Plenty of Flibbertigibber

Ellianna's Masterpiece

2012-01-14T09:28:00.001-08:00

This is Ellianna's most recent painting, done entirely with fingernail polish.

Donald Duck Orange Juice?

2011-07-11T16:37:00.001-07:00

I came across this while buying some juice at the store. There seems to be very little emphasis on the fact that the juice is made from oranges. My first impression was to ask myself, "What is Donald Duck juice?"

Is there some special reason why they chose just Donald?

Oh well. I figured I'd share this interesting find.

Pepper Roulette

2011-06-24T16:09:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we played Pepper Roulette at work. Some of the peppers on this plate are orange bell peppers. The rest are habanero peppers. Apparently these are generally indistinguishable to the untrained eye.

The object was to choose a pepper to eat and hope you get a bell pepper.

I lost.

I did, however, learn a lot about habanero peppers. They generally taste like a bell pepper until you hit the pack of seeds, and not all of the seeds are spicy.

I eased into the challenge. I sniffed the pepper, I licked the pepper, then I bit into it a bit. No problems. I ate a bit more, no spice at all. "I got a bell pepper", I declared. Silly me.

I did not finish my pepper, and the others who had chosen wisely were entertained by my folly. Of course, I was not the only person who lost the game.

It was an interesting experience.

Annual Arithmetic

2010-01-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

1: Choose any positive integer
2: Triple it.
3: Multiply the result by three (yes, again).
4: If the number contains more than one digit, add them all up.
5: If the result of step 4 results in a number with more than one digit, repeat step 4.
6: Add ten.
7: Store your current result in memory (MM).
8: Decrease the number by one.
9: Subtract the result from 100.
10: Store the new result in memory (NN).
11: Concatenate the two numbers in memory - MMNN.
12: Subtract MMNN from the current year, 2010.

The end result is my new age! :-)

Stride Permamint Gum

2009-10-20T18:25:00.000-07:00

Today I received notice from my mother that I had received a package in the mail at her house. I decided to stop by after work to pick it up, thinking that maybe someone had mailed a gift for the baby. Though, when my mother handed me the package, she mentioned that it had a funny smell.

I decided to check the smell, and it almost seemed to have a bit of a minty scent. This was a little confusing. The person from whom it came was listed as "Cadbury Adams". I did not immediately recognize the name, nor the sender's address. My mom became a little anxious as I decided to open the package. To help keep her at ease, I decided to open it very carefully... "just in case".

So anyway, I get the package open, and inside I find a letter with a giant Stride logo on it. It immediately dawned on me that I had entered a contest many months back to "Rename Stride Non-Stop Mint". The contest prizes promised a substantial chunk of change, and a year's supply of gum. For some reason, I felt this was worth a shot.

I decided to submit several names that I could think of for their "Non-Stop Mint". I cannot remember what all of them were now. Not long after entering the contest, I received an email from the company stating that they were forced to end the contest early, and they apologized. (I found another blog poster who mentioned this too...)
Here is the text of the first email I received:

Thank you for your entry and for your enthusiasm around our Rename Nonstop Mint™ contest. Your Nonstop Mint™ name idea was awesome, but we had a technical glitch in connection with the selection of the finalists and therefore, had to close the voting and the contest.

We are really sorry about this, especially after we saw such energy for the contest, with you and all our STRIDE® fans.

We are still going to give away great stuff and money – and more than you thought. We will be conducting a drawing among all those who submitted names, and five people randomly selected each will get $25,000. Yup, you read that right – you are eligible. Stay tuned, and we will reveal those people shortly.

We are also sending you – and all the other folks who submitted the same names as the finalists (because yes, it seems great STRIDE® minds thought alike) – custom packs of Nonstop Mint™ featuring one of the ten final names that most resemble yours. Those custom packs (there will be 12-packs of Stride gum in a box) will be ready in about six-to-eight weeks.

We hate to spit out our own contest, so we really appreciate you sticking with us.

- STRIDE MARKETING TEAM

As it turns out, I must have chose a name similar to that of one of the finalists.
They sent me 12 packs (each containing 14 pieces of gum) with one of the names I chose.....

Permamint

Hurray! Free Gum.

My First MRI

2009-09-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

I had my first MRI today. I hope it is the last.
Apparently MRIs make me nervous (maybe it was the enclosed space).
When I am nervous, I sometimes become hyperactive.
Asking a hyperactive ME to sit still and not move at all for an hour... well... just crazy.

I was uncomfortable, and twice I had an itch on my face that I could not scratch.

On the Horizon

2009-04-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

Yarrr! Thar be a little one headin' this way. Come November, the Davis Krewe shall have expanded from ME to THREE.

XM Radio Customer Service Woes

2009-02-09T16:53:00.000-08:00

In January of 2008, I purchased a Honda Civic that came with a 3-month trial subscription of XM Satellite Radio. I tried it out, but I was not a major fan because the signal was intermittent. It seemed highly annoying to deal with the constant interruptions of static, so I did not purchase a subscription when my trial ran out.

I occasionally received advertisements in the mail regarding specials they were running. Depending on how long I agreed to have their service, I could get varying percentages off the total cost.

Eventually, I came across a decent deal that I was willing to try for a couple of months because I was going to be doing some traveling and figured I would get a better signal when traveling the Interstates. This was mostly true, except that it would still cut out for a moment when passing under several bridge underpasses.

I decided to call and cancel my subscription, but they were desperate to keep me. I told them I did not want to pay for a service that was annoying to use. They kept tossing more "deals" at me, and I kept refusing. Eventually, they offered me three months for free to continue trying out the service and hopefully resolve my signal issues. I told the person on the phone that I would have no problems with a free trial. I made it clear that I did not want to pay for the service. I was told that, to avoid having the subscription renew at normal price, I would need to call by the end of February (2009) to cancel the subscription. I agreed to this.

For the three months leading up to February, I rarely listened to the radio, because it was highly annoying to have the signal go out so much. Driving around town I would get a lot of static, especially if I was near trees or buildings. You know what we have a lot of in the city? Trees and buildings!

Wanting to avoid getting charged, I decided to call and cancel the subscription yet again. I called XM while on a break at work at used up more than my break time waiting on hold. I kept getting a recording telling me they were experiencing high call volumes due to the high demand of their "Best of Sirius" package. I refuse to believe this for two main reasons. One being the bad service, two being the price of their stock. Regardless, I was forced to hang up and try again later. Therefore, 20 minutes of my time was wasted.

I decided to take a lunch break later in the day. I called XM while driving home to grab some food. Again, I sat on hold for about 20 minutes before someone finally answered the call. They had the same annoying recordings talking about how their new service was in high demand. Yeah, sure.

Finally, someone picked up, and I told them I wanted to cancel my subscription. They asked me why, and I told them the signal was lousy and I could not use the radio. For reasons following logic I cannot quite follow... they then offered me several discounts to use their service. It seemed to be difficult to explain to the customer service rep that I did not want the service at all because it was annoying to use their service.

After several more minutes of back-and-forth discussion, I was eventually able to convince the customer service to cancel my subscription. YAY. This agreement was made on Thursday, February 5th, 2009.

Fast forward to Monday, February 9th, 2009...
I decide to do a quick check of my balances to make sure there has been no weird activity recently. I do this on occasion just because I don't trust the world.
What do I find? I see a charge from XM Radio for their service. It apparently applied on Friday, February 6th, 2009. I found this very annoying, as I had called the day before to cancel the service.

...
So I call XM to check on this issue. Again, I have to sit on hold for a while. For a period of roughly 17 minutes, I have to wait on hold. I finally get someone on the line speaking broken English, and try to explain to them that I was charged for their service despite the fact I had put in a request to cancel the service. I mentioned that wanted to make sure my subscription was canceled and I wanted a refund of the charge. Strangely enough, at that moment, the call connection started to become weak. I find this very strange because it had no problems while I was sitting on hold. After several moments of trying to talk to the customer service rep... the call went dead.

I thought this was very fishy, because my phone had been sitting in the same spot for the duration of the call, so I know it wasn't my end.

I took a moment to ponder the situation before immediately calling back, because I did not want to sound super angry. Then I convinced myself that I would likely have to sit on hold for a while again, and I would have plenty of time to calm down while waiting on hold.

I called back. Luckily, this was the shortest amount of time I had to sit on hold, only about 13 minutes this time. I get in touch with a live person. The English is still a bit broken, but more easy to understand than the previous guy.

I explain to her that I was just talking to someone and got cut off. I then tell her I was calling because I had called last week to cancel my subscription and then was charged a large fee after putting in the request. I wanted this to be checked, and I wanted to get a refund for the errant fee. She says she can help me with that, then states, "but first, I will need to verify your name". At this moment, the call goes dead.

Again, this is highly fishy because I had a perfect connection until the moment I stated I wanted a refund.

XM is testing my patience.

Once again, I called to try to talk to someone. This time I was on hold for 19 minutes. What a way to spend an evening! The person on the line asks if they can help me. I tell them I hope so, because I had already been cut off twice tonight. I then explain that I had called last week to cancel my subscription, but was then charged a large fee. I explained that I wanted verification that my subscription was canceled, and I wanted a refund of the money I charged.

He then asks me to confirm my name. He then confirms my address. He asks how many radios I canceled, and I tell him just one (the only radio I have). He then states that he needs to check some information on my account and puts me on hold. After about 2 additional minutes of holding... the call drops.

Yet again, fishy. I did not lost my signal, the call was terminated by XM.

After being disconnected from XM three times when trying to get a refund, I shall just have to assume that XM IS RUNNING A SCAM. Yes, XM lawyers, I put that in print. Since I have plenty of evidence to suggest this, I have every right to actually print it.

I'll strike you a deal...
Refund my money plus some to cover the cost of time I have wasted talking to your customer service (I figure about $200 should cover it), and issue me a formal apology. When this is done, I shall remove the specific comment above about you running a scam. The other information about your deplorable customer service shall continue to remain unless you strike me an amazing deal. I'm open to suggestions. Keep in mind that I may increase the $200 amount above depending on how much more time I spend dealing with your company trying to get my money back. Also, if you feel compelled to take me up on the "amazing deal to remove negative feedback" offer above, please note that the minimum I will accept will depend on how long you wait to make an offer.

Your's truly,
RMWMP0W4
Former XM Subscriber

******* UPDATE ********

During my fourth attempt this evening at contacting XM, I was finally able to confirm that they are applying a refund to my account. Hurray.

I wonder how many people would have given up and just let XM charge them the money. It still seems sketchy to me that my three previous calls dropped within moments of mentioning that I wanted a refund.

Oh well. I guess patience and persistence pay off.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

I know I have neglected this blog some. Hopefully I will spend more time with it in the coming new year.

So anyway, I wanted to make a quick post to say Happy New Year!
Blessings upon you.

Bailout Woes

2008-11-13T05:44:00.000-08:00

Many people reading this would already know that I was never a supporter of the $700 Billion bailout plan that Congress passed a few weeks back. In fact, I called my congressman to berate him for voting for it when it seemed none of his constituents supported it.

Now, I am met with more news that angers me further.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/12/campbell.brown.bailout/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

So, they plan to change how to spend the money. Paulson states that the facts have changed since the bailout was passed. Instead of spending the money on failing mortgages, they are instead going to buy stock in banks.

There are so many things wrong with this plan, especially considering this seems to be the Government's long-term plan to control everything.

What concerns me the most, though, is the fact that it seems that our government passed a bill to spend over $700 Billion without actually doing any research into why they were doing it. They just passed it.

Nothing like this should ever be passed without the proper research, and all congresspersons (including Senators) that voted in favor of the bill should be ashamed of themselves.

