RE: Open Letter

Hmmmm...

I wonder if my post comes off differently to others than it does to me. So I'll try and clarify:

Setting time length limits: Good
Setting acceptable times of day: Good
Blocking Porn and Hate sites: Good

Wanting to be able to record every single action on the computer for later review: Bad. Secretly obtaining a child's email address information and recording all IM conversations is no different than planting a bug in their backpack and reading their diary. I don't think that hiding a wire in the lining of your kid's coat is good parenting (although I did have a customer openly admit he was buying a small voice recorder to plant in his wife's purse.)

And I never once even protested, except on the two occasions that the parents weren't letting their Jr. High Student use the internet AT ALL because "it is just too dangerous." Seriously, they should just get the kid a bubble.

Hope that helps clarify.

An Open Letter

Dear Parents,

I know the world is a scary place for your children, and I know you have some legitimate reasons to be worried about where they go and whom they talk to. But the world is a changing place, and you can't let your fear of the unknown cause you to put your child in a technological bubble. Yes, bad things can happen on those sites like "MySpace" and such, but banning them entirely is the equivalent of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The internet is capable of bringing your children more information than ever before and they need to learn how to utilize that tool. Now it may sound like a good idea to you to make the internet password protected to the point that your 13 year old cannot access the internet AT ALL without your password. But this is because its you who is the obsessive, controlling, out-of-touch tool who doesn't see any use the internet for anything besides porn and never needs to learn because (let's face it) you're not going anywhere else in this world. But your children need to learn and its your job to learn with them.

So don't come to Best Buy and ask me how to get into your son's email so you can read everything he sends, and don't ask me how to make your computer somehow record everything that is done on the computer so you can retrace their exact steps while you were out too busy to be parenting, and don't ask me for a keystroke monitor that records everything done so that you can learn every password, read every IM, and review every website visited. This is the equivalent of buying your daughter a locked diary to which you have a spare key just so you can see her deepest thoughts.... that's creepy.

Instead let me propose this: TALK TO YOUR KIDS! If you're worried about talking to strangers on IM, make sure you know their friends and ask them about what they're up to (you don't need to know every word). There are decent programs out there to block porn sites and even restrict usage between certain hours and limit the hours per day. These are all acceptable. The internet is not a replacement for a babysitter like you use the TV for... you may actually have to get off your butt, learn a thing or two, and God forbid, talk to your child.

Love Rob.

"C" is for Cookie, it's good enough...

So Ro and I did Christmas Cookies this year.

I know, I know.... we're adorable. Its all her, trust me.
Anyways, this was quite an undertaking,
so I won't let you wait in suspense any longer.

Without Further Ado:









Can you guess which one's I'm responsible for?
Nope.









Ok... Maybe.








Nuh-uh. That's from the Cute One.








Ok, The Christmas Führer might be me.

Here There Be Dragons

Is it so much to ask for just ONE totally awesome dragon movie? Seriously, its one of the reasons I really wanted Peter Jackson to tackle the Hobbit, because there would be an awesome dragon in it. I would like to take a moment to review...

Dragonheart: Not bad, especially as Dragon Movies go, but somehow managed to make a dragon movie into an ABC family special... Sean Connery voiced the dragon, and it was all about love or something like that. Blah blah blah... Last of the Dragons, etc.

Dungeons & Dragons: Hey! I know, I'm looking for a great new lead for a totally awesome fantasy flick... who should I pick... YEAH THAT'S IT!!! A Wayan's Brother would be Perfect for one of them! Someone please put a flaming enchanted serpentine kris right between my +4 Charisma eyes.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: They're not joking about "Hidden Dragon." I couldn't find one ANYWHERE.

Reign of Fire: Dragons and Christian Bale, doesn't seem like it could go wrong. The Visuals were AWESOME. The Movie was crappy. I cried... many nights.

The NeverEnding Story: Possibly one of the best to date. I mean come'on, I named my first cat Falcore when I was little.


Which brings us all the way around to the other night. When Ro, Kris, Scott, Trueblood, Hauge and I all saw Eragon. We were incredibly excited, for anyone who doesn't know, just ask Ro why. Turns out, this movie was no better than the rest. The Book is Amazing. Read it. Buy it and the rest of them. After leaving the theatre my synopsis went something like this:

I feel like they took the book and instead of making the movie off of that, they made it off the cliffnotes version. But the director didn't really READ the cliffnotes, just skimmed the back and inside cover then tried to explain the story to his Hyperactive ADD 6 year old daughter. Whom he then recorded telling the story to her dolls, played it back to himself in fastforward and went from there.

"First there was this boy who found a dragon, but it was a little bitty really really really really really really cute baby dragon who didn't know how to fly so the boy taught it to fly and then it was really big and the boy could ride it although he wasn't very good but it was ok cause the old guy taught him how to fight even though he already knew how and started a fire with magic and the boy shot the monster with a magic arrow and rode the dragon and saved the good guys from the army... but I don't remember where the army came from... but it doesn't matter and he saved the world!"

I'm in love...

So, new short Best Buy post for everyone here.

I was up at customer service helping a customer who had ordered a laptop from another store when a coworker came up to the register next to me... I notice then that the customer he was helping was a typical college co-ed blonde type with a tight baby tee, tight jeans and a black thong (trust me, it was noticeable). Knowing the coworker, I assumed he was excited about having a customer like this and I'm sure we'd bring it up later.

A minute or so later, I was done helping my customer and was able to actually look up. She wasn't really really hot... but just in that sorta skanky way. And then I noticed that her Baseball cap was pulled down over her eyes was black and said "Vu." And then I noticed a bright green lanyard that said Deja Vu.

It wasn't that she was attractive. Or even had an amazing body or anything like that... it was just the fact that I knew if I went down the street I "could" see her naked. The very VERY best part of all?

She paid $400 in all small bills.

Pic here.

So I owe you a post...

How about this for a Rob post:
I hate customers.
How's that?

No seriously. People, it's the holidays. Every where you go is going to be crazy. Be nice to the people who don't get paid enough at retail stores. Here's a guy that I don't know who made a post that I would love to have made myself. Its about standing up for retail people/waiters when they've got unreasonable customers being bastards. The guy in his post talks about how the phrase "The customer is always right" has lead to the downfall of civility in America... and I agree. I had a guy patronize me at work today and I silently wished him to die in a fire.

What? Don't tell me that's too harsh. There's a special place in hell for people who are unnecessarily rude to employees. I was just hoping to give him a bit of a warm up for the rest of his eternity. Basically he complained to a manager because I didn't readily know how to ring up his $3 off coupon for his Superman Returns movie. Lets get this straight, I was helping to check out people because I was being nice. And he was a tool.

My other awesome conversation went like this on a phone.

Me: Best Buy Computers, this is Rob, how may I help you?
Her: Yeah, I bought a computer/printer package yesterday...
Me: Ok.
Her: Yeah and I didn't get my remote control.
Me: Remote control for what ma'am?
Her: My printer.
Me: There's no remote control for that printer...
Her: THEN WHY is there a picture of one here.
Me: Ma'am, none of our printers come with remote controls.
Her: If there's "NO remote" control, WHAT exactly am I looking at?
Me: . . .
Her: . . .
Me: . . .
Her: HELLO?!?!?
Me: Wait, are you serious? Ma'am I don't have the slightest idea what you're looking at right now...
Her: Fine. You know what? Let me talk to that Geek Squad.
Me: Sure thing. [Transfers the crazy lady to be someone else's problem]

Maybe she's just new to this whole telephone thing. Maybe she thought I was like Miss Cleo. Maybe she's freshly ridden the White Pony.... I don't know.



