DON'T YOU HAVE GOOD GARBAGE?

Information of Extreme Importance!

2008-03-27T11:46:00.005-05:00

Attention to the orders! Attention to the orders!

The Tuna Melt at the Jefferson Cafe also sucks.
I say again: The Tuna Melt at the Jefferson Cafe also sucks.

That is all.

Lunch

2008-02-08T13:11:00.000-05:00

I make a much better tuna melt than the ~~Balls Deli~~ Manhattan Cafe in Rosslyn. I'm far from the greatest chef in the world, but I like to think I grill a mean cheese. That, coupled with my lovely wife's mad tuna-making skillz make for one hell of a sandwich. What really pisses me off is that the whole reason I even went to the Manhattan Cafe today was to get a bag of Utz Kettle Classics Salt and Malt Vinegar potato chips (it was also the only pace I could think of in this corporate wasteland to get a lunch which didn't contain any meat). If you're in the market for salt and vinegar chips, look no further. Of course, they didn't have them, so I had to settle for the regular Utz Red Hot flavored ones, which are ok, but not on the same level as the Kettle Classics by any means.

At least I managed to get their last Cherry Coke Zero.

Oh yeah.... Hello again, Internet.

Unnecessary Punctuation

2006-11-02T10:55:00.000-05:00

I'm sure someone has already considered this.... There's a guy who works here whose last name is hyphenated. He's probably a couple years younger than me. That got me to thinking about hyphenated names and how much of a pain in the ass they must be. Hyphenated names are sort of a phenomenon of the 80s, aren't they? That means that pretty soon, all those poor bastards whose parents couldn't decide on one last name for whatever the reason are going to start getting married. What if they want to hyphenate their already hyphenated names? Is some priest or minister or whatever really going to stand up in front of the congregation and say, "It is my great pleasure to introduce to you for the first time as man and wife Mr. and Mrs. Thompson-Du-Romanowski-Farthington"? That sounds more like a law firm than a last name.

HEAD ON

2006-06-23T06:32:00.000-05:00

What does it do? Why do I need it? Is there something on my forehead?

Don't ask questions, just apply directly to the forehead.

If this doesn't win the Golden Clio, all my faith in the advertising world and awards shows is lost forever.

Peer Pressure

2006-06-21T20:39:00.000-05:00

Since everyone else is doing it...

So, I haven't updated this thing in...well, quite some time. Since my most recent update, I've traveled to Connecticut and New Jersey, gotten a dog, turned 27, and jumped head first into the...um...wonderful? world of multiple car ownership.

As some of you may know, I've been considering the purchase of a Porsche 944 for as long as I can remember. It isn't the fastest car ever made, but it handles phenomenally, looks totally sweet and is a good car to learn to wrench/drive on. So, in a deal which seems more and more suspect every day, I agreed that if my lovely wife could get a dog, I could get my 944. Well, we now have both, and they are both decidedly more trouble than either of us first imagined.

I had a good idea of my budget and what I was looking for, because I had been looking on and off for several years. I ultimately decided on a car in Connecticut with low mileage but little (no) service history. After a couple of inspections and a new set of tires, I was on a train up there to go get it. So, here is the severly condensed version of my trip:

Friday morning -- Train to Connecticut from DC. The train is an incredibly unappealing way to travel on the east coast, by the way...unless you enjoy seeing the shadier parts of New Jersey, the back of the Newark airport, and every junk/scrap yard in a six state area.
Friday afternoon -- Cab from the train station to the house where I am to pick up my new automobile. I never met the guy I bought it from...it was at his house with the keys and title inside. I got on the road for NJ, with a quick stop at some random bank for a pen and some scotch tape. I'm sure they thought I was robbing the place.
Friday late afternoon -- After a few hours of stressful rush hour driving between CT and NJ (lots of listening to every weird noise made by my car and looking at the temperature gauge) I arrived at Ryan's new house for his housewarming party. Got the three dollar tour, drank some beers and waited for the onslaught of Jersey folk.
Friday night -- Party at the Captain's. Met all his real estate friends, drank lots, ate/grilled lots, did some celebrity hot tubbin', and slept on a couch cushion in the unfurnished dining room. Ryan may have been more drunk than I've ever seen another human being.
Saturday morning -- Got up, made sure Ryan was still alive, said my goodbyes to my crw and got on the road.
Saturday afternoon -- Arrived at the bottom of the NJTP. Celebrated this milestone on the side of the road in the rain, with my car which no longer runs.

I'll step out of the list for a moment here to explain.... I went through the express toll lane at the end of the turnpike at the perscribed 55 mph. I accellerated out of the toll, and the car stopped running. Wouldn't turn over, wouldn't do anything. I pulled off into the left shoulder and planned my next move. A few minutes later, a very helpful NJ State Trooper showed up and called me a tow truck. Fortunately for me, he was neither fased by nor interested in my lack of license plates. Eventually the tow truck showed up, and after much confusion as to how to lash the car to his rig, I was on my way again. He left me at the Flying J in Carney's Point, NJ and absconded with my new toy. I got to experience some of the local color and attempt to hitchike back to DC (or Wilmington, at least) for two hours while I waited for a cab. Suprisingly, there are some very strange people at the Flying J in Carney's Point. Who would have thought? Anyway, the cab showed up, and $30 later, I was at the train station in Wilmington, DE.

Saturday evening -- Defeated, I get off the Metro in Vienna in the pouring rain and into my Dad's car. He takes me to his house, where my (working) car is. I go home, totally dejected.
Monday morning -- The mechanic calls to tell me the car started up fine. Awesome. I know what the problem is and I know how to fix it myself. My dad graciously offers to drive me to Jersey to get the car. I replace the DME Relay and get back on my way.
Monday evening -- Meet up with Mat and Mikey at Costal Flats to show them the car and have a couple beers. Then back home and into the garage. Victory, seemingly, is mine.
Tuesday evening -- I attempt to go get the car an emissions inspection. The station is closed, so I go home. As I round the final corner into my part of the neighborhood, I let the clutch out in second gear. The car makes an awful noise and refuses to engage the gear. I coast to the lowest point on my street (oh yeah, the parking brake doesn't work) and am instantly very depressed. I ultimately go back into the house and drink a few beers. Oh yeah, it was my birthday, too.

So anyway, I've driven this car about 500 miles since I've owned it. The only things that move it now are gravity, and my drunk friends who helped get it back into the garage, where it's been for over a month, waiting on a new clutch. I'm using the time to replace most of the brake components and the front bearings and anything else I find as I work my way through. I'm hoping to have it back on the road by the end of the summer. I knew I'd find problems with it...I just sort of hoped they'd hold off until I'd had a chance to drive a little. Oh well.

Ultimately, I'm glad I bought the car (and I'm glad we got the dog, but he's a whole 'nother post). I am enjoying working on it, even though it is a huge pain in the ass sometimes. Every shot of Brake Kleen in my eye is just another stinging reminder of how great the car will be once I get it to where I want. By the time it gets back on the road, it will be like getting a new car again, since I really don't remember what it's like to drive the thing. I think it was fun, though, after I relaxed a little.

Now, for those who care, a brief pictoral history of my Porshe ownership to date:

A picture from the cars.com ad which led me down this treacherous path:

The first picture I thought to take of the car myself:

And, finally, a more recent picture, showing the current state of the car:

A Ragamuffin Vixen

2006-02-24T13:40:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to post about all the crazy shit I've found around the Interweb lately, but as usual procrastination is getting the best of me. This remixed map of the DC Metro system was too good to pass up, though. They should rename all the stations to match this map.

Ralphie, get off the stage, sweetheart.

2006-02-23T21:16:00.000-05:00

Inspired by a song off the new Bloodhound Gang album, I've added a new feature to my little corner of the web here -- a random Ralph Wiggum quote generator. Code for this quote generator was blatantly but lovingly ripped off from Mikey. Quotes were taken from various places around the Intarwebz. Just reload to get a new quote. If you don't see one of your favorites, leave a comment and I'll add it to the mix.

Burning the Colonel

2006-02-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

Ok, all this political cartoon protesting business is really getting out of hand. In Pakistan, they've taken to burning Western businesses, including fast food restaurants. Where's the logic in that? Everyone knows how delicious fast food places smell to begin with. If you burn one down, you're getting all the wonderful smells with none of the reward of actually polluting your body with that delicious fried death. Seems a little counterproductive. I'm sure Akbar and Jalem thought burning down that KFC was a great idea at first, but when they were suddenly faced with an intense scent-induced desire for a bucket of extra-tasty-crispy or maybe some popcorn chicken, they were probably second guessing their decision. I hope you guys enjoyed your sand or rocks or whatever you ended up eating instead.

And since when does KFC have anything to do with Denmark or politics?

Let's try this again...

2005-12-16T16:06:00.000-05:00

Ok, I posted all of this earlier, and then violated my own rule on spell checking -- always cut and paste the HTML into notepad before letting Blogger do anything. Here's another attempt at boring you all with the crap I've been wasting time with on the Internet lately.