That's my 2 cents.

Intolerance

2008-11-06T05:07:00.000-08:00

Intolerance is only tolerated when one is intolerant of intolerance.
-- or --
Intolerance is only tolerated when directed toward intolerance.

Debt Woes

2008-10-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

When looking through some old files on some sites today, I came across a weird little gadget on an old site that, for some reason or another, was set to display the number of milliseconds that had passed since midnight on January 1, 1970. At the time I accessed it, the count was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.2 trillion milliseconds.

What scared me was the fact that our National Debt was actually about 8.5 times higher than that. In trying to compare the actual National Debt to milliseconds, I came up with a comparative date somewhere in mid 1681. Yes, you read that right. If you were to go back in time the number of MILLISECONDS corresponding to the number of dollars in our debt at the time of this post, you would find yourself in the 17th century.

I decided to take this a step further and come up with a general estimate of how much money our country has spent, on average, per second, since our founding. Assuming that the country was started on July 4, 1776 and ending at 11:59PM on October 15, 2008... This country has spent, on average, just over $1400 more than what we can afford... per second.

How horrible is that!??

Sadly, most of that has been in recent years. At the time of this post, the debt is increasing, on average, just under $30,000 per second. This is deplorable.

Something needs to be done. We need to stop borrowing money and get our debt under control. If we let it grow much more, we will not ever be able to afford paying it back. At an average growth rate of 8.50% annually... Our payments of less than half a trillion dollars per year result in the debt increasing annually. Even if we were to double the payments we currently make, the debt would never decrease. We would have to increase our annual payment to roughly $1 Trillion to even start making a dent.

Something is wrong.

Jeff Sullivan: Master of Web

2008-07-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under Heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

So Long, Jeff. We shall miss your stories, anecdotes, laughter, and presence.
Until we meet again...

Rest in Peace, Buddy.

The Idiot Box - Ziggy Shwa

2008-07-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, today a coworker suddenly remembered a show he had seen a while back called "The Idiot Box". I had never heard of it, so I decided to look it up.

I was quite surprised at the return I received from Google.

Here is a quick screenshot of my results:

I thought this was very odd. Why on earth would it pop up results for "ziggy shwa"?

I just don't know.

Oh, and BJD, you might appreciate this. When I finally found some information about the show, I learned that they once had a contest called "Win a Chance to Sacrifice Your Daughter to GWAR!"

Thus ends my post.

Carlin

2008-06-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

I'll miss you, George.
I hope that garage is spacious.

FD4HD3D

2008-06-02T17:24:00.000-07:00

I took a small vacation from work to be an Extra in the film Final Destination 4, which is being filmed in 3D in High Definition. I played a security guard. Though, if I even appear in the film at all, it will be very briefly. The way I figure it, I spent a week-and-a-half filming for a chance to be in the film for a few seconds.

I guess I shall have to wait until next year to see if I actually make it into the film at all.

The funny thing is, I do not look like a security guard. I look completely ridiculous. I picture my character being some scrawny dork that found a security guard uniform and wanted to act tough for a bit. Who knows? Maybe they will use some video editing tricks to make me look a little buff or something.

I have tons of pics, but I shall have to sift through them to see if there are any at all I can safely post without taking some heat from the studio (or its lawyers). We'll see.

Mmmmm.... Fresh Blood

2008-06-02T17:21:00.000-07:00

OK, so I was at Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market yesterday when I noticed a new flavor of Orbit gum. The flavor? Sangria Fresca. In case you cannot tell from the title of this post, the translation is "Fresh Blood".

Is it bad that I like this flavor?

Perhaps I am becoming a vampire.

Hurray for Clean Water

2008-04-15T20:25:00.001-07:00

Well, Forbes has released a list of cities with relatively clean drinking water.
Mobile made the list!
Apparently our water has some of the least lead. That's good, right?
I should say so.

Clean Water

Azaleas

2008-03-23T17:45:00.000-07:00

Our yard is in bloom now, which means there is pink pretty much everywhere you look, with some darker shades of red, and a bit of white and yellow as well.

I was out taking pictures of the yard when I decided to play around with some of the settings on my camera. In the process, I managed to take a couple of pictures that I really like. I am actually quite impressed they turned out as well as they did.

First, a pic I took yesterday...

Now a pic I took today after shooting the bushes with a super soaker.
Behold the beauty of Azaleas close-up.

Rock Band... What's Next?

2008-02-24T20:22:00.000-08:00

So the other day I was sitting in a restaurant, enjoying some "Chinese" food when my friend started talking about his Rock Band band, and how great they are doing and how "famous" they are now.
Well, to be honest, I have never really seen the game in action. Based on my experience with Guitar Hero and DDR, and what I had seen on random websites and in random promos, I had a basic idea of how it works.
However, another one of our friends was not really familiar with it or Guitar Hero, but was aware of DDR. He questioned if it was like DDR with musical instruments.
My mind immediately started wandering and wondering. What was said between the two of them for the next few moments did not register in my mind at all.

So what was I thinking about. Well, I will spare you some of the details of the inner workings of my mind, but I shall simply summarize it by stating that I was bouncing through a chain of thoughts of how one might combine DDR and Rock Band. Just the thought of DDR seemed pointless, but there still had to be a way to integrate them...
and that is when I thought about it....

Fly Girls!

Call them whatever you want. Fly girls. Dancing girls. Backup dancers. Background choreographed dance. Whatever it may be..it could be.
Granted, you couldn't really measure all of their body movements. The technology exists, but that would be completely impractical for a console video game until the technology improves and becomes much cheaper.

However, you could still try to measure hand and foot movements using the same technology used for DDR. Lots of little spots to press around you at perfectly choreographed moments. Or perhaps random, but using an algorithm to determine whether it seems to be an acceptable dance move.

I don't know exactly how it would all work, but it just seems like it could be a nice addition.

Or... You could simply just add friggen KEYBOARDS.
You add Keyboards to the game, I'll consider buying it.
No, I don't mean QUERTY or DEVORAK.
Musical synthesizers.
They are still a major part of bands today, and they should be added.
You hear that Harmonix?
Make it happen.

My Celtic Saturday Evening

2008-02-24T15:54:00.000-08:00

Upon the ending of the American Cancer Society's 19th Annual Chili Cook-Off, the next item on my agenda toward which I was looking was a concert for Celtic Woman in Pensacola. Due to some delays that are not really worth describing in detail, we managed to get to the concert just in time. We arrived at the main entrance to the Pensacola Civic Center at about 7:55pm. The concert was due to begin at 8.

We were then directed to another entrance based on where we were going to be sitting. With this knowledge, we hightailed it to the next entrance and made a quick pit-stop before finally making it into the arena. We were told if we had been a few seconds later, we would not have been let in for another 12 minutes, as they did not want anyone moving around while the group was singing.

We found our seats, and we settled in to await the beginning of the concert. It was not long before the lights all dimmed completely, save the aisle lights. Actually, they got dimmed too, but came back on shortly after. Well, there were still the entrance lights and the exit signs, but I am not counting those.

Shortly after the arena became dark, it was filled with a fantasmic ambient sound.
The stage then lit up brilliantly as the fiddle player made her appearance. After a mesmerizing solo, the rest of the group walked out, and a constant stream of amazing music and fantastic lighting effects began.

After an hour, there was a temporary delay as they gave everyone a 20-minute break, otherwise known as an intermission.

After the end of the intermission, another hour-plus of pure visual and aural amazement began. After the "end" of the concert, there was a standing ovation, followed by several encores...each of which was followed by a standing ovation.

After the concert it was our plan to go to McGuire's Irish Pub. This was set in stone when, during the intermission, we managed to cross paths with some other friends that were also planning to go to McGuire's.

So... it was off to McGuire's Irish Pub. During our short trek, I realized that it is absolutely pointless to have a navigation system if you don't pay attention to it. Luckily, though, it was an extremely short trip.

McGuire's has to be the largest restaurant in which I have ever been. It was great, though. Festive and fun. We got a table right next to a small stage where a fellow began singing songs shortly after we arrived. He sang some traditional songs, while also playing some more modern songs with a bit of an Irish sound to them. Not really what I would consider family friendly, which is what made it more entertaining. Looking weird, or otherwise drawing too much of the singer's attention resulted in a "penalty". Most of the time, people had to "Kiss the Moose", while at least one guy had to "Kiss the Ass"... for which he was vastly made fun of since he was from Texas and clearly didn't know what the ass was. One fellow was also asked to "Kiss the Leprechaun's Crotch". Everyone was having fun.

At one point, everyone in our little room was "ordered" to stand up immediately. This is when he began playing "The Hokey Pokey", with some additional lyrics I had not previously heard. ... So we all did the Hokey Pokey. It was fun.

Not long after that, our food arrived. It was absolutely delicious. It was a wonderful evening. And yes, I did wind up briefly staring into the eyes of a girl in the middle of the women's restroom... but that is a completely different story I probably shouldn't share.

I was actually sad to begin the drive home. Though, it was entertaining in itself. Miranda used her iPhone to track down videos of Celtic Woman online in order to find the name of a song she really liked. The name appeared hard to pronounce, but was actually quite simple once I looked it up later. "At the Céili"
Also, there was a maniac on the road that kept making cameo appearances. He would speed by at insane speeds and disappear into the night, then slow down so I would pass... then would speed by again. Until eventually, we did not see the car again. I sincerely hope they did not get into a horrible accident... but at the same time, there were times when they had to be going well past 100-110mph. Just keeping an eye out for this car kept me alert for the entire trip.

Alas, I did eventually make it home. I immediately checked dates to see if CW was coming back anywhere near here anytime soon, and that answer was a sad "No". I shall have to continually check and see.

That about covers my Saturday evening. Now I am looking forward to more great ones.

Honda's are Great?

2008-02-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

Number of weeks of ownership: three
Number of times in the shop: three plus

Granted, it is a minor problem.
But I am still quite disappointed.
With the reputation of quality Honda has, I would not expect any problems in a brand new vehicle. Hopefully, once they receive the part they ordered, they can finally get it all fixed and everything will be well.
Let's hope for the best.

Lucky Situation

2008-02-13T19:57:00.000-08:00

OK, so I was trying to think of a scenario that, if you were to find yourself in it, one would think that there is absolutely no chance, whatsoever, of anything bad happening.

This is what I have so far:

Ride a unicorn that sweats blue diamonds while it is wearing lucky horseshoes through a field of four-leaf clovers to the end of a rainbow where you find a drunken leprechaun holding a red balloon and dancing on top of his pot of gold under the light of the stars on a night of a blue moon at the moment when the planets align.

I guess if you happened to be wearing a crucifix-studded rabbit's foot around your neck, it could add a bit of luck too.

Welcome to my mind.

Annual Mathematics

2008-01-16T21:47:00.000-08:00

Pick a number. Any Real Integer.
Multiply it by 27.
Add up all the digits in that number until you are left with one digit.
(Example, if your number is 12345, adding the digits will result in 15, then add those two to get 6.)
Add 982 to your number.
Multiply your result by 2.
Subtract your number from the current year.
My age!

Out of Character

2008-01-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

"Y'all are Horrible, Horrible People!"
I can hear BJD saying that right now. I feel ashamed for what went down today.

One of my coworkers today decided to bring up the idea of creating a sure-fire way of "getting yourself banned from xBox Live".
"Get four guys with blue eyes to shave their heads and create a Rock Band group called 'Third Reich'"

Normally, I would not really make any comments on such a statement. I might say "Hmmmm", and go right back to work.
Not today.
I have no clue what came over me, but I decided to continue the "joke".
In a slightly sarcastic voice, I responded with "Why not 'Reich and Roll'"
As if that wasn't bad enough, I continued.
"And their flagship song could be 'Here I Am, Reich You Like a Holocaust'"

I then had the immediate realization that I had just made a joke about such a horrible atrocity. I had a shiver go down my spine as I looked at another coworker who was holding his face in his hand, holding back laughter, with a slight hint of disbelief.