But this made my day. Ro and I came back from the store to find this jackass parked like... (You know this one Scott...) like an idiot. So we let the world know how we felt.

Its Christmas Time!!!

We put up the tree!!
Which pretty much means
I took it out of my closet
and out of the bag...

Political Science

Randy Newman was just one The Colbert Report (7 min segment here). I looked into it just a minute and found out the song I thought he may have written just for The Colbert Report was actually quite old... So without further ado, Randy Newman circa 1972.

There are actually rules???

So I stumbled across this on Digg and thought... "seriously?"

www.shotgunguide.com gives you a compiled list of rules for calling shotgun when going to a car. I would like to draw attention to the details that are laid out for the rules of shotgun. Ro will be glad to see there is even a Special Needs clause:

This inspired me to look up a few other car rules such as Padiddle, and Kiss the Ceiling. I was never a big one for Padiddle, but Kristy Cunningham and Liz Brown taught me Kiss the Ceiling when I was a Sophomore in High School... Rewards I've always heard for kissing the ceiling was "10 minutes good luck," "10 minutes better sex," and "a good luck avoiding a ticket." Oh, and I almost forgot about Punch Buggy (aka Slug Bug).

Finally for your time wasting pleasure...
Swords and Sandals: Gladiator Game!

Top 20

So Breyn was nice enough to give me inspiration to post. She IM'd me a suggestion of a topic and I thought it was a wonderful idea. So here it is...

Top 20 Reasons Why Breyn is Awesome!
1. She has a great dane, and it is huge.
2. She introduced me to ITI (my druggie summer camp).
3. Uhhh... she helped me with pranks at ISU.
4. Ummmmm...
5. She's the only person named Breyn I know.....
6. ....

Dammit, that was a HORRIBLE idea!

So things that have happened since my last post:
I rearranged my furniture and got all new movie posters: framed, covering my living room. In no particular order I've got Swingers, Army of Darkness, Kill Bill, The Crow, Equilibrium, V for Vendetta, and The Boondock Saints. (I was going to link all of them, but lets face it... Scott's probably the only person who would click the links, and he can look it up himself.) So that and framing some of my photography work makes my apartment look pretty nice.

My printer (year and a half old) junked out on me. It was starting to print lines in the pictures, so I cashed in on my service plan and got a brand new printer out of it... Service plans on printers and mp3 players are a must.

Speaking of work, we're hiring some new people for the seasonal rush. If anyone wants a job, say I refered you and I get $100. A guy that I knew from Model Illinois Government just started at The Buy, so that was exciting.

Speaking of politics, we're still in a crappy war... so that hasn't changed... BUT apparently NAMBLA has had a drastic increase in numbers that hasn't been seen since the great Catholic Revival of 2002. Yeah... so that happened...



Oh, and to end on a SUPER happy note. In about 2 weeks, Ro will be student teaching in Springfield for the remainder of the semester. Let me say this again, for the first time in our more than 2 year relationship, WE WILL BE IN THE SAME TOWN!!!!

That's Awesome. I love her.

Its never too early to start planning...

Yesterday I overheard manager discussing whether or not we could dress up for Halloween this year. I think it sounds like an AWESOME idea. I've already got an idea for a costume as well. Check out this link.

I'm not going to let anyone know, so they'll have to decide if its worth sending me home for.

Kids are getting smarter everyday

My proposal for a renewable resource...

A new sandwich shop opened up today in Springfield - Head West. Its like a Jimmy Johns/Subway only tastes SO much better... oh yeah, and its ran by Hippies. This was something I was told before even going there by multiple people on seperate occasions, and I didn't take them very seriously. But sure enough, The Dead Bears and Widespread Panic Posters and the like plastered on the walls... two very skinny (read: vegitarian) girls in homemade clothes were working behind the counter. I made some small chat and found out that they were new to town which, after leaving, made me realize: They imported these hippies. Head West apparently has a stockpile of Hippies that it uses to staff its locations and I can only imagine how they're getting paid. This prompted another realization:

What if the government grew weed, and paid hippies in weed to do various tasks. What if they paid hippies to grow the weed as well in government green houses. Its like a self replicating currency... and Hippies will do ANYTHING for weed. No more hazzard pay for those jobs no one wants: Hippies will do it. No more having to work with Sewage and the like: Hippies don't bathe anyways. You want a housekeeper? Contract one from a government Hippie-Aid company, you pay the government a quarter what you normally would pay someone, and that will translate into top quality pot for the Hippy. Its a sure thing... almost as good as monkey butlers.

Hey Jacob:

Now I'm talking about you.

Things I've learned

I ponder things I've learned often... and it often winds up being at ridiculous times like 5am. What am I doing up at 5am, you may ask? Well, I'm trying to clean up the aftermath of one of my more complex procrastinations: I rearranged the furniture in my apartment. I have to say, I like what I've done with the place. With the exception that all my knick-knacks are all over the place right now and papers are covering the floor and my shelves are mostly empty right now. But these are not the things I've learned. What I've learned, spawned from an experience at the Buy today. Speaking of which, check out the picture I made:



Me after a hard day's flipping out and Ninja'ing people at Best Buy, and my bestest girlfriend Ro in her teacher clothes and her favorite MP3 Player.

But back to what I learned: If you want anyone to EVER take you seriously in a Political conversation, never try to convince anyone of something by saying these words "Well I was listening to X on the radio." Or "X says that." and have X be any of these people: Rush, Micheal Moore, Coulter, Stewart, O'Reilly, or Corbert. Now I love Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, but I don't try winning arguement with them. I recognize that they are entertainers, not politicians. They make thier living by entertaining others. Some of these entertainers may think just a little too highly of themselves, but they don't research, they don't truely know very much at all. They make money by ranting and raving, or by making wisecracks. If someone tries arguing points and says one of these people... just sigh, smile and patronize. And be glad that no matter what your new found adversary (who seems hellbent on making a battle out of every opportunity) believes about how great it would be if Rush or Moore ran the world... it will *never* happen. So sleep soundly.

A Glimpse into the Future

So I took my girlfriend out to lunch yesterday, at Casa de la Arby's (but you gotta say it with a thick accent.) And I realized that there I was, with my signifigant other, out to dinner in an Arby's, wearing my Buy outfit (a job that doesn't pay me enough), drowning in debt, with a career totally unrelated to my major, with an empty fridge at home, trying to make ends meet. And I realized... that's all ok. I've got the greatest girlfriend in the world. Did you know she left me a origami crane on my desk when she left my apartment that I just found - it had a message on the inside for me. She's the greatest.

We just recently celebrated our 2nd anniversary... know what I got her? Three 99 cent camera bags (for her to accessorize with), a $3 DVD (Requiem for a Dream), Season One of the orignial Ninja Turtles cartoon, and some nice shampoo (Biolauge or something) that she always talks about wanting but would never buy. She got me a Paddle Ball toy, a ninja toy set, and some puzzles with special messages on the back once you finished. We didn't even plan that out, but it was funny to us because we had thought so much alike.

Oh yeah, and I should re-announce. The Nintendo Wii will be out November 19th. From that point on, consider me unreachable. I will be busy. Oh yeah, and I have a paper due tomorrow... and a bunch of reading tonight, that I probably won't get finished, but oh well. Off to work for now.


*******************************
Edit: For anyone who hasn't heard of Echolocation (blind people using sonar to get around) you should check this out... I can't believe what they gave him.