50's and 60's style comics PSA comics -- These cover a very wide subject area, from heroin addiction to dairy farming. This is the same site Mikey linked to earlier with the A.A. comics. The link originally came from IN4MADOR, a delightful little site which periodically posts interesting things and has a web address which reads like a personalized license plate. I love the prevailing message of a lot of the A.A. comics: just pretend like nothing's wrong, and you'll be fine! No, Billy...Daddy drinks because he's sick. He doesn't get help for his sickness because he doesn't love you.
Drive on the Dulles Toll Road for free -- You probably think there's some kind of scam contained in that link. No, it's just an article about how the only way to get busted for running a toll is to do it in front of a cop. Or to have a toll booth operator take down your plate info and turn you in. Assuming they even see you do it. Not likely. Looks like it's back into the static bag for my EZ-Pass. Thanks to Fark for the non Washington Post link.
Illegal immigrants get in-state California tuition -- This article is about a class action lawsuit being brought against CA by out of state students. Apparently you're better off not being a citizen (or a resident, even) of the country than you are being from any of the other 49 states. I find this absolutely absurd, and I hope these guys win. Thanks again to Fark for the link.
A great way to waste time and drive yourself nuts -- This picture apparently has 74 band names represented one way or another. Mat and I managed to come up with 74 names, but when we submitted our answers it said we only got 52 right. Not sure what that's about. Either way, it's a pretty cool pic. Sorry for the adds and the really slow site (on my machine, anyway). Direct link to most of the pic here. Unfortunately, part of it is cut off on the left.
Speaking of wasting time, Samorost and Samorost2 -- Save gnome guy from certain death, then help him get his dog back from aliens. A Myst type puzzle game with great graphics and sound. Too bad you have to pay for the second chapter of the second game.
Childsplay approaches half a million dollars -- The boys over at Penny Arcade have outdone themselves this year. Some people love them, some people hate them, some people just don't get any of their jokes. No matter which of those categories you fit into, it's hard to argue with giving a ton of money and toys to sick kids.

There you have it. Enjoy, rinse, repeat.

ANGER

2005-12-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Turns out Blogger's auto-save feature is just as useless as its spell check. That was a good post, too. Maybe I'll resurrect it later if I'm feeling ambitious.

For Tourists!

2005-12-05T15:48:00.000-05:00

I was in my car the other day, and a thought randomly popped into my head: what would I do if Simon Gruber called and told me that if I didn't put exactly 4 gallons of water into a jug and put it on a scale within a predetermined amount of time, a bomb would go off and innocent people would die? Mr. Gruber has been kind enough to leave me with a 3 gallon jug, a 5 gallon jug and a limitless supply of water. This is a question which torments my very soul me every time I see Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Every time I see that movie, I have to figure out again how Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson solve that problem. Even as they're doing it right in front of me, I have to pause the DVD and figure it out for myself. So I'm doing myself the service if writing it down here, for the whole world to see. You're welcome.

1. Fill the 5 gallon jug exactly to the top
2. Fill the 3 gallon jug exactly to the top, using the water you just put into the 5 gallon jug.
3. Dump the water out of the 3 gallon jug, leaving exactly 2 gallons in the 5 gallon jug.
4. Pour the 2 gallons from the 5 gallon jug to the 3 gallon jug, leaving exactly 1 gallon of air in the 3 gallon jug.
5. Fill the 5 gallon jug exactly to the top.
6. Fill the 3 gallon jug the rest of the way to the top using water from the 5 gallon jug. This will leave exactly 4 gallons in the 5 gallon jug.
7. With less than 3 seconds left on the timer (for dramatic effect) place the jug on the scale. You've stopped the bomb and saved countless lives.
8. Consider yourself a hero.

Brilliant.

2005-09-26T15:26:00.000-05:00

This guy wins.

Smokey Joe and the Great Move of '05

2005-08-30T20:32:00.000-05:00

So I've been up to a lot for a change. Over the past couple of weeks, Michelle and I moved into our new house. If you've ever read her blog, you already know this. Anyway, the move went well -- a fact I owe entirely to the awesomeness of my friends. Fear not....If I move again, I think I'm going to hire movers.

There were two real stars of the day. Highest honors go to Savory, a professional mover for over 10 years in a previous life. We brought things to him, and he made them disappear in the truck. I'm still not sure how he managed to get 90% of our stuff over here in one trip. It's a damn good thing we did though...which brings me to the second hero of moving day '05: Smokey Joe.

Smokey Joe is not a person, but a marvel of modern engineering. He epitomizes everything the International truck company and U-Haul are looking for in a quality vehicle. Note that almost everyone has already heard this story ad infinitum, because I think it's so damn funny. My recounting it here is mainly for posterity, so I'll remember it in the future, and because I know Warren will get a kick out of it. This is Smokey Joe's story.

I arrived at the U-Haul place 5 miles from my house at 7AM, a solid half hour before they "opened." I was the fifth person in line. Apparently, the weekend we decided to move is one of the busiest of the year for U-Haul, what with the kiddies going back to school and such. Anyway, after worrying a little about whether or not I'd actually get a truck, watching one guy not get a truck and go completely ballistic, and discovering that U-Haul will let you take a truck with a manual transmission whether you know how to drive it or not, it was my turn to get my vehicle.

The guy helping me wandered around for a while. At one point he informed me that he was "having a little trouble finding the keys." I guess he got over that, becuase a short while later he told me they needed to charge the battery. Things are not going well. He gave me my appliance dolly and showed me my truck. Incidentally, I'd already figured out which truck was mine by looking at the parking lot, finding the absolute worst one, and knowing that they'd give it to me. Suprise suprise, I was right.

I walked out to the truck to find two mechanics working on it. It was hooked up to another running truck, I presume to charge the battery. After much yelling and cursing, they got it started. The whole thing imediately vanished in a cloud of white smoke. I asked the mechanic who looked like he was in charge if it was going to make it. His response: "Smokey Joe? Oh yeah, he'll get you where you need to go."

I climbed aboard my new chariot. A 1988 International 26 foot Box Truck with at least 197,000 miles on it. After several minutes of careful examination, I gave up on trying to find the parking brake release. I went back to ask mechanic-guy, and he showed me where it was. Fantastic. I'm ready go go. As I pulled away, mechanic-guy yells up to me, "Oh yeah! That ricketty muthafucka' gonna slip out of second gear on you!" Those were his exact words. He told me this as I was shifting into second. He wasn't lying, either. You could almost get the shifter all the way into third gear just by giving it too much gas in second. Assuming you could get it into second at all.

After getting a good feel for Smokey Joe's three foot long shifter and getting used to the space between gears being larger than the car that I drive on a regular basis, I was on my way. There was a gigantic cloud of white smoke behind me for a good quarter of a mile as I meandered down route 50 at about 40 mph (which felt like breaking the sound barrier in this P.O.S.). Smokey Joe is truly a force to be reckoned with. I parked it in front of the townhouse for about five seconds with the motor running. Two mintutes later, the smoke alarms were going off inside my house. This thing has problems.

After moving the first load and having lunch, I piled my workforce into the back of good ol' Smokey Joe, Mexican Style, to head back to the house to get the rest. Shockingly enough, Joe was done. Wouldn't start. Didn't even crank. We finished the move with cars and my brother-in-law's pickup. Later that day, a mechanic came out and tried to revive Joe. No dice. He was towed back to Uhaul on Monday morning. And promptly put back into service, I might add. I've already seen him twice since that fateful weekend.

So why was Smokey Joe one of the heros of the day? Well, since he decided to break down "half way" through my move, I didn't pay a dime for him. Not for the truck, the gas, the mileage, the dolly, or the furniture pads. Free. Nada. Gratis. Saved me at least a hundred bucks. Thanks, Joe.

Now that I've bored you all in writing with the same story I've told over and over, I'll move on to the rest of what's been going on. I was in Rochester, NY last weekend for an old friend's wedding. I made some new friends and drank a lot of gin. I also stayed at a hotel which now has the distcintcion of employing an Iron Chef winning chef. Good stuff. Though I don't recommend drinking copious amounts of gin until 3AM, only to get up at 7 and drive 400 miles.

So we're all moved in now, except for one bed which is still at my in-laws' house. Things are coming together faster than I expected them to. The pool table is here, the furniture is placed, and most of the boxes are unpacked, broken down, and on to their next move with other friends. I mowed my lawn today. As much as I'm sure I'll hate doing it eventually, it was pretty cool to know I was doing it for myself for once, and not for a parent or neighbor. We'll see how much I like this place once I start making payments on it, though.

This weekend brings Dewey Beach, late night/early morning work fun, margaritas, and the start of another Hokie Football season. All subjects worthy of Blog updates. Don't hold your breath, though.

I don't really know what to say.

2005-08-10T15:55:00.000-05:00

I was driving to work this morning and I saw a girl driving a jeep. I've seen a lot of girls driving jeeps lately. My first thought when I saw her was of a friend of mine at work who also drives a jeep. Maybe he had some insight into why so many girls were driving them.

He died very unexpectedly last night, at the age of 23. He was a friend and certainly one of the best people I've worked with here. I regret not spending more time getting to know him away from work. Everyone around here is really going to miss him.

Unsolicited Photoshop

2005-07-18T16:01:00.000-05:00

Inspired by this post over at Waan's bloggy-blog. Clicky for full-sized goodness.

Dirty Old Man

2005-06-17T06:57:00.000-05:00

I was driving to the gas station yesterday, and I heard Come As You Are by Nirvana. This would be a completely unremarkable thing, if not for the fact that I heard it on the local classic rock station. The song IS 14 years old, so I guess it can be played on a classic rock station. I guess I just find it a little depressing, since that's the first song I've heard on that station for which I can remember buying the album right when it came out.

Awesome.

2005-06-08T08:17:00.000-05:00

Microwave Grape Lightning

If only we'd known about this four years ago. As cool (and messy) as the exploding egg was, it could only have been made better by some burning grapes. Plus, grapes and I go way way back in our destructive and strange relationship. O-Day Bitch Lunch forever, Bitches. Now, where's Fred? I need me some chocolate chip cookies....

