Application for Friend

This application is for the position of Friend of Crystal Brown. Should your application not be accepted, Crystal Brown reserves the right to post any and all information on her blog and ridicule it mercilessly. Your application will not be held and a new application must be filed for any other Friend positions that might open in the future. Crystal Brown is not an equal opportunity friend and does make decisions based on race, gender, religious orientation and sexual identity. Accordingly, all Gay Friends but fill out the appropriate Gay Friend application. Crystal Brown is an At Will friend and friendship can be terminated by either parties at any time.

Name___________________________________________________________________
(last) (first) (middle)

Nickname: (note: if you do not have a nickname, one will be provided for you)_____________________

Address:________________________________________________________________
(street address) (state) (zip)

Contact Numbers: (home) ________-________-___________

(cell) ________-________-_____________

General Friend Information:

Have you ever been convicted of a felony?:  ___Yes ___ No  ___I Don’t Remember
If so, what was the conviction?: 
___ Public Drunkeness
 ___Drug Posession
 ___Prostitution
 ___I was framed!

Have you or any of your family members ever been friends of Crystal Brown before?:
___ Yes  ___No  ___I don’t remember  ___I don’t have any family  ___Who’s Crystal Brown? ___ I’ve never had a friend before  ___I killed my family  ___and then I ate them.

Previous Friend Experience
How many friends have you had in the past 5 years?__________________________

How many friends have you kept?________________________________________

How many friends have you cut and why?__________________________________

How many friends have cut you and why?__________________________________

How much money do you make?_________________________________________

How much money have you spent/ are you willing to spend on your friends?____________________________________________________________

Please list your fiend skills and abilities:____________________________________

____________________________________________________________________


Personality Questionnaire:
Please choose the option or options that most closely resembles yourself
My favorite actor is:  __Tom Cruise  ___Robert Downey Jr.  ___Seth Rogan ___Vince Vaughn

My favorite actor to make fun of is:  ___Tom Cruise  ___Christian Bale  ___Toby MacGuire  ___Keanu Reeves ___Sean Connery

My favorite movie is:  ___Scary Movie  ___National Lampoon  ___Saw  ___Hot Fuzz ___Napoleon Dynamite  ___Barbarella

When I’m alone I:  ___read books  ___crochet doilies  ___look at porn
 ___obsessively clean myself  ___cut myself  ___drink a lot  ___sleep in

When I’m with my friends I:  ___drink a lot  ___talk about people behind their backs 
___get really bossy  ___am a buzz kill  ___make people laugh  ___am a drama queen 
___can’t take a joke  ___tend to cry  ___am passively aggressive 
___know everything in the world

My sense of humor is:  ___Sarcastic  ___Demeaning  ___Absurd  ___Slap stick 
___not remotely funny  ___Ghetto  ___Ironic  ___Dry  ___Dead

I dislike people who:  ___Talk politics  ___Talk sports  ___Talk about themselves 
___over react  ___are easily surprised  ___hate surprises  ___hate animals 
___are too serious  ___are never serious  ___love soy  ___wear Birkenstocks 
___interrupt  ___drive recklessly ___are opinionated  ___stare

I like people who:  ___make me laugh  ___give me hugs  ___give me money 
___help me diet  ___watch American Idol  ___make me food  ___are clean
 ___are very emotional  ___are very intelligent  ___are not too intelligent 
___are never sick  ___scare easily  ___let me touch them.

Thank you for filling out the Crystal Brown friend application. Please include with your application verification of your citizenship, three references, a list of all current prescription medication, urine sample, current headshots, physical measurements, blood sample, most recent pay stub, medical history for the past 5 years, and a $25 processing fee.

poll update

i'm shocked that clooney even got a vote. i admit i was a big fan of the huge black turtleneck sweater, but that was about it. keaton was a great choice except for the physical aspects of the character. what are you going to do? bale was a relative unknown before taking the role, and i think he has nailed it. could be a little taller, but that would be my only comment.

i suppose the poll for later this summer will be the best joker. nicholson, hamill, romero or ledger.

moving on, the latest indiana jones movie came out, so i'm interested to know reader's favorite franchisee. i'm sure i have left something out, so please use the comments to suggest other series of movies.

don't be afraid to vote often, perhaps voting three times for your absolute favorite, voting twice for your next favorite and so on.