Hey Houston!

Have a very Ninja Birthday!

The first four letters of Analysis are...

yes, these are the things I notice in my Research Design class. For those of you who don't know what my research design class is, its a class where my entire grade stems from the creation of a single research project. You know things like: Monopolistic Competition, Increasing Returns and the Effects of Government Spending (DO NOT actually try and read that stuff, just for illustration purposes). Its kind of like writing a really hard paper that only like 10 people in the world will care about, but is somehow more important than all of those essays you regurgitated on Christopher Columbus in the past. That makes it doubly wierd thinking that your paper "could" wind up in some "Scholarly Journal" and others will start citing you when they write their own papers... eh, probably won't happen anyway. Its more likely that I'll just drop out of grad school once my new Nintendo comes out.

Some other things I noticed in class: When my teacher says phenomenon, all I hear is Manamana.



Also I need to say that after memorizing 1,928 words... the 8th Amendment is a blessing:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

I love the 8th amendment.

Is it bad when your outlets bleed?

I got back from the weekend in J-to-the-Z-ville and found that a majority of my power didn't work in my apartment. I fliped the switch on the fusebox to have a nice spark pop and the fuse to blow right back. Flipping it again, the lights came back on and stayed on. Was I wrong to assume all was well? Apparently.

Ro went into the bathroom and then yelled for me... there was a brownish redish liquid puddled on the floor. It was trickling down my wall... and apparently originating from one of my outlets where my razor was plugged in. Crazy huh? Well, I guess its not that weird considering the number of times I woke up to find the door to my apartment wide open in the middle of the night, or the time that crucifix hung by my closet revolved until it was upside down and gave off a sour smell.

For now I'm hungry though, time for a sandwich. I woke up at 4:30 to work some more on some awesome homework. I've got 15 of my 20 sources and need to write up my research proposal before 5 today... and I work 9 to 3.

LAME!

**************************

As a throwback to old posts about 80's cartoons and the like.
Lessons we learned from 80's Cartoons

Scott, you're gonna have to just deal with it.

I'm going to start stealing stories from Digg when I don't think I have anything really important to say about my own life. Right now I could post about how I just ate a whole package of Jello Pudding with Strawberries... but aside from a bit of a tummyache, there's nothing really note worthy there. I've got a lot of homework and reading to do, but again not interesting. But THIS, This is interesting.

Video Tributes

Two things of note, both with videos, one sad and one... happy... for me anyway. First the happyish thing. In case there are some that haven't noticed, I made a List of people I hate on the right side (all the way at the bottom). And one of those people is Fred Phelps. You can click the link on the side for my original post of despise, or you can simply watch the video that has its own little intro anyways:



I think everyone should hit on a Westboro Church member at least once in his/her life. It'll make you feel better.


Secondly, by now I'm sure most of you have already heard, but Steve Irwin was killed recently. Even though everyone at some point has made the comment that it was bound to happen sooner or later, its still very sad when it did. He was a great conservationist, activist and educator for all things nature. He will be missed, and it should have been Fred.

#4 is done.

That's right, I just memorized The Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. What have YOU done today? Here... Totally from memory... No cheating:

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrents shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So there! Take that. Also I had to look up the word redress because its in the First Amendment and I didn't exactly understand what it was saying: "and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." It means compensation.

So I've got to head to work now, but I have my Bill of Rights in my pocket and I'll try and knock out #5 on the clock today... but its a long one. Did I ever mention that our forefathers are illiterate? No, seriously... Look up the Bill of Rights. The first two paragraphs don't have a single period in them. I have to write a paper comparing and contrasting the Illinois Bill of Rights vs. the US Bill of Rights and you better believe that I'm mentioning the horrible punctuation in the US one. I don't care if my teacher likes it or not, sometimes these things just need to be said.

In Memory

My first memory of my Aunt Marilyn wasn't that many years ago. She came over from California when my grandma (her sister) was sick with cancer. I had got to know her a little then, but not a lot. The fact that we had barely met never phased her when it came to her hounding me to fly out to California to visit, which we eventually did 4 or so years ago for spring break in college. She not only gave four of us use of her home and food, but she made us take her car as well. She ran a day care in her house so during the week she was too busy to go anywhere anyways (or so she claimed). She even bought us tickets to Sea World and frequently took us out to dinner. It was one of the best Spring Breaks any college kid could ever hope for.

After that Spring, it didn't take long before she decided that I needed to come back out and bring all my friends again. What I didn't realize is that she was telling Jamie the same thing. Last year it got to the point where she was actually going to buy my plane ticket to get us out there so I gathered up Ro and Phil and we went to Cali... and separately, Jamie and Scott had already gotten their tickets as well. Well, I didn't let her buy my ticket, but she did buy us a rental car for the week... and took us out to dinner and a ton of other things we didn't deserve.

Great-Aunt Marilyn always gave all of herself to everyone else, us, her family, her daycare kids and parents. She was stubborn as hell, you just try talking her out of doing something for you and she'll pull the "I'm old and can do whatever I want" card. The most basic thing I could say about Aunt Marilyn is that she was happy. I think she lived her life the best way she knew how to live it. She always had family up, My cousin Kit and her daughter, my mom and her friends, not to mention all the family that's in California. She went on cruises (just a year ago she went to Alaska). Her grandchildren would come over every morning before school to eat breakfast and finish homework there. She did everything how she wanted and when she wanted and there wasn't a single person in this world who could "TELL" her to do anything.

In my opinion, that's why she never told a single person what was wrong. For the last 5 or 6 years she's been living with cancer, and its more than likely true that she's known for a long, long time. My aunt is retired now, but she was a palliative (hospice) care nurse. It was the terminally ill that she took care of... she would move in with patients and try to ease their passing. She had seen real sickness, and family suffering, and the effects of treatments all before. Although I doubt that she expected it to happen so suddenly, without a chance to say goodbye, I don't know if she would have changed it. She wouldn't want to be remembered as bedridden and sick. She wanted to live her life and do all she wanted to do and be with family and friends and be happy... and that's exactly what she did. So no one knew, she didn't take any treatments so she wasn't tied to the hospitals and constantly sick from the kemo. In the end she did what she wanted, exactly what she would have done regardless of if anyone knew or not. This way we didn't see her suffering, and she didn't see us. Marilyn Baze is a great woman and I know she's still happy... she's with her sister now.




Our mind thinks of death.
Our heart thinks of life
Our soul thinks of Immortality.

- By: Sri Chinmoy

Class Breakdown

So I had class on Monday and Tuesday... and it went something like this:

Mon: 6-9:30 RESEARCH DESIGN
A LOT of reading in this class. Actually that's a pretty accurate theme for both of my classes. I'm reading a lot. But this class specifically: 90% of the grade is based on a research paper. So this might be a bit... challenging. What am I going to learn to research this semester? I haven't the slightest. But it is wierd to start thinking that instead of writing papers where I am summerizing other people's conclusions and research, I'll be doing my own. Wierd...

Tues: 2-5:30 CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
I'll probably really like this class. Teacher seems very interesting and yet this is going to be pretty hard as well. He's giving us two weeks to memorize the Bill of Rights verbatim. It makes sense... I don't like to admit that because that means I have to do it, but it does. When people argue about your rights and whatnot they always say "The First Amendment says ______" and most of the time they really don't know what it says. So in two weeks I'll be given a blank piece of paper and have to write it down word-for-word. I don't think that the original writers could even do that... so suck it Madison.

