The Colonel T Show

Today brings the release of Microsoft’s new operating system, Vista (pronounced “Veeeeee-sta!”), and the latest version of Microsoft Office, creatively named “Microsoft Office 2007″. My favorite Office product, Excel, contains all sorts of new features. One in particular, makes me a bit wistful. Here’s the description straight from Microsoft’s Excel 2007 Features Page (emphasis mine):

Work with massive amounts of data in Office Excel 2007, which supports spreadsheets that can be up to 1 million rows by 16,000 columns. In addition to the bigger grid, Office Excel 2007 supports multicore processor platforms for faster calculation of formula-intense spreadsheets.

Why does this make me wistful? When I was teaching full-time, circa seven years ago, I would impress students by reciting from memory the number of rows and columns in Excel — 65,536 rows by 256 columns. A little math reveals a total cell count of over 16.7 million. I’d then announce “For your first task today, please fill in all of them.” A tidy bit of comedy that served me faithfully for years, and also a great icebreaker to provide some levity to what can be a very dry topic.

And now…it’s all changed. I don’t think I can use that joke anymore. A million rows by 16,000 columns is 16 billion cells. It’s way too absurdly high a number. Plus, I’d tuned my pronunciation of “point-seven” to comedic perfection. SIX-teen billion…six-TEEN billion…sixteen BILLion…nope. It’s just not funny.

I’ll have to rely on my other Excel joke, which is also a classic and I welcome you to use it whenever you’re talkin’ spreadsheets with yo peeps. Basically, I’ll show someone a cool Excel feature, like Autosum or Pivottables, and then I’ll follow it up with: “Pretty cool, huh? It’s things like that that get me into all the good Excel parties.”

Never, ever fails, and it’s particularly successful with the ladies. No woman can resist a good Excel party. Go get ‘em, geeks! It’s a sure-fire formula for generating big laughs.

Get it? Sure-fire formula? Hah! Excel uses formulas — that’s why the previous paragraph is hilarious!

Ahem.

And THAT’S why I only get invited to Excel parties.

Every year, around Thanksgiving, Elizabeth and I purchase boxed Christmas cards. We have never, to the best of my knowledge, actually sent any out. It’s not that we don’t love our families and friends, it’s that we’re very lazy when it comes to long term projects such as inserting things in envelopes and using pens.

But oh! The beauty of the Internet is that I can send belated holiday cards not only to family and friends, but to millions of complete strangers as well. Circle of Life, baby.

2006 was a pretty good year for me and EC, but at the end of the day, only two things really matter, and here are their pictures. Their ridiculously expensive pictures. Pictures so expensive I want you to spend two minutes looking at each of them.

And to the traditionalists: Note that had we sent paper cards, you’d have only received ONE of these pictures. Using the power of the Internet, you’re getting all eight!

(Warning! If your workplace frowns upon baby nudity, you may want to wait until you get home before scrolling further.)

That subject line would have been most appropriate on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which this is not. Still, we’re only a week removed and I think it’s probably what Dr. King would have wanted, so I went with it.

Among nerds and desperate parents of nerds, today is a very important day. Retailers across the nation were ordered by Nintendo to stockpile Wiis (Wii’s?) until January 21. It’s their way of inflating demand, and they’ve been phenomenally successful — so successful in fact that even I got up at 6 a.m. this morning to wait in line at Super Target. I vowed I would never wait in line for a game console but something just kind of…compelled me…this morning. Nintendo must be putting something in my margaritas. (Which I drank last night, not this morning, for those of you on alcoholism watch.)

I pulled into Super Target around 6:45am, where I was met by a line of 30 people. Keep in mind, this thing was released last November, and people are still queuing up for it, in a Chicago snowstorm no less. I’d say it’s unbelievable, but I was there too, so I guess I have to believe it. The line was comprised mostly of parents hoping to score a system for their kids; I only noticed a handful of greasy, obnoxious “gaming dorks”…I suppose most of them have Wiis already. It was generally a friendly, mature group. The guy behind me was hunting a Wii for his son, whose birthday party was in less than 8 hours. He’d already waited in a line a few weeks ago, and missed the cut by five people. He was seriously worried they weren’t going have enough this morning. A year ago, I couldn’t have related. Now I can. I silently resolved to give the guy my ticket if by some chance I received the last one. I’m a dork with a heart. Besides, I think it’s what Dr. King would have wanted.

