We only got 4 minutes to save the world - Madonna Stick & Sweet Tour Concert Summary

Steph got me a ticket to see Madonna with some friends for Father's Day earlier this Summer and she finally made her way to the Bay Area earlier this month on her Sticky & Sweet Tour.




With tickets going for $350, plus that famous sizable Ticketmaster service charge and $20 to park you need to be a big Madonna fan to attend.

Here's a low grade "phone" video I shot of Miles Away.


Here's the setlist - which is standard across all her shows on the tour.


'Intro/Candy Shop'
'Beat Goes On'
'Human Nature'
'Vogue'
Video Interlude
'Into The Groove'
'Heartbeat'
'Borderline'
'She's Not Me'
'Music'
Video Interlude
'Devil Wouldn't Recognise You'
'Spanish Lesson'
'Miles Away'
'La Isla Bonita/Lela Pala Tute'
Romanian folk interlude
'You Must Love Me'
Video Interlude
'4 Minutes'
'Like A Prayer'
'Ray Of Light'
'Hung Up'
'Give It To Me'


And here are some pictures taken by my friend Gilbert and his wife who had a higher quality camera available.

Jonesboro Featured in National Ad

I was watching a football game on FSN recently when a Shelter Insurance advertisement came on. The spot featured dogs riding in cars (presumably covered with Shelter auto insurance) in various cities around the USA. I did a double take and rewound the Tivo when I noticed the pictured hound getting a ride in Jonesboro. Fancy that. I think the ad would have been better if it featured Dad's Miata and Jake.

Welcome to Arkansas

Arkansas gets no respect! It's the Rodney Dangerfield of states!

Diet Pepsi NFL Kickoff Flavor

Pepsi has launched a new limited edition flavor called "NFL Kickoff". I drank one down expecting the cola to have a hint of pigskin or an aftertaste of freshly mowed grass. Turns out "NFL Kickoff" flavor is just a clever way for Pepsi to re-release their failed lemon flavor. You'll remember that lemon flavored cola was briefly all the rage, until lime flavored cola came along and blew it out of the water.

The Presidential Vote

Deciding who to vote for in the presidential election was a difficult choice. No, I wasn't anywhere close to voting for McCain and Palin the dummy. The real choice was between Barack Obama and Chuck "Chuckles" Baldwin of the Nebraska Party. As you can see, I ended up selecting Obama, although based on Nebraska's statewide election results, I'm pretty sure the computers counted my Obama vote as a McCain vote.

Active MSNBC Election Widget

History in the Making?

Tomorrow is election day - or today if you are reading in the Central or Eastern timezones. Here's a widget you can download to monitor things tomorrow if you are so inclined.



We seem to not let this blog get too political so will let the dogs do most of the talking.



Regardless of the outcome it will be nice to send Bush off to finally go look for those weapons of mass destruction. Go-bama!

Breyers Ice Cream...Don't be so sure...

I've always regarded Breyers as a producer of quality ice creams. Their website certainly doesn't go out of its way to mention they also slip in "frozen dairy desert" on occasion and we recently made the mistake of purchasing such a product.



It's a good bet that the peanut butter cups mixed in to this dairy product are not made of chocolate but rather a palm oil derivative.

Don't make the assumption that the Breyer's name represents top quality ice cream like I did.

Jack In a Box

Here's Mom and her little bear cub!



and Jack looks from above

Special Message for Mullins

Stone Temple Pilots

Erin's brother Adam scored us 5th row tickets to see STP in Lincoln Tuesday night. The band reformed this year after lead singer Scott Weiland split with Velvet Revolver, a group made up of former member of Guns 'N Roses. The Pilots were very polished and put on a great show. The Meat Puppets opened. Here are a few snaps Adam took of the show.

Jack Fights off the Pea Costume

Jack demanded a better halloween costume this year. Recall the low-end pea costume his Mom got him last year. This year we decided the baby bear will be a bear. But first we needed to get a few plain pumpkin shots.



Here's one in his bear costume. The costume is obviously pretty warm so we're hoping it cools down a bit before halloween. It is was ~85 this week-end and the poor kid was sweating in his costume.



Another round of snaps this week-end after halloween.

Flame On!!!

We got our gas fireplace going for the first time tonight. As you can see, the new fake ceramic logs have that "just chain sawed" look. At this point, Yuki is terrified of the fake burning pile. I suspect he'll warm up to it as Winter sets in.

Shanghai Surprise! The Speedy Maglev

I recently went to Shanghai on a business trip and discovered the speedy Maglev Train. The world's first magnetic levitation train. The train can go over 300 miles per hour. On our trip it reached 431km/hour with equates to 268mph. We were blowing by cars and buildings.



Here's the camera video during the speed ascension.