I've got BOOKS to finish this week for both classes as well as papers due within 3 weeks. Who was that guy that said Grad school was easy? Is there a guy? Did I dream up that guy? If he's real, he needs to be punched in the face.

Oh yeah, and as a side note: 24 days until Springfield is smoke free.


For anyone who liked the ImprovEverywhere Best Buy Takeover will like this. The Home Depot Slow Mo... The freeze frame is the best.

Pearls of Wisdom

No, that's not a new necklace for my character on World of Warcraft... although I could use a good +8 Wisdom modifier these days. One day when they make the "Sayings of Rob French" book, these will be some of the first few gems:

• Anyone who believes themselves to know everything, is an idiot.

I've always attributed this to both supervisors, fellow employees, customers and customers' computer friends whom they make me speak to over thier damnable cell phones. I've later discovered that Socrates stole this idea from me. He often said that his wisdom was limited to an awareness of his own ignorance. I say that he's an idea thief.

• There is no future, only tomorrow.

When people say that they're worried about the future, or what they're going to do, or that they can't wait to get ________ finished with, they should be shaken. At every point in your life you're constantly trying to get to the next. It'll all be better in Junior High, I can't wait to graduate High School, Once I finish college I can start my life, I really just need this promotion/new job, Get Married, Have Kids, Need a Raise, New Car, House, Family Vacation, Retirement... Give it up and just live your life.



I had a third, and I think I jotted it down in my notebook in class last night. Although I appear to have left my bookbag in my car so looks like its just those two for now.
________________________________________________

For Ro's birthday I restored a picture of her mom for her and got her a new frame for it. I know that my mom wanted to see it, so here it is:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RO!!!

Happy Birthday Ro!!!

We're at Kris's apartment now.
Going out in a bit.
They're all playing Guitar Hero in the other room.
Figured I couldn't start slacking already after just posting.
So here's my post.

Happy Birthday Ro!!!

Simply Not Noteworthy

All this time, nothing's really been going on:

I'm on the 3rd book of the Ender's Game Series.
Ro and I played World of Warcraft last night.
Ro's been homeless the last week or so.
I found out Best Buy owed me money (never gave me a raise) so I have back pay coming.
Went to the Fair and had Fair Food.
Mom had neck surgery.
Yesterday I had $1200 cash in my pocket.
Still no word on when the Nintendo will come out. (thanks Scott Smith!)
Ro's Birthday is Saturday, and our anniversary on the 5th.
Lady at the bank thought I was married.

So yeah, nothing to post about. All is forgiven, right?

They're EVERYWHERE!! There's no stopping them!!!

No, I'm not talking about zombies... I'm talking about something far worse. They keep coming and coming and even after getting rid of each and every one of them, they come right back... completely undetered. They smell and they're unsightly. Actually they do sound a bit like zombies - but they're not, they're dirty dishes.

I HATE DOING DISHES!!!

True story: Sometimes in my apartment, I'll be hungry. And I think, I've got plenty food in the fridge, and enough time to cook a nice meal but then I'll have to do the dishes afterwards. After this realization I would often go next door to the Chinese Buffet instead. My food is better, but I don't have to do dishes there. Ro didnt' believe me when I told her this story, but its true and it used to happen a lot (back when I was still spending money). I need one of these.

Speaking of Ro, she does my dishes when she's over. I don't ask her too, and she'll often take over once I start - this is reason #142 why I love her. She's the greatest.

But yeah, dishes really are like zombies. I think that should be a chapter in the book... Zombie Dishes. I'll have to look into that. But for now something completely different... (or not)

It takes a village

Why is it that in movies, there's always this whole village of warriors that are killed and there's ONE survivor who must set things right. Just once I'd like to see the whole village be resilliant enough to survive and take on the bad guys. I'm thinking like a village of African Warriors who take on, lets say, Shanghi. Seriously, a movie where an entire village of warrior/assassians take out a major city? I'd see that.

A comic for Guitar Hero fans.



Its important to be able to tell the difference between one type of zombie and another. The only true zombie that we need to worry about is, of course, the viral one. The other "zombie" is the one that is caused by black voodoo magik (wikilink). Here's how you can tell you're dealing with the real deal zombie and not one of the braindead knock offs produced by the Haitian Zombie Powder? Easy:

• Voodoo zombies show emotion.
• Voodoo zombies exhibit some thought processes.
• Voodoo zombies feel pain.
• Voodoo zombies recognize their surroundings.
• Voodoo zombies can be controlled.

The Best Buy Shuffle

So management gets on us sometimes about being in "our zone" and not "socializing with other employees" and not "hitting on the customers" and other ridculous things like that. A few of us, ok the guy from the camera section and I, like to do a little dance to celebrate our rebellion every now and then. We have the "Out of our zone" Dance that we do quite often for example.

Today I had a very short day at work... only 4.5 hours. I went in at 9:15 and left at 12:45. To those of you who are good at math, may realize that didn't quite add up. I was having a bad math day. At almost 1 o'clock I had a manager try to tell me to do something when i told him that I was supposed to be off the clock and I didn't have to listen to him any more. I very hurriedly clocked out and did my "You can't make me do anything 'cause I'm off the clock" dance in front of him and taunted him all the while. He told me he was going to physically harm me outside. I said, "We'll see about that, NEXT time I'm on the clock."

So yeah, after making a big scene about working 15 minutes over and my production upon leaving, imagine my suprise with what came next. Ro was very excited/suprised to see me home so EARLY... excuse me, what? That's right, she said early. She said my schedule said I was supposed to be at work another 35 minutes. Ooops.

I think I need a "HA! I just left Best Buy an hour early" Dance. That manager really is going to beat me...

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Zombies posess no hand-eye or complex motor control. Ladders are beyond them, stairs can be a challenge. Balance Beams are straight out. So when you're running from the zombie, you may think to yourself - "Self, climbing that tree seems like a good idea. That zombie will never climb up here and get me." This is true, but that zombie is going to be much more patient than you when it turns to the waiting game.

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*** NEW UPDATED AND INSYNC VIDEO CLIP!!! ***

It was a good day.

I woke up at about 11 am, and had to run some errands today. So I went to UIS and picked up my books ($166) for my classes this semester. Then I got my parking pass renewed so I didn't have a repeat of last year. I also got my student ID (hey only a year late) and I dropped off my financial aid info. Only thing I have left to do is go online and cancel my UIS insurance seeing that The Buy has got me covered.

Then Ro came over, she's going to be here for THREE WHOLE DAYS!! (I'm excited.) Ro and I had a good time - she learned to swim today. She pretty much knew how to already, but now she knows she knows (it makes sense, trust me). Now we're working on diving, and we'll finish up on that lesson tomorrow afternoon (I work until 1:00).

Tonight we visited our friend Anna who was working at Target (Tar-shae). To polish it all off we went to my friend Sandra's house for about an hour. Ro was a trooper, expecially since she had to be at work before 5 am this morning, she's sound asleep right now of course. I love her.

Today was a good day.

Good Idea, Bad Idea

Come on, anyone who watched the Animaniacs remember these. Well, I've noticed somethings pop up that have been taken as good ideas, but really weren't. So I'm here to set the record straight. Crocs, I don't care how comfortable they may be, do not match everything in you wardrobe... despite what you and Oprah may think. So please, next time you're wearing some blue pants and a nice shirt, don't try to fool yourself into believing those NEON monstrosities match. OH!!! And anytime you have a product that you actually consider naming: The Annoying Thing - its a BAD IDEA.

