TANcast

Andy’s October of Suckage: Day 10

It’s hard damn work being as seriously epic as I am.

In size.

Around the waist.

It’s like the opposite of conditioning yourself for a marathon. I studiously avoid even casual levels of exertion. I vigilantly watch my diet, lest an errant green threaten to unclog arteries and intestines. I am especially careful to make sure to maximize cheese intake.

Any combination of cheeses will do: breaded mozzarella sticks dipped in marinara, blue cheese dressing poured over buffalo chicken strips, Parmesan piled high on garlic bread… I could go on and on. Most days I do.

The real secret to cheese, though, is the magic that happens when it hits hot metal. I don’t think anyone can argue that best part of a quesadilla isn’t the runoff around the edges that crisps into those bubbly fans of deliciousness. Overzealous pizza topping application nets little slivers of brown treats on the pan surface, and I dare you not to pick those off when nobody is looking.

One day when I was about 7 I had an epiphany: Cut out the middle man and just fry up some fucking CHEESE!

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Andy’s October of Suckage: Day 9

This afternoon I was sitting at the computer, watching people with more active and interesting lives fail, when there was an unexpected friendly “shave-and-a-haircut” knock on my front door. I hopped up and, after a moment of frantic legs/pants battle and a quick check of my zipper, I waddled over, opened the door, …

… and almost fell into a porno.

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No need to waste time just look at this…

Wow…that was in my mouth…for years! It was yanked out this morning with not a lot of fanfare or fuss. For those who are interested in such things, I did not get “put under.” I didn’t even get any gas. I just got the same local you get when you’re getting a filling (something I have become all too familiar with)

But back to this tooth…or perhaps I should say this root with what’s left of what used to be a tooth… Read the rest of this entry »

Andy’s October of Suckage: Day 8

I just got a fireproof, waterproof external hard drive from ioSafe. Given the recent spate of end-of-days weather and my bout of terminal heathenism, I thought it best to be prepared. If they had one that was frog-, blood-, locust-, lightning bolt-, and zombie army-proof I’d probably have paid for the upgrade.

The only problem with owning such an awesomely serious piece of hardware (I swear to Super Panda this thing weighs 25 lbs.) is that you only get to show off the coolest features during an emergency.

I don’t know if I mentioned this on TANcast before, but I used to make my own black powder. My final presentation in High School Chemistry cleared a lecture hall. I’ve burned all the hair off one of my arms. More than once.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? Do you see how there may be a certain compulsion I’m choking back?

(Burn it all down!)

Wait. What was that?

(Oh shit! He can hear us?)

Um, I think I need to go take a cold shower in a dark room and think of things burning. No, NOT burning! Not.

Ah well. If we lose the house at least I know our taxes, Junior’s baby pictures, and my porn collection will be safe.

Andy’s October of Suckage: Day 7

I know I’ve played this tune before, but listen up, heathens: Daddy’s got something new for you to worship!

First some background, just in case you aren’t up to date on my drama:

I’ve recently been confronted with the uncomfortable fact of my own mortality and the realization that I might have 20-30 more years (tops) instead of the 40-50 I’d been planning for. As a friend pointed out this means I’m due for a mid-life crisis right about now.

I don’t fit in tiny little sports cars and my wife’s in her 20s so there’s no need to chase 20-something tail. That leaves me with “crisis of faith” or “binge drinking”, and as the son of an alcoholic son of an alcoholic the latter seems… ill-advised.

Crisis of faith it shall be!

Ahem! Ummmmmm. (cough) Aaaaaaaaah. Can you all hear me okay? Alright, here goes.

There is no God.

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I just got my Star Trek uniform in the mail today and it made me think about how I’ve wanted this thing since the early 90’s. Then I realized that my life now would really impress me as a kid. SO If I had a chance, these would be the things I would tell my younger self:

7) You know how you keep getting in trouble for trying to be funny in class…when you grow up, you will try and be funny for a living. (Don’t worry, little Tim doesn’t fully understand the value of money. He’ll think making $2,000 a year is a lot)

6) You’re going to live long enough to see a Black man become president…and all your White friends are gonna say that the two of you look alike.

5) One day you’re going to live down the street from Harrison Ford’s son’s restaurant

4) You will live long enough to see Michael Jackson become popular again (sadly, HE won’t)

3) You will be able to dress up like a Starfleet Captain, Superman, Darth Vader, Batman, or a Pirate at a moment’s notice because you will own all of those costumes (plus TWO Kermit the Frog puppets).

2) You are going to get a pass that will let you go to Disneyland everyday of the year!