Traveling Man

2005-05-05T22:14:00.000-05:00

I've been reading some really well written stuff in other people's blogs lately, so I've been inspired to actually update my own for once. In an uncharacteristic turn of events, there are actually quite a few very interesting things going on for me right now, so I've really no reason not to write about them...except complete and utter laziness, of course.

Two weekends ago, Delvox and I headed way down souf to hang out with my nephew. It was a fantastic trip, filled to the brim with little of substance. It was one of those great weekends with almost no purpose or planning, but plenty of hanging around and doing absolutely nothing. It really made me miss our days at College Park and Pheasant Run, sitting around watching Comedy Central and being generally worthless.

We started on our epic journey on Friday morning. We left from Delvaux's house in Actiondale and went right for the freeway. Traffic around NoVa wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. We stopped somewhere south of Richmod for gasohol and donut holes. We then took our leave of this state and its anti-radar-detector laws. We cooked through NC, admiring its bounty of interesting billboards and outlet malls. I was pleased to find that Pedro has made his way back onto most of the now rather sparse South of the Border billboards. Almost all of the fun 3D ones are gone now (the only one I remember seeing this trip was "You Never Sausage A Place"). The rest are all two dimensional and not horribly interesting. Smash Hit is gone. So is Have a Ball and You'll Go Bananas. The one with the mechanical sheep jumping over the fence is still there, but only northbound. South of the Border advertising just isn't what it used to be.

Orlando advertising, however...wow. I guess the people who run the "Discount Orlando Tickets" place really underestimate the powers of both the Internet and people's ability to plan a vacation. The very presence of the "Discount Orlando Hotel Deals" billboards flies in the face of planning. I know that when I go somewhere and need a place to stay, I like to decide where that place is and make my arrangements before I'm half way to my destination. This is something which I consider normal behavior. Granted, I'm no whiz when it comes to planning things out, but if I'm going to drive 14 hours from my house, I'm going to make sure I know exactly where I'm sleeping before I leave.

Other billboards of note include those for JR Outlets (a much smaller building than you'd think they'd need to house pretty much every item ever conceived and sold by man), Cafe Risque, and JABS Fireworks (Cleanest restrooms on I-95). If you know anything about my job, you realize that JABS Fireworks is absolutely hilarious and required a stop. Fortunately, we needed gas, so we decided to check it out.

We bought gas at the BP station (no affiliation with JABS) and then went to the other side of 95 to check out JABS Mobile. We used their restroom (billed as the cleanest on a road stretching from Maine to Miami, remember), which Delvaux adequately described as "not the best breakfast I've ever had." It did have a rather amusing sign which I neglected to photograph. It basically warned you not to pee on the seat. Just one more in the myriad of reasons why I should carry my electric screwdriver with me everywhere I go.

Once we finished our tour of this much over-hyped restroom, we went to the actual fireworks store. It was pretty run of the mill. Lots of illegal explosives and such. I got a couple t-shirts and tried to convince Earl (the large man working there) to give me one of his JABS Mobile polo shirts so I could wear it to work. He was agreeable and told us to stop back in on Sunday. Of course, when we did, he was nowhere to be found. Earl, you sneaky bastard.

From this point on to our next destination, I was given the reigns to Delvaux's pimpin new ride. He recently got equiped with item Mazda 3. A nice little car which is insanely smooth at blistering speeds. At one point I looked down at the speedo after not paying much attention for a while, only to find I was bouncing around between 105 and 110. Who knows how long I'd been doing that or what my actual top speed was. That's one smooth car.

The car also has a navigation system. A novelty to me, a necessity to others. I was highly amused at it's utter astonishment that we'd ever want to get off the highway before reaching our final destination. As soon as you got off the road, the robot lady who lives in the dashboard was yelling at you to turn around and get back on. She didn't know where my sister lived, but she knew the general area, and I was able to pick up the trail where she left it. A few short, fast miles later, we were in Cameron, visiting my sister, Kate. We hung out with her for a while, and discussed paint colors, airplanes, wildlife, frozen birds, and how awful it must be to have children of your own (a sentiment I do not necessarily share, but it did make for an interesting conversation). We took our leave from Kate and headed further west to Cayce, a small suburb of Columbia.

After traversing several sets of railroad tracks, an industrial park, the worlds best restaurant, and some pretty ghetto houses, we arrived at my nephew's place. We got situated, then went out for wings. While waiting for our table, we encountered the largest man I've ever seen in my life. This guy was bigger than life itself. Absolutely enormously huge. Our waitress tried to convince us that we ordered a plate of miscellaneous fried vegetables, and was rather undone that we didn't agree. We eventually got our wings, which were no doubt tampered with by our now peeved waitress, ate, and headed back to the house. We stopped for beer on the way (of course) and proceeded to drink Snakebites and Coors Light until eventually passing out for the night.

The next day, my nephew showed us around some. We hit the highlights of Columbia and USC. The bookstore. The parking garage. The frat houses (which are insane, by the way) and, of course, the liquor store. The liquor store was interesting. It had two sides, which were completely separate. One side sold beer and wine, the other liquor. There were cops all over. The place was huge. I bought watermelon vodka (DANGER! DANGER!) and some beers, and we were on our way.

Back at the house, we watched Van Wilder (one in a long list of movies I've not seen) and drank. I had some of the previously mentioned watermelon vodka, and discovered just how evil that shit is. You cannot taste the alcohol in it. I repeat, you cannot taste the alcohol. At no point during the evening did anyone mix it with anything. It's like drinking juice....35% of which is undetectable alcohol. We went to California Dreamin' for dinner and were served by my nephew's roommate. We ate baked potato soup and learned an alternate meaning for the word "Canadian." We then went back to the house and pretened to watch The Patriot while drinking more beer and polishing off that bottle of vodka. I was pretty ripped by the end of the evening.

Sunday morning, we arose and prepared for our journey home. We stopped off at JABS BUrger King for lunch, and then headed to JABS fireworks like Earl said, but as I mentioned earlier, he was nowhere to be found. We took our leave of that place and continued north. We enjoyed more billboard watching though NC and tested out the nav system a couple times to avoid traffic jams. It worked well, and allowed us to soak in some of the culture of the less traveled areas of North Carolina and Virginia. Eventually we made it back to NoVa and that was, as they say, that.

Now that I've bored you all with this dull tale of adventure and billboards, I have to get to bed. I've got to get up in 6 hours to catch a plane to Seattle for the weekend. A trip which will undoubtedly generate an equally long and boring blog entry. Until then, consider yourself a sucker for actually reading this far.

Two Posts in One Night? Are you INSANE?

2005-04-12T20:55:00.000-05:00

So maybe I am. This is more of a "so, what have you been up to, JohnBoy?" post, for those of you who care (nobody).

Last Friday, Delvaux came by and we watched Garden State, which I really liked. I had heard that it was good, but I was a little worried going into it that it was good in a "pop culture, pretending to be indie/way too deep for its own good" good. I was pleasantly surprised. It stars, is written, and directed by the guy from Scrubs. Scrubs is a pretty funny show, I think...I don't watch it enough to make a real judgment, but the episodes I have seen have been pretty good. Zach Braff seems like a pretty funny guy. And talented, based on the movie. It also has Natalie Portman, who plays a cute, albeit completely insane, love interests for Braff. The movie has a lot of angst, mid 20's millionaires (well, one), and motorcycles with sidecars. I recommend it. The soundtrack is pretty good, also.
Saturday night, Tommy came by, and we watched some kind of documentary. It was quite interesting. VH1 showed it without commercials, but edited (no F words or boobs). I'm not sure how I feel about the movie or the subject matter. I'm of the opinion that Metallica completely sold out when they released Load, and they haven't done anything useful since (aside from making my music collection stop abruptly in 2001). It was a little sad to see what pussies they've become, what with the therapy and all, but at the same time, those guys have kids, so they probably shouldn't be solving all their problems by getting loaded and trashing hotel rooms. Everyone grows up eventually. Lars is now, and always will be, a fag, however. That new bassist they have is hardcore, though. And, from what I hear, Metallica still brings the house down at their shows, even if they do charge 80 billion dollars to get in. Just stick to the older songs, guys. Overall, it was pretty good. Definitely interesting. If nothing else, it confirmed my suspicions that Dave Mustaine is still alive.
Let's see how many random IMDB links I can get into one sentence.
Sunday, I had the pleasure of going to Chuck E. Cheese's for my niece's fifth birthday. The kids all had a smashing time, of course. That place has a hell of a racket going. They just serve pizza, maintain video games, and pay some guy to dance around in a mouse suit. None of that can be too pricey. I bet they get killed on insurance, though. With the number of franchises they have, I'm sure it isn't too uncommon for a kid to fall out of the tubes that run all over the ceiling. Going there makes me glad I don't have children yet, and it makes me question the whole concept of the salad bar. I'm glad my niece had a good birthday, though. After the party, I pretended to be an electrician for a few hours at my in-laws, then I washed (and drove around for a while) their Corvette. A productive day, indeed. And I'm glad to say that I neither electrocuted myself nor burned their house down. Truly, I'm on a roll.
I really don't remember a damn thing that happened Monday. I was pretty out of it all day long.
My mom came over for dinner tonight. Michelle made one of her Thai dishes, which was excellent, of course.