Good Idea: Playing with your friends on a Merry-Go-Round.
Bad Idea: Using a Motocycle to power said Merry-Go-Round.



Its times like this I love Charles Darwin.

There are some other interesting ideas that have made a few people very rich. I got this off of digg, and thought I'd share it with everyone less digg-savvy. Here's the top 10 list and it includes ideas like, Doggles (Goggles for Dogs who like to stick their heads out the windows.) As well as Santa Mail and Monks who will refill your ink cartriges.

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Zombie Update for the day
I'm going to try and find questions that are a little bit harder, but I'll have to get a bit deeper in my book I imagine. Ro is just too good and zombie maintance... must have learned about it in her Special Ed classes. Hey, Zombies need learning too, right? Oh, and Kimmy gets 100 Million Mega-Cool points for her answer. She would be the really funny one in my zombie movie, the one that everyone loves but you always worry about because the funny one tends to die in the movie.

Why is it that Fire, Drowning and Gasing Zombies is highly ineffective?

I think I have a gambling problem.

Well, I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that if you borrow money to gamble, or you view gambling as a source of income then you have a problem. Well, here's the deal. A friend who worked at Best Buy moved to New York several months ago and came back to town for a few days so I really felt compelled to hang out with them. I brought my soccerbank, which had about $2.46 (about half of what the buy-in was for the nights poker game.) Upon arriving I had numerous offers to spot me the cash and I eventually caved. I mean, I'm fairly good/lucky at poker and I figured it was worth a shot. I made it to the final 3, and all I had to do was get second place to win $10 ($25 for first).

How was I supposed to know she had full house? It was the really crappy kind of losing too... the kind where she didn't even know that 3 of a kind + a pair = "full house." Eh, what are you going to do. So now I still have $2.46 in my bank and an "I Owe Kyle $5" mark in my wallet. bah, fun was still had by all...

I could quit anytime.

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The Answer to the Zombie Trivia:
Only my girlfriend knew the correct answer. I'm not sure what kind of heathen, paganistic world that Scott lives in, but there's no such thing as voodoo. As far as the rest of you...
Do you think this is a game? What, you don't think you win a prize for playing along? I'll tell you what your prize is, the prize is your life! The prize is know what to do when the zombies come. And knowing is half the battle.

Pop quiz hotshot: You've been bitten on the arm by a zombie, what do you do???

Broke as a Joke

First off, I don't really understand what that saying means... if you google "broke as a" it will show you that "joke" is clearly the only way to finish that statement, yet I have no idea why. ANYWAYS! Tomorrow I'm sending in my student loan request, which is good - cause I'm out of money. Thanks to Ro's recommendation I've taken to leaving my credit cards at home and going to work with ZERO access to cash. Which this is where going to the movies with Kyle tonight was interesting.

I went to the movies and met Wendy, the nice girl who takes money and give out tickets so you can see the movie of your choice. I started off by making small talk with Wendy because I was about to become a pain in the butt customer. I busted out my soccerball piggy bank (THANKS AMERICAN WATER) and dumped my money on the counter. Eight dollars for a movie ticket wasn't going to work, luckily I had my expired ISU ID on me which brought me down to $6.75. After seperating and counting out all my change I was about .36 cents short so I called Kyle who was on his way and told him my dilema. He assured me that he could cover my 36 cents which almost made up for him being late getting there (my best friend Phil is a much better date).

While waiting 15 minutes for Kyle and making small talk with Wendy there was a drastic turn of events. I found a mostly used $25 use-anywhere-gift-card-thingy in my wallet. So I called the number on the back to check the balance - SCORE! $2.39. I then paid for my ticket with the remainder of card and the change from my piggy bank. I am proud to say it was mostly silver too! As long as you count it by monetary value and not by number of coins. Did you know that Wendy gets free movie passes all the time and goes to the theatre in Edwardsville frequently. We also discussed the finer points of watching a movie in random sparatic bursts (as in like 10 mintues here, last ten minutes the next day, first 10 minutes the day after that, etc.) All in all, good times.

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Zombie Trivia Question
Zombies are:
a) created via a voodoo ritual where in a bokor (dark voodoo priest) revives the dead.
b) the souls of the dead returned to haunt the living as often spoke of in Mideval folklore and has appeared in some way/shape/form in nearly all ancient civilizations.
c) the result of a virus which mutates the brain, freeing it from its dependance of oxygen and creates a being that is technically neither living, nor dead.
b) a myth.

Here's a camp picture for you.

So here's a picture that I feel encompasses the whole idea of camp. He just speared a piece of brocolli with his fork... with his foot. So eat with your feet, gross people out, and don't do drugs. That's camp.

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I just bought three books from the book store, and they illicted an odd look from the cashier.


What?

Honors Previously Unknown

Probably one of those things where I make a bigger deal out of it than it really is, but I thought this was pretty cool. I have achieved a level of status that I didn't realize I was shooting for, but now that I'm there I feel I can brag about it. At camp this year.... I had a few campers who did:

IMPERSONATIONS OF ME!

Apparently when they were developing a skit to put on for some other participants, they decided that someone was going to play Breyn and I in the skit. That's when they started discussing: Who did the best Rob Impression. Josh here was the one who won, because everyone was already familiar with his Rob Impression. All I can say is that imitation is the greatest flattery, right?

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Next quick point to touch on, if you ever want to try a climbing wall, and you see that one of the belayers... you know, people on the ground who hold your rope - therefore keeping you from going Splat. Anyways, if you ever see one of them getting their training in 5 minutes right before your time to climb. Don't go with that person.

There was a wall at the college we were at and I was talking to one of the workers about how exciting that was. She asked if I had experience and I replied by saying that I had my gear in the car. She then asked me to come help them. All was good, but there was another staffmember (ask Scott about the 1up Kid) who felt that he had ample experience because he was a mountain rescue ranger saver Bulls#!t. They showed him how to do it and I stopped him from helping the first kid and made him practice on me first. The very next kid he let take a 7 foot fall to the floor. Rob was not happy.

Hi I'm alive!

I haven't forgotten. Just wanted to let you know...

Busy at camp.

Here's some of my "Staff in Training."

Man... I'm training staff members-to-be. Crazy.

I am an Investment God

If you need stock advice, just ask me. I mean apparently I'm pretty awesome. But what on Earth could have spurred this bout of self-flattery? Easy, I won a raffle.

This isn't just any "winning of a raffle." This isn't like I just randomly picked the right lotto numbers (although the payoff would have been nice). This wasn't like I was the 1000th caller/customer or anything. This was planned and flawlessly executed. So at the Buy we had a little customer raffle/fund raiser. There was a little treasure chest full of M&M's and the game was simple: Guess how many. The real skill came not in a single guess, but a series of guesses. You see, Best Buy employees are lazy when it comes to team building and staff unity, so I assumed that not very many people would participate in said game. I assumed right. When they ended the contest today, there were $9 inside. Nine $1 guesses. Guess who was 5 of them--that's right, this kid. They weren't random guesses either. I guessed 350, 450, 500, 550, and 650. The correct number? 536: ROB WINS!!! I had bet $5 that I would win. So what did that get me besides a treasure chest full of M&M's? Oh, did I forget to mention the $25 Gift Card?

A $25 return on a $5 investment is a pretty sweet deal. That's $25 towards my new Nintendo. November can't seem to get here soon enough.

