes, I began to cotton on to the fact that it wasn't intentional.



So, I gave up. Until the next day when I watched the show on the Internet. And then, on Wednesday as I was getting ready for work, I had a revelation. I was thinking about how in this past Monday's HIMYM episode, it was reveled that the gang has been cataloging the appearances of their look alike doppelgangers around New York City over the years . . . and this plot thread made me think of how there was the Bizarro Seinfeld episode.



And that was when I realized that HIMYM and Seinfeld are the same.



You see it, right?



You don't?



Well, then let me lay it out for you.



Obviously, both shows are set in New York City. That ain't nothing interesting because that happens in almost every show. But it gets better. Let's break down the cast, so that you can acknowledge that I am right.



Jerry Seinfeld was the titular character and the other characters revolved around him. On HIMYM, that character is Ted Moseby. But there's more. Jerry was famous for being incapable of holding onto a female relationship. He was always going to find something wrong with each girl--she was a close talker, had man hands, was unattractive when he saw her during "bad naked" times, etc. While Ted isn't quite as neurotic as Jerry, it can't be denied that he has yet to find the right woman. In fact, the entire show is hung on the fact that he is describing how he went through the dating scene again and again and again while looking for the titular mother. Additionally (though, admittedly, less importantly) the show takes place largely in two places--Ted's apartment and McClaren's Pub (which is close to Ted's apartment. Where did almost every episode of Seinfeld take place? In Jerry's apartment . . . or in Monk's Diner--which (presumably) is close to Jerry's apartment.

Jerry's neighbor is Cosmo Kramer. Kramer is a bit of a nutcase. He's always guaranteed to have some crazy scheme up his sleeve and he seems to know lots about odd things. He doesn't have any sort of job and yet he is always finding ways to pay his bills and get mixed up in some new sort of shenanigans week after week. He was a minor character that became a major character. He set the 1990s era standard for wacky neighbor and he transformed the show from something that was kind of interesting to appointment tv, because (at least at first) you always wanted to see what he was going to do next--whether it was trying to sell a coffee table book that was shaped like a coffee table, becoming obsessed with Kenny Rogers Roasters, or devising some insane scheme for collecting the deposits on glass bottles with Newman.

So, who is the Kramer of HIMYM? Well, here is where the show's creators tried to confuse us from their obvious plot homages by dividing the character of Kramer into different pieces. Kramer is represented by a combination of Marshall & Lilly.

Don't believe me at face value? Let's make some comparisons. Marshall (of M & L) is well known for having some pretty weird, Krameresque, beliefs. Marshall made Lilly plan their honeymoon for Scotland so that he could try and catch a glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster. Additionally, Marshall concocted the Slap Bet with Barney (something that Kramer would certainly have excelled at. Can you image how Kramer would have gotten all whimpery as a slap became imminent? And the pratfall that would have occurred if he had been slapped? And let's not forget Lilly . . . who once felt sorry for a goat in her kindergarten class and bought it and brought it to Ted's rather than let it get killed. (Don't you think Kramer would have rescued a goat if given the chance?) And remember how I mentioned the Roasters obsession that Kramer went through? Well, Lilly is a well known credit card fiend. She has been known for going on shopping binges. Plus, Marshall has spend a long time obsessing over whether or not he would jump from the top of Ted's apartment building to the one next door. And, remember that time that Lilly skipped New York altogether and fled to San Francisco for a while? Well, do you remember when Kramer left New York and went to Los Angeles?

There are two Seinfeld characters left and two HIMYM characters left as well. Who should go next? Why not handle the single women.

Elaine Benes is the single woman in the main cast of Seinfeld. That statement has a double meaning because she is the only female AND she has no romantic attachments through almost all of the series. Sure, boyfriends come and go, but they never stick. Though she did have an old relationship with Jerry once upon a time, but they don't talk about it that much and they've seemingly moved past it and are doing other things. Elaine often stands apart from the shenanigans of the rest of the gang and she sometimes wonders how she got mixed up in this whole affair. But she also has a dark side. She's reluctant to share some secrets from her past--like her horrible inability to dance.

Obviously, Robin Shabotsky is the HIMYM equivalent of Elaine. First, she's the only single lady in the regular cast. She's had boyfriends come and go over the show's run, but they never stick for very long. She did have an old relationship with Ted (during season 1), but they don't talk about it much anymore and they've seemingly moved past it. Robin (because of her Canadian upbringing) is often talked about as standing apart from the others. But she also has a dark side. She's reluctant to share some secrets from her past--like her horrible career as a Canadian teen singing sensation . . . Robin Sparkles.

And then there are George Costanza and Barney Stinson. George is Jerry's best friend and Barney (thinks he's Ted's best friend) is Ted's long-standing wingman. George is guaranteed to come up with some convoluted theory on why one of Jerry's dates flamed out on him again--especially is he is abstaining from sex and is thinking clearly. Barney can quote chapter and verse of his Bro Code whenever he has to explain some theory on dating women to Ted. George's family life is (to say the least) colorful. His parents are borderline insane. Barney's parentage is somewhat up in the air, but he grew up thinking that The Price is Right's Bob Barker was his dad and that (actor Wayne Brady) was his biological brother. That's . . . colorful. Nobody ever seemed to know what George did for a living for a long time. And even when he was working for the Yankees or working for that toy company, he never seemed to understand what he was up to most of the time. It was a running joke for a while that nobody knew what Barney did either; he was paying for those suits somehow . . . but it wasn't clear for a while what that something was.

When you take the time to break it all down, I think it is pretty clear that HIMYM is nothing more than a 2000s clone of Seinfeld. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) Most show's should do a better job of copying a successful show rather than throw out mindless junk that isn't funny and has no sense of character connection. I loved Seinfeld and I love HIMYM too.