Friday - July 20, 2007
Wisdumb
Confucius say, "Huh?"
I found this in a fortune cookie today. Does this mean my fortune won't come true?
Wednesday - July 04, 2007
APOCALYPSE NOW!
I swallowed a bug...
Every summer since we've moved into the house we've had a problem or two with giant outdoor cockroaches. It wouldn't be such a problem if they didn't decide to come inside every now and then. It hasn't been that big of a deal the last couple of years. One or two roaches would get inside per summer but that was about it. It's not like a NYC roach infestation where they get inside the walls and when you turn on the lights they scatter. They really are just outside roaches.
This summer, however, has been a totally different story. The roaches have taken over the outside of our house. They've been crawling all over the outside of the house, on the patio, on the front steps and sneaking into the house more often than not. We've been doing battle using a spray-can of Raid but there was just too many of them. They fly, man! They fly!
One day Corine was home and she heard something in the cup holder of our fabulous recliners. She lifted it up and there was one of these "outdoor" roaches. Well, that was the nasty nuclear-war-surviving insect that broke the camel's back. We hired an exterminator.
Well, this was truly an interesting experience. I was at work but according to my wife, as told to her by the spraying man, there were nests in the utility boxes in front of our house, where the cables & telephone wires come in from the street. He said there was an infestation that included THREE different kinds of roaches including German & Asian. The best part, according to Corine, was when he sprayed in there and around the house, the roaches came screaming out of their hideouts and flipped over in the courtyard to die. This was around 10:30 in the morning. When I got home around 4:30 in the afternoon, they were still twitching and dying in the courtyard. They were also still twitching and dying around 10PM. I really wish I could have seen them flee from their homes, poisoned to death.
The horror....the horror...
Wednesday - June 27, 2007
YOUR CHILD?!!?
Another silly bumper sticker
"I am a Proud Parent of a Something Elementary School Student"
This one doesn't even try to claim some sort of acheivement on the part of the child. All it does is indicate the kid's enrollment in whatever pathetic public education establishment it references. My kid goes to school! People, please!
Monday - May 14, 2007
I Can Read
I'm smart! Not like everybody says!
It’s been my usual habit to read mostly magazines and rarely make time for books. Actually, I didn’t really make time for either except for when I was in the bathroom. I think a large factor was that I was reading a Tom Clancy book for a long time and those things are like dictionaries. It gets really disheartening to be reading one of his books for a few months and only be half-way through b/c they’re all 3000 pages long or something ridiculous like that. I was reading this last one, The Bear and the Dragon, for so long I actually took a break and read Tommy Chong’s book in the middle of it. It was pretty short so I finished it pretty quickly and found I felt so good about actually finishing a book that it inspired me to finish reading the Clancy one. Then I just started reading like a madman. I had all these books I’d gotten for Christmas and my birthday the last couple of years and hadn’t read more than the covers.
Anyway, I’m reading more these days and decided to put a book section on my blog. It’ll tell you the book I’m currently reading and the last one I finished.
Not that anybody’s
reading this thing anymore but you never know.
Thursday - March 08, 2007
London Bridge is...
...in Arizona?
I had to drive to Lake Havasu for work. We have a client who has an office down there. They have their own IT department but they hire us as a supplement to them or to handle crap like this. Apparently everyone in the company but me has pulled down this particular duty. For some reason I just dodged it until now. It wasn’t so bad. I enjoy driving through the desert and I’d never been down there so it was new. I was on Route 40 for a little while so I passed by a lot of exits for Route 66, just like the movie Cars!
I was pleasantly
surprised to discover that London Bridge was in Lake Havasu. I remembered
hearing about it and I saw it in a movie once but I totally forgot about it
until all of a sudden I was driving under it. It wasn’t the most spectacular thing
I’ve ever seen but it was interesting to see this old bridge by a lake in the
middle of the desert. I made sure to pick up some souvenirs, mostly because
Corine didn’t believe me that London Bridge was in Arizona.
Then there was the ride home. I decided to take a different way because the way down, while pretty to look at, was only a 2-lane road. The other way was a full highway. I also thought I might drive off the beaten path for a little bit and see some of Route 66. Well I got to Kingman where I was supposed to turn off to head north to Vegas and I guess they didn’t label that particular turnoff because all of a sudden I was driving due east towards the Grand Canyon. I’d say I drove about a half hour out of the way because there were no stupid turn offs! Anyway, an hour later and I was on the right road, heading back to Vegas. It was pitch black pretty soon, though, and this highway is in the middle of friggin’ nowhere.
Anyway, I got home
pretty late but I got to charge most of my driving time to the client. I shaved
off a little for my stupidity but not that much.
