News junkie
If you ever find yourself awake at 4 a.m. and in need of an mp3 of the theme song for NPR's "All Things Considered" so you can make your significant other a cell phone ringtone, then do I have the website for you!
[WFMU's Best of the Blog -- ATC Theme Overload]
New watch
It goes against my tried-and-true "Don't buy things you love twice, because the second time around is always a disappointment" policy, but my early birthday present to myself arrived in the mail today. 
I had the same watch a couple years ago, but broke it in a fit of temporary Nebraska basketball rage. This one combines my unhealthy obsession with digital camo with my constant urge to overspend our credit card budget.
First test of its timing ability? Figure out how long it takes to download this Michael Jackson greatest hits album.
Shor-tayy!
I'm obviously a little late to this party, but these guys that do Auto-Tune the News are pretty awesome.
As Joe Biden says from space, God bless America.
Woo, pig sooey.
Story from Saturday at the CWS ...
We walked into the stadium and immediately noticed the giant contingent of Arkansas fans. And of course they're all standing, waving their arms doing that damn hog call.
"Woooooooooo. Pig sooey!"
Had a good laugh remembering how uncomfortable Dana Altman looked at the press conference when he was introduced as the Razorbacks' basketball coach back in 2007.
Later on, Mom and Dad are killing some time between games, having a beer at the house-formerly-known-as-the-Stander-residence (Ron's gone now). Guess who walks up the street? It's Dana!
Dad doesn't miss a beat.
"Hey there, Dana. I'm surprised you weren't here for the first game today to see the Razorbacks."
He's joking of course, but he said Altman just froze. I'm sure he was half confused ("Who IS this guy?") and half horrified ("Arkansas ... huh? ... HEY!")
"I'm just kidding, Coach. We're glad you decided to come back to Omaha."
I just wish they would have offered Altman a beer. A couple Bud Lights and who knows, maybe he would have done the hog call again.
CWS, Day 1
In honor of the start of another College World Series, let's all take some time to remember Omaha's favorite parking lot pastime:
Beat the meat!
[old Omaha.com -- Beat the meat video]
0-for-career
A woman at work is always giving me a hard time because I play golf all the time but have never gotten a hole in one. She writes a weekly story about an Omahan with an interesting ace story, and she's always asking, "Did you get one yet?"
Yesterday was my chance for a pretty sweet story and I failed. Since my Sunday Publinks match was canceled, I got a raincheck at Benson Park, which I used yesterday. I thought I was going to get to play by myself (always preferable to the inevitable five-hour round when playing with others).
Instead I got paired with actor John Beasley and his wife.
Alas, no hole in one. There's only one par 3 on the front nine and I stopped it about 20 feet right of the flag. I think I just got a little too excited about listing an Omaha celebrity as a witness on my scorecard.
Victory!
After taking a pretty bad beating in last year's Publinks first round (Omaha's match play golf tournament), I had to try and redeem myelf. So I signed up again, hoping to avoid another 8 and 7 disaster.
Publinks is kinda crazy to begin with ... The pairings are printed in the paper, and it's the responsibility of the players to call each other, arrange a tee time and report their score before the deadline.
After scheduling and rescheduling twice already this week, (first he was busy, then I was busy, then he had to work) Sunday was our last possible chance to get the round in before the deadline.
I got to the course a little early, determined not to lose because of bad putting. "Hi, I'm here for my Publinks match. So, when the other guy shows up, tell him I'm out on the green."
Tee time comes and goes, opponent hasn't shown up. They called me back into the clubhouse and said he called to say he was going to be late. Fine. No big deal.
When the guy finally shows up, he forfeits. Something about not having enough time or not having enough money to play all 18 holes. So instead he's going to just go out and play 9 with his daughter. Huh?!
Anyway, I have advanced to round 2. Next opponent? A World-Herald co-worker. Now it's about bragging rights.
Mini cows, familiar photo credit
One of Chris' photos made it onto the front page of the LA Times today. How cool is my brother? (Click the page for a larger version.)
And there's a photo gallery too! [LINK]
All work and no play make this a pretty dull blog. The next couple weeks should bring a return to semi-regular posting. Plus, we'll be doing interesting stuff, like moving twice, so there should be some good stories to tell.
