The Voices in Frank's Head

The Germans have several unique words that don't have an English counterpart; one of the is schadenfreude . It means taking pleasure in the pain or misery of others. That really doesn't quite describe how I feel at this moment, but it's the closest I can think of. I know, an opening paragraph like that deserves a serious explanation. Here it is. There was this woman that I kind-of sort-of dated - way back in 1992. I have to say we "kind-of sort-of" dated because we never actually went on a date. Whenever we bumped into her, she was constantly touching my arms, commenting on how she liked my cologne and generally exhibiting a certain level of interest. I eventually took the hint, asked her out on a date and she said "yes". We made plans to meet after class, since we were both in college at the time. When the appointed hour arrived, she was nowhere to be seen. I figured she was just blowing me off. The interesting thing was that I got a phone call ...

Keira Knightley recently remarked that she is " twice the size " of most actresses in Hollywood. Um... yeah. I don't think so. The only time Keira Knightley is twice the size of other actresses is if there are three of her all at once.

I found the video below on YouTube. If this doesn't do wonders to boost military enlistment, I don't know what will.

Thanks to my involvement with Detroit Synergy , I will be on the radio this coming Monday. I will appear on Detroit Today , which airs on WDET 101.9 FM. We're going to discuss this trend of people leaving Michigan for one reason or another. The segment will air on Monday, September 17 at approximately 10:20 a.m. If you're not lucky enough to live the WDET broadcast area, you can always listen on-line .

September 11th. I miss the days when today's date meant nothing more than it was brother's birthday. I miss being able to look at the calender 1/12 of the year and not think about the pure horror and disbelief that I felt as I watched United Airlines Flight 175 slam into the South Tower of the World Trade Center live on CNN; the utter dismay when it collapsed less than an hour later and - above all else - the overwhelming sense of helplessness when I saw the North Tower still standing, but knew it would collapse soon. I miss what it was like to walk through the World Trade Center itself. I miss being able to sit back on boring days at work and just ponder what it would be like to go back to Windows on the World . I miss being able to visit buildings like Renaissance Center in Detroit, the Sears Tower in Chicago or the CN Tower in Toronto without thinking twice about it. I know, of course, that those buildings are as safe as anyone could reasonably make them, but there's ju...

I have a confession to make. I'm helping to plan Detroit Synergy's Wooden Anniversary Pub Crawl. It's a great time, having a lot of fun with a couple hundred of your best friends, as we bounce between 8 different bars in one evening. There will be drink specials at each of these bars, of course, and the folks at Hard Rock Cafe are offering free parking for participants. Like I said, it's a great time. More importantly, this is Detroit Synergy's big fundraiser. The group doesn't charge dues or anything so it relies on pub crawls to keep themselves afloat. None of this is all that newsworthy - or even worthy of a "confession" per se. Well, here's interesting part. Some of my Wolverine friends, decided that they didn't want to go because it was the same day that the University of Michigan was playing the University of Notre Dame. I was a bit frustrated by this. I tried to be as accommodating as possible when it came to scheduling the pub ...

Every time the space shuttle lifts off, it always carries some special cargo with it. When it lifts off this coming October, however, it's going to carry one of the coolest pieces of cargo ever. NASA is actually going to carry the lightsaber that Mark Hamill used in the original Star Wars movie up to the International Space Station. Yes, I know this is a publicity stunt. 100% stunt. But it's so darn cool!

This morning starts out with U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announcing his resignation . In and of itself, that was an amazing - and uplifting - experience. I thought for sure it was be the biggest story of the day. But then it was announced that Republican U.S. Senator Larry Craig of Idaho had pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct charge for lewd behavior in the men's bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. All in one day.

It must be time for 4th Fridays with Ford again. I know this without even looking at the calendar because the weather forecast is calling for rain. So, yes - 4th Fridays with Ford and Cinema D will each happen tomorrow as scheduled. No matter how much it rains. We had this problem last time around and it was still as blast. Oh, and speaking of last time around, I've learned a lesson: don't try making a sarcastic remark while someone is trying to take your picture. Paul caught me with Aria, Tim and Kim in the midst of such a wise-crack last time.

Yesterday was my birthday. Nothing all that special happened yesterday because, well, it was a Monday. The big party was Friday night at Whiskey in the Jar in Hamtramck. August was bartending. This meant that booze was plentiful. I also bumped into friends that I literally haven't seen in years, which is always cool. Anyway, it was only last week when I realized something birthday related that is actually kind of cool. I have finally reached that point in my life where it's actually legal for me to date women who are half my age.