1) You know all those girls who’ve been rejecting you? You’re going to meet a girl 10 times more beautiful, and smart, and funny and she’s going to spend the rest of her life with you…and you don’t even have to trick her!!!

Andy’s October of Suckage: Day 6

Image courtesy of Ticky_ on flickr

A bit over 4 years ago, Microsoft announced that they would be including a new document layout file format, later named the “XML Paper Specification“, with the release of Windows that would eventually be called Windows Vista.

The XPS format was intended to both compete with Adobe’s Portable Document Format in the field of a document layout (and for some hardware, the printer interface itself) and in some ways to replace the extremely long-in-tooth Windows Metafile/Enhanced Metafile format.  Ars Technica has a trio of writeups on this battle, if you care to read more.

Microsoft did ship Windows Vista with XPS support, but they also included it in the .NET Framework version 3.0 for Windows XP users. This was a smart move, given that Windows XP users didn’t exactly flock to Vista (in fact, many people counted as “Vista owners” aren’t).

The easiest way to make .XPS files is with the “Microsoft XPS Document Writer”, which acts as a standard Windows printer and allows you to create .XPS files from any application that can print.  Instead of spitting out a dead tree, you get a file that keeps your text and images exactly like you like and which can be taken to another computer/office/planet/plane of existence. Very handy.

As you can almost certainly surmise from this post’s title, it goes downhill from there…

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Behold a recent comment the TANcast podcast received that is chock-full of WIN…

I have been working a 5PM to 1AM shift at work as a temporary measure. Only 2 people in a 20,000 square foot building so it can get a bit quiet . Found your podcast on podcast alley and have been downloading it ever since. The job involves testing large amounts of PC boards and can get repetative, so listening to you guys helps keep me awake . Some of your twisted humor and comments just gets me to laughting out loud, but nobody is there to hear me. Since I started night shift, I have started to fart a lot more at work. ( due to diffrences in diet and just becasue I can) Now I can feel free to walk down the halls just tooting away whenever I feel the need. If you are able to really let one go without any holding back they really can have nice tones and echo a long way in an empty building. Guess when I have to go back to day shift my newfound farting freedoms will have to be curtailed a bit. That and the barking noises I make when I am letting my coworker know that its breaktime. Well…bye for now”

I don’t know which of you went to Podcast Alley and left this comment, but it (and you) ROCK!!!

Andy’s October of Suckage: Day 5

About two weeks ago, I finally used one of my Google Voice invitations and got an awesome phone number. In short, my feelings can be summed up as:

Free + Awesome = WIN ...

… but it could be better.

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So won’t you please nominate us?

Nominations begin on October 4th at http://www.podcastawards.com/ and go through October 18th.

When filling out the form, remember that our podcast name is: TANcast and our official URL is: http://tancast.com. Also they say that “comments are critical so the reviewing team understand why a show is deserving of being nominated to the category,” so be sure and leave your 2 cents about why you think we should be nominated.

If you don’t listen to any other podcasts besides ours…well first off, I’m sad for you, but here are some suggestions for the other categories:

People’s Choice:
(No Suggestion…we leave this to the people to decide)
Best Produced:
Mousetalgia (http://www.mousetalgia.com)
Video Podcast:
CO-OP (http://revision3.com/coop)
Comedy:
TANcast (http://TANcast.com)
Cultural/Arts:
Left Field Cinema (http://www.leftfieldcinema.com)
Education:
Grammar Girl (http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com)
Entertainment:
SModcast (http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/smodcast)
General:
Stuff You Should Know (http://www.howstuffworks.com/stuff-you-should-know-podcast.htm)
Mature:
Distorted View Daily (http://www.distortedview.com)
Movies/Films
Scene Unseen Movie Reviews (http://www.sceneunseenpodcast.com)
Technology/Science
Tekzilla (http://revision3.com/tekzilla)
Travel
Mousetalgia (http://www.mousetalgia.com)
or
Netcot (http://www.netcot.com)
(too tough for me to pick one)

I know we’ve missed a lot of great podcasts like the Ice Podcast, Comics on Comics, LSAT Logic in Everyday life, etc. So if you have any suggestions for spots we left out or alternates, leave ’em in the comments and maybe you’ll inspire someone else to give that podcast a listen and win a nominating vote for them 🙂

Like the poster up there says, please comply with the rules of the contest. So no automated bots, or nominating TANcast in every category, no nominating more than once etc. But feel free to tel your friends and family to nominate us as well 🙂

Let’s see if we can get TANcast nominated 2 years in a row!