twodoebs

So I'm tinkerin' around, lookin' at a few of the many, wonderful blogs that are out there and I come across this one that's written by some high school kid in Valparaiso, Indiana called "Doebler Central." He's hillarious! I would urge everyone to spin on over to his site and read through some of his musings (I love, for example, his thoughts on "How Homework Is Destroying America"--it's TOTALLY something I would have written at his age).

I must, however, cut and paste one of his postings, for the amusement of those of you who are to lazy to follow a link. It's his list of people who are "ON NOTICE" (if you read enough of his blog, you'll see that people come and go from this list)

1. All ON NOTICES must irritate me, bug me, or are otherwise retarded.
2. An ON NOTICE may only stay on the ON NOTICE LIST for a maximum of two months.
3. An ON NOTICE that has been on the ON NOTICE LIST for more than two months will be placed indefinitely in the DEAD TO ME LIST.


ON NOTICE LIST:
01. People who do not stop at stop sign or feel that traffic rules do not apply to them.
02. Kobe Bryant---it’s not that he’s good, it’s that everyone else is terrible.
03. NASCAR Drivers
04. Nine tenths of a cent
05. Sand
06. Braces
07. People who feel they need to place a phone call at 1:00 AM
08. Cheerleaders
09. Mongolian Combat Boots
10. People who honk when they pick you up instead of coming to the door
11. Panthers---For beating the Bears
12. Teachers who call on you when you don’t have your hand raised
13. People who are bad at telling jokes


DEAD TO ME:
1. James Lewerke
2. Terrorists
3. Nazis
4. Speech
5. Smiley Faces
6. People who make car commercials

I love the Olympic movement. I ESPECIALLY love winter sports. I get very excited about opportunities to look at pretty pictures on snowy mountain tops on the ol' HDTV. And this year, I have a new addition to my Olympic enjoyment in Sweet Kati as a partner who shares this passion for the games.

So why do the Torino games seem so laborious to watch?

Part of it, I'm sure, is that Team USA ain't doin' so well. Between the unmet expectations from the big stars of the skiing and snowboarding events to the untimely departure of the skating darling, this just isn't our year.

And it IS the first Olympics in a while that didn't have some *special* significance--Athens . . . humm, well now that I write that, I guess Athens didn't really mean too much either. But Salt Lake City was--obviously--a home town Olympics, not to mention the first games held after 9/11 AND the first of the new millennium.

And during four of the last five Olympics (those being Athens, Sydney, Nagano, and Atlanta), I guess I didn't really have ANYTHING to do all day long, other than sit around and watch television coverage. Here again, the one I COULDN'T fully commit myself to watching was Salt Lake City, and that was pretty awesome in-and-of itself, so I didn't NEED to 100% veg-out to stay pretty connected with the activity. So--taking advantage of FiVO as to not miss anything (exciting or otherwise), notwithstanding--this is the first time in a long time that I've had OTHER things on my mind other than the burning caldron.

But I STILL can't quite put my finger on exactly why I'm not getting into these games. Anybody got any ideas?

So recently, Sweet Kati and I were in negotiations with Brent M. Nelsen, the CEO/President of Coastal Video Productions, Inc in Bluffton, South Carolina. We were hoping to hire Costal Video Productions to videotape our wedding.

Knowing what I know, however, both about video production AND about entertainment law, I asked Mr. Nelsen if he would be willing to agree that Kati and I would have the rights to use the raw wedding footage as we saw fit in the future. My fear, I explained, was that sometime in the very near future we might want to use the raw footage of the ceremony or the reception for a new purpose, such as--perhaps--a web site or a 20th Anniversary family-movie compilation. It's an unfortunate residual effect of copyright laws from a bygone era that it would be illegal for us to do anything along these lines without having prior permission from the videographer.

I tried to explain to Mr. Nelsen what was happening. He, however, struck me as being a very unsophisticated business man, not to mention not understanding ANYTHING about rights. At my suggestion that we deviate from his boilerplate contract, which seemed to be something he had put together based on about ten minutes worth of web research, he immediately retracted from the conversation. The next time we spoke, Mr. Nelsen indicated that not only was he not willing to work with us on the rights issue, but that he wasn't willing to be the videographer for our wedding. According to him, he was just "way too busy" to work with us.

To be sure, it's 100% his right to not work with us. He's ALSO entirely within his rights to refuse to pass along copyrights to the footage to us.

My problem is that people such as Mr. Nelsen, who I view as little more than a glorified guy-with-a-camera, hold themselves out as professional videographers and then are not willing to discuss contractual issues that surround their trade. To illustrate, Mr. Nelsen has two video clips on the demo portion of his website. One of these clips strikes me as relatively clean with decent editing and the other clip strikes me as pretty bad. Now I may just be a guy who majored in Video Production in college (although the "Bio" section of the website for Coastal Video Productions doesn't indicate that Mr. Nelsen even has THAT level of academic training in the craft) and an young attorney who has had minor experience in the structure of video production deals. But when I pointed out what I interpreted as a disparity in these two clips and suggested that Kati and I might be permitted to view a rough-cut of OUR project to be sure that it was more in keeping with the BETTER of his two demo clips, and less similar to the other clip, Mr. Nelsen again balked. "Nobody does that," he said.