The next few weeks promise to be slightly more exciting than the last few. There's a Ten Feet Tall show this Friday at Staccato Music Hall in Adams Morgan, which you'll be at if you're really my friend. Next weekend Delvoxyl and I (and hopefully Mikey) are going to Souf Carolina to hang out with Mr. Scrub (my nephew, not Zach Braff). May brings a trip to Seattle and the MS Ride, which heralds the triumphant return of Team Saddlesore Galactica. Feel free to send me cash...I have to come up with a few hundred bucks, or I'm not allowed to ride. More on that later, no doubt. Also, I'm supposedly going to Vegas sometime for work...I'll be amazed if that ever actually happens, though.

So there you have it...a rare glimpse into the exciting world of your gracious host, me. If you've read this far, I'm truly sorry to have bored you so much. If you actually clicked on every link in this post, I'm sure you deserve some kind of prize. Don't count on it, though. Stay tuned in the future, for sporadic updates bereft of content, just like this one. Ta.

Why Does Samus Rock So Hard?

2005-04-12T20:32:00.000-05:00

I've spent the past hour or so listening to mp3s downloaded from this site. And quite frankly, they kick some serious ass. Now all I want to do is play Metroid, but I don't have any roms, and my NES is in a state of non-hooked-upedness due to my lack of an RF Modulator. Seriously, though...This Metroid Metal thing kicks ass. Maybe Mikey is onto something afterall.

Bad Garbage....Can

2005-04-05T14:08:00.000-05:00

I need to get a new garbage can. I arrived at my house the other day to find mine about 5 feet from the curb, blocking my driveway. The lid was in about 50 pieces scattered all over the road. Apparently the wind had moved the can from wherever my garbage men threw it and some douche took it upon himself to run the lid over. It looked like the can itself had been hit also, but I can't confirm. My street is pretty much a giant wind tunnel, so none of this suprises me. I once had to walk almost a block just to get my recycling bin back. And the other day, the wind was blowing so hard, my house shook. I live in an interior unit townhouse.

Anyway, now I have to buy a new garbage can. That isn't the problem. The problem is getting rid of the old one. How do you throw out a garbage can? Isn't that some kind of paradox?

If I Could Have a Moment of Your Time...

2005-03-07T20:48:00.000-05:00

I'd like to take this opportunity to plug a few things that I like. I realize this isn't going to do much good in the grand scheme of things, since anyone reading this probably already knows about everything I'm referring to. This is intended for the rare outsider who stumbles into my little corner of the Internet here.

So, without further adieu, here is my list of things that don't get the attention or respect they deserve:

You Damn Kid - This is one of the best web comics I've come across. I've been known to read comics online that I absolutely cannot stand, just because they've sucked me in with their stupidity. This is most assuredly NOT one of them. The writing in this comic is phenomenal, and the subject matter is relateable and hilarious. Growing up Catholic and attending a Catholic school for at least SOME of my education makes it all the more enjoyable. A lot of what the author talks about is from before our time, but it's still very funny. It's about being a kid, and that really never changes that much. I strongly encourage everyone to take a look. Probably my favorite strip can be found here. My only issue is that the update schedule can get sporadic, but that seems to be a running theme with online comics. Anyway, read some of this. You won't be disappointed.
Pokey the Penguin - My love for this comic is discussed at length here.
Arrested Development - This is, in my opinion, the best show to have come on television since Family Guy. It may be better than Family Guy. I haven't quite decided yet. I haven't seen American Dad yet, but I know Arrested Development is better. I can just tell already. This is one of those shows that Fox stumbled into and doesn't know what to do with. It is pointed squarely away from Fox's core demographic. What I mean is that this show isn't for the typical Simple Life or NASCAR viewer. Anyone who plans to watch Fox's next gem, Life on a Stick, probably won't undertand half the jokes that are made on this show. Arrested Development is extremely well written and incredibly funny. I've seen most of the episodes at least twice, and every time I watch I catch some joke that I didn't see before. The humor ranges from incredibly subtle to hitting you in the face with a frying pan. The show contains running inside joke after running inside joke, which is right up my alley. You have to pay attention to catch all the little jokes, but the writers really reward you for doing so. There's actually a fairly good chance that the show won't be renewed by Fox for next season. Things like that really test my faith in humanity. Fox finally comes up with a show which appeals to someone other than the lowest common denominator, and they're seriously considering canceling it. There's actually a website which is doing everything it can to keep the show on the air. I strongly encourage you to check it out. And, if you're my friend, you'll start watching Arrested Development at 8:30 on Sundays. It needs all the support it can get. And buy the DVDs. Or at least borrow mine. You'll be glad you did.
Ten Feet Tall - My good friend, and only Chinese sibling, the real Rob Lowe is quite the musician. He is in this band, which I've seen once. They play a good mix of music, strongly influenced by rock, blues, and a little hip-hop. Rob is a huge Blues Traeveler fan, and that works its way into their sound. He's also quite a harp (harmonica for those not in the know) player. Go to their website, read about it, download some of their songs. They're playing the Grog and Tankard on March 25. I saw them there last month. It's a good venue. Maybe not the most convenient place in the world, as it is basically on the upper edge of Georgetown. They have a lot of beers on tap and it's really small, so you can get pretty up close and personal with the bands that play there. The cover last time was like $7, and I saw four bands. Pretty good. One of the bands even had a guy get up on stage and do some fairly impressive beatboxing. Go here, and check out Krayola, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

That's pretty much it, for now. If you haven't heard of some of the stuff I've mentioned, I really hope you'll check it out. Hell, even if I've already jammed this cram down your throat, check it out again. Maybe you'll notice something you didn't before. If I've already converted you, tell others. All of these things will benefit greatly from any kind of publicity.

TESTING 1, 2, 3.

2005-01-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

I made some minor changes to my template. I want to change the whole thing, but I'm not l33t enough quite yet. Anyway, had to post to see if the changes worked or not.

I hate you.

2005-01-29T09:27:00.000-05:00

Thank you, Blogger, for destroying yet another post. You cruel, cruel bastard.

Does anyone know if LiveJournal is any better?

You Rolling Thick Crust?

2005-01-26T16:09:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me just now that some people might not understand the naming, etc. of my blog. I figured those of you who have the misfortune to have stumbled onto this page might be interested.

I've always found things that are completely absurd to be quite amusing. One of the most absurd things on the Interweb is Pokey the Penguin. This is a webcomic I started reading back in college. The whole comic looks like it was created in MS Paint (probably for a very good reason) and the dialog makes little, if any sense. Rather than go back and erase dialog or drawings, the "artist" simply crosses them out. It's an acquired taste, but I find this shit to be absolutely hilarious. Now that you all think I'm insane, a little more in-depth explanation of some key terms:

Chicago Style: As you can see here, Chicago Style means to do something without pants on. I think the term originated in a dream the author or possibly one of his friends had. It found its way into the strip, and I picked it up from there. Very few people understand this reference, but I've only been questioned on it once, and it was about five minutes ago. I guess people just don't pay any attention when I do things that don't make any damn sense, since it happens so often.

DON'T YOU HAVE GOOD GARBAGE?: Taken from this strip, for no apparent reason. When I created my blog, it needed a title. I figured Pokey was as good a place as any to find one. This one struck me, because I figured 98% of what's in here is mindless garbage anyway. So I might as well question its goodness.

Mr. Nutty: This is the first appearance of Mr. Nutty in a Pokey strip. He is a "regular" character, if you can call any of them that. Keep in mind Pokey has no update schedule and only one plot line I can think of: the inhabitants of the Arctic Circle don't like the Italians because they try to steal their arctic circle candy. Your guess is as good as mine. Anyway, Mr. Nutty is a sophisticated alcoholic snowman/baron of industry who cruises around the Arctic Circle in a giant flying boxing glove. His business ventures include Nutty Industries and the Mr. Nutty School of Placemat Design. Having just re-read those last two sentences, I'm beginning to think I'm a little nuts for liking this comic so much. Anyway, I like Mr. Nutty's style. So much so, that I use some variant of "Mr. Nutty" for most of my internet usernames. Most notably one of my primary IM names, which anyone reading this should already know.

Anyway, I think that's about it. I highly recommend reading some Pokey strips. Admittedly, some of them are pretty lame, but the majority are hilarious, if you ask me. If you find humor in things that are completely off the wall, totally ghetto, and don't make any sense whatsoever, you'll enjoy Pokey.

Oh, the quote in the "About Me" section over there is from the Talking Heads song, Psycho Killer.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

2005-01-03T20:07:00.000-05:00

Once again, I've gone to the trouble of opening up the blogger thingy and starting an update. And once again, I don't feel like writing it. Here's the quick and dirty on my holidays:

Christmas Eve-Eve we had The Foundation over for holiday shenanigans. Michelle was sick, but still managed to pull off quite a party, largely due to the help of Delvaux. Big props to both of them.
Chrismtas Eve was at my parents' house for dinner. Just myself, Michelle, Mom, Dad and Alice. We had rost beef. Yum.
Christmas Day was at the in-law's. Michelle was really sick, so we almost didn't make it. We did, though, and had a good time. Pretty much your standard Thanksgiving Spread for dinner.
Day after Christmas was at my parents' house again. Mary came up with her usual entourage of children, some related to her, some not. Then I got sick. Wheee. Sickness, as it turns out, would be the theme of Holiday 2005.
Went to the Auto Show on the 27th. I managed to NOT purchase any insanely expensive cars. It's always fun to go to the show. It's a tradition for my father and I, and this year Todd came, too. Most excellent.
The rest of the week was pretty much spent being sick and generally feeling like shit. It really sucked, because I wanted to spend time with my nephew, but was too sick to do anything good. Oh well...Next time.
New Year's, Michelle, her brother, and I watched Napoleon Dynamite (an excellent move, regardless of what Brian Delvaux might tell you) and sat around. Nothing very exciting. Again, we were sick.
Went to the 'Skins/Vikings game yesterday with the real Rob Lowe. We grilled fajitas in the parking lot and were generally obnoxious to those around us. Made some friends after the game by screaming Journey songs. Some 45 year old guy came up to us and was like "we're you're future." Interesting. He couldn't believe I was only 25. I don't know if that's good or bad. Either way, old, drunk people are funny. Saw them a couple more times on the beltway. Their wives thought we were the cat's ass.

