Symbolic dynamics

So when I first read the definition of symbolic dynamics, I thought I understood it: "Symbolic dynamics is the practice of modeling a topological or smooth dynamical system."

Without reading any further, I thought it had something to do with literal modeling and topology of physical land, y'know, the kind of thing that land surveyors do (or what I think they do). It's actually a mathematical practice that's used in such fields as data storage and transmissions. BORING. I liked it better when it was about moving dirt and building shit.

Actually, since we're on the topic of me not understanding things, I guess I don't really know what a land surveyor does, anyway. I know they've got those tripods and when you drive by them on the road you're supposed to slow down. I know this because when I was in high school, I got stopped and yelled at by a guy for going too fast in the presence of a surveyor. Whatever. I was late for work at the pool, and, at the time, I was driving my sexy red Pontiac Sunfire (with matching bright red interior--no joke) so I probably looked like I was going a lot faster than I was.

Luckily, it shouldn't be difficult for me to learn what a surveyor does. I have a friend who's a surveyor, but based on his persona, I still have no idea what it takes to do his job. You see, Dan Man (yes, he's one of the 12 million people named Dan that goes by "Dan Man" or "Dan the Man" or something equally unclever) must be a smart guy. He was a civil engineering major at the University of Wisconsin. That's kind of a big deal. However, he's also the last person anyone could possibly take seriously. Here's why:

1. Never once have I heard anyone (except his girlfriend) call him just "Dan." In college, I was disappointed that he went by such a common nickname and I tried to start calling him "The Danimal" (this was before the yogurt existed) to no avail. He's one of two friends stored in my phone by something other than their first & last names. He better go by Dan Man at work.

2. He used to wear a red jumpsuit to every single Wisconsin football game. I've heard more than one story about bathroom accidents in that suit. TMI. Sorry.

3. Two summers ago, we were up at my friend's cabin. He found an old closet full of 1/4-full liquor bottles from (most likely) the 70s. He mixed them all into one giant drink and finished the whole thing. He sat on a folding chair down by the bonfire, tipped backwards and rolled into the lake. Instead of being severely injured like he should've been, he stood up anxiously and proclaimed, "I'm gonna take my shirt off and dance amongst the bugs!"

4. His email address still has "69" in it.

Wait, why was I talking about this? Oh. Yeah. Surveyors. So I don't know if surveyors are like important mathy nerdy engineers or if they're very hands-on manual laborers. He definitely gets a farmer's tan in the summer. Does that help? I don't know. And I still don't have any idea what symbolic dynamics really means. Let's just dance amongst the bugs and forget about it.

2001 in Australian Television

So I don't know about you, but thing that really interests me most on this page about Australian TV (or even Australia in general) is Neighbours.

I actually know very little about this show, but I do know that pretty much every famous Australian was on it at some point. Seriously. Check out this list:

• Russell Crowe
• Natalie Imbruglia
• Kylie Minogue
• Rhada Mitchell (the terrified wife from Phone Booth)
• Guy Pearce (the hottest guy I know that shares my birthday...besides Steve from Full House)
• Alan Dale (the guy who plays Wealthy, Attractive Older Gentleman on pretty much every show ever--The OC, Ugly Betty, LOST...)

Okay, I seriously thought there'd be more people I recognized on that list. Whatever. That's a lot considering how many famous people you actually get out of Australia. Think about it. The only Australians I can think of who aren't on that list are Heath Ledger, Nicole Kidman and Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee). Right?

It is kind of strange to me that such a wide range of stars came out of such a mediocre-sounding show. Soap opera about neighbors (or rather, neighbours) who live on a cul-de-sac together? Meh. It must be pretty damn good, though. It's been on since 1985! Not only that, it's on every night! Jay Leno better take note. Until then, I'm going to go see if I can YouTube some Neighbours and see if I can spot the world's next famous Australian.

Ian Joy

Good news, friends. Looks like every guy I've ever loved/crushed on/blabbed endlessly about can be heretofore discarded in place of my latest Wikroll discovery: Ian Joy. Wow.

Not only is this guy a soccer player, he's a super hot half-British soccer player who's my age and was born on Bastille Day. I don't really know why I care that he was born on Bastille Day. I actually don't really enjoy the French (except Capucine, which we've already been over). I just like that it's a nice, easy-to-remember date (for nerds like me that know when Bastille Day is).