At 7:00am a Target employee announced they had 54 Wiis, eliciting a huge sigh of relief from the father behind me. They passed out numbered tickets (business cards) to each of us so we didn’t have to wait in the cold. I received ticket 24 (the Power of Bauer!). I retreated to the warmth of my minivan, and watched an episode of Cranky Geeks. At 8:00, we all queued back up. 10 tickets remained unclaimed (I had to laugh at the guys who’d been there since 3:30am) but they were quickly scooped up. The doors opened, and we all bought our systems. By the time I got to the register they told me had sold out of extra controllers, but I wandered over to the games aisle and found a Wiimote and a nunchuk on a rack. So I bought ‘em, because I’m slick and crafty.

The whole affair was well-organized and nobody was shot or killed. I’d like to thank the people at Super Target for putting together a great show. And it should have been great, considering I’ve spent more money there in the last 9+ months than I’ve spent anywhere else. Babies crave the Super Target.

I didn’t buy any games; I figured Wii Sports will keep us occupied for a while. And yes, I said “us” — that extra controller is for Elizabeth, who I’m determined to get back into gaming. If you are reading this Elizabeth, why aren’t you on the Wii? Get to it!

Now I just need to wait 9 hours for the kids to go to sleep and then I plan to Wii all night long…or until I get sleepy myself (an hour later, probably). In the interim, I hear there’s a little football game being played called the “NFC Championship Game” and I might check it out. I think my local team is playing…not sure though.

Whenever I get around to playing with my Wii, I’ll post a full report, in the meantime, enjoy one more picture of Molly and Madeline getting as close to the system as they will ever come. Well, for a few years at least….

The Fondas. The Barrymores. The Batemans. Add to that “The Colonel T’s.”

The good people at YAYSports! were kind enough to cast me AND my daughters in their latest film, An American Roundie in America. I have to say all three of us are spectacular. Molly and Maddy in particular infuse their performances with pathos and verve heretofore unprecedented in the infant acting community.

And if you’re interested in seeing just how much weight I’ve gained since those babies were born, well, you can watch for that too.

I strongly recommend you watch some of the other Roundie movies when you finish An American Roundie in America; they’re highly entertaining and will help fill in some of the Roundie mythology.

Watch my family act our ears off here.

“Colonel T Jolie” is the name of my featured segment on the “Best of A Shanty No Lemon 2006″ compilation CD. I’d like to thank Anthony and the gang for including my appearance, which he describes as “one of the funniest bits” on the disc. I’d also like to thank Anthony for forgetting to tell me he put me on the disc.

(A Shanty No Lemon, for the uninitiated, is a Columbus, Ohio based podcast into which I infrequently call.)

What’s interesting is that I have almost no recollection of recording the segment, and, like you, I’m going to have to buy the CD to find out if Anthony’s assessment is accurate. If I remember correctly, the premise has something to do with a pledge drive and Angelina Jolie, but I could be way off.

Buy the CD here, and check out the ASNL homepage here.

MSNBC.com has broken the first big story of 2007, and frankly this may turn out to be the Watergate of the 21st century:

Having a kid in the house makes you fatter.

Well, I’m blown away. I mean, really, this is cutting edge reporting. Between this and “To Catch a Predator” NBC has essentially rendered all other news providing services obsolete.

Here’s a recent picture of me, by the way:

This post is in large part a response to the Rocky Balboa review posted by our friends at YAYSports NBA. We suggest that before you read this post that you 1) See the movie Rocky Balboa and 2) Read the YAYSports! write-up, which is very funny, profoundly negative, and couched in basketball references we don’t understand.

Here’s the deal: we really, really loved Rocky Balboa (just like my MOM and my SISTER), and feel obliged to defend it.

1) YAY! contends that Rocky Balboa is an “ill-conceived, poorly done rehash of the original movie”.

No argument that it’s a rehash of the original, but I don’t buy “ill-conceived” or “poorly done.” It starts with a premise that can be described in two words (“Adrian died”) and everything flows naturally from there. Nothing is contrived or unbelievable. It’s feels right. It’s feels real. It asks the question “Why would one of the most famous sports figures on the planet spend his golden years in lower middle class mediocrity?” and answers it thusly: Rocky stays in Philadelphia (where we left him in Rocky V) because it’s where Adrian died, and since he owes all the success in his life to her (or so he’s made himself believe), he remains there. He opens a restaurant where he can live in perpetually in the past, forever retelling tales of his glory days, and be constantly reminded of her. Sly sells it beautifully.

The core difference between this film and the original is that Rocky has to figure out how to succeed without Adrian. When he does, it’s emotional and satisfying and the perfect bookend to the series.

(Sidenote: You want an ill-conceived, poorly done rehash of the original movie? Superman Returns, baby — it’s just pointless.)