That's about it for the past week and a half or so. Oh, just as a random bit of trivia, I'm typing this update on my new, awesome Linux box. I am a l337 h@xx0r, and officially a d0rk.

I STILL FUNCTION

2004-12-16T23:06:00.000-05:00

Haven't updated in a while. Here's the $4.00 low-down on what I spent the past few hours doing:

Quarterly meeting at work. Lame. But they had mini egg rolls...so....still lame.
Brought Michelle dinner at work, because I'm the best husband EVAR.
Fed the cat.
Chicken Shwarma from Pitalicious. Those things are like crack to me. And my next one is free!! Huzzah!! Oh, Mat....That little tree that's on all the Lebanese restaurants is on Lebanon's flag. Now you know, yo, Joe!, etc., etc.
Trekkie's 2 over at Mikey's place. Fantastic. There was a fire going and everything. Very romantic.
Ate some cookies.
Talked to Bobby on IM for a few minutes. That was cool, 'cause it's been quite a while since I've talked to him.
"Updated" my blog.

Ok....so that's what I've been up to since about 4:30 this afternoon. Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to say sometime in the not-too-distant future. I know there are things I've been wanting to write about, but I'm just too damn lazy.

They Stole My House

2004-11-20T19:49:00.000-05:00

The best thing about going to Tech for a Thursday game is getting home on Saturday. Not only have I not worked for the past three days, but I don't have to work tomorrow either. And next week is only three days. Booya.

Butter, M-Pizzle and I shoved off from my house around 11 on Thursday morning. This was shortly after Butter gave his two-weeks to his current employer, then said he had the flu and was going home. He had a fever....and the only perscripton was a weekend of drinking and gay innuendo with two of the best 'gents ever to play the game.

After a rather unremarkable drive, we arrived at Chuck's around 3:00. We set up our base of operations for the next two days, then Chuck dropped us off downtown (in his minivan, which is clearly from the future). The original "plan" (if you can call it that) was for us to call Tommy on his cell phone, and meet up for drinking and fried fowl in the parking lot. By the time we got downtown, I had left at least 4 messages for Tommy. Things are looking grim.

We decided to walk over to Litton Reeves (from the 7-11 on Draper Road) because that's where Ben's parking space was last year for the games, so clearly that's where they must be. Buster and Mikey reminisced about days passed while we all lived on campus, while I did my best to find an alternate method of contacting Tom. I called pretty much anyone I could think of who might be able to get me a cell number for Ben. My mother, Tom's Mother, Justin Fabeny, Information. I even called Koon's Chevrolet, because that's where Ben's brother works. Of course, Ben's brother was at Tech, with Ben and Tom, and therefore impossible to reach.

We wandered aimlessly around Litton Reeves for a while, even finding a rather good "Tommy Trap" (guys throwing a football and listening to Metallica) but none of our friends. Buster alerted us to the fact that we had somehow managed to get all the way there WITHOUT any alcohol, and the prospects of us getting any in the parking lot were not good. We decided to walk BACK to the 7-11 where we started. If all else failed, we could sit in the street and drink, or just go to a bar.

We got all the way off Campus on Washington street. My phone rang. The name said "Tom." So, I answered with a resounding "TOMMY!!!" Looking back on it, I'm glad I didn't answer the phone by saying something like "Where the fuck have YOU been??" as it was Tom's MOTHER on the other end. She was able to give me several numbers for the Benone family, the first of which successfully put me in touch with Ben's mom...whom I've not spoken with in probably 8 years. Suprisingly enough, she remembered who i was and gave me Ben's number. I called him, and found out that he was about half a block from where we were standing. Which was at Chuck's car. Where we had started. So we walked two miles all over Tech without a drop of alcohol, all because Tommy's phone turned itself off.

As we finally arrived at our destination, Tommy was doing everything he could to keep from falling on the ground laughing while listening to my messages. They ranged in severity from "Hey, Tommy. We're in town. Give me a call." to "Tommy. It's John. Next time I see you, I'm going to fucking kill you." Tommy's a wise one, so he put beers in both my hands before I had a chance to secure them to his neck. Crisis averted.

We stood around out back (and on the roof of the shed) for a while and drank. There was an impressive pile of empty beers just hanging out in the yard, which was rather amusing. Eventually we headed for the game, where I was able to secure a ticket for the low-low price of twenty bucks. Mikey was kind enough to shelf half the cost himself, since Ben gave him an extra ticket. So I paid 10 bucks to get in. Fantastic.

We watched the Terps get whooped up on for the first half and decided to head out. It was starting to rain, and not many teams come back from a 48-3 deficit. We walked to PK's in hopes of Tijuana Toss, but settled for a pizza, a pitcher, and watching the second half indoors. 55-6 was the final. Go Hokies.

After drinking enough beer to feel like I was going to throw up from being so full, yet not quite enough to be all that drunk, we headed back to Chuck's, listened to some G&D and called it a night. After a four hour nap on the floor, I moved to Missy's (unoccupied) bed. It is much more comfortable than Chuck's floor. At some point during the night, Buster and Mike managed to switch couches. That was weird.

Day two of my most recent Tech adventure did not disappoint. It started off with the viewing of Star Trek: Nemesis, which I had not seen before. The movie was pretty much what I expected. Predictable story, poor acting, and plot holes the size of Canada. All in all, it was hilarious, and I hope to one day watch it again with Mikey and Ed. After the movie, we went to BW3's for wangs and pink-flavored water. Then it was back to Chuck's to say goodbye to him and Missy, since they were going home for break. They wouldn't have left if they knew what we did next.

The clear highlight of the weekend was the three solid commercial-free hours of Nickelodeon game shows we wasted our afternoon with. For now, I'll just say that we got to see Double Dare, Finders Keepers, Guts, some crap with a stone guy named Olmec and a lot of disappointed kids, and Figure it Out. Mike O'Malley was featured prominently. The whole thing was a pedophile's wet dream, involving slime, soy sauce, cooked pasta, toe-jam and spanning two decades. When I've had a little more time to digest it, I'll go ahead and write an entire post on the whole Nickelodeon game show phenomenon. The only thing that could have made it better was if we'd gotten to see Nick Arcade. But I'm not bitter, because if we hadn't keep forcing ourselves through 15 minute block after 15 minute block of horrible game shows with even more horribly dressed children I wouldn't have such an interesting story to tell now.

The rest of our time there was pretty textbook. I bought a sweatshirt, we went to the liquor store, Wal-Mart, and had dinner at Macado's. I got my ruffles/ranch dressing fix and had a pretty tasty sandwich. We went back to Chuck's, sat in front of the TV, and eventually went to bed. Got up this morning, watched a solid hour of coverage of the Pistons/Pacers debacle on ESPN, and drove home. Saw a pretty good accident about 40 feet behind us on 81, and did my good deed for the year by calling the cops.

We were all upset that the Bojangles at the Shell station on Route 11 is no more, so I couldn't get my chicken biscuit fix. Buster pointed out that the time we saved by not getting chicken biscuits probably kept us from being in the aforementioned accident on the interstate. I guess I can live with that.

As my life pretty much revolves around interesting and elusive fast food, Mikey had the brilliant moment of clarity only two days of heavy drinking can bring and suggested Taco Bell in Harrisonburg for lunch. Why? They still have Chillitos. Mine's not quite done wreaking havoc with my GI tract. So tasty. Mikey gets the MVP award on this trip for remembering that little gem.

I got back to my house, burned Buster a copy of Windows XP, and went to Ski Chalet to pick up my new skis. Now I'm sitting here, writing this entirely-too-long update which I'm too lazy to spell check, and which will no doubt be destroyed by Blogger as soon as I publish it. For what promises to be a much more interesting/well written account of the past three days, head on over to Mikey's blog. I'm sure he'll have it up there before too long.

That's all for now. Time to go wave a final goodbye to that Chillito.

Title of Post

2004-11-14T01:07:00.000-05:00

Yes, I ripped that off from the lesser known Filter album, Title of Record.

Warren called yesterday. Ok, two days ago, technically. It was Friday. I was home from work, doing not much of anything, and he calls up to tell me that he was on top of some mountain, watching the snow and being way to excited about rocks, with N.W.A. lyrics stuck in his head. This, for whatever the reason, made him think of me. It was actually really cool that he called. Have't talked to the bugger in a while. I really need to get out there for a visit.

