January 2011
1 post
Boggle!
I’m at the Boggle Tournament again this year. Stay tuned for an update some time in the next six months.
December 2010
4 posts
I've hit the big time!
Some of you may be familiar with the cybersquatting phenomenon, like the case where a supposed fan of Pana, Illinois, registered www.panavision.com, dedicated to photography of that city … and then offered to sell the domain to Panavision International, a well-known camera equipment company.
I think a closely related phenomenon is when people register domains that are common typos of...
Catch-up
Time to play catch-up on the blog. Expect, over the next week or so, the following posts:
Colinfest West
Atlanta
Fredericksburg, VA: Fools’ Fest tournament
Bloomington, IN: Regionals
Cedar Point with Frisbee team
Nationals
Eurotrip + Philly
Seattle Trip
Fall Frisbee Season
Halloweekends
Also, stay tuned for news from Colinfest this weekend.
November 2010
8 posts
Carnival Game Ringers →
Sort of a typical carnival game. “Congratulations, for your $5, you won a $3 piece of junk!” But I always like seeing really talented people competing in silly games.
Job Hunt
Looking to apply for jobs. Just came across one position that sounds interesting. Does this reflect tight budgets and cost-cutting measures in Michigan?
Working Conditions - Works in office setting - May be required to work in extreme temperatures and weather conditions
I'm back!
Well, Frisbee season is over and most of the amusement parks are closed for the year, so I guess that means it’s time to a) post 8 months worth of overdue blog posts, b) get a job, and c) plan Colinfest 2010.
September 2010
1 post
February
In mid-February, I drove down with one of my friends to New Orleans for an Ultimate tournament. Picked up a free boombox on Craigslist on the way down in Bloomington, Indiana. I weaseled my way onto an all-star team for the tournament and we won it fairly easily and had a lot of fun.
On the way back, we made great time up until the Kentucky/Ohio border, when we hit a snow storm. I called my...
August 2010
1 post
Alright. Got some stuff written. Just waiting to upload some pictures and videos and there should be a flow of posts catching up from March.
July 2010
1 post
Good news
The good news is that I got a great bargain on the complete series, Wanted: Dead or Alive, starring Steve McQueen. At a cost of 15 cents per episode, it’s a steal.
The bad news is that this purchase and my recent trip to Prague to compete in the World Ultimate Club Championships have kept me from updating my blog. I’ve got at least two amusement park trips, some ice cream stops, and...
May 2010
1 post
Busy-ness as usual
Lots going on. So much going on that I haven’t had time to keep the blog updated. Tied up doing a lot of frisbee stuff - playing, coaching, organizing events, doing stuff for the governing body.
The amusement park season is just kicking off. I have my season pass and hope to make some visits soon. I also missed almost all of the state and county fairs last year, so I’d like to...
April 2010
2 posts
Golf
I played 9 holes of golf yesterday and shot a 39 (3 over par).
My previous lowest score ever was on a course where par was 32 and I shot a 38 — 6 over par. In that round, I shot a 9 on a par 3 (between an eagle and a birdie).
So I think this qualifies as my new golf personal record.
Blog updating
If you are from Minute to Win It, please visit this post or feel free to browse through August and September in the archives.
I apologize for the lack of activity. I am currently applying to be on a game show that is perfectly suited towards my skills and interests — inane games of skill using household objects. The show is called Minute to Win It. In my application, I linked to the...
March 2010
5 posts
"Nice Legs"
It’s warming up a little and I’ve started wearing shorts every so often. I have received several compliments on the appearance of my legs over the course of hte past week or so. A stranger stopped me today on the street to say “nice legs.”
I fear that my legs may be distracting people from my beautiful face. Can’t think of any other explanation for the...
Atlanta!
Great weekend in Atlanta. Frisbee, donuts, ice cream, more carnival games, cake, brownies. Pretty incredible. Stay tuned next week for details on this and San Francisco.
San Francisco!
I’m just returning from San Francisco today. I was out here visiting friends and officiating for an Ultimate tournament. Did a little bit of everything while I was out here — played carnival games, ate ice cream, a little frisbee, a little exercise, visited some friends, and held Colinfest West (one of the greatest Colinfests of all time).
I foolishly forgot to bring my camera but I...
Colinfest West
I’m making final preparations for Colinfest West, which will take place this weekend in San Francisco. Due to time constraints and logistical constraints, I’ve had to cut some corners and make some sacrifices. Nonetheless, I expect it to be a great event. As always, great prizes, great food and great people.