The Iowa State Road Trips

We ended up heading to Ames, Iowa two times in three weeks to watch both the Huskers and the Jayhawks knock off the lowly
Cyclones.

We watched both games from a similar spot on the "hill" in Jack Trice Stadium. Because of that, I got an almost identical shot of each team moments before they rolled up another seven on the unsuspecting bottom feeders of the Big 12!

Invasion of the Quackers

Lately a lot of ducks have been hanging out on the small lake behind our house. My pal Mullins has accused me of me of being obsessed with the ducks in a way similar to Tony Soprano. I don't think things have gone that far, but I have been wondering how a particular baby ducky is going to survive the oncoming Winter. How old does a duck have to be before it can fly South?

The Great Pumpkin!

We went to a pumpkin patch this week-end and Jack quickly began his search for the Great Pumpkin..a la Linus from Charlie Brown...

Would baby find his pumpkin?



Watch the montage to find out.

Jack has about 17 years to go...

until he matriculates at Georgia Tech...here's hoping "the ratio" continues to improve for the little guy!

Little Debbie Cinnamon French Toast Sweet Rolls

Little Debbie recently launched a new attack in the snack cake war with their new Cinnamon French Toast Sweet Rolls.  It's an intriguing new flavor for sure, but are these things any good?  Sadly, no.  Turns out it's just a bad honey bun with an overly pungent, artificial maple flavor.    

Recommendation:  Avoid

Great Adsense Ad

In response to Bill's recent Hersheys is selling out quality post Google originally tried to sell us Hershey bars! Then they got it right and started touting the competition!!!

http://www.marshealthyliving.com/chocolate.jsp I'm going to show my support by seeking out Mars' products.

Mars Commits to Pure, Authentic Chocolate
We're a family-owned company, and one of a handful of companies still making our own chocolate. So we have the freedom to make these types of decisions and commit to creating only the pure, authentic chocolate that our consumers have come to expect. Chocolate that contains 100% cocoa butter. It tastes better and that's what our consumers have come to expect and told us they want.
At Mars US, we take our chocolate as seriously as our consumers do. The U.S. chocolate standards permit only cocoa butter and milk fat as fat sources in real milk chocolate. However, some people want to broaden the U.S. chocolate standard to permit replacing some of the cocoa butter with vegetable oil. That's a change that our consumers oppose, and so do we.

The Tile Story

When we moved into the new place the previous owners left us a box of tile. Glass tiles to be exact that they had purchased to install in the kitchen but never got around to doing. We didn't think much of it when we were moving in but finally checked the tile out and really liked it. Last week, when Rick and Barb came to visit, we pulled the trigger on the installation.



The hardest part of the whole job was definitely cutting the tiles. Rick took to them with a Dremel and several dozen cut-off wheels. In the end, it came out looking pretty spectacular though.

On one of several trips to Home Depot/Lowes we scored Jack a new fly-swatter. He knows it simply as a swatter. It is one of his favorite toys!

The Swatter Montage!

Here's What's Wrong With America

It seems Hershey's, America's great chocolate maker, is pulling the old bait and switch on their customers by replacing much of the real chocolate in their candy bars with sweetened, chocolate flavored palm oil.  

Erin noticed the story in the news recently, and I confirmed it with a trip to Walgreens.  In the picture below, you'll notice a pre-switch bag of Kissables (on top) and a post-switch bag (on bottom).  There is one difference in the bags.  On the top right corner, you'll notice what used to say "candy coated milk chocolate" now says "chocolate candy".  Chocolate flavored candy, that is.   

 

In this second picture, you see the ingredients from the old Kissables bag.  The first ingredient is milk chocolate,  which contains cocoa butter.  

In the third picture,  you see the ingredients list from the new Kissables bag.  The first ingredient is sugar, followed by palm oil.  Yum!  

In a taste test, Erin and I found the Kissables to be very similar, but taste isn't really the point. 

Hershey's should be ashamed of themselves.  I know I won't be buying their products without a label check.  Other palm oil bars to look out for include:  Take 5, Whatchamacallit, and Mr. Goodbar.  The classic Hershey's bar is still safe....for now.  

Who's up for some fresh baked palm oil chip cookies!!!!

eh BBQ

"The Stand" Arriving in Funny Book Form

I picked up the first of the new comic book telling of Stephen King's "The Stand" which hit stores last week.  Everyone's favorite King book will span six chapters, each consisting of five comics for an eventual total of 30 funny books.  Interestingly, Erin just began reading "The Stand" in its book form a week or two ago.  

Tropical Nebraska

California, Florida, and Hawaii have always been somewhat distinct from most other states thanks to the beauty of the palm tree. The palm just won't grow in places like Nebraska and Minnesota. It seems, though, that technology is now beginning to narrow this "palm gap". I recently discovered these faux palm trees gracing an upscale shopping center near my gym. They even have lights where the coconuts would be!