Life update
Here's the latest, in a handy set of frequently asked questions:
1. Have you moved into your house yet?
No. Remember, we're not doing that until July. We're waiting for Tiffany and Donnie's house to finish being built. So if you know any builders from Bellevue, see if you can get them to help out to speed up the process.
2. Where are you going to live once your current lease expires?
Craigslist to the rescue. Found a UNO student who lost his roommates and needed to move out early. (Also found a cheap massage, but that's another story.) So we're taking over his place until the end of July. New address (as of June 1) is going to be Pacific Gardens Apartments, 78th and Pacific. Stephanie has always wanted to live in District 66. Now she'll get a taste.
(Sidebar for today's adventures in real estate: I had to drop off the completed rental agreement at the leasing office so they could confirm that I'm not a hobo. I drove up the place about 1:05, only to find the door locked. "Out to lunch, back at 1:15." OK fine, that's only 10 minutes, I'll wait. As I sat back down in the car, a woman with a key came running down the sidewalk, gave me a little "Hey, sorry I'm late" wave and went inside. She had obviously seen me, paper-in-hand, walking away from the door. So, I sat there a minute, letting her get settled. A couple seconds later the woman, an employee of the complex, came back to the door, fumbled with the sign and ran back up the hill. I walked up to the door ... "Out to lunch, back at 1:30." ... I could have choked her. Who does that?)
3. What are you going to do with all your stuff?
POD. Just rented it today. So, we'll put everything in boxes, load it into the container and some trucker will take it away until we need it again. They're dropping off the empty POD on the 26th of May (hope it fits in the driveway!), so come over and help me lift the TV stand.
4. How's work?
Busier than you can imagine. We're getting ready to change computer systems next week, and people need training. So, they've got me and a couple others playing teacher to get everyone else ready to go. I've had enough of font problems and paragraph styles to last a lifetime. Plus, the new Omaha.com is progressing pretty fast, too, and I've been helping out behind the scenes. So you can get excited for that.
5. Done anything fun lately?
Bought an iMac. Went to Natalie's graduation party in Lincoln. Played 36 holes at Quarry Oaks during a week of vacation. Fired up the grill for the first time. Neglected mowing the yard. Stopped eating ramen and Totino's frozen pizzas. Started eating more yogurt. Downloaded a bootleg copy of P90X. Now, I just need a pull-up bar.
6. What are the cats doing?
Right now, they're sleeping. In 10 minutes, they'll be doing cartwheels down the steps and digging for strawberries in the garbage disposal.
Scam watch
I got a text message from VISA yesterday as I was standing on the putting green at Spring Lake:
Your VISA account is closed due to unusual activity,call us at 1-(866)420-7630Hmm, that's strange. I wonder if our mortgage payment is considered "unusual activity" since it's the first one we've made one ... So, I called the number. The message repeated the line about unusual activity and asked me to confirm my identity by typing in my account number.
Hmm, this is weird, I thought. Why wouldn't the bank just CALL me and ask about this? And to CLOSE the account for suspicious activity? That seems a bit drastic.
So, I hung up. I just wasn't comfortable confirming any information without an explanation first, especially at a phone number I didn't recognize.
I called US Bank. After navigating through the automated system and ENTERING MY ACCOUNT NUMBER AND PIN NUMBER, I finally got a person on the phone.
"Hey I just got a text that said my VISA account was closed because of suspicious activity. It just seems a little shady, so I'm calling you guys to see if it was legit."
"Ok, sir. Hang on a minute."
She was gone a couple minutes and returned to tell me that I was nearly the victim of a phishing scam. It was a bogus text message and if I had entered my account number, I'd probably be dealing with REAL fraud today.
"It's just so beautiful"
The Cavs are the best team in basketball AND they have the most fun. It's pretty hard to imagine Kobe and the boys pulling this off:
Casting call
They say George Clooney is going to be in Omaha next week filming a movie. And they need a stunt double (Or extras ... I don't remember which.) So, along with a full-body photo, my measurements, clothing style and car type, here's the email I just sent to the casting director:
Joni --Let's just hope this is legit. Otherwise they probably have enough information to steal my identity.
Saw in the paper that you're looking for extras from Omaha for "Up in the Air." Here's my photo and some information in case there's room in the background for a skinny white guy.
Ben VanKat
Overdue roundup
Haven't been hitting the Google Reader list as hard lately, but here's some interesting stuff from the last couple weeks:
A shirt I must own. Soon.