One invitee said, “I’m looking at this invite list, and all I...
Colin: chump biathlete
This Saturday, I competed with four friends in an event dubbed the Chump Biathlon. It involved cross-country skiing a short circuit (a little under a mile) and then shooting relatively large targets from a relatively short distance, maybe 50 feet, with a .22 rifle. You could call this a remedial biathlon course.
I have never cross-country skied before. My practice lap around the course was...
February 2010
7 posts
Product Placement: Shoe Horns
I have been a fan of shoe horns for a long time. They make it so much easier to put shoes on and I’ve heard they can increase the life of shoes by up to 30%. No more worn out backs of shoes. Small and inexpensive.
Well, while watching Bonanza on TV Land, I often see commercials aimed at senior citizens (life insurance, motor scooters, etc.) Today I saw a commercial for a special shoe...
News
Not a whole lot of news lately. A couple things in the pipeline to look forward to:
- Colinfest West (San Francisco, early March).
- New website coming soon
- Biathlon
Big Day Part Two
Last Sunday (~11 days ago), I also awarded the winner of the “Guess What I Bought on Ebay” contest with his prize.
Just as a reminder, I bought 24 watches at a very reasonable price. Most of them were not functioning, but only because they needed new batteries. Fortunately, my father had made an impulse Ebay purchase several years ago, purchasing the tools necessary to open a watch...
TV Recommendation
Today I am recommending that you check out The Dog Whisperer. It’s on TV all the time. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/dog-whisperer
Big Day part one
Today was a big day for me.
First, I woke up and sold a couple of my trophies to a friend for use in his hot dog eating contest today. I am gradually going through my ebay purchase. I might be close to recouping what I paid in shipping.
Next, I attended the hot dog eating contest. I just did a little filming and interviewing because I had no interest in participating. Stuffing one’s face...
Products of the Day!
Products of the Day!
There are two products that I would like to showcase today.
The first is an awesome Transformers backpack-pillow-jacket by XIP3. It’s a jacket and backpack all in one, but it is convertible to operate as a backpack alone or to have the jacket turn into a pillow, I think. The Sierra Trading Post says “you’ll not only have a robot, but a future scholar in disguise.” In...
Boggle Failure
The boggle tournament was not a great success. I realized ahead of time that I should have prepared more, but didn’t take it seriously enough. The paperback Oxford Canadian Dictionary that I bought wasn’t the same one they were using for the tournament, so my word list was off. In addition, there was a new rule that if you wrote a word that wasn’t in their dictionary, you lost a point. That...
January 2010
17 posts
Boggle
Some of you may know that I am better at Boggle than anyone you’ve ever met*. I won the first ever Boggle tournament at Pioneer High School in December of 2001 and it was never held again - presumably because nobody was interested in competing against me. More recently, I have become an international boggle champion. I am currently preparing for tomorrow’s boggle tournament, where I...
How to lose a customer forever in 5 seconds
Four seconds to see the sign and get excited about getting ice cream (even in one of those awful styrofoam “cake” cones).
One second to realize that the sign wasn’t really for ice cream, identify choicehotels.com as the culprit, and decide never to do business with that horrible organization responsible for raising and dashing my hopes.
Also, who puts cherries on top of an...
Calder Dairy
Another already-written blog post that I forgot about. From last month:
The Calder Dairy is a well established business in Southeastern Michigan, probably best known for its home-delivery service for milk, eggs, butter, and other products. Their products are also carried in upscale grocery stores like Hiller’s and Whole Foods. The Arbor Brewing Company serves modestly sized desserts with...
I love technology
I just discovered RSS feeds and RSS-to-email services. I don’t know much about it, but what I do know is that it lets me keep track of people’s blogs without having to go check blogs all the time to see if there’s activity.
I read an article about it, because I was looking for a way to keep better track of some blogs and websites that were only rarely updated. That article...
Youtube Day!
I’ve been watching some videos on Youtube lately. A few were noteworthy, so I thought I’d share.
I recently saw some of the David Blaine Street Magic specials from television. For those who are not familiar with David Blaine, consider watching this video showing him approach some strangers in his characteristic Street Magic style. Another good example of his style of magic is in...
We have a close runner-up!
Congratulations also to my brother for managing to check the blog immediately before I posted the winner and e-mail me the correct answer (watches).
