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It appears that my posts a few years back about Rachel Bilson’s guest spot on Chuck has been getting some attention since Kristin Kreuk has joined for a few episodes as Hannah.

I haven’t yet had a chance to watch this week’s episode of Chuck, so I can’t do much right now to comment and talk about Hannah. Rest assured that I’ll have more soon. Sorry for the delay!

I’m just going to vomit into this post my thoughts on the season premiere of LOST as I watch it (just a few hours behind). Thoughts after the jump (there will be spoilers).
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I’m supposed to be working on my take home final for my Strategic Marketing class right now. Of course, I have allowed myself to be distracted from that task, but I think this one is worth my attention.

My mother-in-law forwarded an e-mail to me about a Ukrainian sand painter named Kseniya Simonova. Simonova won the 2009 Ukraine’s Got Talent with her unique interpretation of the Great Patriotic War (as the Russian portion of WWII is known there). She painted scenes with sand on a light table, accompanied by various pieces of music (including Apocalyptica’s Nothing Else Matters).

Have a look at this video, followed by the body of the e-mail I received (after the jump):

Or what I did on my summer vacation. So, it’s been a while since I last posted anything of meaning here. The summer has been pretty good so far. I have enjoyed having my Saturdays to myself, free from the troubles obligations of grad school. I’ve also enjoyed many Sundays watching NASCAR and IndyCar races regularly for the first time ever.

Speaking of TV, let me start by saying that I have now picked up a few series over the past two months. The biggest series I’ve been watching all summer is NCIS. With USA airing 3 reruns back-to-back-to-back every weekday, I started watching the show with Chris when I would get home from work. We’ve completed the first season thanks to Netflix. I’ve even gone so far as to create episode lists in Evernote to check off episodes as I’ve watched them. I have also gotten hooked on Burn Notice, Big Love and True Blood. I don’t know that I will get very far into these shows before I kiss my free time goodbye, but they certainly are entertaining me until then.

At the end of June, Chris and I flew out to DC for NECC 2009, an educational technology conference. While I had my trip paid for by work, we had to pay for Chris to attend the conference out of our pocket. The conference was pretty good, and we got to see a little more of DC once again. If you’re in DC, I would recommend Matchbox – not for their mediocre pizza, but for their delicious mini burgers. While we were out there, we also saw the Independence Day fireworks on the National Mall. I was disappointed, especially when compared to the Taste of Chicago fireworks. Hell, I think even the Septemberfest fireworks were better, even with the historic surroundings of DC. You can check out my Flickr photo set to see what I mean.

Shortly after returning from DC, we spent a weekend downtown at the Omni Hotel for our anniversary. Over the past few years I have stayed at all sorts of hotels, and I was very impressed with the Omni Chicago. For starters, @OmniHotels was quick to welcome us after I tweeted that we were heading to the hotel for the weekend. When we were at dinner the first night, Jennifer Avellana, the Loyalty Ambassador, surprised us with a bottle of champagne and a slice of chocolate cake for our anniversary.

The day of our anniversary, we had a couples massage at Asha Salon Spa at the James Hotel. It was very relaxing, getting us ready for our anniversary dinner. That night, we went to dinner at Smith & Wollensky, with a great view of the Chicago River. Since it was our anniversary, we went all out, of course. We split a bottle of wine recommended by the somelier. The wine was a perfect pairing with Chris’s rib eye and with my fillet mignon and lobster. We passed on dessert because we had stuffed ourselves. Later that night, while watching a movie, we ordered ice cream from room service. The lavishness of the day brought us back five years to our honeymoon cruise.

As summer is starting to wind down, I am playing catch up with several things I want to accomplish before the fall. For example, I am still slowly cleaning my office, a painstaking task that is three years old. I am also prepping my computers for OS upgrades. Outside of my office, I am trying to be social, helping out with Normal Moments publicity (want to buy a raffle ticket for The Little Things in Life walk?), and just enjoying what’s left of my free time. The other day I spent most of the day downtown with Herschell and Liana, seeing the sights, taking some photographs (which I promise will be posted soon). I’m hoping I will have some more days like that before classes start up, because I’m sure that I will once again have zero free time.

Anyway, my rambles have gone on long enough. After I finish assisting Chris with an Access project for RtI, I’m heading to bed.

You can’t make this stuff up. After seeing @ejacqui and @chartier tweet about TEABAG OBAMA, I had to check this out for myself. I have been hearing pundits call on conservatives to "teabag the White House" or "teabag Obama" for a few weeks now. So, I did not understand why anyone would make a big deal about it now. And then I saw the video:

I’m glad someone other than The Daily Show (possibly broken link to the video) is starting to address this ludicrous slogan. Nobody is coming right out and saying it, but for those of you incapable of using Google, checkout the Urban Dictionary definition of teabag.

I know there are Young Republicans out there. I would think that at least one of them has used the internet, at least one of them has a marketing background, at least one of them would pull one of the older conservatives aside and say, "Hey, you might want to rethink that slogan."

Beyond that, I don’t have a clear understanding of why they are choosing teabagging as their method of protest. They want to draw a parallel to the Boston Tea Party, but that was about taxation without representation. Today, both sides of the aisle are being represented. It just so happens that one side of the aisle isn’t getting what it wants (frankly, I think both sides of the aisle might be losing on this one).

Note: I intended to post this a week ago. Oops!

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon premiered on NBC Monday night, officially replacing Conan as he moves to the Tonight Show on June 1, 2009. Being sick for a couple of days this week, I watched the first episodes on Hulu (not much else you can do when you’re in bed slurping down soup). I must admit that I did not have high hopes for the show. Then I saw Jimmy Fallon’s appearance at CES on engadget. That got me more interested, as he is a regular Twitterer (@jimmyfallon). At the time of CES, he had planned on using social media to add more flare to the show. I have to say it is pretty entertaining, even for the first couple of episodes.

Here are a few clips from the first couple of episodes that I thought were great. The opening of the premier episode:

From Tuesday night’s episode, Jon Bon Jovi sang with an audience member. I especially like this because "Wanted Dead or Alive" is one of the early tracks in Rock Band.

I’m looking forward to be able to enjoy the show more in 16 months when I’m done with graduate school. I’m sure the kinks will be worked out by then, as they were eventually with Conan. To Jimmy, good luck!

This morning I dropped Chris off at work because tonight she went down to Theatrefest. Before I left HEHS, I stopped by and said hello to the Tech department. We shared some news about work, and then I had to rush off to get to work.

Tonight, for dinner I made salmon teryaki with steamed broccoli and rice. It was pretty damned good, although it’s no replacement for the miso salmon at Cheesecake Factory.

I also started catching up on Samantha Who? while eating dinner, and then more while reading about the cash basis and accrual basis of accounting. Overall, I think my first of two nights while Chris is gone went fairly well.

Anyway, this post serves two purposes. The first is to quickly recall today, and the second is to show Rich that things seem to be working OK. And as I wrote that last sentence, I received confirmation that things are OK.