Yes... that was one of my odd moments for the year.

Favorite Color

2008-01-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, my favorite color is Purple. A few Molly Ringwalds concerts ago, I was hanging out with a friend, enjoying some wonderful 80s music. Two girls decided to come and stand right in front of us and start dancing.

The one on the left was wearing a beautiful, shiny, Purple dress. She looked great. Her friend was taking lots of pictures and suddenly walked over to the bar to get a drink. My friend recognized someone else at the bar and went to talk to them. While he was there, he asked the blond friend what kind of camera she was using. She took this offensively for some reason. Her response to my friend was that it was a personal question and none of his business. ... I can only figure that maybe she misheard his question.

Anyway, back to the brunette in Purple...
When the song ended, and I could once-again hear myself think, I decided to speak to the girl in Purple. I tapped her on her shoulder to get her attention. I then said, "You know, Purple is my favorite color."

Her response was not something I would have expected. I may have expected "Mine too." or "Yeah, I really like this dress." No.... it was nothing like that. Instead, she said, "You know, I'm wearing Purple panties too." In hindsight, I can think of many great things to say in response to that, but at the time, I was a tad dumbfounded. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember it being something along the lines of "Wow, that's fascinating."

About that time, her friend returned with her drink and the music started again. When the concert ended, I shared the story with my friend. He thought it was funny.

I guess it was.

Still, all of this does not change the fact that my favorite color is Purple.

Unexpected Invitation

2008-01-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

I have a certain blood type, I don't think I have to mention its name... It allows me to give blood to anyone that needs it. Because of this, the Red Cross tends to lay on the pressure. They send me notices in the mail and call me every so often.

The most recent piece of mail was a little different. It was in the form of a birthday postcard. The special greeting?

"Celebrate your Birthday with us!" - American Red Cross

Of course, on the reverse side was the usual stuff about how my donations help save lives. However, in this case, it started in the form of a "Thank You" for allowing the hospital patients to celebrate another birthday.

I'll admit. It's starting to get creative. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I got a call from "Dr. Phil" telling me I should give blood. It was a recording, but oh well. In fact, I know the company that made the call on behalf of the Red Cross.

I wonder what they will think of next.

Delayed Wishes

2008-01-05T16:24:00.000-08:00

Sometime around midnight-ish on Monday night, I sent out a blanket text message wishing numerous people "Happy New Year!"
It became clear to me today that the message I sent was not actually sent when I thought it was sent. I was about to leave to get a haircut when I accidentally dropped my phone. I had to then put it back together, and let it boot while I went to my car to head to get my haircut. I would say it was probably no more than 2-3 minutes after the drop when my phone started vibrating.
Was it a call? No.
Was it a text message? No.
It was a notification that my message was sent. My immediate thought was, "What message?" I thought this was very odd, but just shrugged it off.... until about 30 seconds later when I started receiving various responses of a "Happy New Year to You Too!" type of plot.
I guess my New Year's wishes just got sent today. Oh well. At least they finally got sent out. Though, it makes me wonder if all the intended recipients got the message.
I will probably never know.

A Wii For Mii

2007-12-29T11:04:00.000-08:00

Well...
It's official. I have decided I must purchase a Wii. It will likely be some time after the New Year, perhaps a birthday present for myself.

I came to this conclusion this morning when I saw a commercial for the new Nights game. So that settles that.

Perception is Important

2007-12-20T16:19:00.000-08:00

I've had a persistent cough for a couple of weeks now. Yesterday, I went to the doctor. She gave me a prescription for some specific cough syrup, as well as some antibiotics and decongestants. So anyway, yesterday, I took the medicines before eating dinner. No problems.

This morning, I took the medicines and ate breakfast. Some time around 10ish this morning I started getting lightheaded. This led to shortness of breath, dizziness, and nausea. I wasn't sure what the problem was exactly. I tried going to get some fresh air outside. That didn't work. I tried eating a doughnut, but that seemed to make everything much worse.

A little before noon, I wound up leaving to come home and rest. After several hours of resting, I still did not feel any better. Around 4:30-5ish I started feeling a little better. I still feel a little dizzy, but it is much better than before.

I decided to go recheck the bottle of medicine, because I didn't remember seeing anything about dizziness on it before. I reread the warnings on the bottom of the label. It was the typical stuff. "Do not drink alcohol when using this medicine.", "This may be taken with or without food." Something along those lines. Right after reading them, I noticed there was a red label on the SIDE of the bottle that I had not previously seen. In fact, there were two.

One of those as-of-yet unseen labels had the following bold words on it:
"May Cause Dizziness".

Yeah, don't I feel stupid. The other one had smaller text warning against using heavy machinery. I wish my doctor had mentioned this. I mean, for a medicine that is supposed to be taken 4-6 times a day, it should be more friendly to the concept of remaining stable, balanced, and awake.

Grrrr.

Level 3 Noodle Neophyte

2007-11-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

So, I finally started playing Kingdom of Loathing.
I have a familiar named Mogdor. After a bit of fighting, it has grown to 2 pounds. Sounds small, but to me that seems pretty massive for a mosquito. Unfortunately, I have run out of "Adventures" for today, so I must wait until later to play some more.

That, of course, won't stop me from exploring and seeing if there are other things I can do.

I'm out.

2007-11-17T01:39:00.000-08:00

Wow.

New Natural Hair Color?

2007-11-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I like to dye my hair.
Most frequently of the colors I have used since I began this occasional tradition... is red. I have used several brands.

Tonight, I tried a new brand. "Garnier".
It did not work very well at all. After following the instructions exactly, which, oddly enough, were pretty much the same as every other brand I have tried..... there was no visible change in color to my hair.

So... either Light Red is my natural hair color (and I just cannot see the red in it)... or...
Garnier hair color doesn't work.

I am leaning toward the latter.

I guess I shall wait a couple of weeks and try one of the brands I KNOW works.
Revlon, L'Oréal, Random Other Brands...
No more Garnier.

New Year's in New Orleans

2007-11-13T04:37:00.000-08:00

For those of you reading that know me.... you know who you are...
You are officially being notified that I am officially recruiting for an official trip to New Orleans on the official last day of 2007 and the official first day of 2008. Officially.

Ok, all playing aside... Yes. I intend to be in New Orleans for New Year's this year. Yes, I realize this could be difficult for some, especially with Christmas being a week before that. However, if you would like to go too, let me know as soon as you can so we know how many will be going. This will make it easier to determine how many hotel rooms we would need.

The last time I was in New Orleans was before Ivan. New Year's was fantastic. I can only hope that it will once again be fantastic. I remember the melon-flavored hand-grenade drinks being my favorite. They were also pretty strong. I also managed to start a several-thousand-person-strong "WHOOOOOO". Though, I think that was before I was even a member of the PF crew.

Anyway, to the rest of you Crew members. Email me, call me, or text me with a DEFINITE reply. If you tell me YES, I better see you there. If you tell me No, well.... then I will not necessarily prepare for you to come, but I may still continue to try to recruit you. Once we get a decent number of replies, I can probably try to figure out roughly the cost for each person.

Well, that's it for now.

Remember...Remember.. the 5th of November

2007-11-05T22:41:00.001-08:00

Yay.

Donate today!

Great... Just Great

2007-11-04T18:20:00.000-08:00

Well, in recent months, I have been noticing quite a bit of pain in my wrist. I feared that maybe it was early signs of that dreaded typing syndrome. You know the one.
Anyway... I kind of shrugged it off as just a tired wrist.
Well, I do not know if the above information is relevant or not... but what I do know is this....
My wrist really hurts now.
I think I sprained it.

This is definitely not good. I hope I am jumping to conclusions. Perhaps a night of rest and recuperation is all it needs.

Hope. What a wonderful thing.

Return of the Small Screen

2007-10-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

Two Christmases ago I got a new TV. It was a 25" Insignia.
It had many issues. It could not keep time, it had some weird "pixel" problems, and I could not use a universal remote with it.
About a month ago, the picture started getting fuzzy. Eventually, it seemed to clear up. However.. last week...it died....... sort of.
There was no picture. Though, the OSD stuff still worked, as did the audio.
I could listen to shows... and oddly enough... I could see the closed captions.

This was interesting for a while, but I grew out of it.
Today I replaced it with my old TV, which I still had stowed away. My old Samsung 13".
It works fantastically. The picture is clear and vibrant.
The only drawback is that it has no auxiliary inputs. The bigger TV had three.

I think I shall keep this TV for a while until I decide to buy another. Then, I shall keep it still... just in case. Oddly enough, my next Television purchase... I was planning for it to be a Samsung. Things are swell.

On that note... I was looking at TVs yesterday.
I saw a TV with the "SDTV" symbol on it. I had never seen this. I thought it had something to do with S-Video, but no. It was a marketing ploy. "Standard Definition TeleVision". They gave it a fancy logo looking very similar to the typical "HDTV" thing you might see. I thought it was both genius and ethically objectionable at the same time.

Yeah. Weird. I know.

Picture Comments

2007-10-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

Ok.. so I created a new album on Facebook and added some pictures.
I have not done that in a while.
After I am done, I decide to look through my old album, just to reminisce.
Well... as it turns out, people have left comments on some of my pictures. Some of them are questions.
I wish I had known. I feel bad that I did not respond.

Messy Eater

2007-10-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

I spent 3 hours driving around time hitting up various stores trying to find a miniature ship's wheel. I did not have any success. The smallest one I could find looked to be about 2-3 feet in diameter... and it looked awfully heavy.

I was hungry the moment I left my house. I told myself I would just get food later. I got caught up in trying to find a wheel, that I wound up not getting food for quite some time. Eventually I just got super hungry, and I decided to stop at McDonald's and grab a bite. In actuality, the only reason I stopped there was because I was hoping for some Monopoly action. Unfortunately, they did not have anything with game pieces on it.

Luckily, though, they just brought back the McRib, which is my favorite McDonald's sandwich. Not only that, but they had an option to get an extra sandwich for $1. Heck yeah. Long story short, I get home and take out the first McRib. I tell myself that I do not need any protection for my clothes because the box it came in should provide ample protection.

As soon as I pick up the first McRib, a drop of BBQ sauce hits my leg. Con SARN it.
I try to wipe it off quickly, but it just absorbs into the fabric. I console myself by making myself believe it looks like an oil stain... and that is respectable.

I continue eating. I finish the first McRib and take out the second one. Sure enough, as soon as I pull it out, a drop of sauce happens to land on the bottom corner of my shirt, which happens to be draped on my lap. Con Friggen SARN it. It looks nothing like an oil stain.

Speaking of Monopoly....
I saw several versions of the game while I was out shopping. They have a "Here and Now" edition, and a "Disney/Pixar" edition. Both of which look pretty cool. I might grab one of them one day.

I am a little concerned that I cannot seem to find a copy of Stratego anywhere. I guess I shall just have to order it on the Internet one day. While I was there at the store, though, I did consider buying some random game to take to the Halloween party. I didn't, but I considered it.

Pending Transactions

2007-10-27T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well... today I logged into my bank account to make sure everything balances out properly....
As it turns out, they have added "Pending Transactions" to my list. I think this is super awesome. Before, they would simply list a grand total of what was pending. NOW, it lists an exact amount and the location holding the transaction.

I like this feature. I figured I would share my joy.