And further Congratulations to my brother for, after hearing that Craig won, but without reading the blog post, suggesting that perhaps he deserved an “I Lost to Craig” t-shirt.
In light of this and his nail clippers guess, I think my...
We have a winner!
Congratulations to Craig Frankland for winning the “Guess What I Bought” contest! He will receive one watch of my choosing from the collection of 24 watches that I purchased.
My brother will receive a consolation prize of five sets of nail “clippers,” one chocolate bar, and an “I Lost to Craig” t-shirt in recognition of his impressive guessing efforts.
Contest Update
Hint #4 - the quantity 24 is not significant.
Hint #5 - you probably already own at least one of these, but not 24.
Contest Update
I got some more great guesses today for the contest:
chocolate bars - I’d definitely buy 24 of these on e-bay, given the chance.
nail clippers - in fact I did buy 72 pairs of discount nail clippers once, but I learned my lesson. They were dirt cheap, but unfortunately they don’t clip nails. If anyone with really fragile nails wants some clippers, let me know.
Also, I have a few...
Link
I ran across this post on the woot blog and thought it was funny. Not sure their blog quite compares to this, of course. It kind of taints it that the purpose is to supplement their sales website. I’m not here to try to sell you anything, unless, of course, you’re in the market for the giant stuffed Kyle South Park doll I still have lying around, which you may remember from this...
Contest Update
So far there have been two guesses. 24 socks is not a bad guess, but not particularly blogworthy, unless they happened to say something crazy on them by chance. 24 olympic-style gold medals is a good guess - topping my previous awards purchases would be noteworthy.
The hint for today is that each item is small enough to fit inside a coffee mug.
Red Light Green Light
There’s an old joke that I’ve heard in the context of Boston driving, but likely gets recycled for different locales:
A yellow light means speed up. A red light means two more cars.
Today when I was driving in Detroit I pulled up to a make a left turn and saw the light had turned yellow. I accelerated through the light and the intersection, knowing that I was cutting it close. I...
Contest! Guess what I bought!
I am a kind of bargain-hunting shop-a-holic, as many of you know. I used to have a rule that I would buy anything I saw on sale for 75% off or more. I have since become a better bargain-hunter and can no longer afford that policy, but I did become the proud owner of a number of interesting products that way - like my wool sweater with a big zip pocket across the chest.
I also like buying at...
October Cedar Point trip #3
October Cedar Point Trip #3
Even since before my road trip, a few of my friends had talked about going to Cedar Point for Halloweekends (in October, the park gets festive and has haunted areas, etc.). Last year we planned on going, too, but the weather was terrible, so we didn’t. This year, we kept an eye on the weather all week in preparation for the trip. Unfortunately, there was forecast...
Crazy Fan
I’ve got a fan and a rival. At first it was kind of cool, having someone write songs about me and tell me I’m awesome and get excited about my self-promotions. Then it got a little weird, when he tried to change his name to mine (and came up with Colin MacIntyre). Frankly, I was honored to begin with, but then his stupid misspelled name began interfering with my google searches for myself.
Do...
Twin Mountain Trading Post
Looks like readership is up a little. Thanks to both of you. More old new news in the wake of my trip. A wonderful store called the Twin Mountain Trading Post.
Twin Mountain Trading Post
Back in September when I ran in the Reach the Beach 200 mile relay race, one of our first stops was at a pizza/sub shop attached to an outdoors store. In the store, there was a single bathroom, which several...
October Cedar Point trip #2
October Cedar Point Trip #2
On my second trip to Cedar Point, I finally convinced one of my friends to go with me. Having disgraced myself the last time I went to Cedar Pointe with friends (in high school) by only riding the tamest of roller coasters and the bumper cars, I was determined to finally repair my damaged reputation. We rode just about all of the roller coasters, except the Maverick,...
December 2009
7 posts
Motivated Seller
Nobody’s reading the blog, so I’m going to hold off on the Cedar Point updates until people return to work, I think. In the meantime, I saw a Craigslist posting for a free exercise machine today and was amused. The seller seemed really motivated to get rid of it:
Gravity Edge machine … We’re moving to New Hampshire and don’t want to transport it. There is a VHS...
Holiday Update
I’m really on top of things now. Stay tuned for the latest Cedar Point blog posts. They’re drafted and waiting for release, but I figure it’s better to spread them out a little rather than just posting 8 times in two days. If I’m wrong, let me know in the comments or by e-mail.