Will Hines Dot Net

Some people at work today wore costumes. I wanted to join in but had no ideas. This morning I grabbed my green jumpsuit and big bushy brown beard without bothering to come up with a justification of what I might be.

Suggestions from my co-workers have included:

Terrorist Janitor
A young Santa Claus
A shitty Fidel Castro costume

Edited to add: Last night at the UCBT Halloween party I got the following additional suggestions:
ZZ Top Gun
Woody Allen in Bananas
The mean dude from Lost who hit the button before Desmond showed up.

Part of my job here at AOL is filming and producing videos for Mo Rocca (he has a blog with us). It is terrific fun. We make three a week, which means we’re making them fast and furious, just my speed. Sketch stuff at UCBT and video with Channel 102 stuff was decent preparation for this run-and-gun style. It doesn’t hurt to have Mo and his thousands of ideas, either.

Usually, the pieces are simple man-on-the-street or interviews with a political hook. Sometimes we choose to be silly with little justification, like with the one shown below. We were in a hurry for a third piece, so we filmed Mo getting a free shave and massage, then had [...]

Fastidious. That’s a fun one. I am not fastidious but I do enjoy the way that collection of syllables sounds.

I’m mentioning Kevin only because he’s upset that his name in my tag cloud is slightly smaller than our other brother, whom I can’t name because then I would have to tag him. This is straight-up tag cloud affirmative action. Quotas, people. Start your virtual protests now at this artificial market correction: Kevin Hines. There.

Seven Fights is tonight, people. 8pm at UCBT. Let’s enjoy some sketch comedy.

Saw Morrissey Friday night. He was great; I coulda used more Smiths, but who couldn’t? One of the best parts of the show was the strange film clips they play instead of house music. Among the footage: a stilted wardrobe test of James Dean and his co-star for East of Eden; a clip from the old tv show The Untouchables with Eliot Ness and his boys talking about a thug named ‘Morrissey’; and a German variety show featuring a performance from The New York Dolls.

I also loved how Morrissey’s [...]

Amazing! The Red Sox are World Series Champs for the second time in four years. That is crazy.

It’s a long way from 1986.

My digital camera seems to be working. Let’s get right to it, folks!

This top-entry litter box has changed my life. I had resigned myself that my kitchen would forever be a shallow sandbox of scattered cat litter flicks — but this contraption has returned it to looking like an Actual-Grown Up’s kitchen. Big thumbs-up to these things.

I’m pleased to report that my Windows 2000 machine at work did not need any software installed in order to extract photos from my camera. My iMac at home had no problem either, but I had expected that.

I’m going to see Morrissey tonight with Porter Mason. It should be ridiculous and fun. I told my [...]

I just bought a Cobb salad, and now that I’m eating it I realize that I was most excited about the one half of an egg, hard-boiled, resting on the top. It was good.

The Red Sox are going to the World Series for the second time in four years. Pretty amazing. A friend of mine who roots for the just-beaten Cleveland Indians says that he kinda hates the Red Sox now, because they “feel like the new Yankees!” And by “Yankees” he means some combination of “team that always wins” or “bullying team that buys its way to success” or “evil” or so I assume.

First of all, the Red Sox are not truly “the Yankees” until people stop comparing the Red Sox to the Yankees. Second of all, it’s doubtful that any of us will live long enough to see any American sports franchise have as much success for as long a time [...]

Manny Ramirez dared to say that if the Red Sox lose the playoffs, it’s “not the end of the world.” Specifically, he said:

“Why should we panic? We’ve got a great team. It doesn’t happen, so who cares? There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

And so Red Sox Nation, of which I am a proud member, is supposed to be furious with their best hitter talking about being okay with losing. Except I’m NOT angry — I think Manny has the perfect attitude. It’s that same laid-back attitude that lets him NOT get rattled when he’s at the plate in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. He doesn’t care if it’s two [...]

Wally Wood’s famous 22 panels that always work.

Ivan Brunetti’s not-famous and funnier 22 panels that always work, sometimes.

I like titles that declare unsupportable things like “always work.”

I bought a digital camera. Photos will return to this blog in short order. Here is a random photo to serve as placeholder for where I would normally be putting a photo that I take.

It’s a woodpecker’s house.