I have developed a slight affinity for the television series Chuck, which airs on NBC. Tonight I watched an episode from season one entitled "Chuck versus the Sand Worm." They love to drop the nerdy references to make geeks like me smile but it also happens to be a well written show with good characters and an interesting story. To give you an idea why I like the show, I'll give you a brief rundown of some of the referenced dropped in the show:

• Dune - Chuck and his best friend Morgan apparently always go as Shai-Hulud for halloween (yes the giant sandworms from Dune) . He even has a Dune poster in his bedroom which I hadn't seen in other episodes
• Real Genius - Chuck runs into a rogue spy who is happens to be a crazy genius type and who I swear is a reference to the character Lazlo from Real Genius. And if Linda MacDonald used to think that I ws Lazlo, then I think I can recognize a Lazlo when I see one.
• Goldfinger - There are several references including to the bomb diffusing scene at the end as well as when Bond ejects a guy from his car
• Arcade Fire - when Chuck and his handler hang out he references the awesomeness and also the exact length of their first record
• Wrath of Khan - Morgan, Chuck's best friend, tries to convince the HR guy at BuyMore that Chuck should be assistant manager he uses Chuck's ability to quote Khan as a qualification.
• Return of the Jedi - Chuck's pseudo girlfriend and handler Sarah gives Chuck a (bugged and fake) photo of them at comic con and she is wearing the princess Leia as Jabba's slave girl in the metal bikini. She later shows up to a halloween party in the same bikini.
• War Games - The bad guy played by Lazlo at one point asks Chuck if he would like to "play a game of thermo-nuclear warfare," which is a pretty direct reference to War Games
• Tron & Trek - Chuck always has a Tron poster prominently displayed in his bedroom. And th final trek reference is that the new asst. manager at the store where Chuck works has the middle name of Tiberius, which is also Captain James T. Kirk's middle name.

Yes ladies and gentleman, I am a nerd and I don't care.

Pedro, is it about time for our once-every-four-years debate about the electoral college? Or do you just want me to concede? :)</ul>

update: I just watched another episode of Chuck and they referenced Zork, which I wasn't in the episode I mentioned above but they end up dropping zork references quite often.

Wowee zowee! phish reunion! cubs in the playoffs! obama way up in the polls! If this is how the LHC is going to end the universe, I like it.

I made it on to a team for USARA Nationals, with sponsors and everything. Got a tuneup race at the end of October and then nationals is the week after the election. Which means the month of October is going to be full of really long days at work followed by long nights of training. If only I could get up in the morning and run things would be so much easier.

A list for today, in two parts.

Things I Like:

• my new fixed gear bike
• the weather in DC today (feels like fall)
• riding to work
• the olympics
• fried chicken at jackie's
• laying in the grass and watching the stars
• cold beer in a can

Things I Don't Like

• having to install silverlight to watch the olympics
• al trautwig and tim daggett's terrible gymnastics commentary
• john mccain's racist ads
• laundry

check it out! Åke published a book!

Unkle Åke's Field Guide to inFrequently Found Animals on the Shore of Lake Superior

Woke up this morning with a nasty sore throat and decided to go to the doctor to have that checked out and also to have my shoulder looked at. The good news is that it was just a basic viral infection. The bad news is that I don't just have a separated shoulder, I have a fractured clavicle. Which just means it will take longer to heal because there's not much they do for fractured or broken clavicles. I probably should have seen the doctor last week, but at least I got it done today. Tomorrow I go see an ortho specialist who will probably just give me a sling and tell me to rest my arm for a few weeks. Looks like I'll be spending a lot of time on the stationary bike.