Michelle and I went to DC today. She wanted to do something for her birthday, which is this Wednesday. She's been itching to go to the spy museum, so we figured we'd give that a try. In my infinite wisdom, I did not buy tickets in advance, so that was a no-go. That's not totally true...I tried to get tickets in advance, but the website wasn't exactly conducive to that, so I gave up really easily and figured we'd be able to get in no problem, since it's cold out. Little did I realize, Veteran's day was a couple days ago, so a lot of people were in town. I parked at the lot next to the old PMO (no one will understand that but Mike) and we walked over to the museum, only to find out we couldn't get in. So, we walked down to Ford's theater, read some stuff about Lincoln at the museum there, hit up some lunch, and went home. Not exactly what we planned, but we enjoyed it. No "Foakleys" were purchased, unfortunately.

The guy at the Ford's Theater museum called it a "tragedy" that Lincoln was assasinated. I guess he considers the fact that he's employed "trajic." I'm not saying it doesn't suck that Lincoln was shot, but I certainly don't go around bemoaning the fact that people get arrested in this country. That's my bread and butter, baby.

Speaking of work, I can't describe in words how pleased I am that I'm only working 6 days in the next two weeks. I'm thankful for two days off at Thanksgiving, and Tech football. A contingent of us is headed down for the VT/MD game this Thursday night. No one has tickets, but we're not concerned about that. Oh yeah...If you're reading this, Chuck (which you most assuredly are NOT) I'm rather hoping that I can crash at your place Thursday and Friday night. Also, I'm addicted to that damn square game because of you. Ass.

It's late. That's all I got.

Believe it or not, I have opinions.

2004-11-05T23:19:00.000-05:00

Hm. Haven't had a real update in a while. Well, it's Friday night, and I'm not doing anything, so here goes.

Seems like the past week or so has been pretty exciting in the world. That whole election thing. I can't tell you how thrilled I am that it's over with. I completely expected a drawn out legal battle to determine the president, lasting well into December like last time. Kudos to you, John Kerry, for knowing when to throw in the towel. And kudos to you, GW, for winning. I am quite content with that, unlike the people in the "blue states" and a good number of my friends.

I'm glad Bush won. I don't really feel the need to explain why...If you're really curious, ask, and maybe I'll write a political post one of these days. The thing about the election that is currently driving me crazy is all the whining. I realize it's easy to say that when my side won. But man...those democrats can be some whiny little bitches. You lost. You lost the electoral college, and you lost the popular vote. Get over it. Maybe in 2008, you can come up with a candidate who has a better message than "I'm not George W. Bush" and actually win. Hell, I'm not George W. Bush. The Dems should have just nominated me. I could have won...were I ten years older.

The "blue states" are devoting a lot of time to bashing "the system" and the "red states." I have a problem with that. First of all, you can't blame the system. The system WORKED. Last time, they all bitched about how Bush didn't win the popular vote, and how he "stole the election." I'm not going to get into any of the bullshit surrounding the 2000 election. I'm glad it turned out the way it did (seriously, can you imagine Al Gore being our president right now? Please.). But you don't have any room to complain about the system or democracy or any of that right now. Bush won both aspects of the vote (even though only the electoral college matters) so deal with it. Start working to find yourselves a direction as a party, or you'll just be bitching about the same shit in four years. Put up a fight, for Christ's sake. I also don't think they should be bashing the "red states." Saying anyone who doesn't live in a state that went for Kerry is an idiot or a religious nut or some such nonsense. The Dems seem awful quick to damn a large portion (majority, even) of the voters in this country just because they happen to not agree on every issue at hand. We're all in the same country here. Make fun of Canada...that's what they're there for.

Apparently, a good number of people in the exit polls said the most important part of the election to them was "moral issues." Now, let's bear in mind that these are the same exit polls that at several times during the night had Kerry winning the whole shebang. What I'm saying is...exit polls are bullshit. I'm actually upset I didn't get to participate in, because I didn't get to give any of the outlandish answers I'd come up with. Gay marriage seems to be a pretty major issue these days. Honestly, I'm not sure where I stand on the issue. I'd have to research it more, and frankly, since I'm not gay (believe it or not), I don't really feel the need to look into it right now. I wholeheartedly believe in the separation of church and state. I go to church, and believe some things (which I'm not going to get into here) but that's for me. Not for anybody else. There's no way my religious beliefs should be forced on anyone but me. Can gay people get married in other countries? Europe is always pretty quick to point out how backward they think America is (damn socialists), but do they let dudes marry dudes? I haven't heard word one about that on the news. I'm honestly curious. Ultimately, I think gay marriage is inevitable. It'll be as normal as hetero marriage eventually. Who knows when. Like I said, I'm still not sure how I feel. But the only reason I could see the government getting involved would be if there was some kind of monetary or tax implication. Bah...I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

Ok, so what have we all learned here tonight? First of all, people are a lot more likely to vote FOR something than AGAINST it. Keep that in mind for '08, you commie bastards (I keed, I keed). Second, it's time to stop whining and get on with our lives. And all you blue states, be nice to those red states. You have no idea how royally fucked you'd be without them. Third, exit polls are crap. I took a lot of statistics courses in college. It's all a crapshoot. Don't believe everything that you read, you'll get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve. Fourth, gay marriage will probably happen eventually. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Just keep the government out of my church and vice versa.

So I guess I'm pretty conservative, but you probably all knew that already. I just don't like high taxes, welfare, or having the government in my bid'ness.

Anyone but Hillary '08.

The Best Things in Life Are Free

2004-10-28T13:33:00.000-05:00

The most important conversation I had at work today:

Pasq242: That Petersen management thing today?
Mr Nutty37: OH FUCK
Pasq242: Something about free shit in the lobby?
Mr Nutty37: FUCKING FUCK YES IT IS
Pasq242: WHAT TIME
Pasq242: WHAT TIME
Mr Nutty37: OH SHIT, I DONT KNOW!!!
Pasq242: OH GOD I'M ON FIRE
Pasq242: I deleted the message.
Mr Nutty37: FUCK ONLY 10 MORE MINUTES
Mr Nutty37: FUCK FUCK FUCK
Mr Nutty37: GO GO GO
Pasq242: HOLY SHIT

Free Cider and Kettle Corn is no laughing matter.

My Triumphant Return

2004-10-23T08:35:00.001-05:00

Well, I finished class yesterday at noon and headed out to the airport, hoping to get on a plane before my scheduled 9:00 PM. Had to put gas in the crap-o-van...It took 10 gallons, which gave me a total mpg of 15.something. I was a little disappointed in that figure, as I was beating on it pretty hard and would have liked to be less efficient about it. After filling it up with 87 ($2.15 per gallon, OMGWTFBBQ???) I turned it in and went to the terminal. All the planes were full until 5:30. Being in the airport for 4 hours was a lot better than being there for 8, so I took a seat on the 5:30. Tried to get on the 2:15 and 4:05 on standby, but that didn't work out. The guy at the ticket counter looked like a really gay version of Matt Waite.

While I was waiting, I was sitting next to a guy who got bumped from the 2:15 on his way to South Carolina. He was very cordial about the whole thing, and the employees of Independence Air did their best to help him out. In the end, he was pleased with their solution, whatever it was. He got on the 4:05. The only reason I'm even bringing this up is because the guy was clearly from somewhere in the middle east....Pakistan, Jordan, something like that. That, by itself, is hardly interesting. The really weird thing was the way he talked. He had a Middle Eastern/South Carolina accent. Very strange. Nice guy, though.

I almost made it onto the 4:05 because some couple (from Texas, I think) was too busy yelling at their kids on the phone to hear them make the final boarding call. Then the gay Matt Waite (gay-ER Mat Waite?) paged them and they scurried onto the plane. Curses.

I finally boarded the plane at 5, and took my seat. I listened to the safety briefing...Something I neglected to mention from the first flight. Independence Air does "celebrity briefings," where they play a recording of some famous person or persons telling you how to buckle your seatbelt and not to bring your CD player with you when you crash. On the way there, it was Chuck Berry. On the way back, it was James Carvell and Mary Madeline. Carvell and Madeline had "a message for the right side of the plane, and a message for the left side of the plane," and made a whole big joke out of that. It was good, I guess. Nice to have a little something different when you fly. As soon as we were in the air, I put on one of the new Derek Howell sets I took from Mat right before leaving and went to sleep.

Michelle picked me up at the airport. I got her a Cinnabon, as promised. She was amazed that I remembered. Hard not to, when as soon as you walk off the "mobile lounge" at Dulles, the air is saturated with the smell of sweet cinnamon death. That place must make a killing.

So I'm back from the great Naperville adventure. I'm sure you're all thrilled. I know I am.

I just looked at my rental car receipt, and it says I drove over 4000 miles in the 4 days I had that van. Either someone can't read, or that van had a much more interesting time in Illinois than I did. And if it did go 4000 miles on 10 gallons of gas, I think I want it back.

That sucked.

2004-10-20T22:01:00.000-05:00

I just spent like an hour on a post, and Blogger ate it. Here are the highlights:

Steak N' Shake is actually in Warrenville (pop. 13,400). I spent a long time in the drive thru, behind some wanker arguing his bill. Food was damn good though, and well worth the wait and the $0.15 I had to pay in tolls to get there.

Class was about the same as always. The people in my class are idiots, and one is Canadian. My teacher's not too britght, either.

Dinner. Cross Noodles & Co. with P.F. Chang's, and this is what you end up with. Not bad.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is better than 95% of the movies that have come out in the past 15 years. John Williams and Short Round kick ass.

The Blogger Spell Checker suggests that if you've written the word "Voltron," you may have been trying to spell "paltriness." Voltron is a lot of things. "Lacking importance," "wretched," and "contemptible" it is not.

OMGWTFILL!!?!??11?1?!