US sues UK for Canada?

2007-09-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

Occasionally my own random thoughts spark out of control and cause me to research random things completely unrelated to whatever it was I was thinking of in the first place.

On that note... earlier I was watching a football game between Alabama and Georgia.
I rarely watch football, so I was awfully confused by several things that happened.
This led to me searching on the Internet for football information. I tried finding rules and explanations of rules. Though I was eventually able to find some relevant but unhelpful sites, I did learn that searching for "Football Rules" is not necessarily the best idea.

Ok, so I was searching for that and became extremely uninterested and frustrated quickly. I began searching for other things. I wound up looking up some information on simply Alabama. I figured I was in the mood for a history lesson.

I started looking up random information and started reading up on some former English and French royals. Well, one thing led to another, and before I knew it I was looking up some Civil War information.

I found a Wikipedia entry for the CSS Alabama. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Alabama)
Granted, I already knew quite a bit about the lifespan of this wonderful ship simply because I had a fantastic history teacher in high school that also happens to be a member of the organization responsible for salvaging the ship.

I also already knew about the "Alabama Room" in Geneva. However, I was not completely aware as to why that room came to be so. I can only assume I forgot the following information, because I am sure my teacher told us about it. (By the way, if you follow some of the links in these Wiki entries, you might catch a glimpse of him.)

Here's that information I alluded to in the previous paragraph:
The United States of America sued the United Kingdom following the Civil War. Why? Well, the USA claimed that the UK had violated neutrality by allowing the CSS Alabama to be built. What was the US trying to get? $2 Billion OR Canada. In the end, we got roughly $15 Million, a hotel room named after Alabama, and a new neighbor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama_Claims

Yeah, I totally do not remember hearing anything about us trying to sue for control of Canada.

So anyway... that was my self-inflicted history lesson for the evening.

Quick Grammar Lesson: Lie vs. Lay

2007-07-11T05:04:00.000-07:00

Lie = to rest horizontally (Past: Lay; Present: Lying)
Lay = to put something in its place (Past: Laid; Present: Laying)

Get it yet?

You can lie down in bed, or you can lay yourself on the bed.

To lay requires an object of sorts.

"I laid my daughter down in bed, tucked her in, and told her a bedtime story."
"I laid the wood on the ground."
"I am laying the books on the counter."

Or you can lie:

"I like to read while lying in bed."
"I am going to lie in the hammock for a while."
"As she lay there sleeping, I continued to read the rest of the bedtime story."*
*This can be confusing, since in this case, "lay" is the past tense of "lie".

I hope this is useful.

Bewildering Math

2007-06-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

1 > 3

Life's Little Lessons

2007-06-20T19:43:00.001-07:00

When accidentally disturbing an ant bed and enraging all the ants in it...
it is probably best to not be barefooted at the time.

You Can't Do That On Television - Animé Style

2007-06-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

OK, so it is not as good as the original...
but still...

You Still Can't Do That On Television

Posted May 09, 2005

Cole Zatarain: 1982 - 2007

2007-06-07T21:48:00.000-07:00

You were one of the funnest people to talk to. In recent years, we rarely got to see each other, but the times we did, you were a riot.
You will be missed. RIP.

Couple of Quick Pics

2007-05-06T19:34:00.000-07:00

Us standing in front of the fountain in the Hollywood & Highland Shopping Center.

Me standing by the Pacific Ocean.

Quite possibly the coolest picture of me ever taken, to date. (in my opinion)

I intend to eventually post the rest of our pics. Each of these were taken by my friend.

California is great. Though, the driving leaves much to be desired. Why do they have so few left-turn traffic signals? And what is with that 8-way stop in Beverly Hills?
Nonsense.

Molly Ringwalds and Luaus

2007-04-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

Well...
Looks like luck has shined upon me.
When I originally heard the Molly Ringwalds would be in concert again this month, I checked it out. I was disappointed to find that they would be in concert on a day when I would be out of town.
Well... That has changed.
They have pushed up the date.
The Molly Ringwalds will be in concert at Soul Kitchen on Friday, April 20th.
Just wanted to let everyone know.

In other news...
My weekend was relatively full.
I spent a few hours at the Exploreum Friday night. That was fun. Though, come to find out I need to go shopping for a new jacked and new pants. My friend was the bartender. I was disappointed that they had no liquor. However, I did discover that I can actually stomach Michelob Ultra. That is good to know.

I went to the code camp Saturday. That lasted for most of the day. I then went to the mall and bought some new Khaki shorts to wear to the Luau to which Casey invited me.

After the Luau, Christie and Erica (spellings of both uncertain) invited us to The Garage. I had never been there before, so I was in. Though, with a random indicator light popping up on Casey's dash, and the fact we were off course getting downtown, and possibly other unknown factors too... we decided to skip The Garage.

I started to head home. Then I came up on Dauphin Street. I checked the time, and wondered if maybe the girls were still at the Garage. Then, one of my rare, unpredictable, and uncharacteristically spur-of-the-moment decisions came to pass. Instead of passing across Dauphin Street to eventually hit Airport, I instead turned left.

Oddly enough, I found a parking spot very very close to the bar. I walked in. I did not see them. I was half-expecting this, seeing as how I think it has been at least half an hour, if not more. I was disappointed. I figured I would at least get a quick soft drink and be on my way. Then... I noticed they had a back area. It was just a matter of stepping a couple steps to my right. That is when I saw the two of them. However, I also saw some guys around them. Still, though, I figured I should get a drink and go say hello.

As I was waiting for my drink, I saw Erica walk by me, then I saw Christie heading for what I thought was the door. I figured, "Oh wow, they must be leaving." I grabbed my drink and turned around to find Christie sitting at the booth nearest the door. There was a guy standing over her. I waved. She smiled. I walked over to the table to say "Hello." Suddenly, the guy started apologizing to me. "I just didn't want her to be alone man." Then he toasted me with his beer and walked off. As I was talking to him and Christie, Christie was making motions with her head and pointing with her eyes toward him. Apparently, I had a purpose. I was the repellent. Woot!

So, we chatted for a bit, Erica came over. We chatted more. Then Christie noticed that the TV on the wall way behind me was playing porn. We all found this odd. We decided to head over to the Bicycle Shop. I still had a full drink. "Finish up, buttercup." Heh. Yeah, that was interesting. So, I chugged my drink and we were on our way to the Bike Shop. We were only there for a little while longer. We stayed long enough to listen to Erica's choices on the Jukebox. Then we split up and went our separate ways.

Sunday: I tried a new church. I went to Corpus Christi. It is the closest Catholic church to my house that I know of. It was actually a pretty interesting place. The atmosphere was a little more warm and inviting than that at St. Ignatius. I think next week I will try Our Savior again. It was pretty cool, but I have not been there in a while.

After Mass, I went to WalMart. I bought a few little items I needed, then headed over to Wynnsong to watch Meet the Robinsons. It was actually a rather entertaining film. I love 3D movies. They should have made Planet Terror in 3D. That would have rocked.

I went home. I was feeling a little odd, so I took a nap. I woke up in time to head to Picklefish for Amanda's going-away party. Well, not really. The party was supposed to be from 7-9. I got there at about a quarter to 8. The cook would not let me in.
That was a waste of time.

Now... I am at home, writing in a blog.
That's about it.

The Express Lane

2007-04-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

What is the point of the express queue?
I mean, we all know what the intended purpose is, but that purpose died the day the idea was conceived. It is supposed to allow shoppers with only a few items to check out quickly by going to pay a cashier that specializes in handling small purchases.

Alrighty... Since you are going to let anyone with a shopping cart full of items to use the express lane, then there is no purpose in having it.

I personally think that the concept should be changed some.

For stores with hand-carts... perhaps they could have a lane for hand-cart shoppers only.
Or..perhaps there could be a rule that you can only use the express lane if you can easily carry every item you intend to purchase in your hands. Perhaps they could make the lane too narrow to fit a shopping cart into it. That would thwart most would-be express lane abusers. Though, I can picture someone parking their cart near the end of the lane and carrying the items one-by-one to the register.

Hmm.... Express lane bouncers maybe?

Robin Hood: Men In Tights

2007-03-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

Ok...
I am happy and pissed at the same time.
I have been searching for this film on DVD for a long time now.
I saw it at Walmart today. I HAD to buy it.
The first thing I thought was "How did I miss the advertising for this?"

Although, I was slightly disappointed at the lack of special features, but I was happy to have it.

I got home and decided to check up on it. Turns out, it got released last year.
So, of course, my first reaction to that was, "How did I miss the release?"

Hmm... Oh well, all is well now.
Fantastique!

Russian Invasion

2007-03-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

Those of you that left Picklefish early missed out on a visit from an old friend....
Ania.

It was a happy reunion.

Sleeping Requirements

2007-03-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

In order for me to sleep, two things must be true.
There must be some form of constant airflow.
There must be some form of ambient noise.

Remove either of these, and I usually awaken from any slumber I may be enjoying.

Well, this happened again this morning. For some reason, my neighborhood lost power around 4:30ish. I woke up to see my fan slowing gradually to a stop. My ceiling fan provides both of the above requirements. Turn off Matt's fan, and Matt does not sleep.

I never did figure out what happened. I suppose I could have walked down the road to find out. I kept hearing sirens. I just figured that perhaps someone wrecked their car into a major power structure or something.

Anyway, after a while, and just before dawn, power was finally restored. It had one half-second spurt around 5ish. I tried to sleep, but it just was not working out. Luckily, the power was eventually restored. I finally got back to sleep.
Whoo hoo!

"Verbage"

2007-02-23T19:49:00.000-08:00

From where on EARTH did this word come?
This is NOT a word, yet I have heard 4 people use it in 2 days.
It makes my skin crawl when people say it.
People use it in serious conversation. If you are speaking seriously, it seems to me that you should make an effort to speak correctly. I can understand an occasional mispronunciation in colloquial conversation with friends, but saying it during a meeting is just silly.

My best guess is that people are just too lazy to say "Verbiage". The extra syllable is just too much effort needed to pronounce a word.

Perhaps they have heard the word "Wordage" and just figured they wanted to make "Verbiage" symmetrical with it since people seem to think it has the same meaning.
(It doesn't, by the way.)

Sometimes I think I should have been an etymologist or a lexicographer.

You know what upsets me the most, though? Merriam Webster... my favorite dictionary.... has actually made an effort towards making this a word. I have not yet seen it in other dictionaries, but Merriam Webster has ADDED a second possible pronunciation which essentially makes the "i" in Verbiage irrelevant. They have made it acceptable to pronounce it with two syllables. The word is still spelled with three syllables, but the middle syllable is not pronounced on the additional pronunciation option. MW... you have lost some points in my book.

Since they have done this, it is probably only a matter of time before they just drop the "i" and convert "Verbiage" to an archaic form.

Grrr....
Now, I suppose I should do something productive.

Profanity Ensues

2007-02-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

There was a time when I would not think about uttering any word that society deems as "profane". It actually was not too terribly long ago.
That has been changing recently.
I have used language recently without even thinking about it.
I think I am just getting highly desensitized to the language.

I realized it was getting pretty bad when I used that fantastic four-letter word beginning with an "F".

I do not feel too terribly about it because I was quoting something...
but it is still not me...
or it at least doesn't really FEEL like me.

I feel weird.

Sunday the Third?

2007-02-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

Ok...
Today when I got to work, one of my coworkers mentioned something about when Comedy Central played Groundhog Day several times in a row. I remembered this, because I saw the second half of the movie, then watched the first half. I also remember this occurring on a Saturday, the Saturday after Groundhog Day. Then I realized that the day in question was Saturday the Third.