Making some cuts?

It's been a really long day, probably one of the most exasperating work days I've experienced in a long time. But apparently our "fresh legs" on our blog only lasted one week, because Austin is the only one who's posted since Crystal last Friday. So I've gotta put something up here!

In an effort to "unwind" tonight, besides watching the Spurs come apart again and allow the Lakers to cruise into the NBA Finals (fingers crossed for tomorrow night that the NBA won't get their dream matchup!), I wound up watching "Pleasantville" on the USA Network. It's cleaned up a little, obviously, but I think I only really ever watched it through once, when it came out on DVD. And now, watching it again, I can't help but find it really thought-provoking. I'm only about 3/4 through it, but I'm wondering exactly what the evolving "colored" items are supposed to represent. I remember thinking the first time through that it represented Sin, or at least creatures who recognized that they could sin. But watching it again, it seems a little less black-and-white than that (no pun intended!). Now I'm thinking that it represents self-awareness, or at least a personal acknowledgment of their own freedom to make choices, any choices. What do you all think? Or better yet, what was it intended to be by the movie's creators? I could look it up, but I'd rather just hear from other people.

I was also looking at the upcoming fall TV schedule this year, and I discovered that in JUST continuing to watch the shows that I've enjoyed recently, I would be committed to 9.5 hours of television a week with the current schedule. That's out of control, not to mention the fact that it doesn't even allow for any possible new additions to my viewing habits. Here are the ones that I am currently planning on watching. What should I cut?

Boston Legal
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Chuck
Heroes
Eli Stone
House
Pushing Daisies
Friday Night Lights
30 Rock
Desperate Housewives

battlestar galactica, soccer (suprise) and gen X

i'll admit that the holiday weekend threw off my blogging clock. i was buried at work and then realized, hey, it's my day to post.


i spent the weekend watching the first season of battlestar galactica. the religious theme of the first season cannot be ignored and yet i have no idea how it is resolved. i seemed to remember it being dropped during the second season, but we'll see. all of this has happened and will happen again was the recurring verse from the sacred scrolls, and i'm interested to see how the final season resolves this element of the story.


other than that, just hung out. didn't watch any other tv. i mean what is there to watch?


manchester united won the champions league. talk about a game of two halves. penalties are no way to decide a game, but i don't know how else to determine a winner. i have thought about a replay, which the modern era of money and tv would never allow, but then it's like what happens if they tie after the replay. you are either back to penalties or another replay, which could morph into the american best of whatever series. i suppose it could be like hockey where they play forever until the game is won, but i really don't like that option based on time and physical limits.


i'm getting ready for euro 2008. that starts a week from saturday and every free moment will be spent trying to catch up on the day's events. it has the possibility of being a very lively, free flowing tournament.


if you get a chance, visit radaronline.com and check out the debate between the gen x'ers and the millenials. it is funny that people get that hacked off about the differences in the generations. i remember when i used to wear my gen x status on my sleeve and be proud of the nihlistic, cynical, depressing qualities that came with it. oh, those were the days.

It's Friday in Michigan!

I was figuratively surfing the internet and thinking about my dutiful friday blog when I realized that 10pm Thursday in California is actually 1pm Friday in Michigan. And taking into account that our blog reader demographics tilts liberally to the Michiganders I said "Hey, I'm blogging now so I don't have to think about it tomorrow, because tomorrow is now! Rock on California!"

There are several things over the past week that have made us stop and say "Rock on California!".

So here's to you California! I appreciate your affordable produce! Avocados for 5o cents!? Tomatos for 38 cents a pound! Limes, Cilantro, Peppers! I'm makin myself some salsa!

I love waking up at 7 in the morning and feeling like I got to sleep in! I love your clean, ready, and respectable public transportation.

And thanks for making me laugh California! Bulk organic honey that's still in the hive?! Oh, silly silly California, that's good times.

Ah, but there are certain aspects of living I have come to expect from Michigan, and I'm sorry to say, "You suck California!"

Why can't you make butter the same shape and size as basically every other state of the union! Why is your butter so short and squat and doesn't fit into my universally excepted butter dish? Who told you it was acceptable to change it? Aren't you ashamed of your disfigured and smallish butter? You suck California!