2004-10-19T18:58:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am, in beautiful Naperville. It's actually pretty drab. Reminds me of
Boulder, or Jeffersonville -- other garden spots I've traveled to on business. Here's a
recap of the trip so far:

I took off work at noon on Monday, since I was going to have to travel here that night.
Michelle drove me to the airport a little after 7 for a flight leaving at 8:30. Due to
weather, the plane didn't leave until about 9. The flight was uneventful. Many thanks to
Gaafar and way Out West for providing a marvelous soundtrack. It's been ages since I've
taken off and landed at night. I sat next to a girl who looked like the female version of
my cousin, Beau, but with dreadlocks. That was...interesting. She took it upon herself to
use the entire arm rest AND turn off my AC vent. Dumb hippie. My neck and knee were
killing me by the time we got close to Chicago. In an effort to make myself more
comfortable, I looked out the window at what I expected to be nothing. It was actually
quite spectacular, as we were flying next to a thunderstorm. Every few seconds the clouds
would light up, but there was no turbulence since we were probably 10 or 15 miles away from
it. Very cool. As we approached Chicago, we flew over some low flying, very thin clouds.
They made the view of all the lights on the ground quite spectacular. The first building I
was able to make out definitively from the plane was a Target, which is only interesting
because that's the last building I remember seeing when we took off.

We finally pulled up to the gate around 10, Chicago time. I immediately removed my pants,
but it seems that people here aren't as well versed in their style as they should be. I
nervously slid them back on, to a chorus of strange looks. (Yes, I am kidding about all
that, Michelle.) Independence Air inhabits a terminal at O'Hare which is about as far from
any kind of rental car shuttle as you can be. I followed signs to the "Bus and Shuttle
Terminal" for what seemed like several miles, expecting that when I finally DID emerge from
the airport I'd actually already be in Naperville, and not need a car. I parked myself
underneath a sign out in the cold which read "Rental Car Shuttle." To me, this seemed like
a reasonable place to be picked up by the Thrifty Rental Car Shuttle. Apparently, Thrifty
does not agree with me on this matter. I eventually got fed up and walked over to where I
had seen several shuttles driving by. After a total wait of about 40 minutes, I got the
last seat on one of the Thrifty busses. By this time, it was about 11:15 (12:15 where I had
come from). We got to the rental office, and I got in line behind everyone who was on the
bus. After about 20 minutes in line, I went to the counter, to find out all they had left
were minivans. I was awarded the ugliest, most featureless one for all my trouble. This
van will rue the day it tangled with me.

I resigned myself to the fact that I'd have to spend the next few days practicing my J-turns
in a minivan, and made for the freeway at a dizzying pace. It has some pep, but that's
about it. It's gold, with brown interior. No tinted windows, no power mirrors, no
automatic-down driver's window, and no rear defroster. I didn't know you could even buy a
car without a rear defroster anymore. No anti-lock brakes, either...A feature I almost
immediately check for in every rental car, thanks to Jamie. The brakes it DOES have are
incredibly soft...So far it has proven difficult to get them to even lock. The thing just
stops REALLY slow. Fantastic.

After about a half hour of break-neck speed on Illinois freeways, I got to my hotel. I was
informed that the only room available was "accessible." That means it has a handicapped
bathroom -- hanles and such all over the walls. Whatever. I just want to go to bed.
I woke up this morning to my wakeup call, right on time. I went to take a shower, but
noticed something missing. There's no shower curtain. In a hotel. I'm not kidding about
this. A shower curtain is apparently something I've been taking for granted in all the
other hotels I've patronized. I called the front desk, who assured me they would have a
shower curtain for me post-haste. This gave me a few minutes to examine my new home.

Other things I noticed missing: pillows (I have one, but it's a king size bed), an alarm clock (another thing I've apparenlty been taking for granted), a hairdryer (I wouldn't use it anyway, but it should be here) and an iron. It does have free high speed internet, so that's a plus.
The lady from the desk showed up and gave me my shower curtain. She also said she'd get me some pillows and an alarm clock. A few minutes later, maintenance showed up for no apparent reason. They came in, and put batteries in the thermostat control and turned on the heat. They were curious as to why I wasn't freezing. I had noticed my feet were cold the night before, but I think those months spent in Blacksburg with no heat due to laziness prepared me more than adequately for this challenge. They turned on the heat, and the room started to smell like burnt death. Smashing. They also stole an iron and a hair dryer from the room next door. I forgot to mention that I had an ironing board, just nothing to use on it. Weird.

After I got all showered, I went to class. There's 8 people in my class, 5 of whom work for EDS in different parts of North America. Interestingly enough, I seem to have the most experience with BMC out of everyone there, save the instructor. That's pathetic. Class went until 5. Not much else to say about that.

So now I'm watching Seinfeld and writing this update. After seeing a commercial for Steak N' Shake, I've decided that's where I'm going for dinner. There's one somewhere in this town...I just gotta find it. This is gonna be sweeeeeeet.

Kudos to you, gentle reader, if you actually read this whole ridiculous thing.

The Champion

2004-10-17T08:28:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it. I defeated my broken TiVo. Many thanks to Stacy and Matt for letting me use one of their many broken TiVo's to resurrect mine. I copied their hard drive onto the one I bought Friday without a hitch. Well, not entirely, but without any major problems. I had to completely erase the entire thing after I had it installed and bring it back to just having the software on it. But after that, it worked great. Now I just have to put all my season passes and thumb ratings back in so it actually does something. But it works...and it has either 107 or 129 hours of recording time, depending on who you talk to (my computer, or the device itself). The drive is a little louder than the old one, but I'm sure I'll get used to that. And next week, I'll have a brand new TiVo in my bedroom. I'm sick.

I'm going to Naperville, IL tomorrow night for four days. I have to go learn all about the wonderful things BMC software can do for my project at work. I guess it'll be good to learn something new, but I can't say I'm thrilled about the prospect of having class 8 hours a day for four days. I haven't done that since high school. Maybe my freshman year of college, but even then, it wasn't for four days straight. My attention span isn't what it used to be, and it never was great. Of course, I've got to really try and learn some stuff, or I'll be in a world of shite when I get back. Wheeee....

Fortunately, I know NO ONE in Naperville, so it promises to be a very BORING week. Until a few weeks ago, I didn't even know where Naperville was. It's about 30 miles from Chicago. My guess is they wear pants there. Damn. Dennis is apparently in Chicago, so I may go try and hang out with him. I've never really hung out with Dennis unless we were with a bunch of people. But I did ask out his sister (to no avail) one time like 10 years ago, so I guess it'll be cool.

My basement is a mess. There's hard drives EVERYWHERE. And an open computer, and two laptops and dirty dishes and dead bodies and old mail and laundry. I need to clean up this shizzle. I WILL DO THAT POST HASTE.

p.s. -- Only 30 shopping days 'till Michelle's birthday. Ack.

Awesome.

2004-10-16T10:05:00.000-05:00

Everyone needs to watch this. Whether you're a fascist or a commie, you'll be able to appreciate the new one Jon Stewart tears these jokers.

Round One! FIGHT!

2004-10-16T09:34:00.000-05:00

So I went to Best Buy last night with great haste to purchase a new, large hard drive. I found a Maxtor 120 GB which, after rebates, etc. will cost me about 50 bucks. I can live with that.

I promptly came home and gutted my old computer so that I could install both my TiVo hard drive and my newly acquired 120 gigger and let the fun begin. Following instructions I found on the Interweb, I created a boot disk for some Linux utility and went to work. The first time I created the boot disk, I made the mistake of trying to view its contents within Windows. It didn't like that. My second boot disk, however, worked famously.

I started the copying process, and was greeted by many MANY cryptic error messages. I'm now Linux haxxor, but I do know that words like "uncorrectable" and "sector fault" are bad when you're talking about a hard drive. I decided to press on anyway.

The copy got to about 40% and started throwing up more strange error messages. Then it failed. Crap.

I decided to try again. This time, the copy got to about 40%, had a bunch of error messages, then continued on. It actually got to 100%!! Huzzah! I've won!! Or have I...

So I put my new drive into my old, busted TiVo and start her up. Everything seems peachy. It went through the process of trying to download information from the satellite (doot doot doot doot doot....). Waiting for any of my receivers to download information from the satellite is akin to watching paint dry, only slightly less exciting. It takes forever and freezes many times along the way. Last night was no exception -- the process halted at 60% for a good 20 minutes. Clearly, this will not do. So, I forced it to phone home. That seemed to take forever as well, trying to download new software or some nonsense. Then, in the middle of the call, it decides it's going to get info from the satellite again. Ok. Whatever. I left it that way for a good 2 hours. 61%. I'm losing.

I rebooted the machine and waited. 61%. I got fed up and went to bed. Came down this morning, a full 8 hours later, and....AND....64%. 3% in 8 hours. Something is wrong. There's a disaster in his life.

Fortunately, I now have a feasible backup plan. I figure the problem is that I tried to copy a bad hard drive onto a good one. That's why I had all those sector faults. Assuming that didn't do any harm to the new drive (and if it did, I'll just return it and get a new one) all I need is a GOOD drive, right? Well, fortunately, Michelle's friend Stacy has a TiVo with just the drive I need. So that's what I'll be trying this afternoon, hopefully with more success than last night.

I get you next time, TiVo!!! NEXT TIME!!!!!!

Dear TiVo,

2004-10-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

Suck it.