Slate says YouTube is struggling under the weight of gigantic losses (an analyst estimates the site lost more than $400 million last year), comparing its situation to that of newspapers -- the advertising is just not covering enough of the cost to store all those stupid home videos.
" ... YouTube's problems point to a larger difficulty for many Web startups: "User-generated content" is proving to be a financial albatross. Yet even though they've changed the way we live, sites that collect and share content produced by all of us haven't done the one thing many tech evangelists said they'd do -— make a ton of money. Or, in many cases, any money. ... There's a simple reason for this: Advertisers don't like paying very much to support homemade photos and videos.What's incredible about this is that RIGHT NOW plenty newspapers are readying plans to reinvent themselves using YouTube's model, BANKING on user-generated content to attract eyeballs to offset the declining advertising. Scary to think that it could make things worse.
For all the frenzy surrounding citizen-produced media, the content that seems to do best online is the same stuff that did well offline -— content produced by professionals. Slate writer Jack Shafer recently listed the many services that people are willing to pay for online. They include music from iTunes, game videos from MLB.TV, reviews from Consumer Reports, and articles from the Wall Street Journal -— and nothing made on some dude's cell phone. ..."
[Slate - The high costs of running YouTube]
Speaking of newspapers, someone took my daily front page mashup and made it look all professional.
[Rayogram - NEWScan]
There's apparently a reality show called The Principal's Office. Follow around some public high school principals, and film their interactions with misbehaving students. (It's on a reality-show channel called truTV -- does anyone get this?) This clip of the show is definitely one of the comedy highlights of my year so far. Kinda makes me feel bad for the people that have to put up with this stuff. Also kinda makes me want to be a teacher. Seriously, this is awesome.
I'm not usually one for time-wasting Flash games, but this one's kinda clever: It's hailing outside and you have to use the wind to make the hailstones big enough to destroy buildings.
[Effing Hail]
Finally, commercial interruption!
Sweet, sweet finish to the Masters yesterday. And now that the tournament is over, we can all focus on helping Phil Mickelson's ExxonMobil charity for curious kids and making a smarter traffic lights with the IBMers. I love the Masters, but are the commercials really that expensive that only the world's largest companies can afford to advertise?
One trend that no one talked about while Phil was whipping Tiger around the course on Sunday was the consistency with which Woods was getting outdriven off the tee. By a mile. He says the knee feels good, and his swing is a lot quieter now that he's back from surgery, but is the loss of distance -- he averaged right at 280 for the week -- a product of not being fully comfortable with the new swing or a consequence of maturity? (Or is Butch Harmon really making Phil into a beast?)
Fifteen was a perfect example. Tiger hits a nice little drive, center cut, out there about 295. Mickelson FLIES it 30 yards past him. Granted, it doesn't matter that much to Woods whether he hits a six iron or a seven into the green because he's going to putt for eagle either way. The distance, though, was always part of the Tiger Psychological Beatdown. You KNEW he was going to hit it straight AND far. And then he did it. And made the eagle putt.
Is a smoother swing, meant to reduce stress on the knee, going to keep Tiger from dominating like he used to?
PGA sidenote to close: Why the hell can't I watch somewhere on the internet a shot-by-shot recap of all of these guys' rounds? This is the 2000s, people. There are 25 cameras on the course and you showed every shot every golfer hit on Sunday. So splice it together and send it to me already!
Cat walk, cancelled
Today was supposed to be a banner day. We went to PetsMart and bought leashes and little harnesses (because they're too squirmy for just a regular collar, right?). It was sunny and 60 and the cats were going for a walk.
They had been sitting in the open windows for weeks, silently stalking every squirrel and leftover leaf that moved. So, we figured the progression from watching the outdoors to PARTICIPATING in the outdoors wasn't that big of a stretch.
Ridiculous? Yes. Cats on walks. Ha. It was a silly idea. But Steph and I were pretty sure we could pull it off, because they just seemed so excited by the fresh air.
So wrong.
Hazel, the only one to even make it outside, bucked like a tiny, angry bronco and escaped from the leash and harness after about 10 seconds. Then, free from her nylon straight jacket, rather than enjoying the freedom, she ran under the corner of the house. I couldn't even grab Beulah to FORCE her out the door.
Mission failed. We might as well have thrown them in the tub and tried a bath.
© Ben Vankat, 2004-2009. No stealing. It's mine.