The first thing I thought of was one of my posts last night when I posted that something had happened on "Sunday the Third". I knew I would need to correct it, but I then decided to just post about it.

One of my main concerns was that I wanted to figure out how I could have gotten the date wrong. I looked at the calendar on my computer again. Sure enough, there was a "3" right there in the spot that I remembered seeing when I made the post.

Then it dawned on me....
It appears as though I have hit a point where I am getting used to the Turkish calendar on my phone. It uses a MTWTFSS approach as opposed to a SMTWTFS approach. So... seeing the "3" under the far right "S" made me think that was Sunday. I suppose I should have caught on to the fact that "3" and "11" are 8 days apart.

Oh well.
That's my mind for ya. It is leaving me more and more quickly each day.

Long Live Sunday the Fourth!

So long, blog.

The Molly Ringwalds

2007-02-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot to post about the Molly Ringwalds.
But... before I do...
I just recently discovered that this is the most popular entry on my blog.
On to business...

Saturday night I went to see the Molly Ringwalds at Soul Kitchen. They were fantastic.
Though, the evening was not all good.
I got to Soul Kitchen about 10 to 10. The concert was advertised to begin at 10. I knew it would probably run a bit later than that, but I still felt like getting there early for it.

When I got there, they were not even letting people into the concert area yet. So... I got a drink and panned around for anyone I might know. I knew no one.
I stood around for a while. The room started getting packed.
Then, finally, around 11ish, they let everyone into the back.

I had long since depleted my drink, so I figured it was time to get a new one. I then scouted around for a comfortable spot from which to watch the concert. I found one, and I stood there, waiting for the concert to start. I kept looking around to see if there was anyone I knew, but no luck.

Then... it happened.
Some drunk, lonely, desperate, obese, grotesque, older woman set her sites on me. Despite me giving her the coldest shoulder I think I have ever given anyone, she kept coming back. Every 5-10 minutes she just kept coming over to hit on me. She tried getting me to buy her drinks, she tried getting me to dance with her, she tried leaning on me. She grabbed my hands and told me "I'm your dream" while trying to pull me away from my little spot. Every time she tried pulling me away, I repelled, and I went back to my little spot.

She was relentless. I did not understand it. A couple of times she even walked away saying "f@#k off". The first time this happened, I thought it was finally over. I was wrong. It seemed she was just walking around the room and coming back to me... as if I thought she was someone else. Every time she tried talking to me, I just stared straight at the screens that were playing a Molly Ringwalds Southern Comfort ad over and over. Luckily, the drunk woman was too drunk to notice it was the same thing over and over. I was worried she would get pissed that I was more interested in the screen than her, and start some sort of scene.

Finally, around 12ish, the concert started. The intro was fantastic. About 5 minutes into the concert, SHE returned again. Luckily, the music was so loud, it was very very easy to ignore her.

She stayed away for most of the concert. I was happy.

The music was splendid, and the performance was spectacular.
They had a lot of energy, considering that they had played a concert earlier that day in Louisiana.

Hurrah for the Molly Ringwalds!

Monday the 12th

2007-02-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Forgive me, blog. It has been 12 days since my last post.

It has been an odd time for me.
I suppose I could start with Sunday the Third. I woke up and got ready to head to mass.
As I was getting ready, I felt something on my face. When I touched it, it felt wet. I figured I must not have dried my hair well when I got out of the shower. Though, when I looked at my hand, it was red.

I went through the week thinking I had a mystery gash on the side of my face. I had no clue where it had come from. I did not remember hitting my head, getting stabbed, or getting shot.

Occasionally, if I accidentally scratched it, it would start to bleed again. I would place pressure on it for a while until it would "stop" bleeding.

Sunday the 11th:
I am not exactly sure what I did, but I aggravated the wound. I could not stop the bleeding for half an hour, so I placed some gauze on it and secured it to my head with some tied handkerchiefs. I left those there for several hours. When I removed it, the wound was still bleeding.

I told my friend about it. She is studying to be a doctor. She asked me to come over, so she could check it out. She seemed a little confused by the wound. From her reaction it seemed that she had never seen such a wound. She tried bandaging it, but the bandage had to be large if it was going to stick. They did not stick to hair well. This plan made it nearly impossible for me to wear my glasses comfortably.

So... she asked for permission to shave the area. So, a small patch of my hair got shaved away. This made the wound much more visible. It is just a small hole. Supposedly it is a hole about 2mm in diameter. This was slightly disturbing. Not only did I have an unexplained hole in my head... but worse... this hole will not stop bleeding.

She was prepared to sew it up for me, but she was concerned over not seeing anything like it before. She bandaged me up and told me I should see my doctor. I made an appointment this morning. Tomorrow I shall get my head checked out. My friend mentioned that my doctor would probably wind up sealing the wound by burning it with a bit of silver nitrate. I am not sure how I feel about that.

Well... I suppose I shall end this post now.
So long, blog.

Shameful Bostonites

2007-01-31T20:28:00.000-08:00

Occasionally I like to post my opinions about things.
Sometimes, I want to, but can't.

Luckily, this is not one of those "some" times.

Ok... Boston. I am ashamed of you guys.

[Adult Swim] posts a bunch of small projectors through your town and you freak out. You blow them up. You did not take any effort to figure out the actual problem. You jumped to conclusions for no apparent reason. You disrupted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people just because you were too hasty to do some friggen RESEARCH.
Now... you are BLAMING [Adult Swim] for all the money you wasted on your own idiotic efforts? This is horrid.

You know, they put these projectors in lots of other cities, and none of those people were stupid enough to confuse a PROJECTOR for a BOMB.

It seems to me like Boston needs to reevaluate its effective responsiveness to emergencies. These projectors were in place for 2 weeks. If you HONESTLY thought they were bombs, why did you not complain about it 2 weeks ago? Hmm?

Tisk tisk. You make total fools of yourselves, waste millions of dollars, and are trying to point the finger of blame back at someone else.

You should admit when you make a mistake. Take responsibility for your own actions.
.....Friggen finger pointers.

Grrrr.....

Annual Arithmetic

2007-01-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

Two-thousand, seven minus one-thousand, nine-hundred eighty-two equals twenty-five.

Minute Differences

2007-01-14T21:22:00.000-08:00

I went to a Mass this morning.
I am not Catholic, but I have been pondering converting.

I did not know what I was going to write in my post today,
but after watching an episode of Moral Orel on Adult Swim,
I have the perfect subject. Oddly enough, it has something to
do with my day.

I started out the morning by searching on masstimes.org to find churches in my area.
I knew of one on Cody, but I did not know the times they had Mass. When I checked, they had one starting at 11am.
This seemed perfect. It was about 9:30 and I had plenty of time to jump in the shower, get dressed, and head over.

I got to the church at about a quarter 'till 11. I noticed everyone walking into the back building and not the front building. I thought this was odd, but after looking at both buildings, it appeared that the back one WAS the sanctuary. I went in.. and I was a little confused.

I had intended on finding a seat in the back on the far right. This was, of course, while picturing in my head a cathedral-style sanctuary. This sanctuary was not laid out as I expected. It was a big semi-circle. There was no convenient way for me to find a slightly-secluded seat.

When I walked in, there only looked to be about 30 people there. I chalked this up to it being a relative new church. However, from about 5-to-11 and 11.... the sanctuary quickly packed itself with people. Despite me having picked a lone spot on the left part of the semi-circle, I now found myself surrounded with people.

I felt like I was sticking out like a sore thumb. I was differently-dressed than pretty much everyone there, and I was not doing the same little maneuvers as everyone else.

At first, the family sitting next to me was dressed "strangely" as well, as what I thought. They seemed to be wearing what I would expect to see if I were to go to one of my own denomination's churches out in the country somewhere. Near the middle of the Mass, but before communion... this family left. Apparently there was a family standing in the back looking for a seat, because the spots were immediately taken.

I tried to follow along with everyone else. When everyone stood, I stood. When everyone sat, I sat. The first time every knelt, I did not. From then on, I did. I think I was also the only person in my little area (that I noticed... other than the little kids) that was actually reading the song books (or as I call them, "Hymnals"). Everyone else already knew the words. I think this fact also made me stand out some.

Now... the inspiration for my post:
The Lord's Prayer...
I saw everyone stand. I stood.
Everyone began reciting The Lord's Prayer. I noticed that the people in front of me were holding hands. At first I just figured they were a couple. Then I looked around some more and noticed that everyone was holding hands. Noticing this, I looked to my right. The girl next to me was motioning for me to take her hand. I hesitated for a moment, but I then took her hand and continued reciting the prayer.
That is when it happened....
I was reciting the prayer from my own memory, while still trying to follow along with everyone else. Here is how the middle part of the prayer went for me...

"Give us this day, our daily bread.
And forgive us our deb....passes, as we forgive those that trespass against us."

Yeah.... In case you are wondering what the heck that is...
It was supposed to be "forgive us our debts, ...."
but these people said "trespasses".
At first I was thinking that I had perhaps just forgotten the order,
but then the "debtors" line never showed up.
Then I was wondering if maybe I had just remembered it incorrectly.

I forgot about this.
That is, until Morel Orel came on.
Morel's new neighbors came over. They had dinner together.
When they were saying grace, they were reciting the Lord's Prayer.
Then they paused in the middle and repeated a line.
At first I could not tell what the deal was...
but then I realized...
One family was saying "debts", while the other was saying "trespasses".
A feud started.

This reminded me of my morning.
I thought it was hilarious, and very coincidently timed.

And that was the point of my long story.
However, I do have a couple more things to share.

At one point during the Mass, I was thinking about Dane Cook. He mentioned when "peace" was coming, you could always tell, because the priest would say "peace 5 times in rapid fire"...
I heard the priest say "peace" several times.

Then everyone started turning to each other and shaking hands. I was slightly familiar with this concept. At every church I have attended, they had a few minutes when everyone would just greet each other.
However, this was another one of those embarrassing moments for me because I was apparently not familiar with what I was supposed to be doing during this time frame during Mass. This became highly apparent to me between the end of my first handshake and the middle of my second one. The girl next to me turned to me with her hand outstretched toward me.
What she said:
"Peace be with you."
What I said:
"Hi"
How she looked:
Confused.

Second person shook my hand and said "Peace be with you."
I was still contemplating the previous handshake, and, for some reason, the words I uttered here were, "be with you".
So yeah, I totally screwed up the "Peace" part of the Mass for myself.

At the end of the Mass, a woman began to speak to the Parish about this great 'growing' school in Tillman's Corner. "St. Vincent de Paul".
All I kept thinking during her entire spiel was "BEST".

There are many more details I could share about the Mass, but I will save those for another time.

After the Mass, I just kind of waited around for a bit. I wanted to talk to the Priest, but he was busy greeting people at the door. I sat in a pew and just waited around for a bit. Then I decided to stand up and walk around. As I was looking at one of the little shrines, a man approached me.

He asked if it was my first time there. For some reason, I figured he was probably one of the leaders of the Church and that it was probably his job to greet me. I was wrong.
He, was a Lutheran. He married a Catholic woman. He attends the church but is still fairly new to it. He said he noticed that I stood out a bit, so he figured I must be new.

Now, in retrospect, I cannot tell with total certainty how he figured it out. Perhaps he was sitting near enough to me to see all my quirks... or perhaps he saw me raise my hand when the priest asked if they had any first time visitors to the Parish. Either way, he seemed like a pretty cool guy. I talked with him for probably about 10 minutes, actually. I never did meet his wife Nicole. She was chatting with another woman about 5 feet away.