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A song I discovered via Scott. A nice acoustic diddy about a Zombie trying to reason with the people inside to let him in. (there's a small "Play the Song" button above the lyrics)

Must think of a good excuse...

man, its not like I wasn't home enough to take a few minutes and post. I didn't lose both hands in Iraq, making posting difficult. Oh snap! I know. Its the Ryder boys fault. They stopped posting, and it rubbed off on me. That's the ticket.

So now I've been gone for a while and feel like I have to give you something substancial and entertaining. Lets see, I've played some World of Warcraft (Warning: Animated characters singing about... well, nevermind. Just click the link.) Pretty entertaining, eh? What's that, you don't agree with it? That's not what this guy thinks.

I'm going to try and keep up with the posting for a couple days here because on Friday I start my camp and will be gone for a week. We'll have a laptop with us, so there's a chance I could get a post or two out - but it depends on if I can get an internet connection.

For people that haven't heard of the Red Paperclip Guy: A guy took a red paperclip and said that he would trade anyone as long as it was better than what he started with. He traded a paperclip for a fish pen, for a doorknob, for a mini-grill, for a power generator, for a snow mobile, for... well you get the idea. His end goal was a house, and on 7.8.06 he got it... for free, just by trading up. Check out his website. Or this news clip. Why can't I think of anything like this!

I'd instantly immerse into some of that...

So at work we sell these foreign language programs. I don't think words could fully get across my interpetation of their marketing campaign, so I made you a collage.



Pretty simple... for said language, just pick a hot girl from that country and slap her face REAL big on the cover. Subliminially its kinda like, "Learn my language and you might have a chance with me..."

There was a far more controversial campagin that was pulled because of some ethical concerns over the number of creepy middleaged singled men buying into the software.

Instant Immersion
L337 $P3aK

The Count vs The Captain

Last night, Ro called me and asked me a very difficult question. What was my favorite cereal? What's my favorite sweet, and favorite healthy options? Ro has her own favorite healthy... and I can't remember the name of it specifically. But it was her sweet options that made me smile. What's Ro's favorite sweet cereal? Fruity Pebbles. oh and Frosted Flakes. And Fruit Loops. And Life. Oh, and about everything else.

My favorite healthy? Rice Krispies with Bananas. My favorite sweet? A broken up Hershey bar with chocolate milk poured over.... with some Nestle chocolate chips sprinkled on top.

What about you?

Money doesn't grow on trees you know

So the Washington Post had an article entitled: "How Else Would You Spend $320 Billion?"

As with most news articles, it is a little misleading... even if not intentional. The basic premise is that we've spent $320 Billion in Iraq*... That's $320,000,000,000. According to my own math (which might be correct) if you counted 1 number every second, it would take you 10,175 years to count to 320 Billion. Anyways the article talks about other ways that money could have been spent. The two biggest points that me missed are: a) that our national deficit is something like $8.3 Trillion so Iraq counts for like 4%. b) we didn't really have the money in the first place, we had to raise our debt ceiling in order to spend that. But all that aside it is still a heck of a lot of money spent on a incredibly questionable war, and it does make my more liberal half wonder what had happened if a president had borrowed all that money to fix problems here rather than well... this mess.

I'm not going to bother retyping the article, if anyone is interested I'm sure you'll click the link. Basically a 3-10 billion here and there, covering health care, education, research and technology and security would sure alleviate quite a few "issues."

In other money news, for those of you who haven't heard, my good friend Bill Gates has announced his pseudo-retirement. He's slowly pulling out of Microsoft and going to devote himself to his philanthropic work. So that's what the richest man in the world is doing... what about the rest of those richie-riches? How about Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the world? What's he doing? Giving away all his money to Bill Gates - Holy Crap. $30 Million to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ok, so good news. Its the year 2010 and we have a new president, Iraq is fixed, and Bill Gates has cured world hunger, education, cancer and AIDS... And YOU just won the lottery. Provided you already paid all loans for your family and friends, what are you going to do with your money?

Me? I'm buying a nice Digital Video Camera, Production Team, and the Crystal Ballroom in Stauton. Josh and I's movie-of-our-lives will finally be made.

*by the way people, it's pronounced eh-rack (like the "i" in pit) not I-Rack. Same for eh-Ran.

I can't believe its not bitter.

Yeah, get it? Its a play on words... like the old can't believe it's not butter commercials. Just one letter different. Anyways here's what you missed:

Yesterday I was bragging to everyone that I got put on special assignment at The Buy. Working on the night crew, 60 hours in like 5 days. That's time and a half, PLUS no customers... it doesn't really get any better. I was way excited. Sure it was midnights, but who cares when I'm making decent money and don't have to put up with customers, right? Well it "would have been" awesome if it hadn't gotten taken away from me today. But I'm not bitter... know why? Cause I have a picture of Ro playing with a puppy.

SeeMakes everything better.

But as far as work is concerned, who needs that anyway. Who needs the extra money and vacation from customers? Not this kid, no sir. I've actually started going into The Buy on my days off in full regalia to help those lovely people out off the clock. But why would I do that? Because I love customers. I love it when they're mad at me because they have to buy anti-virus to protect their computer on the internet and they feel that its all a scam. I love it when they act like its Hank's Used Cars and they can just haggle to their hearts content just to end up throwing a fit, spending $959 instead of $999, and giving me a migrane. Totally worth it. And I love it when I ask Person A if they need anything, they shoot me down, I help Person B and then person A get pissy when I'm not right there at thier beck and call....

*deep breath*ok....

Time to go to work.

Has anyone mentioned you look like Butt today?

I've decided its never appropriate to tell someone they look like crap. I mean, if its a costuming choice, that's one thing, but typically its the: "Damn Rob, you look like shit today... are you feeling ok?" "Actually no, Not anymore! I mean I did until you told me how hideous I apparently look right now." Or even if you are sick: "Thanks... you really know how to cheer a fella' up."

When I was sick on Sunday/Monday I had to go to a 3 hour meeting at the Buy. During said period of time, not a person mentioned how crappy I'm sure I looked (unknown to me at the moment, I had quite a fever building up). I don't actually remember talking to anyone at that meeting, which should have struck someone as odd, but hey... I'm not bitter. ANYWHO!

Today I had people tell me twice that I wasn't looking so good and asked if everything was ok. So the last time most of these people saw me I was incredibly miserable and sick, and NOW apparently my appearance warrants a "you don't look so good." Bah! Fine! So apparently this morning I rolled out of the ugly side of the bed, I'll try to do better tomorrow.

And to everyone who scoffed when your mothers/teachers told you to cut up those six-pack rings.

Cartoon Recap

When did cartoons stop being taken for cartoons and more like actual films. I mean, the quality of cartoons have increased dramatically over the ages, and I'm very greatful of this. This little cartoon will show you just how far we've come (in more than one area). I should warn, this is an very old cartoon and has some, shall we say, Racial Stereotyping.



Now moving ahead just a bit we'll come to the less controversial, hotter, and more melodic cartoons where the characters had a bit more depth and people love them. Hot.



And now we have the works of Pixar that are bringing cartoons to a whole new level.



Seriously, Cars and The Incredibles were both quality movies. The reason for this little recap? I saw a review of Cars and the reviewer gave it only moderate scores because, get this, shallow depth of character. ITS A CARTOON!!! They're not shallow, they're 2D! Seriously, the review was talking about your 'typical hot headed athlete, grumpy cop, and out of place beautiful laywer.' Since when did we hold cartoons up to the same level as The English Patient (never saw). People, Cartoons are for kids... we are just lucky they are making them good enough that everyone else can enjoy now as well. And as of late, I'm glad Pixar picked up the slack from Disney who's really sucked it up since oh.... Lion King.