And where did all the pop go? What is this Soda? Why don't you have any decent diet choices? And why does it cost so much! And how come I'm expected to recycle it without any sort of remuneration? You suck California!

And why are your local business commercials just as bad, if not worse, than the ones in Michigan! Come one! You're the TV capitol of the world and this is the best you can do? They're not even entertaining in their badness, at least in Michigan we have Terry Hanks to give us a chuckle. You suck California!

And considering this is one of the largest states of the union, why is it that there is nary a sidewalk in sight? Why is all of the space that should be designated for front yards and sidewalks taken up by graveled parking spaces? Don't you know what a driveway is? I thought we liked non-vehicular transportation! Now my dog has to walk in your pathetic version of grass! You suck California!

And speaking of grass, why do I have to pull burs out of my dogs coat after every walk? Are we not civilized enough here to use grass seed and a little fertilizer? A little weed killer too much to ask? I despise your arid soil and your scrubby lawns! You suck California!

So yeah, I think that went really well. I'm definatly giving myself a 3 hour buffer zone on either side of my designated blog day. You rock California!

Feeling the pinch yet?

Experts are still waiting for most of America to reach its "breaking point" with the price of gasoline, the point at which gas consumption sees a significant drop due to major cutbacks in our driving habits. While most of us would probably say that we have made some adjustments to our style of living, the oil industry is waiting to see if we will actually change our daily routine. For example, while I used to drive over to the Detroit area to see friends and family at least once a month, year-round, those trips are now much fewer and far between. And I've already purchased tickets to too many good Tigers games this summer to let them go wasted, but I do plan on severely scaling back my trips to Comerica next summer.

But as to my daily routine, the gas crunch still hasn't hit home enough with me to force major habitual changes. I still drive roughly the same around town every week... if I stay in the Lansing area, I average usage of about 6 or 7 gallons a week, the same as I did a couple years ago. While I have CONSIDERED the possibility of using Lansing's bus system, or the idea of buying a bike and riding that to work or for other errands, the cost of gas still hasn't gone high enough to make those inconveniences worth the savings for me.

But the fact that I've even thought about them, represents a change in my thought pattern. I talked to Ben about driving downtown, he guesstimated it would be about 6 miles, or 12 miles round-trip. That would be great exercise every day, and save me money both on gas and parking. But it would probably subtract two waking hours from my average day, and it would be more difficult to transport things back and forth between the store and my home. Plus, many days I go directly from work to some other time-sensitive activity, so I would still wind up driving a few days a week.

The bus system is also an interesting idea. The time problem becomes less of an issue... if anything, I am able to utilize that time on the bus to read or be otherwise productive, in essence "adding" time to my day. But I still have to walk to and from the bus stop, and there is a charge for a monthly bus pass which cuts into the money I'm saving by not driving. And again, I am not in complete control of when and where I am going, so when is that inconvenience worth the money?

Some "experts" (I don't know how much credibility I assign to this guy's expertise) are now predicting that gas will hit $12-$15 and cause a monstrous recession between 2010 and 2015 (see Youtube end of post). The financial impact would be obvious, but one possible fallout will probably be the even GREATER urbanization of America, in which more people move into areas like Chicago or New York with cheap inter-city transportation systems which allows them to hold down a job without paying for gas every week. But the rising costs on virtually EVERYTHING else, and the effects on "rural" Americans, and even those of us in cities like Lansing without any really good public transportation, would still drive the country into a massive financial mess.

So I guess I'm just curious... has the cost of gasoline caused you to make any major changes to your daily routine? Has anyone passed the "breaking point", and changed their way of life to correspond with these prices?

summer movies

final results

dark night 45%
indiana jones 18%
other 18%
iron man 9%
xfiles 9%

so dark knight seems to be the fans' favorite. i can't wait. i hear heath ledger as the joker is truly frightening. indiana jones may be a possibility, but i just can't imagine it will be the same.

i'm interested in knowing what people voted as "other." please comment.

following up on the batman theme, the next poll will be your favorite actor as bruce wayne or batman. i suppose this could be a split vote if you like A as bruce wayne and B as batman.

please feel free to comment.

salut.