I was nervous about going to talk to the priest. However, I was not as nervous as I originally anticipated, because I caught a vibe from him during the Mass. He seemed to be quite down-to-Earth. Now, it is still a little early to tell if that is entirely true, but that was the first and second impression I got from him.

We chatted for a bit. I took one of their bulletins. I read through some of it....
and I made plans to return next week.

...
Did I mention that the sermon was inspired by James Brown?

.....
---few minutes later---

Yes, Doug, she was hot.

Invisibility - Is it so great?

2007-01-12T05:36:00.000-08:00

Remember all the old movies where someone became invisible?
Then they would just walk around and do stuff to people?
You could play tricks on your friends...
you could play dirty tricks on your ennemies...
you could hang out in the opposite sex's locker/dressing room.

Or could you?

A long time ago, a friend of mine mentioned something to me,
and yesterday that thought came back to me.

He asked me a question.
"If you were invisible, could you see?"

My first response was "yeah, why not"..... then I thought about it for about 10 seconds.
"Wait... wait.... umm... no?"

How COULD you see if you were invisible?
If light passes right through you, then it passes through your retinas without being processed.

Seems to me that being invisible might actually suck.

Not only would you have to avoid people, but you would be blind...
and they could not see you were blind.
So, that is just an accident waiting to happen.

Universal Questions

2007-01-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

How big is the universe? Is it a finite size? Or is it infinite?

Many scientists would have us believe that, billions of years ago, there was a massive explosion that formed the universe. Apparently the universe started as small, super-condensed ball of mass.
It exploded and eventually formed what we know of today as the universe.

Is this true? Who knows?
What I typically ask is "from where did that little ball of mass come?"
Guess I have to just accept this idea on Faith, eh?

Oh yeah, and evolution...
Apparently, billions of years ago... somehow, in some magical way, some of this lifeless mass miraculously came to life. Not sure how or why, but I am supposed to also accept this on Faith.
Anyway, this new life was bacteria, and, over the course of billions of years, that initial bacteria evolved into the humans we are today. It just constantly adapted to the environment, and changed as was needed.
Ok, I'll bite...
But my question is... "Why do bacteria still exist?"
If it evolved into a more complex creature in order to survive.... why does the non-complex version still exist?
Why do fish still exist?
Why do frogs still exist?
Why do monkeys still exist?
Hmmm.... I suppose I shall just have to accept this theory on Faith as well.

Oh, apparently the Earth is like... 4.6 billion years old,
but.. you are telling me that it is young? There are older things in the universe? Really?
The sun is in its 3rd generation? Some of its buddies have already grown too old and died? Say what? You call those black holes? Ahhh. Neat.
Yet, all of these items came from the same huge explosion in the beginning at the same time?
Oh... and somehow, the elements needed to form the sun just HAPPENED to clump together during that explosion, and the elements needed to form the Earth just HAPPENED to clump together.
Ok, I suppose I can accept this on Faith too.

The universe is expanding? Cool! What is it expanding into? You don't know? Oh well.
I suppose I shall just accept that on Faith too, despite the fact that you still have not told me whether the universe is finite or infinite in size.

Wow, takes a lot of Faith to believe in so many crazy theories with so many holes in them.

Seems like it would have taken a pretty smart person to pull off all that creation.
Oh, but you are telling me it just all happened randomly with no intervention whatsoever?
Wow, that is certainly going to require a lot of Faith.
I'll have to get back to you on that one.

New Computer

2007-01-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

I decided to make some impulse purchases to finish up buying the parts I would need just to get my new computer up and running.
They should hopefully arrive Tuesday.
They would have been here Saturday, but NewEgg does not opt for Saturday deliveries.
They would have been here today, but I am guessing UPS does not work on the first day of the year.
My items have been sitting in Jackson, MS since 4am on Saturday.

So anyway, what were the final items I purchased?

2.2GHz AMD Duel-Core Processor
320GB hard drive.
1GB RAM
DVD-Burner
256 MB Video Card.

As you can probably guess, it was a nice little chunk of change to get these final pieces.
So, I will be highly limiting my expenditures for a little while to counteract this random decision to spend.

Still, though. I am a little excited. I can hardly wait to build my computer when I get home from work tomorrow.

Also... I am having my new monitor replaced. I opened it up to test it out, and it has a dead pixel in the center. I probably could have just lived with it if it had been in a corner or on one of the sides somewhere, but not in the center. I will make due with an extra CRT we have here until I can get the LCD replaced.

On that note, I shall end this post and do some cleaning.

Different Perspective

2006-12-31T12:09:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it is fun to just see how different cultures view something as simple as a birthday.

It was actually only a recently in my life that I found out I was a Rooster in the Chinese Zodiac. Up until then, I just always thought I was a "Dog" because it corresponds to 1982. Though, I recently realized my birthday still technically fell within the year of the Rooster.

Anyway, this is all moot.
I was trained to believe I was born in 1982,
but that is just a western view.
According to the Hebrew calendar, I was born in Tevet in 5742.
Egyptians... I was born in the month of Famenoth.
I am a Goose in the Native American Zodiac.
My astrological zodiac sign is Capricorn.

On the Islamic calendar, I was born in Rabi'u'l-Awal in the year 1402.
On the Mayan calendar? This is my birthdate: 12 baktun 18 katun 8 tun 11 uinal 1 kin
I have no clue what it means, but it looks neat.

Yeah, I know I am weird. Big deal.

Horrible Emotions

2006-12-29T15:13:00.000-08:00

Jealousy is a bad emotion.
Depression is a bad emotion.
Jealousy with a hint of depression is very bad.

I need cheering up.

....
I'll figure something out.

Farewell, Shepherd of the Garden Sanctuary

2006-12-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

Though those than knew you would prefer that you stay,
the One with the authority to take you made His decision.
Alas, His decision is final, and in this case, it came swiftly, without warning.
Knowing you were right with Him, the ones you leave behind
can be comforted in the fact that you are now with Him,
and your purpose in life was fulfilled.
We might not know what that purpose was,
but we know that you now do.

You were a wonderful leader.
You were a true friend.
You were quick to comfort,
you never passed judgment.
You loved all you met,
you had no mortal enemies.

To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under Heaven.
A time to be brought into this world, and a time to be taken from this world.

Farewell, friend. You will be missed.

Mark Jacobs
1950-2006
Passed to Heaven this 23rd Day of December, Two-Thousand Six.

December 21st

2006-12-21T08:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it is Thursday, and I am off work.
I go to work again tomorrow, then I am off until January 2nd.
I went to a Christmas Party last night for the company for which my Julz MacGuyver works.
I met several interesting people. I distinctly remember responding to one person by saying...
"Oh, I don't actually work for [company name], I am just crashing the party."
--"Well, you've got a date, so you are legit. Enjoy the night!"

So anyway, when I finally got back to Arielle, I was still slightly intoxicated and extremely tired...
so I just locked myself inside and took a nap for a while.
I eventually got home. I was extremely tired..... but for some reason I could not sleep very well.
I kept waking up. Around about the time I would normally wake up to go to work, I woke up.
I tried going back to sleep, I tossed and turned for a while.
Eventually, about the time I would normally arrive at work, I just gave up trying to sleep.

I got my sister's present mailed off to her. My mom was going to be shipping them out today, so I just threw mine in with hers.

I shall eventually go to the mall and see if I can buy one final cheap gift. I may also mail out something else.

On a different note, as I was watching the Price is Right, I heard an interesting sound. A VERY low plane flew over my house. It was low enough to shake everything. It was quite interesting.

I may try to clean up the yard some later, or take care of some yard trash. I do not know yet. The day is mine.

Well... I am only about a fourth of the way through this day thus far. I may have more info to share later, but for now I shall end this post.

Guitarmageddon!

Weird Habit

2006-12-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

I have a strange habit.
I am ashamed of it, but I am actually not certain if I have ever done it in public.
Whenever I get excited about something, I clench my fingers together, and I rub the bases of the palms of my hands together briskly.
Now... you may be asking yourself.. "If he is ashamed of it, why is he admitting he does it?"
Well, as it turns out, the reason I am ashamed is because I do not seem to have any control over it.
It just happens.

It happens if an awesome action sequence is about to start in a movie I like.
It happens if I am about to kill a huge creature in WoW.
It happens when something seemingly amazing is supposedly happening in a film.
It happens when the washing machine is almost filled with water.
It happens if my food in the microwave is about to be done.
It happens if I start installing a new program or video game on my computer.
It happens if I print something to my printer.
It happens if I set pinestraw on fire...
or pine cones...
or random bunchs of scrap paper...
or dryer lint....
or fireworks...
or pretty much anything else.
It happens if I put in a DVD.
It happens if I am about to go walk out the door to go shopping, exercising, or hanging out with friends.
It happens if I press button in an elevator.
It happens if I press the start button on a large movie projector.
It happens if I turn on my space heater.
It happens if I pay a bill online.
It happens if I am about to make a purchase online.

Ok... so perhaps now you are saying, "Wow, he gets excited about some weird things."

Yes, I do.

Quick Conversation

2006-12-10T19:45:00.000-08:00

I went to a Christmas party last night.
I cannot really share many details about the evening because I was told later in the evening that "What happens at the _______ Christmas Party stays at the _______ Christmas Party".

But I would figure I would share this.
One of the conversations I had with a person last night....

Girl: "Oh hey! How are you?"
Me: "I'm alive. No too bad. How are YOU doing?"
Girl: "I'm great! How are you?"
Me: "....the same as I was 3 seconds ago."

That was the entire conversation.
She gave me one of those weird looks that was cross between "I'm confused" and "You're a jerk".
Not sure exactly what was going through her mind. I did not feel compelled to ask.

All in all, though... it was a good evening.

New Generation of Toys

2006-12-02T10:50:00.000-08:00

I decided to go out Christmas shopping today after I had some maintenance done on Arielle. I headed to the mall and walked around for a bit. I got gifts for my niece, nephew, and my sisters. However, I was actually looking for a specific gift for my niece and nephew and did not see it, so I decided to hit Toys R Us.
While looking around the store, I noticed that pretty much all of the toys I would have had when I was younger, have had some sort of technology boost.

Then... I saw the Power Wheels section. I decided to look through some of these, just for fun. There it was... a Corvette. $300. a 2-Speed Manual Transmission, duel motors, Radio, headlights, turn signals, horn.

I seem to remember playing with one of these when I was younger... it had one speed, and that was it. Not other features.

Today's kids are spoiled even more so than we were.

Still Crazy

2006-11-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

My mind does not work as well as it used to. It likes to believe things that any normal, rational person would not believe. It also has some random issues that might seem crazy to most people in the world.

The reason for this is because of my major bout with insomnia a while back.
I thought I had fixed all that stuff and had gotten better.

Over the last few weeks, some random "episodes" have occurred that have caused me to realize my mind is slowly leaving me.

One was pretty scary for me... and I shall not go into details on it. Let's just say it involved a dark room and a light that was on a timer.

The most embarrassing one, though, was from a commercial I saw last night just before going to bed. It was a PSP commercial for a Sonic the Hedgehog game. I am a fan of the franchise. I used to be addicted to the game. I played it constantly. After all, the original Sonic the Hedgehog was the only game I had when I got my Sega Genesis.

Anyway, if you are familiar with the game, then you know that you collect rings for various purposes. One of those purposes, the most important of which... is to stay alive. So long as you have at least one ring, you will not die if you get hit by some random creature. When you have rings and you DO get hit, you hear the sound of all your rings leaving you as they explode away from your little character. If you were lucky, you could grab a couple of the ones you lost really quickly in case you got hit again. It wasn't until last night that I realized exactly how deeply embedded that series of sound effects is in my head.