Euphemisms: Putting things politely.

So I've been sick. Yesterday I had a 101 temperature and various other unpleasant symptoms. It all started (Sat Night) with nausea at the movie theatre, incorrectly attributed to a bad batch of popcorn. And yesterday I slept more than a person ever really should. It was both the best and worst time to get sick, I had requested off work yesterday so that I could spend time with Ro. I hadn't seen her in 3 weeks so the last thing I wanted was to waste that time sleeping while she caught up on some episodes of Lost. But then again, I had the best nurse to take care of me that I could ever wish for.

I called off today, only being the second time I've ever done so, and work said it wasn't that big of a deal. The message I left my supervisor went as follows. "So the fever's gone and I'm feeling better however... I don't feel that control of certain bodily functions have achieved acceptable levels of stability. " I'll feel a little guilty if I'm totally better in like 4 hours, but right now I don't think work is doable.

Anyways, the Movie we saw Saturday night was Cars (trailer). It was great... I mean, it got Ro to snort on several occasions. Her favorite part was either flies (itty bitty mini vans with wings) or Guido, the little Italian car. Or about a hundred other parts. If you liked Shrek and other Pixar stuff, you'll love it. I give it two thumbs up. But for now I need to tend to my left over sickness... later.

Novelty T-Shirts: Best Gifts Ever

If someone gave me $200 right now,

and I had to blow it on ridiculous gifts for other people,
do you know what I'd get? Let me show you:

I'll start with Scott because it was me seeing this tshirt that first made me think of this,

followed by a little something for Josh and Allyn.
Next for Freemama...

And one for Jamie...
And finally: Ro.

My New Powers

So I am now claiming that I have a super power. I call it "Poison Fist!" See, the mess is clearing off my face now, the stomach is still itchy but not so bad, but its still going strong on my hand/arm. This, I believe, is something that's meant to be. Now I have my awesome Poison Fist power: all I have to do is punch/backhand someone with my left hand. Now it may not win me the battle (i.e. it may not hurt the other person too much and they might beat me up for it) but I'll win the war (I'll give them Poison Ivy of the Face!) Evil Do'ers and people who get on my bad side beware.


But I just got called into work early so I'm going to have to cut this short, here's a link to a TON of old TV Shows that you can watch online, but I'm not sure of the legality of this... So if it gets taken down, that means it probably wasn't legal. But heres the list, everything from Batman to Charles in Charge, Get Smart, Seinfield and the Wonder Years.

Post #350: Virtual Cyborgs

So I finished my book on "Matrix and Philosophy" and it was pretty interesting, and I feel like I could hold my own in an amature philosophical discussion. But in the book they also kept alluding to another movie released around the same time called eXistenZ. Both movies deal with the whole "What is reality?" concept. I liked the Matrix better of course, but eXistenZ was interesting as well. Doesn't have much of a chance mainstream, but its good for the cult movie crowd (I mean, William Dafoe is in it). Its all look video games plug straight into your mind and you can't tell the difference anymore and you don't know what's real and what's another scene of the video game and WHAT IS GOING ON???

I think its interesting because I can relate it back to the Wii (the new Nintendo). The whole goal of Nintendo is to get people to be more immersed into the game. Heck, and maybe let them get some exercise (DDR) because lets face it, girls don't really dig emmaciated gamer nerds... oh wait... crap. Well, besides Ro that is.

Also another point that was often brought up by the books was that the likelyhood of us being taken over by robots is a little far fetched. If you stop thinking about it from a Fiction standpoint and actually consider it--its much more likely that we're going to evolve into Cyborgs that are just part machine. Just evolve pacemakers and hearing aids and prosteics a little further and we're there. Check out the article on a hand being controlled by... human thought...

I have poison ivy on my belly... and my arm...
it itches.

and my face. that itches too.

Don't drink the blue toliet water

I've got a new stash of chemicals at my apartment due to my new ailment. While I was at walmart picking up some Calamine lotion, Caladryl Clear and Bleach when I came across those big blue discs you put in your toliet bowl. I figure its a good way to encourage me to take my vitamins: Turning the water green is the best.

And speaking of changing the color of the toliet water, did you know that if you pour some bleach into the blue water it'll clear it up? CRAZY! The deciving part of this is that the way nature intended things is that you don't eat or drink brightly colored things. Like pretty frogs in the jungle, you don't eat them... especially the blue ones. This holds true for the toliet water as well... regular toliet water is ok to drink, blue is not, but if you add bleach its clear again but still not safe. Perplexing I know.

I bet about now you're wondering if there's any point or direction to this, the answer: not really. Except to let you know that not only did the Geocaching suck because we didn't find anything, but because I've now, for the first time in my life, contracted poison ivy. I've got it all over my left hand and the left side of my face. Poison Ivy on the lips sucks a lot by the way, which leads me to mention: Don't eat poison ivy.

My favorite new poison ivy term: describing your sores as weepy. I guess saying the your face is all pussy doesn't quite read right on paper.

Worst Geocacher Ever

Yesterday I tried a new "sport" with Josh: Geocaching. For those of you who aren't familiar, you grab a GPS handheld, get some coordinates from a website, and go find what can be anything from a film canister to a shoebox sized container. Most of the time there's a strip of paper that you can sign your name to and frequently there are little items (McDonald's Toys or little trinkets) hidden inside. You can take something, only if you leave something else in it's place.

Anyways, so its a giant, world-wide game of hide and seek and I suck at it. I'm not talking like boxer who can't take a single hit and is the laughing stock of the sport, its worse than that. I's that kid who's picked last in kickball because the team just knows that somehow I'll ruin it for the whole team in the end. Josh says that him and Allyn have found almost 20 of these things in their few short runs; yesterday we set out with coordinates for 3 different ones and came back completely empty handed. I'm the only new variable in this equation, so I can only assume its my fault.

So this is my appology to Josh and the Geocaching world as a whole. I'm sorry I suck at life. I still recommend this as a great sport to anyone who has access to a GPS system--I hear its a great time. I apparently need to stick to my virutal world and leave the big scary real world alone. If you want to find out if there are any geocaching spots near you, go to the offical Geocaching Web Site and punch in your info in the top left corner.

I was going to take the red pill, but they didn't have it as a chewable.

So I've been gone for the last couple days. Spent it with Ro and her new apartment--it was dirty. We're not talking about needed-dusting sort of dirty, but sitcom-quality sort of dirty. Quarter inch of scum in the fridge... carpet that has NEVER been vacumed... tolietpaper wads on the walls... window and door frames hanging off... paint missing... it was bad. So that's what I did, I cleaned and spent quality time with Ro. It was awesome.

As a side note, here's an update on what I'm reading:
Book: truth, knowledge, or just plain bull
Audiobook: Matrix and Philosophy

I really like the Matrix--its an awesome movie. As far as the second two... ok, so the Wachowski Brothers aren't good at love stories, and the fight scenes run a little long. If they had just had a single sequal, I bet it would have been perfect.

I want to make a horror movie where the bad guy seemingly can't be killed. I mean, when they feed him rat poision, all that happens is that he throws up a dead rat. But the best part is, after they try silver bullets and cutting off his head and staking him in the heart, all you have to do is ask him nicely.

PSA #24

Asparagus makes your pee smell*.


Don't believe me? Here's a recipe**, try it out.