I'm guessing those other attractors are easy to understand. Super hot? Duh. My age? A plus, considering more & more professional athletes are actually younger than me, a fact that's hard to swallow. Half British? Love. Let me clarify "half British," BTW: he's American, but his mom is Scottish, so he's go dual citizenship. I'm guessing this means that he has no accent (sad) but he's still been trained to drink & fight like a strapping, manly Scotsman. Clutch.

And, of course, the soccer player thing is always desirable. Right? I coincidentally just spent the weekend with a bunch of my friends from my semester in Spain, and we reminisced a-plenty about the "futbolistas" we managed to meet and subsequently root for at the few soccer games we attended when we weren't a) at a bar, b) sleeping, c) sneaking into the pool at the local 4-star hotel or d) lusting after Spain's other hot commodity: reality singing competition contestants.

Seriously, though. The hottest, most popular guys were for sure the soccer players. At least that's what I thought. I guess there was some dissension in the ranks, because they somehow garnered the nickname "field fairies," an epithet that ostensibly came from the (American) football team? Was this just at my school? Were soccer players "field fairies" throughout the US?

How lame. Why the gay stereotype for soccer? Y'know, football team, your sport is WAY more gay than soccer. In fact, if you're gonna take the Immature High School Boy (or Michael Scott) approach to life, most sports are actually gayer than soccer. Wrestling? Duh. Swimming? Speedos & leg shaving. Basketball? "Ball handling drills." Hockey? Please see DB Sweeney's hit "The Cutting Edge." Baseball? Gay outfits.

But soccer? Come on. Not gay. They can't even use their hands.

Okay, I guess that doesn't mean much when I put myself inside the mind of a 16-year-old dude. But I'll take it. Add it to the list. Ian Joy: super hot half-British soccer player who's my age and was born on Bastille Day who's probably not gay. Probably.

PS: I have to shout out to Cat Deeley, host of the FOX reality show So You Think You Can Dance for forever changing the word "joy" for me. Every time I see it, I read it with such fervor and Britishness that you'd think I was having a Tourette's-induced seizure.

Teen Angel (1997 TV Series)

This probably isn't hard to believe for anyone that's ever met me, but I actually did see my fair share of short-lived 1997 series "Teen Angel." Keep in mind, this show was on during the twilight (read: dying) years of TGIF, and the one season this show managed to survive was my junior year of high school. Also, that there was no DVR back then. What I'm trying to get at here is that I apparently spent plenty of Friday nights at home watching teen sitcoms back then.

This seems strange because I actually did have a normal social life that year. I mean, my parents threw me a surprise party for my 16th birthday, and all the super cool kids came. Then again, Zap DJ was there, so I can't blame them. (Zap DJ was a tag team DJ duo consisting of Big Man on Campus Joey Schmit and theatre kid Steve Stumacher who went on to become Milwaukee radio's own "Kid O'Shea.")

In any event, I was not a giant loser at that point in my high school career, but I guess I've just always made time for my favorite teen sitcoms. Ask anyone. I still watch "Wizards of Waverly Place" and "Unfabulous" like it's my job. Sometimes I watch them at my job. And this one was no exception.

It was really stupid. Here's the general plot: this kid Steve Beauchamp's BFF dies and then becomes his guardian angel, navigating him through the troubled waters of suburban high school life. Marcia Brady and Luther van Dam played his mom & grandpa, respectively. Pretty clutch cast, I'd say. Sadly, it wasn't clutch enough.

At its core, this show was basically the same thing as "Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" but with a boy protagonist. Still, it was the only show I actually watched of the TGIF cohort that year. "Sabrina" and "Boy Meets World" had both gone to college (aka to the dump) and this other show that was on that year, "You Wish," doesn't even ring a bell. Must have really sucked if even I didn't watch it.

But I still watched "Teen Angel." And here's why: Steve Beauchamp (played by Corbin Allred) was hot. And he was hot in an unconventional, super dorky way, though, which is what has always really gotten me. Like, I think these guys are hot, but think I'm the only one, so I think I actually have a chance with them. But then, some legitimately hot girl actually turns out to be the only one who agrees with me about said dude, and she gets to go out with him instead.