The Great Zinger Investigation

In a 10/28/06 post, I mentioned spotting Zingers, traditionally a Dolly Madison snack cake, being sold under the Hostess brand name. I had assumed that Hostess had bought out Dolly Madison. Wrong. It seems that BOTH Hostess and Dolly Madison are selling Zingers.

Confronted with these two boxes side by side at the store, I was forced to buy them both for a Zinger-Off.
The Zingers look identical, but the Dolly Madison box claims their Zinger is filled with "créme" filling while the Hostess Zinger is filled with a "creamy" filling. The Zingers seemed to taste very similar although I thought the Dolly Madison filling was more grainy than the Hostess. Erin felt the Dolly Madison cake was a bit dry in comparison.

Then I took a look at ingredients. They're exactly the same (both equally unhealthy). Also they're made in the same Kansas City factory. I guess a Zinger is a Zinger, no matter what the brand name. One concrete difference though, was that the Hostess version was slightly more expensive per ounce.

Happy Nanoversary!

To celebrate being engaged for one year, Erin and I treated each other to new iPod Nanos! I went with Georgia Tech Yellow while Erin opted for Sex and the City Pink.




Between both our collections, we have Nanos from each of the four Nano generations. The black one is a first-gen 2 gig model. Then we have a red second-gen four gigger. Erin's blue third-gen (the squat generation) Nano is an 8 gig model. The two new ones also have eight.



Here Yuki displays the line-up.


Credit for inventing the Nanoversary goes to Robert & Steph as you may remember from this previous blog post.

GT Football - The Perfect Option

well, OK, if they can stop fumbling 5 times per game...

Walkin' Baby!

Ridin' with a Yellow Dog

Ranger continues to reinforce which way his tail wags for the upcoming election.

Sunset & Rocks

I snapped this while walking around a Minneapolis area lake.

Bad Moon on The Rise

Folsom, CA, September 14, 2008, Nikon D70

Jack and The Stairs - Happy Birthday Granny!

Another Loyal Husker Fan

Baby Starts to Toddle! w/ Birthday Footage

Hot Wheels Mystery Blog Challenge Winner!

We had the great unboxing of the Hot Wheels Mystery Car tonight. Here's what was hidden behind the black plastic:



The vehicle's name is "Cloak and Dagger".

Here's how the judging process shook out. Dad, Steph, and Shane were immediately out. Whatever this car is, Mustang, GTO or Charger it ain't.

Erin was out in round two. While the car could be an eco-friendly green design, it probably isn't because it seems to have a big gas guzzling engine. Also, it doesn't have solar panels.

Aaron was dumped in round three. His Aston Martin pick is somewhat similar to the mystery car. Also, the Aston is the vehicle used in the latest James Bond movie, a "cloak and dagger" type film. But the similarities ended there.

The two finalists were Robert and Bill.

The mystery car does look like a super car, similar to Bill's Ferrari pick. Also it has flame-like patterns, although they are blue and white, not black.

Robert came closest to nailing the color with his "blue to green" description. Also, the mystery car does favor the old Corvette Stingray body in some ways.

It was a tough final decision.

Robert wins!

Suzy Q's Make Comeback

Has anyone else noticed Suzy Q's in stores lately? I hadn't seen them in years and had assumed they had stopped making them. Now all of a sudden they seem to be everywhere. The Q is probably the best snack cake in the Hostess line up. Yuki loves them too...for the box.

The Hot Wheels Mystery Blog Challenge

I found this interesting Hot Wheels toy vehicle package at a local drug store. It is a blacked out plastic package so you don't know what kind of car you are buying. According to the back of the package, there are 24 different mystery cars.

Here are the rules of the mystery blog challenge:
1. Decide what type of car you believe is in the package.
2. Leave a comment in this post describing your guess. Obviously, you must identify yourself in your comment.
3. The individual who comes closest to describing the actual car, wins the car. I'm the judge.
4. I will send the car to the winner.

Good luck!

A Small Adventure

We took advantage of the long week-end to take Jack (and ourselves) on a field trip to some new El Dorado County wineries today.

We tried Miraflores which we both agree is now one of our favorites in the area. Very good Syrahs and good Barbera and Petite Syrah too.

Here are Steph and Jack enjoying the day.



We then went to a couple of wineries further south that were fair but neither the wines nor our experiences were great. Mark Winery by The Creek down as a low priority as well as Charles B. Mitchell/Conti Estates.

Jack's favorite part about winery trips, as you might recall, are the tractor sightings.



On the way home we ran across a somewhat rare car for these parts. A real Mini.