The commercial showed Sonic getting hit and his rings exploding away from him. It came complete with the sound. What it did NOT have was the sound of Sonic immediately picking up another ring. In fact, for the rest of the commercial... Sonic did not pick up a ring.

For some reason... this disturbed me. I almost felt like I was playing the game. I HAD to hear the chime of a ring being picked up. It didn't happen. I felt horrible. I felt unsafe. It almost seemed like a panic attack.

That was when I realized my mind is on its way out.
I hope my remaining days are enjoyable.

Officially Single

2006-11-26T07:16:00.000-08:00

Well,
we all knew it was going to happen eventually.
I just tried to keep the hope alive.

Luckily, I went into this with the foreknowledge that long-distance relationships almost never work out, so I am not all that surprised at the outcome.

Misty and I decided to split ways.
Translation: Misty decided we should split ways.

I am pretty sure she made this decision quite a long time ago and just failed to let me know. I am thinking it was around the beginning of October, when she called to ask me to cancel my trip.
She only decided to tell me when I mentioned that I was pondering a second-attempt at a trip to see her.

....
On that note...
Since I am not going to take a trip to Florida...
I have 3+ days of vacation time built up that I must use by December 31 or they will disappear forever.
I must now find something else on which to spend that time.
I don't know... perhaps just some random trip somewhere.
I'll figure something out.

One Way to Anger Matt

2006-11-24T06:43:00.000-08:00

If anyone was ever wondering of any ways to make me angry, one showed itself today.
Here are the steps involved in the process:

1: Be a big company (i.e. Best Buy).
2: Run an advertisement for an awesome deal on a monitor to be sold at your store very early on the day following Thanksgiving. Make the deal good enough to entice me spend my first Black Friday standing in line for hours to wait for the store to open.
3: Be disorganized, or at least inefficient.
4: Tell me, after I have been waiting in line for 3+ hours, that the item I wanted to purchase is sold out. Then... after being asked to confirm this... confirm that the item is sold out.
5: Let me see people that were standing in line behind me walk out with two of the monitors I wanted to buy.

Good job, Best Buy.
Good job.
First impressions are very important.
I now officially hate Black Friday.

2006-11-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

My newish suv.

Early Christmas

2006-11-18T12:03:00.000-08:00

OK, so I stopped by the house yesterday after work.
There was an SUV parked on the corner of the property not far from where I would normally park if I was just stopping by the house for a moment.

I had gotten home a little earlier than usual. About 4:30 my boss came around and said that if I did not have anything pressing to take care of at work, then I could go ahead and take off. I waited around a few minutes then headed my self on out.

I got home about 4:40ish.

When I saw the vehicle, I was highly suspicious. I started looking around the yard. We have recently had some weird person stalking my mom's dog. Not exactly sure. Some sort of PETA-esque nut that seems to think that people should not be allowed to have pets.

After doing a quick perimeter check, I headed inside.
The door was cracked open.
I walked in, and I did not hear anyone moving around.
This was a tad disturbing. I prepared myself for the worst...
though... my father was actually home. So all was well.

I asked him whose truck that was outside.
He told me he thought it was just someone that had broken down.
The person had "parked there, got out, talked on there cell phone for a bit"... and he had not seen them since.

I thought nothing of that.
I packed up a couple things and headed over to Christy's.
I had agreed to stay at the apartment so that the cat would not get completely bored.

Anyway, I came back home this morning to help my father with some things.
I haven't actually done much yet. I wound up heading to WalMart for a bit.

As I was about to head out, I was re-combing my hair.
My father was outside and asked if I could come out there for a minute.
Typically this means he is in the middle of a ask and really needs my help with something.

He asked if there was a way for me to get online and look up the tag of the SUV that was still parked out there and find out who it belongs to.
I told him it was possible, but I would probably have to pay a fee.

Dad: "Oh, oh yeah. That's right. I guess you couldn't. Oh well.... It's your's."

Me: "What?"

Mom: "He bought it for you."

Me: "What?"

Dad: "Here's the keys."

Me: "What?"

Dad: "Come on, let's go a ride so I can show you some of the things about it."

Me: "Are you kidding me?"

<>

Me: "Wow!"

So anyway, it is an older vehicle... but it is completely paid for and insured.
It is a 1992 Ford Explored.
I am not a fan of SUVs..... but it is free.
How can I argue with that?

It has a few small problems I shall have to deal with, but all in all, it is in relatively good shape.

It is a good day!

McCain 2008!!

2006-11-15T20:59:00.000-08:00

Heck yeah!
I have been wanting him to run for a while now.
He finally declared his candidacy!

Unless something extraordinarily disappointing happens in the next 2 years....
He's got my vote.

...
And yes, I have already given this thought.
Some people have told me I should vote for Rudy Giuliani...
I pondered it... for about 4 seconds.
Yes, I think Giuliani has some spirit in him...
but...

I have made my choice.

McCain 2008!!!

Friday the 13th

2006-11-12T06:41:00.000-08:00

B.E.S.T. was great. I had a fun time.
I was a rather worn out by the end of the day, but it was worth it.
It was a great day.

Oddly enough, though... something odd happened on the following morning.
I expected to sleep in pretty late Sunday morning. I was very tired.
I woke up at 6:45 and could not get back to sleep.

I do not know why I could not get to sleep. I was tired. When I opened my eyes, I felt more tired and just wanted to lie down. When I closed my eyes, I felt fine, and my body would just not get back to sleep.

So.... I eventually decided to just sit up and turn on the TV. I flipped to the history channel. After watching for a while, I learned a new fact.
A show came on talking about some of the world's not-so-secret secret societies.
The fact I found most interesting was that the reason many people started considering Friday the 13th to be so unlucky was because on Friday, October 13, 1307... the King of France ordered his knights to seek out and destroy all members of the Knights Templar. I thought that was highly interesting.

Of course, I decided to do some quick research on this, and found other sources suggesting that this could actually be the reason.. so I am prepared to believe it.
Apparently, the King did not like the idea of the Knights having so much power and money.
BTW.... they had a LOT of money.
I also found out that... in order to become a member of the society, you had to surrender all your money and land to the Knights.
Lots and Lots of Europe's wealthiest nobles decided to join.
The Knights were loaded.

Anyway, that is what I learned on my Sunday morning.
I thought it was pretty interesting.

What I Know About Women...

2006-11-08T11:41:00.000-08:00

The Darkness

2006-11-01T19:59:00.000-08:00

It was Halloween night when I decided to head over to my friend's house so we could go hang out. I decided to ride out of my neighborhood slowly so as not to risk running over any Trick-or-Treaters.
That is when it dawned on me...
Not only were there no Trick-or-Treaters...
but I realized my neighborhood is very dark.

I just never noticed because I was never really paying attention to my surroundings.
There is huge lack of light.
Plus... the little light that IS expelled by the street lamps... is mostly blocked by trees.
It was quite scary.

Anyway... just an FYI, the Haunting at the Hank was extremely cheesy.
Though, I will say that the guy with the REAL chain saw definitely startled me.
I surely hope that thing had been de-chained.

....
On a random note,
tonight, while WoWing... I decided to farm for some feathers so I could levitate.
I was near a mountain where there just happens to be a shrine.
It's name? The Shrine of the Fallen Warrior.
Occasionally I go there just because.
No real reason. I guess as a simple tribute.
The shrine was "built" in honor of one of the original programmers of the game who suffered an as-of-yet unexplained death.

At the shrine lays a dead Orc. An engraving on the shrine shows the letters "MK", which just happen to stand for "Michel Koiter". In front of him is a guardian angel with a name "Koiter".

There is a point here, I promise.
Ok.. anyway, typically you have to be dead to see these "Spirit Healer" types, but this is a special spirit healer... (it has a name).
They all have the same ambient sound effect.
I was there for a few minutes, not paying any attention while watching South Park..
when it hit me...
The ambient sound effect had some words hidden in it.
I turned up the volume and tried to listen closely.
It seemed like it was playing backwards...
so... I set up my computer to record the audio from my sound card.

I then played that recorded sound backwards.
Unfortunately, I no longer have any GOOD audio editing software on my computer, so I was unable to take out the wind blowing...
and since the words are whispers... it made it very difficult to distinguish actual words.

I am convinced there is something hidden there, but I am not sure what.

Yeah, you thought there was an END to the story, didn't you?
Not yet.

Anyway, that is my blog post.

Sexy New Case

2006-10-17T20:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, My case arrived today.
It is positively wonderful.

It smells like brand new rubber pool toys. I love that smell.
It was so new and awesome, I was so happy when it arrived.
It is heavy, too.
Like a tank.

But yeah... one puzzle piece down.

On My Way

2006-10-15T13:04:00.000-07:00

Well,
I have done it.
I have taken my first step toward building my own PC,
so... the way I figure it...
There is no turning back now.

I just purchased a case. I kindof like it.
It is big enough to fit plenty of stuff without it getting too cramped.
I saw the case at Tech Advanced a long time ago.
I found it on NewEgg for what I THOUGHT was a much higher price.
I went to Tech Advanced to double check. I, for some reason, was
remembering the price as being HALF of what it actually is.
Don't know why.

So... I came home and bought the one on NewEgg.
It is not as pretty, colorful, and fancy as most gaming PCs you might find,
but I like it.

The way I figure it, I can afford to buy a couple more components every two weeks,
or one BIG component per month.
My next purchase shall be the motherboard,
Then the processor,
Then the RAM,
Then the Video Card,
Then a hard drive or two,
then a DVD burner.
...then I will work on getting extra things to make it super awesome and personalized.

...well....super awesome to me.... and that is what matters.

First Google Video Post

2006-10-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

I posted a video on YouTube the other day for the first time, and got an interesting response from it.
I decided to post the same video on Google Video to see if anyone else might find it and comment on it.
I have had this clip for well over 5 years now.
I thought it was interesting.
I think it marked the first time in history that this particular song had been played at this particular event.

Hopefully the code above works.

200th Postiversary

2006-10-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Thursday, October 13th, 2005.
What was that date?
That was the date of my first post on this blog.

200.
What is that number?
That is the number of this post!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOG!
HAPPY 200TH POST, BLOG!
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Yeah, so some of my posts have been short,
some have been long.
Some posts have emotional,
some have been random senseless,
pretty much all resulted from me being bored enough to post on a blog.

Ahh, the memories.
Remember the ones I did when I was suffering from major insomnia?
Those were the days.

Remember when I badmouthed that charity then got hate mail because of it?
Yeah, me too.

Remember when I read my stats and found out people at work were accessing my blog?
Remember when someone at work actually TOLD me about it?
Wow... that was fun.

Remember the fairies?
Heck yeah, I surely do.

Remember the random pictures from random places?
Oh yeah. Good times.

It has been a great year, blog.
Let's hope the coming year is even more fun-filled!

Maybe you will even get a face lift.
Maybe you will get moved to a different server?
Maybe, just maybe, I will even change your name.
The word "Phlibbertiblog" came to mind earlier.
"Flibbertiblog" could be used too,
but then "Flibbertigibber" wouldn't be used....
so that is a negative, I suppose.

Anyway,
Happy Birthday, Blog!
Enjoy your day!

Arach No Phobia

2006-10-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I randomly remember things that happened to me as a child.
Today was a day during which that happened.

As I was taking a shower, I looked up at the fan in the center of the bathroom. It had a little dust on it. It suddenly reminded me of a time when I was much younger and living at our other house. I was about to take a bath when I saw a huge spider descending from the fan. I was terrified. I screamed like a little girl until my father came to get rid of it.
The problem, though, was that before my father could get in there, the spider had reascended up into the fan.
I was terrified of the bathroom for a long time after that. I would always keep a constant eye on that fan.
If I looked away for a moment, it would wind up scaring me... and I would just have to stare at it for a bit.