Sunday - February 25, 2007
Babel & the Oscars
Saturday - February 03, 2007
Education
I've seen quite a few bad ones but this one I saw on Thursday really made me crazy. It said:
"I Have a Terrific Kid at Something Elementary School"
So basically this "kid" has accomplished nothing else at school other than having a great personality. I hope his terrificness takes him far in life because it sure won't be "terrific" when he stabs me in the stomach for crystal meth money while I'm walking to my car in 10 years.
Saturday - January 13, 2007
A Late Christmas Present
To sum up: Ew.
Tuesday - January 09, 2007
My New Remote
Friday - December 29, 2006
A Hangin' we will go!
Sunday - December 24, 2006
The Lighting of the Tree (by my computer)
1) The front door, front bushes, & front window
2) The side bushes by the driveway
3) The upstairs balcony & bedroom window
So I had three different timers set for each zone. It bugged the absolute hell out of me that these three different timers wouldn’t go on at the same time. They were three different brands and just wouldn't synch up no matter what I tried. They always seemed to be around 2-5 minutes apart therefore not all of my lights would come on at the same time. Now, a regular person might just accept this especially since they were rarely home at the time the lights were set to come on but I'm not a regular person. I'm an insanely huge geek.
I started to do some research and came across a form of hardware & software that would allow me to control certain outlets in my house using these special adapters and a program on my computer. The computer would send a signal through the power lines in the house to turn the lights on & off or dim them according to me controlling them manually or setting up schedules in the program. So I plunked down a few bucks and got enough to control the Christmas lights outside including the ones on the tree inside. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get them to work last year and just sort of gave up on it. I never really nailed down the problem but I think it came down to the signal being interfered with somehow or just not reaching the adapters.
This year I pulled them back out, upgraded the software & gave it another go. And here comes the happy geekspeak: I moved the control unit to the socket on the other side of the room rather than the one my UPS was plugged into (those things give off a ton of EMI). I had to buy a 20-foot USB cord to reach the other socket. I think I also might have been using the adaptors incorrectly because now they seemed to be working without issue. So now I have the three adapters plugged into my three different light zones plus my Christmas tree in the living room. I have them set to turn on at sunset (the exact time of which is determined by inputting my exact latitude & longitude into the program) and off at 2AM. My tree turns off at half past midnight. Also, I set my exterior lights to dim by 45% at 11PM so it's not too bright in the bedroom when we're trying to go to sleep.
I'm in dork heaven.
Sunday - November 26, 2006
The Fountain
It's kind of hard to describe The Fountain in any way that's going to get a regular moviegoer to go this one. It's one of THOSE movies. It's more of a visual film than anything else. The story is VERY open to interpretation and does not end in any kind of clear cut way. In other words, it's just my kind of movie.
I'm not going to bother going into too many details about the story or anything. It's about three different people in three different time periods searching for immortality. Once again, the visuals are amazing. It's kind of Kubrickian, lots of bright windows and white light around things, not many sweeping landscapes or anything, very close quarters. The movie has a very claustrophobic feel to it, with most of the action taking place indoors or in a jungle or a small sphere floating through space, until the very end where everything opens up all at once. The music is absolutely haunting. I say that because it was literally in my head for days. I had to buy the soundtrack and listen to it a bunch of times just to satisfy myself.
Anyway, if you like weird movies, this one is for you. If you like neatly-wrapped stories & explanations, run away screaming.
Tuesday - November 21, 2006
Crazy Ass Accident
I only saw the burned out school bus but holy crap! People flying off motorcycles, cars hitting other cars and then veering across lanes, school buses crashing into cars and bursting into flames! I’m glad I was nowhere near this thing when it happened but it must have looked like a damn movie! I was just glad to read there were no kids on the bus. Jeez, people. If that doesn’t teach you to leave enough space between cars I don’t know what will!
Sunday - November 19, 2006
I am a seagull.
him. There's no way around it. I am a seagull. I am limited by my nature.
for thirty years and they're just like new. There's a gasoline carrier
that a streamlined high-speed dive could bring him to find the rare and
Saturday - November 18, 2006
Marie Antoinette
First off, I guess you could classify me as a "fan" of Sophia Coppola movies. The Virgin Suicides was just plain great, in my opinion, and Lost in Translation just made sense to me in some unexplainable way. I had a film professor in college who said that all directors are basically remaking the same film over and over again. This is pretty obvious when you watch a Stanley Kubrick movie. Different subjects, different time periods, maybe, but always the same style and always the same structure. I mean, take 2001 and The Shining, two stories that couldn't be more different on the surface but at their core, aren't they just showing us a slow progression of insanity? Anyway, I'm a long way away from my meager college film courses.