2) YAY! contends the training sequence and the fight scene were badly done.

Mostly agreed on the training sequence. Although, I loved Rocky’s trainer cracking his neck, saying “Let’s make some hurting bombs” followed by the transition into the Rocky theme. Gave me chills. The actual montage was lackluster, but let’s be honest. How were they going to top the “Homoerotic Beach Frolicking with Apollo Creed” in Rocky III, or the “Burying the KGB in an Avalanche / Growing a Thick Beard” sequence in Rocky IV? Wasn’t gonna happen.

As for the fight, well, it was okay, but you can’t tell me the “Rocky gets up one last time” scene wasn’t beautiful. Because it was. Beautiful like Apollo Creed glistening in the California surf.

3) YAY! contends Rocky Jr. makes no sense.

I won’t step on your hilarious line, which is hilarious, but I will say this: I suspect Rocky and Adrian set up a trust fund for Rocky Jr., which would have been unaffected by their accountant’s financial shenanigans in Rocky V. Rocky Jr. doesn’t need to work, but does so to be his own man. He can afford to take the time off and find himself. With Steps, the Jamaican badboy.

4) YAY! contends Rocky pouncing on Dixon’s broken hand was horrible, horrible, horrible.

Was it the original Rocky or Rocky II where Apollo breaks a rib and Mickey tells Rocky to “punch him in the broken rib” and Rocky replies “Great idea, Mickey, I think I’ll punch him in the broken rib because it will give me an advantage.” So there’s a precedent. Besides, the dialogue makes it clear that once Dixon’s hand “numbs up” it wouldn’t be a factor. And Rocky lost the fight, so ultimately it didn’t matter one bit.

5) YAY! likes Rocky V better than Rocky Balboa.

Well this is just silly. Rocky V commits the worst sin a sequel can commit: It betrays its predecessor. I think we’re in agreement that Rocky IV is AWESOME. But 20 minutes into Rocky V, we learn that 1) Rocky suffered irreversible brain damage during his fight with Drago and 2) Rocky’s accountant took advantage of Rocky’s absence to swindle him out of his fortune. Rocky V ruined Rocky IV for me. For 15 years, I couldn’t watch Rocky IV without being reminded that while Rocky is in Russia performing all these glorious and superheroic feats, he’s becoming a destitute vegetable.

(It’s exactly what happened with Alien 3, when Newt and Hicks were killed, offscreen, in the first three minutes of the film.)

Rocky Balboa undoes both those atrocities AND, to its credit, still manages to include V in the mythology. Did you catch when Rocky said “Home Team” to his son? That’s a callback for the fans. Thanks, Sly.

In conclusion, while we generally agree with YAYSports!’s (what is the possessive form of YAYSports! by the way?) entertainment analyses, this time, we just can’t. They are WAY off base. Even my sister says so, and my sister hates every movie made since Back to the Future, Part II.

We’d like to congratulate our friend and loyal reader Tanya on the birth of her fourth child, whom at this point we know only is a human male.

We would send the lad a Colonel T Show onesie or binky, if such things existed. Instead, this shout out will have to do.

Congratulations!!!

Belated holiday cheer to all my readers! I apologize for the recent extended absence. Rest assured all of us at the Colonel T mothership are alive and well going into 2007.

Molly and Madeline turned 9 months old on December 28th, and I’d like to devote the rest of this holiday post to them.

We flipped a coin backstage and Madeline, you won the toss. We’ll start with you.

Name: Madeline Rose
Age: Nine months, six days
Length: 31 inches
Weight: 20 pounds, 8 ounces
Notable Physical Attributes: Two teeth (bottom-center of mouth), Mohawk.
Notable Skills: Crawling, Flirting
Favorite Song: I Love You, Barney the Dinosaur
Favorite Napping Locale: Grandma’s Lap
Favorite Website: The Colonel T Show
Favorite Toy: Plastic Yellow Bucket
Most Resembles: Daddy (right down to the pointed ear)

Name: Molly Marie
Age: Nine months, six days, minus one minute
Length: 30 inches
Weight: 22 pounds
Notable Physical Attributes: Squeezable Cheeks, Rapidly Growing Hair
Notable Skills: Clapping, Waving, Saying “Hi”, “Mama”, and “Dada”
Favorite Song: Olson’s Rug (commercial jingle)
Favorite Napping Locale: Grandpa’s Lap
Favorite Website: The Colonel T Show
Favorite Toy: Bigger Plastic Yellow Bucket
Most Resembles: Mommy (right down to the mesmerizing eyes — Hi Elizabeth, thanks for reading the blog!)

And a few more photos for you…