Ahh... childhood memories.

Just a quick post

2006-10-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

I do not really have anything specific I want to talk about, I just felt like posting.
Right now I should be at or on my way to a special place in Daytona Beach, but that plan fell through.
I just got back from PickleFish. I played Ultimate Frisbee earlier. I am definitely the weakest link on whatever team on which I play... which works out well, because the opposing team never expects me to accomplish anything..... then I occasionally do.
And it feels good.

Anyway, PF was filled with lots of yelling little kids.
I was able to zone it out after a couple of minutes.

Tomorrow is LAN party night. That should be fun.

I may actually go reserve a Wii tomorrow too.
I know this post is random.
Oh well, I should probably end this post now.
Oh well...
Time to say goodbye for now.

PHPness

2006-10-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

I have officially purchased my first PHP-related book.
Well, I guess it really isn't accurate to say it is PHP-related. The name of the book PHP and MySQL Web Development. It is pretty much ALL PHP stuff.

Now, many of you are probably saying to yourself,
"PHP, but that is simple stuff".
Well... I never took the time to learn it,
so I am going to study up on it now.

It's a pretty big book, though. I doubt I would actually have the attention span necessary to actually read the entire thing. I will most likely use it as a reference book for when I have questions about specific things.

I found the book at Books-A-Million. I checked out all the books they had. This one seemed to be the most useful. Luckily, it was much less expensive on Amazon, as most books usually are. Saved $17. w00t

Anyway, I should probably get some rest now.
Just wanted to share the joys of my new book.

No Orlando?

2006-10-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Well,
I have been planning for a trip to Orlando for the last few weeks.
I knew I should have listened to my gut when I started planning for the trip.
I thought I wanted to head down there, but I had some strange feeling it might be a bad idea.
As it turns out, I guess I will not be heading to Orlando this weekend.
It is not finalized yet, and there are still some things I have to figure out,
but as it stands now, my trip shall be cancelled.

Grrrr.

Remind me never to buy non-refundable tickets again.

No Apartment for Me

2006-10-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

Well, I had intended to go back and talk to the people at the apartment complex this week, but I stayed rather busy.
So, I was going to talk to them today.
Then, I had this major breakthrough...

Before getting an apartment, I should probably make sure I can afford it.
Since I stopped using MS Money, I have not been keeping up with my budget.
So, I decided to just throw a quick version together really quickly.

Overestimating on my bills some, It turns out... I COULD probably afford to get the apartment, but I would have no money for electricity, water, and gas.
Grrr.

I had been looking forward to moving back out again for a while. Now I find out I cannot afford it, and it just shoves me into a depressive state.

On the bright side, though, I suppose I COULD afford to get a cheap car.
So, that is a plus. w00t

Must stay positive. Otherwise... I would just go crazy.
So, I guess I shall perhaps go shopping for a car today, then maybe to Bayfest. Don't know when I am supposed to go, but I know some people invited me.
I think I may also get a haircut.

Time to say goodbye to my blog for now.

Tricycle Race

2006-10-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

After four races, I did manage to help bring the team the Gold Medal in the Tricycle Race this past Wednesday. That was fun.
I am not sure exactly how the scoring worked.
One of the tricycles broke, so they started having to do time trials and what-not.
I am not sure if they made that retroactive for the teams that had the trike break while they were racing.

Still, though, we managed to pull through. Apparently we won by about 1 second.
I draped the medal across our sign at work.
I did have fun racing. I was very nervous though.

I couldn't pedal. Well, I could, but while pedaling, I could not go left for some reason. I just couldn't do it. I started out just going right and could not turn around. So, I opted for using my feet to propel the bike. It worked out rather well. I managed to come back and win the first contest.

I had to go last. My teammates and I did Paper-Rock-Scissors to determine who would go when. I guess I lost. All in all, I guess it worked out for the best. After all, we won, right? So yeah!

So long blog.

Locked Out

2006-10-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when a series of events happens, it starts to make me think that there was a reason for it. I might not ever know what that reason is, but the events seem unlikely to be a coincidence

Ok, here's the setup:
Typically I carry around 2 sets of keys. One is for the buildings on my property... Like.. My house and garage. One is for the truck I am driving.
Ok, Well, I returned to work from lunch a few days ago. When the work day was complete, I started walking to the truck. I reached in to my pocket and realized I had the wrong keys. I searched all my pockets, no truck keys. Grrr.
I make it to the truck, and what is that sitting on the seat? My keys.
Well, I am locked out.

In my car, I would carry an extra key in my wallet, which I intend to do with this truck very soon. Unfortunately, my car does not work any more, and I cannot seem to afford to buy a new one. I still need to go out searching for a good used car some more.

Anyway, I make a call to my father to see if he could bring me the extra set of keys for the truck. I did not get an answer. So, I called my mother to make sure I was dialing the right number for my father (he has two phones).
While I was talking to her, I got a call from my father. I tried to switch, but he had already hung up. So then I tried to call him back, but just got voice mail. While on his voice mail, my mom called back.
Well, this sort of situation went back and forth for a bit until I finally get back in touch with my mother. She tells me that my father is on his way to bring me the keys.

About 10 minutes later I got a call from my father. He had run out with the keys to the truck, but had neglected to pick up the keys to his truck...
which... I guess... also had his house keys on them.

So... We had to wait for my mother to get home from work to let him into the house so he could get his keys to bring me the keys to the truck. That took a while.

In the meantime, I did manage to pass through several levels on the BreakOut game on my phone.

That's pretty much it for this post.
On to the next...

Eminent Domain Abuse

2006-10-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Ok.
I agree that the government should have the right to seize land for its own use. Building roads, military bases, whatever they can think of.

Though, I do see the point behind seizing land for private use, I still do not think it should be allowed so easily. In the past, if a company wanted land a person was on, they had to talk the person owning the land into selling it to them.
Now, the government can just "claim" the land and pay what they think is fair for it. This amount is usually very unfair.

What I suggest...
A grace period. This would have to be a nationally mandated thing, which is impossible because it would violate states' rights... but it is still fun to dream....
This grace period would basically involve forcing a time period between the time the government seizes land and when they are legally allowed to sell/rent/lease it for private use.
I'm thinking 10 years is good.
If they are seizing it for governmental use, then they would not have to worry about this. If they are seizing it to make a profit, then they would have to wait to sell it.

I know this sounds stupid,
but I think it is a good idea.

Another Grail?

2006-10-02T12:25:00.000-07:00

I saw a commercial last night about a new version of the DVD for Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail.
I shall have to buy it.
It is bound to have something I have never seen before, right?
It better.

Grrr.

Liar, Liar: Honesty = Best?

2006-10-01T10:46:00.000-07:00

"The color of this pen is rrrrrroooooooooooooyyyyyaaaal bllluuuuuueeeeee."
Is honesty always the best policy?
I have problems lying to people. If I do, I pretty much always say "I'm just kidding" afterwards and tell them the truth.
I actually cannot remember the last time I lied to anyone about anything.
Sure, I like to exaggerate things sometimes or joke around, but people still get the main idea of things.

Ok, this "inabiltiy to lie" showed its face recently in a conversation with Misty.
A question was asked... and I was forced to say ... "Ummm... Well do you want me to lie to you or tell you the truth?"
"What was the question?", you ask?
Hmmm.

Well... I cannot remember the exact wording of the question, but it was basically along the lines of...
"When we first met, who did you think was more attractive. Me or my sister?"

As it turns out, I was more attracted to her sister.
As it turns out, I told her I was more attracted to her sister.
I then explained, though, that it was just a physical attraction.
I did not know anything about her sister.

Well... I felt weird.
She thought it was cute.

Nothing bad resulted from it, but I still feel stupid for saying it.
I blame the fact that I was half asleep. Next time perhaps I should use better judgement.

Well...
that's my embarrassing story for today.

Missing my Furry Alarm Clock

2006-09-26T16:12:00.000-07:00

I realized something today...
Among the many things I miss about Gibbet...
I do rather miss the alarm clock nature she had within her.

I woke up today thinking it was Saturday. I went back to sleep.
Gibbet somehow knew when I was supposed to be up and on what days I needed to be up.
She would very rarely bother me on a Saturday or Sunday...
but if I stayed in bed on Monday-Friday... she would wake me up.
Usually it would involve licking my nose until my eyes opened, then she would scamper off to the side of the bed and go back to sleep.

I don't know how she knew, but she knew.
I miss her.

I guess now I need to find an alarm clock that goes off only on weekdays like my old phone did. That way, if it goes off... I will know it is a weekday and not go back to sleep.

The Little Shrine

2006-09-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I decided to create a small shrine for Gibbet. I don't really have a good reason for this, it is just something I felt like doing since I had some extra stuff lying around.
We had a bunch of old solar-charged landscaping lights in the garage. We pulled them out of the yard when Katrina was coming and never put them back.
Of course, all of the batteries were completely depleted. Luckily, they were NiCD, so they were able to take a charge again... most of them.... the ones that were not damaged.
Unfortunately, when I decided to set them up, there was no where near enough time for me to charge them up before the sun went down, so I put some brand new batteries in a couple of them for the first night. I replaced them early the next morning because ... well... they were Alkaline, and you cannot recharge those. I used some work lights to try to super charge several of the lights. It actually worked. I think I got the batteries pretty well charged.
So.. I know this seems cheesy... but I used to always have some sort of little night light for Gibbet. Now she still has one.
The lights shall charge their batteries every day in the sunlight, and bright up her gravesite each evening....
until my parents decide to take the lights away and use them for the walkway again.
The only thing I am concerned with is that there is a lot of shade in that region during various times of day, but it should still be OK.
As of yet, the grave has not gone unbrightened.
Whoo hoo.

Yeah, I know. Pathetic, right?
Oh well.

2006-09-24T02:01:00.000-07:00

I was flipping through the pictures in my phone and found this. Remember her? Yeah, it's awfully blurry...blame my phone.

Wingless Wonders

2006-09-24T01:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I figured I should probably post some pics of the fairies without wings... so people would perhaps start getting the idea that they aren't actually fairies.
Though, it is fun to dream, isn't it?

Random Smile

2006-09-23T14:51:00.000-07:00

Alrighty.... So I am not completely down in the dumps.
I did very much enjoy my time with the ACM guys playing Miniature Golf at Funtasia.
I had a good time.

Tonight I shall spend some time with the PFCrew.
I think that will do me some good.

But... I was just watching a commercial.
Well, I heard it, then I turned to watch it based on what I heard.
It was a Sara Lee Bread commercial.
It was playing the "Happy Happy Joy Joy" song from Ren and Stimpy.

I thought that was hilarious.

Life has lots of little surprises to cheer people up.
Hurray, Life!

Beating Myself Up

2006-09-23T14:20:00.000-07:00

I know it is not healthy for the mind to delve on things in the past.
You know... like choices you made that you regret, but you cannot change it now.

Well... I am not regretting my decision regarding Gibbet. The doctor told me she recommended putting Gibbet to sleep. She told me that it would not be fair to Gibbet to really even attempt treatment because her chances of surviving at all were extremely grim.

I made my decision based on this information and the X-Rays I had seen. She looked like she was in bad shape. But... I fear perhaps I was a tad rash. I did not take any good time to think about what was happening.

In retrospect, I feel like this was a very bad decision. Gibbet has always been a good fighter, and I cannot help but wonder if she would have been able to fight this too.
I know I should not be thinking like this, but I cannot help it.

I miss Gibbet.

What do I do now?
Grrrr.

2006-09-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

Gibbet's permanent resting place.