Asparagus and Cashews:

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INGREDIENTS:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
• 1 bunch asparagus stalks, ends cut
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1/2 cup chopped cashews

---

DIRECTIONS:

1. Heat olive oil and sesame oil in a wok over low to medium heat. Add ginger, and stir-fry until slightly brown. Add asparagus, and stir-fry for a few minutes before adding soy sauce and cashews. Cook until asparagus is tender but still crisp and bright green, stirring frequently.

* This message was brought to you by Cafe Press and their Asparagus Line
** This recipe was lifted directly from allrecipes.com.

Now I'm in a bad mood.

Sorry about the crappy post earlier, let me summarize for you: I got a month of free cable. TV sucks and there's nothing on. I ended up watching C-SPAN. I probably won't keep it the whole free month. There, you don't have to read the last post.

So before I was just in a blah mood. Now I got off work and wasn't exactly happy with something that happened to me today, so I'm venting. I HAD A LADY CALL ME RACIST! Ok, so she didn't use those words, but damn near close enough. Here's what happened:

[Lady was buying a computer and handed me her credit card]

ME: Can I see your drivers license?
HER: [incredulously] I shop here... all the time.
ME: Great, I'm glad to hear that, can I see your drivers license?
HER: I make a lot of large purchases here...
ME: Grea...
HER: ...And I have Never been asked for my license.
ME: Ma'am I ask everyone for their license, I'm not really sure of policies and its always better to be safe.
HER: We'll I think you're being discriminatory.
ME: ...
HER: ...
ME: ... [jaw open]
HER: ... and I don't believe it's company policy at all.
ME: You bitch.

[no wait, back that up.... lets redo that last me]
ME: Ma'am, I ask EVERYONE for their license [mentally insert explicitive]

frankly the rest of it was kinda hazy. I don't think I've ever been directly called out on any such thing before and I didn't know how to take it. Oh, but I went immediately to the managers area and vented... and then to the Customer Service people and vented... and to wireless...

I know how to handle it next time, I'm just going to pursue the question. "Ma'am what exactly do you mean by that?" I can do it sugary sweet and all that, but next time I'm not letting an off the cuff accusation slide over, if someone's going to say something like that to me, you better believe I'm going to make them try to put it into real words and say it. There's no better way to make the ignorant look, well, like themselves. Because I just have to mind my wording and tone of voice and there's no way I can get in trouble for anything.

Man I was pissed.

Free Cable!

I had this guy knock on my door yesterday, he was from the cable company, we'll call him: Cable Guy. So, Cable Guy came over because my Cable Company has been having a lot of problems and they had been recieving a lot of complaints from this area. I told him I didn't even have cable, he said nevermind then, I asked what was going on with it, he said they were reimbursing everyone's last month cable bill, I said "Oh, really?" Long and short of it, I just got a free month of cable.

Now I'm sure that what this guy was thinking, after the look on his face after finding out I have a 30" HDTV and no actual TV reception at all, that I would fall in love with the cable and he was potentially making a sale. He definately underestimates my fiscal situation. Do you know they charge $30 for basic cable? And I wanted to see what the HD stuff was like, so I got that as well (additional $13) and he offered a free movie channel while we were at it (HBO: $13). Somehow my "bill" has come up to like 60-some dollars and after checking it out a bit today, I STILL don't have any channels. The first thing I did was watch Contact, why? Because that was the channel he put it on to check and see if my cable was working properly.

So yeah, that went pretty well, but then I didn't feel like watching what was coming next so I wanted to change the channel.... nothing. I get like 10 stations and only half in HD. Its only ridiculous stuff in HD too... The Knowledge Network, Sports, 1 HBO channel and C-Span. So I left the Senate Debates on Immigration run for about 2 hours in HD.

I'm SO cancelling this. It'll be hard to see if I even make it a month.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!

TO THE GREATEST MOM EVER!!!

That's her in the middle...
She's the best.

I love you Mom!

The Art of the Email Driven Web Show

Alright, time for a post because I just finished and sent off one of my papers. This one in particular was due at noon today, so look at that people, I'm ahead of the game. Now to read that book, write 10 more pages and study for that final tomorrow....

Some of these other websites have it easy. I think I'm going to have to get my masses to work a little for me so I can have my own email driven web entertainment. See, the idea is that you get about a dozen friends and have them each get an additional 5 friends... kinda like a pyramid scheme, but legal. Anyways, all these friends take turns sending me emails every week so I can draw inspiration and humor in responding to an email of my choosing. For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, I've included a few of my favorite examples:

First, Ask a Ninja. Fairly self explainitory. He's a ninja, and you ask him questions. He will answer your question, then look forward to killing you soon. There are 3 facts everyone needs to know about ninjas.
FACT #1. Ninjas are mammals.
FACT #2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
FACT #3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.



Now, in response to Ask a Ninja, someone formed Ax a Pirate. For those of you unfamilar, there is a long standing debate between the superiority of ninjas vs pirates. My favorite fact about this is, before Ax a Pirate got started, the Ask a Ninja guys made a premptive strike and bought www.askapirate.com and made it link directly to askaninja.com.



Finally, I've saved the best for last. Ladies and Gentles, I present to you the King of the Email Driven Web Show... Strongbad.

My Cell Phone Games

Cell phone games are great. I've had some good ones. Everytime I trade my phone in for a new one (the insurance plan payed off for me quite nicely) I have to get all new games. I've done Bejeweled, and Tetris... both are great. Breakout or I think it was called "Brick Breaker" and I had some good times. But most recently I've started going with the real classics... Like Frogger. Speaking of Frogger... this kinda reminds me of that...



I think next I'm going to get Pacman.

Gadget Shopping

I shop at Best Buy like most people go grocery shopping. Seriously, I have a problem. I haven't bought anything in a while, but lets face it... I've got some nice stuff and a lot of red numbers in the finances section. I figured I could make the most out of all my techy knowhow and put out a general notice:

If anyone has any gadget/techy related question, you better ask me first.

I own a lot of cool stuff and play with a lot more at work. Its not my fault I own all this, I mean, I spend all day telling people how great everything is. It is all great too... but I get jealous of selling it to everyone else, and not having it myself.

Anyways, my first gadget I'm going to tell you about is the Logitech Quickcam Orbit. It retails about $130 at Best Buy and is a pretty nice webcam. What can you use a webcam for? Video confrencing, making home movies, sending personalized birthday wishes. It'll work with most IM clients (AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, Yahoo, etc). The best way to show this particular one off is with a video:



So yeah, that's the Orbit. Note, I don't actually own one of these, but its one of those things I sell a lot of. Personally, I'm not buying anything until the new Nintendo. Also I thought I'd slip in a bonus item for those of you who actually read all of this mess.

November is going to be the best month ever...

Why you may ask? Well I'll tell you.


Guitar Hero II

Guitar Hero II is coming out... for those of you who haven't experienced Guitar Hero yet, here's an idea of what its like. I think Ro is actually going to buy it for her playstation 2... but then she'll probably get better at it than I am, and that's just unacceptable.



Happy Feet

Ro's favorite movie of all time, and it hasn't even came out yet. But seriously, it's almost like someone wrote it with her in mind. Its about cute pengiuns that can sing and dance. They sing to attract their perfect mate, but the littlest penguin "Mumblez" can't sing very well, but he can tapdance something fierce.



Nintendo Wii

Finally, but FAR from least... My new nintendo is coming out. I will have one. I'm not buying anything, until then. I'm saving my money for it. I will then take a year off school just so nothing interferes with my nintendo playing.