That's just not true. And the fact that I could very well have been someone who didn't know better than to have called him to the carpet on all this stuff makes me angry. The fact that other would-be clients will hear what he's sellin' them and just go ahead and buy it 'cause they don't know how wrong he is is aggravating.

To be sure, my opinion of Mr. Nelsen and his operation at Coastal Video Productions is VERY low. I'm VERY happy that Kati and I decided that Coastal Video Productions isn't the right outfit to pay a VERY large amount of money to for a videographer and my impression is that anybody who DOES engage these folks will be VERY sorry down the line. Either that or they just don't know the correct questions to be asking.

And if all that's not enough, it turns out that the videos Coastal Video Productions deliver are apparently illegal in and of themselves. For example, one of the clips on their website is set to the Collective Soul song "Heaven Let Your Light Shine Down." When I asked Mr. Nelsen, however, if he had purchased a license to this song, he explained--apparently under the mistaken impression that he wasn't required to do so--that a client has chosen the song. I wonder if one of the Business and Legal Affairs attorneys from Atlantic records will agree with that proposition . . .

So one might think that a guy who spends five days a week in Brooklyn Criminal Court would be prepared for pretty much anything that could come out of the good men and women of Kings County. No, no . . . not so.

Kati and I spent all of last night and the better part of today attending our Precana classes in Brooklyn's Midwood neighborhood. For the benefit of those non-Catholics out there, Precana is the Vatacan's last chance to squeeze some mandatory religious education out of its parishioners before moving along to indoctrination of the lucky couple's forthcoming children. And believe-you-me, it's a BLAST from the CCD past, alright, right down to the workbook with perforated pages and the single correct answer to every seemingly open-ended question.

Almost more important in understanding the humor of the situation, though, is an understanding of where Midwood is. To be sure, this ain't no Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, or Cobble Hill. This is pretty much smack DAB in the middle of the borough . . . this is HARD core Brooklyn.

So we're in this church basement discussing family planning with some of the most colorful characters a sitcom writer EVER hope to create. This crew--really!--this crew was worth the price of admission all by itself.

And, of COURSE, the group was lead up by a married couple that took the prize! Ray, the husband of this teaching duo was--no joke--a perfect combination of Frank Costanza and Frank Barone, the father in "Everybody Loves Ray" (as a disclaimer, I want it to be clear that I never actually WATCHED an entire episode of "Everybody Loves Ray" . . . I AM, however, familiar with the character of Frank Barone, although he's NO Frank Costanza). Only he's significantly more bald than either of those two characters. Oh yeah, and he's got a *rather* heavy stutter . . . which makes listening to him speak about sensitive issues for six hours pretty difficult. While casually dropping hints that his father was an abusive alcoholic and telling us that he keeps his marriage fresh by bringing his wife a monthly refrigerator magnet, Ray peppered his presentation with jokes that only his wife could enjoy . . . perhaps (my favorite was a story about a 90 year old widower whos family decided to give him a special surprise on his birthday, so they sent an expensive call girl to his house; she arrived, rang the bell, and said "I'm here to give you super sex"--he responded, "I'll take the soup" . . . as with all of Ray's jokes, I'm not sure what it's got to do with laying the foundation for a healthy marriage, but HEY, it kept the day light!). Oh . . . and THEN--get this--about halfway through the class, shortly after he explained that Precana is so important because the American divorce rate hovers around 57%, Ray dropped the eitsy-bitsy piece of information that the woman with whom he's teaching this crash-course on fidelity is NOT his first wife. Classic!

His present wife, Karen, was equally as entertaining. I mean, don't get me wrong, these ARE good people. And I DO appreciate them giving up their Saturday in hopes that they'll be able to give Kati and me the appropriate foundation for a long and happy life together. But, man-oh-man . . . you couldn't have PICKED a less likely couple to do the job.

I'm not making these tidbits up! They're VERBATIM:

Teacher: "If the two of you haven't discussed children, now's the time."
Couple Sitting Behind Us (Giggling in Unison): "Too late!"

Male Student #1: "Man, this is BORING!"
Male Student #2 (LOUDLY): "Yeah, I wish they would just give us our fuckin' certificates and let us get out of here!

Kati and I DID, however, get OUR certificates, though, and we're PROUD to say that we're one step closer to the big day!

OK, regardless of who wins Superbowl XL tomorrow night, I GOTTA say how much I've enjoyed the Steelers getting this far. For the past four, six weeks, my love for the black-and-gold has kept me movin' through the days. And, to be SURE, for the last two weeks, all this excitement has just been unreal.

I've been jucin' myself up every morning before work with the 2005 "Here We Go" Steelers song (which is no longer available for download on Steelers Fever 'cause they didn't have enough bandwidth to support the demand for all the Steelers songs!), I've been wearin' my Steelers tie to court, and I've been gettin' all of my black-and-gold paraphernalia together for the big game tomorrow night.

Because the Steelers really haven't been in the Superbowl in my lifetime (Superbowl XXXV in 1995 didn't count 'cause nobody REALLY thought they had a prayer . . . ), I haven't ever known how exciting it is to follow your team through all the ordeal. It is, however, pretty sweet!

Last night, we were all lucky enough to share a monumental event with Kati--her 30th Birthday! Lotsa friends stopped by and we all enjoyed celebrating with big day with the birthday girl. As always, click on the pictures below for a larger image that's more appropriate for downloading or printing.