So far, I've wasted no less than 2 and a half hours on the phone/hold (mostly hold) with the people at TiVo. Don't get me wrong...They've all been very nice. Not necessarily always helpful (one person had me go through a series of steps that took about 40 minutes, and actually made the problem WORSE), but nice. Ultimately, their solution is a reasonable one -- they're replacing my TiVo for free. That's all well and good, but they're taking 5 business days to get it here. Now I'm faced with the prospect of a weekend without TiVo, and I'm not sure I can handle it. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: stupid technology.

On the up side, this gives me the opportunity to try and bring my old TiVo back from the dead. Anyone know where I can get a cheap hard drive?

Another bonus is that I have played Burnout 3 pretty much the entire time I've been on hold. I'm now about 25% done with the game and, more importantly, decent competition for neighbor-Mike. Huzzah.

Updating Am Hard.

2004-10-12T21:20:00.000-05:00

I haven't updated this thinger in a few days. I'm way too lazy. Maybe I need to concentrate less on actual content and more on random thoughts/stupidity. Yee-haw.

My wonderful wife bought me a copy of Burnout 3 for the Xbox. The only stipulation was that I hang a full length mirror on the back of the door. So now I have a totally sweet Xbox game, but I can see myself in one more place than I used to be able to before. It's a mixed blessing. Seriously though...The game kicks ass.

My TiVo broke yesterday. Apparently, TiVo sent out a software update that rendered 1/3 of the DirecTivos in the US inoperable. Way to go, guys. Somebody lost their job over that, no doubt. After 45 minutes on hold (time passed by playing Burnout 3) I learned of the wondrous software "update" and a possible way of fixing it. I forced my TiVo to call home and get a patch, which seemed to work out ok until today, when it says that it can't find a signal on one of the tuners again. Stupid technology. Not having any kind of signal doesn't seem to stop it from recording hour upon hour of nothing.

In all this TiVo madness, I discovered that it's relatively simple to upgrade a TiVo these days (no Linux code modules or high level h@xX0Ring required) and that my old broken TiVo most likely has a failed hard drive. So, maybe before too long I'll have two TiVo's. Then we'll see who's in charge around here!

I spent my Saturday with Mikey, so if you've read his weekend update, you know what I was doing. Except for the part where I was risking life and limb as his brother tried desperately to destroy his car on our way to the drinking. He did not succeed, much to his chagrin. I was pleased, because I didn't have my seatbelt on. I like to live on the edge.

Then, of course, there was Friday night, and my trip to Justin's new place. It was a complete dump, as advertised, but it definitely has potential. It was a good crowd of people at the party, including (but not limited to) Butter, Kevin, Kramer, Mandy, Amanda, and Jimbwaaah. I met Justin's neighbors from C'Ville, who were very cool. I also found out that Justin still has the Caddy, and that makes me happy. And his house has a beautiful view of the "Springfield Arch," a.k.a. that big ass bridge dealie linking the inner-loop with 95 south. You can thank Tommy for that new name for what is sure to be one of the DC area's main tourist attractions, intentional or not.

Sunday was spent with neighbor-Mike playing (you guessed it) Burnout 3. And a little Halo, which I had played only once or twice before, and only with people like Joe and Jaime, who repeatedly kicked my ass all over the place. I sort of enjoyed what I played of the story mode, and may consider borrowing it for future use. Maybe I can find love for a first-person shooter that isn't Wolfenstein 3D afterall.

That's pretty much what I've spent my past few days doing, in non-chronological order. I went to work in there somewhere, but nobody cares about that. Work was filled with much mundane bullshit not even worth mentioning here. And if what I've already written is worth mentioning here, that's pretty sad.

More adventures with the Blogger spell checker: WinXP SP2 blocks it, it thinks "Mandy" should be "Moaned", and my new personal favorite: it caught "Wolfenstein" and suggested "alpenstock." Good grief.

Fark Photoshop - 10/6

2004-10-06T08:43:00.000-05:00

Photoshop this woman engaged in unsafe mowing practices

Original:

New:

Fark Photoshop - 9/29

2004-09-29T15:35:00.000-05:00

Theme - Bob Dylan

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New:

If Mikey jumped off a bridge....

2004-09-23T18:35:00.000-05:00

So here are my photoshops. I dunno if I'll keep putting them up or not, but hey, what the hell, right?

9/23 - Theme: Product endorsements.

Noriega was known affectionately by his subjects as Pineapple Face before he was overthrown and jailed in Miami. I'm sure Dole has been beating down his door to make this ad happen ever since.

9/22 - The traditional "Miss America screaming" photoshop.

Original:

New:

9/21 - Hot Air Balloons.

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Reading is FUNdamental

2004-09-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

My profile is the only on on this whole Blogger thing that has "Tripping the light fantastic" as an interest. That's a little disappointing. Several people had "Wesley Willis" in their music section. Several people seem to enjoy the book Imzadi, slightly fewer liked Imzadi Forever, and once again, I was alone with both This Must Be The Place and Imzadi II.

I'll start with the easy one. This Must Be The Place is a biography of one of the greatest bands of all times -- Talking Heads. I read it cover to cover last year when I was forced to sit in a data center all day long, doing approximately 20 minutes worth of work spread out over the course of 8 hours. It was the first book I'd actually read in a few years, and one of the few that I've actually finished in my entire life. I never was big on the reading. It's a good book though, and if you're into the 'Heads or eating glass, I highly recommend it.

Imzadi is the touching tale of the love between William T. Riker and Diana Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation. It has something to do with the two of them pining over each other, but somehow never actually ending up together. Imzadi Forever is a continuation of the same story, again, no actual togetherness. Imzadi II is about the sordid love triangle between Troi, Riker, and Worf. I'm sure someone gets together in that one someplace, and Worf kills Riker at the end and then eats his brain. Imzadi II is the clear winner of the three, which is why I'm a little curious I'm the only person on the internet who seemed to like it.

Anyway, I guess I have weird taste in books. Or, maybe that whole thing was a joke and I haven't actually read ANY of the Imzadi series. (or any other Star Trek novel, for that matter) Either way, if Imzadi II doesn't end with Worf cracking open Riker's skull and feasting on the goo inside, it should. He should be doing it while wearing a 70's era California Highway Patrol uniform, too. Man, that'd be sweet. He could wash it down with a peptide cake. With mint frosting.

I'm not sure what about all this I find the most perplexing.... The fact that I'm the only person to put Imzadi II into my profile, the fact that I'm such a dork I thought it would be funny to put Star Trek romance novels in my profile, or the fact that the Imzadi series actually contains THREE books. Apparently, I'm not the only person with a little too much free time on his hands.

Also, the Blogger Spell Checker doesn't seem to recognize the word "Blogger." What's that about?

Core Competencies

2004-09-16T14:56:00.000-05:00

Ok, I just realized that my most recent post (from approximately 2 minutes ago) could very easily be regarded as both "mindless bullshit" and "moronic whining." Bear with me, people...I'm still getting the hang of this thing.

I guess what I meant to say earlier is that this will not ever be the "I have no friends" or "I hate my life" or "I love the OC, please watch Nip/Tuck with me, mean people are teh suck" blog. I bitch about pretty much everything, but I don't consider it whining. Bitching about stupid, trivial things can be amusing. Bitching about how your best friend from high school didn't IM you the other night, and therefore must hate you is pathetic and annoying. It's a fine line, I guess.

I probably didn't need to explain that to anyone who actually knows me. Whatever. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about anyway.

It could conceivably drive everyone permanently deaf, if not stopped.

2004-09-16T14:46:00.000-05:00

I have approximately 1.5 pairs of shoes that I wear on a regular basis that do NOT make noise when I walk. I say 1.5 because the pair I wear to work most often squeaks like mad whenever I walk through the lobby. The other two pairs squeak pretty much all the time, and I have one pair that makes no noise at all. Even my running shoes (though not worn often) make noise.

Did my parents not teach me how to walk correctly? Is God playing some mean joke on me, just for fun? Does DSW just sell noisy shoes? Seriously, what the hell?

Also, my shoes come untied a lot.

I hate shoes.

It's not me, it's you.

2004-09-15T12:00:00.000-05:00

I'm still not totally convinced I should have a blog. But I've thought about it, and here's what I came up with:

An overwhelming majority of the blogs I've encountered are full of mindless bullshit and moronic whining. That's the main reason I've always thought that blogs suck. But it occurred to me that it's not necessarily the blog that sucks, or even the idea of the blog. It's the person writing it. For some reason, I never made that connection. It's not your blog that sucks -- it's you.

How that idea escaped me for so long is a mystery. Anyway, connecting the idea that people suck (something I've known for some time now) with the idea that people write blogs made me realize that I actually could write one. Of course, I've got to keep the bullshit and whining to a minimum, because I don't suck. Well, let me qualify that statement -- obviously, sucking is in the eye of the beholder. Maybe you think I suck. Maybe you don't. Either way, you're here, reading this right now. I'm not sure what that says about either of us. But, if you think I suck, odds are you're no gem yourself.

My real intention with this blog is to augment my spotty (at best) memory. Maybe if I write things down, I'll remember that they happened. I know...I'm a genius.

I don't really have much else to say right now. Feel free to comment, read any updates I may make, never come back, etc. If no one but me ever reads this, it will have served its purpose.

THIS IS THE DAWNING OF A NEW AGE

2004-09-15T08:20:00.000-05:00

I've always hated blogs, and I swore I'd never get one. Now Mikey's gone and done it, so I have to register so I can post comments on his. Crap.

We'll see if there's ever another post.