In Corbin Allred's case, that girl was Natalie Portman in the crappy-but-endearing "Anywhere but Here." Whenever it's on TBS, I still watch it to see the part where Natalie & Corbin make out. Then I turn it off because the rest sucks. And they make fun of Wisconsin. And it makes me sad watching Natalie steal my unconventional hottie. Thanks a lot.

Oh well, I'm used to it. The same thing just happened to me in real life, too. Only this time unconventional hottie wasn't stolen by a beloved actress/vegetarian/genius/activist/FunnyorDie staple. It was just some random trite bitch. Maybe if I hire Zap DJ to come to my next party, I can turn it all around.

Tony Canadeo

Never heard of him, but it appears that I should have. Tony Canadeo was a Green Bay Packer from 1941-1944 and 1946-1952. He skipped a year to be in WW2 (which begs the question: If they had girl baseball while all the boys were at war, then why didn't they have girl football?)

Obviously, I don't expect myself to know about old timey football players ('cept John Krasinski and George Clooney, of course), but as an indigenous cheesehead, I should probably be familiar with important Packers. Sorry, Wisconsin. I've let you down.

You see, Mr. Canadeo was one of the only numbers to be retired by the Pack. Number 3 will never be worn again...and I'm guessing Number 4 might soon follow since Wisconsinites basically consider Brett Favre more important than Jesus, the President and whoever invented cheese curds. I imagine the felt they same way about ol' Numbah Trey back in the fabulous forties (cue old timey radio voice where I talk about Chesterfield cigarettes and Shirley Temple's new MGM picture).

In fact, Brett & Tony do have one other important attribute in common: they both suffer from premature greying. Tony was actually better-known by his nickname "The Grey Ghost," due to this ailment. And we all know Brett's gotten a bit more than salt & pepper happening. Sadly for the Grey Ghost, though, he wasn't exactly what we'd call a "silver fox."

In other words, he wasn't totally hot despite his unfortunate hair situation. Y'know, like Brett. And Anderson Cooper. And Richard Gere. And Dr. McSteamy. and Stacy London? Meh, maybe not.

At least I can prove to Wisconsin that I know more Packers than I do silver foxes. I was totally into them when they were good in 1997. See? Reggie White, LeRoy Butler, Robert Brooks, Antonio Freeman. Okay, that's all I've got. But a girl on my dorm floor went to that prom party where Mark Chmura totally skeezed out and pulled some statutory-type business. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Champclause

Sadly, while it sounds like it's some kind of loophole to get the small town's star high school quarterback out of that underage DUI he pulled after prom, Champclause is actually a region in the Haute-Loire department of France. And it's probably not pronounced CHAMP-claws like I'd prefer. It's surely got a pretentious French pronunciation that always makes me want to vom (y'know, except when it's Capucine).

Isn't it weird that the French call neighborhoods and areas departments? Again, I know it's not pronounced in the harsh American way I'm imagining in my head, and it's much more romantical-sounding. But still I'd hate to live in a department. Or, rather, a dey-parr-man. Do you think they sleep in cubicles (qu-bee-cluh) and, um...I can't think of another analogy right now. Guess it's a good thing I'm not a really bad stand-up comic because this is the kind of joke I'd try telling. And nobody would laugh (so I'd have to jump in the audience and laugh at myself, a phenomenon which I liken to people giving the thumbs up to their own Facebook statuses*).

While we're on the subject of obnoxious French pronunciations, how 'bout that sucky new McDonald's commercial about McCafe? Ugh. It kills me. Every time. Chore? Chor-ay! Shuttle? Shutt-lay! Thank god I didn't write that crap. Definitely wouldn't merit the auto-thumbs-up.

Speaking of McDonald's, though, on Family Guy the other day, they were talking about the McDLT (skip to about 11:30 on that clip--there's some good Growing Pains humor in there too). Now, the McDLT was something I didn't know about at all. Probably because I always have and always will be strictly loyal to McNuggets. I had to look it up on Wikipedia and, to be honest, it sounds really stupid. But maybe that's just because I'm pronouncing it the French way.

*I stole that joke from my friend Adam. So, if it's not funny, it's his fault.