I found this video on-line while I was searching for a link to one of my own video clips. I have to admit, I'm jealous that I didn't think to do something like this.

Liza left a comment in one of my posts below about Keira Knightley's ad campaign for Chanel. Among other things, she talked about how incredibly thin Keira Knightley is and how her body didn't look humanly possible in the Chanel ad. I read her comment just a couple of minutes after reading another article about how that same image was real in the first place. I figured this was an omen. Something that I would post about, at the least. According to an interview that Ms. Knightley gave, the folks at Chanel used PhotoShop to make her look the way she did. Her breasts are much smaller in real life so they added a bit to them when they were putting together their ad. I have to admit, I wasn't terribly surprised when I read that. Actually, I should amend that. I wasn't surprised that Chanel used PhotoShop to create an image that they thought we garner more attention and, in turn, sell more perfume. The surprising part, in my opinion, was that Keira Knightley was wil...

This is an amazing video from Drowling Pool . It's available on ThisIsForTheSoldiers.org courtesy of the Iraq & Afganistan Veterans of America .

Earlier this week, I discovered that if one types " dating in your 30s " into Google's search engine then I come up as one of the top searches. In fact, as of this morning, this site ranks at number 4 out of approximately 939,000 search returns. Of course, the really interesting discovery in the whole thing came this morning. Drum roll, please. Google also ranks me as number 1 when the search terms are "Jello wrestling Detroit". I swear, I almost fell out of my chair from laughing so hard when I saw that for the first time. I started this blog as simply a way to share my thoughts on a whole multitude of issues. Plus, it's nice that friends and family who no longer live in the Detroit area have a convenient way of keeping up with my life that doesn't involve me telling the exact same stories over and over again. But this Jello wrestling thing really floors me. It also makes me wonder what would happen if I were to organize a Jello wrestling match (here...

I saw the new Keira Knightley ad that the folks at Chanel are running. You can see it for yourself at the right. All I have to say is, "Wow!" I have a sudden desire to run out and buy a few bottles of Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel. That and a bowler hat. Anyway, Marilyn Monroe once told a reporter that all she wore to bed was few drops of Chanel No. 5. Looking at this ad, I can't help but wonder Keira Knightley wears to bed every night. Hmm...

Ding! Dong! The witch is dead. Karl Rove has announced his resignation from the White House. I'm not foolish enough to think that this means he is done and gone. However, he will no longer be a part of American politics on a daily basis.

I made an interesting discovery over the weekend. If you type "dating in your 30s" into Google, one of the top responses that come back is this blog. It's kind of interesting. I never really intended for this to be a blog about dating or even life in general for someone in their 30s.

It's been awhile since I've posted about some of the cool things that I find on-line, probably because I've been so broke as of late that I have steered clear of anything the remotely resembles shopping. Anyway, I found these cool night lights as I was surfing around this afternoon. I was looking for something completely different - and I found these. They look like like something out of a science museum, except that it's much smaller and fits directly into a light socket. It would probably freak some kid out, but it makes for a cool night light for adults.

Tuesday, August 7th has now come and gone. I'm still alive. This means that contrary to what that stupid person said in a YouTube comment , I didn't die within 7 days because I failed to repost his comment on someone else's page. Unless, of course, I'm like Bruce Willis ' character in The Sixth Sense ; where I'm already dead and I just don't know it yet. Hmm... Can dead people still blog if they don't know that they're dead? Oh, my God! Where is Haley Joel Osment's character when you need him?

This afternoon started out with me headed to a simple lunch date with one of my friends, Amanda . We discovered, much to our dismay, that Jacoby's Bistro was closed for renovations so we instead grabbed a couple of sandwiches at Au Bon Pain and found a table in Campus Martius Park . Our lunch went along much as expected - good conversation, good food, delightful atmosphere. The odd thing was that, at almost the exact moment that Amanda had to get back to work, another woman came walking up to me. It was Jodie , who recently returned for Liverpool. My meeting for this afternoon was already canceled, leaving me with a bit of time on my hands, so I said good-bye to Amanda and sat down with Jodie. We talked some more about all of the things that happened while she was in the U.K. and a little bit about life in the D. Eventually, though, she had to head back to her office as well. I started to head back to my car when my phone rang. It was my friend Tom, who is in town from Las V...