Marie Antoinette, like Coppola's previous films, definitely tells a story but in a way more like your drunken grandfather might tell it. There's no rush to get to the end and you're not exactly smacked in the face with the point of it. There are several moments that really stuck with me when I left. I genuinely felt sorry for Marie Antoinette in the beginning when she's forced to leave her family and friends and everything she knows to marry this complete stranger in a completely new place. She arrives to find hundreds of people staring at her, judging her with every move she makes or word she says (or doesn't say). Coppola shows you her arrival at Versailles from her perspective and you feel this tremendous discomfort looking at all the condescending faces. She has a great deal of pressure dumped upon her at such a young age. So you have to hand it to Coppola for constructing it in such a way as to actually make you empathize with someone who was born into and lived with more wealth and privilege than anyone alive today.
I could say a lot more but I don't want to write a book here. It's fantastic visually and the acting is adequate. I don't think there'll be any Oscar nominations coming out of this one but everyone did their jobs well. I can see Sophia Coppola is evolving as a director, finding her niche and taking more chances. I hope she continues along that path and takes bigger chances. She may have a Godfather or an Apocalypse Now in her yet.
Wednesday - November 08, 2006
Day 11,282
More importantly, though, I saw a behind the scenes look at the next season of Rome on HBO. SWEET! BADASS! Can't wait. January 2007.
In the Bummer category, Lost is going on "hiatus" until February so they don't have to show us repeats. Frankly, I think I'd rather there be at least 1 new episode a month than 3 months without any. Bastards.
Saturday - October 28, 2006
MY THROAT!
I just read about something called tonsil stones. So now I’m gargling with salt water every day. I’m just glad I’m not the only one in the world with this stupid problem.
Tuesday - October 24, 2006
ANTS!
When I moved into my freshman dorm at Rutgers, I had a tin of homemade cookies. After a night with that tin sitting on the floor, the room was swarming with little red ones. Tom, my roommate, and I were down on our hands and knees blow torching them with a can of deodorizer and a lighter. We met a couple of friends that way, Codie and Ivy, who came in to help.
I have a long and violent history with these things. When I see them a certain kind of fury and loathing bubbles up in me. So when they start appearing in the living room and the kitchen of the house that own, I don’t go to bed. I stay up, strategically place ant traps around the room, spray as many as I can find with bug spray and crush them individually with my index finger.
The traps work great, though. There’s something disturbingly satisfying about knowing that I’m not only poisoning the ants in my house but that they’re bringing the poison back to their homes and it’s killing their entire families.
Friggin’ ants.
Tuesday - October 17, 2006
Heroes
Anyway, real people with superpowers. How do you NOT watch that?
Sunday - October 15, 2006
Back to Writing?
The house is for sale in case you didn’t know. Not too many people have even come by to see it. Two thus far and you can barely count the one couple who didn’t even go upstairs. I don’t think it had much to do with the house. They just weren’t interested in the floor plan or something. Whatever. Might have to drop the price soon. We’re just so ready to get the hell out of this stupid town before they infect us.
Work’s pretty much the same. Got a raise on Friday b/c it was my 2-year anniversary. I was made a supervisor about a year ago, if I didn’t mention that. I don’t have too many supervisory duties as far as actually supervising people goes. Then again, neither does my supervisor since we’re all pretty much out there on our own. About the only supervisory thing I do is pick up clients who are dissatisfied with their usual tech and hold their hands until they feel all warm and fuzzy about us again. It really sucks b/c 90% of time I’m walking into clients I’ve never met before and they’re already pissed off. Happy days are here again.
Been watching a crapload of TV lately, not that we can help it. That damn DVR (Digital Video Recorder) chains us to the TV like never before. Just watched Dexter today. That has one of the dudes from Six Feet Under on it. He plays a forensic detective who’s an expert in blood splatter interpretation but is also a serial killer in his off time. The thing is, he only kills criminals. It’s a sick show but hey, it’s entertaining. Then of course Battlestar Galactica’s back and better than ever. If you’re not watching this show, forget it. You should’ve been watching it by now and you suck for not catching on.
My back has been this big drama lately. It got hurt by the little one over a month ago and it’s been this ongoing saga ever since. Right now it only hurts when I’m sitting down for a little while then get up and walk around. Consequently I’m typing this while standing up. It sucks big time and I’m thinking of investigating another type of therapy besides the chiropractor. I mean, the long-term plan for this crap can’t just be keep going to the chiropractor. Maybe a physical therapist…
