Thursday, December 18, 2008

Okay, I know its been a super long time since my last post, and I don't have much today, but for the sake of posting, I'll post two small trinkets. I got some bigger stuff coming down the pike (coming down the pipe? or pike?, weird this could have its own post), so this will have to suffice for now. My goal was to blog for year, and its been two years, so whatever. I still believe content trumps volume. Filling pages with crap is useless, I'd opt for a fewer amount of quality documents over tons of bullshit any day. Having said all that, I have two tidbits I have been thinking about for a while, and neither is really worthwhile for its own post (or anything for that matter), so condensing them into one seems appropriate.

Anyhoo, so I was at the grocery store a while back, and as I was getting out of the truck, there was a lady in an SUV next to me opening her hatch thing to put her groceries into her vehicle. She had a small child with her. I am probably not a good judge of small children's ages but I would wager this kid was maybe less than 2 years old. I cannot remember the kid's name exactly, but I believe it was Kevin, and so the lady says "Kevin, mommy has got to do something about the mess in this car!"

Think about that for a minute. clearly, she was not telling her small child this, he was too young to understand or care, hardly more than a baby. so this brings me to the conclusion that she was simply manifesting her own thoughts through fake talking to her kid. But then there is another issue, why would she do this in the Kroger parking lot? if her child were not there, and she simply said "i need to do something about the mess in this car" out loud in the parking lot, she would appear crazy. Is it really any less crazy to say this to a small child? I have also noticed this phenomenon between two parents, when one parent will say something to the other parent transitively through the child like "Darren, your father is a real asshole" or "Donna, I wish your mother would help me clean these blood stains out my underwear." These people are using their children as a shield from reality. These weirdos would be just as well off getting a hand puppet and expressing their true feelings through it. It sort of reminds me of the myth about orthodox Jews having sex through a hole in a bed sheet, and the subsequent various comedy bits about people doing all kinds of crazy things that were ok as long as they were done through a hole in the sheet. I guess in summary, I am simply saying that these people who talk to children as if they are adults or through children should stay at home and smoke their meth.

Completely different subject...

I drink too fast.. or do i? When I open a lovely carbonated beverage, I drink the entire thing generally in about 20 seconds. Is this good or bad, or does it even matter? No one generally notices that this happens, so maybe it is not that bizarre, although when I am in a restaurant, the waiter or waitress will sometimes comment because when they fill my glass, its empty almost instantly. A lot of times, they will eventually just leave a pitcher at the table to I can handle my own refills. This activity is not limited to just soft drinks by any means, I also do this with beer, wine, and liquor. I should also mention that my rate of consumption does seem to interfere with my enjoyment of said beverages. I don't really have much else on the subject, I was really just kind of wondering what the average elapsed time would be on an average person drinking an average beverage.

In hindsight, I should have just skipped this posting, and held off for quality content. This post is the reason I go for quality and not quantity.

Friday, November 14, 2008

OK. You have car insurance. If something happens to you car, you can get it fixed, and it doesn't bankrupt you. It is legally required pretty much everywhere. It is important and good to have. No one would dispute that. You also probably have health insurance. You get sick, you go to the doctor, he makes you better, and you don't go bankrupt. It is crucial that you have this. You may also have life insurance. If something catastrophic happens and you get killed, you family is taken care of. Again, it is important and good to have. Home owners insurance. You have it, because it is required, and if something happens to your house, you use it and have your house repaired, and you don't go bankrupt. All these things are relatively cheap to obtain and incredibly important when you need them.

There is another type of insurance that could be just as important that people hardly ever think about. Food insurance. What the fuck? What does that even mean? Are you retarded? No, I am not. What if you could spend a tiny amount of money, and insure that you could eat in the absence of widely available food sources? What if the power was off for a while, and the grocery stores were just closed until it was repaired? Don't see this as realistic? Ask the people in Galveston about that after hurricane Ike. What if for some reason the food supply line was just disrupted due to some sort of natural disaster, or some other sort of mechanism, where maybe shipping was not functioning properly. What if something more sinister was in play, like some sort of civil unrest or catastrophe preventing you from going to any available food source? In any event, something could go wrong and you could find yourself in a position where you could not obtain food. What do you do then?

This is 2008, so chances are you are too stupid or not well enough equipped to go 'make' your own food. You probably do not own a hunting firearm of any sort, and even if you did, you are probably one of these urbanite douche bags that only owns the weapon to kill the jackass breaking into your house to steal your fantastic array or useless gold jewelry. So, it is unlikely you are going to take out rabbits and squirrels so you can have much needed protein. So where does that leave you?

Well, for a few bucks, you can be pretty well off, and way better prepared than your neighbor. How do you do it? Simple. Peep this:

1. Obtain some oxygen absorbers. These are small packets that absorb oxygen, Perfect for food preservation.


2. Obtain some bucks. What kind of buckets? Food grade plastic buckets. You can probably score some of these for free if you want to look around. Or, you can be like me, and pay about 8 bucks a piece for some really nice ones that are square-ish and stackable, so that they fit into your pantry easily.


3. Obtain some beans and rice. How much? Depends on how much space you have available, and how many people you need to feed, etc.. That is for you to determine. There are plenty of guidelines available on the magic intercloud if you care to look around. I chose to have 35 pounds of each.


4. Toss a few absorbers into your bucket.



5. Put the beans and rice into each bucket. Toss a few more oxygen absorbers on top of the beans and rice. Put the lids on the buckets.



6. Put the buckets off in the back of your pantry. Mine fit right behind my trash can under the bottom shelf. Out of the way, and hardly taking up any space at all.



So as you can see, food insurance is quick, cheap, and easy. My configuration will last at least 10 years, and possibly longer. Technically speaking, these could last indefinitely. I plan to refresh the stash after about 10 years time, just so they don't taste funny if I ever need to use them. Personally, I don't expect to ever use this emergency food at all, ever, but it is nice to know that I have it if I ever do need it.

In case you are wondering, the smaller bucket in the pictures hold 25 pounds of salt. The 25 pound bag cost me less than 4 bucks, and in case you were not aware, sodium chloride (salt) is required for human life, without it, you will die. So it is good to have some on hand as well.
The total cost of this insurance was about 65 bucks. If you divide that out over a 10 year period, it comers out to about 54 cents a month. That is a pretty good trade off. I bet every bit of insurance you currently have cost a hell of a lot more than that.

In addition to this food insurance, I also have a 55 gallon drum of emergency drinking water in my garage. This is a but of a different subject, and I cannot recall if I posted about it ever, so we can cover that some other time. Food does not fall from the sky, so the water deserves its very own post.

So come on, don't be a dumb shit, quit making fucking excuses like "I don't have time", or "I just don't have the space for it", and go get yourself some food insurance, because there is little to no chance you will be borrowing mine if a time ever comes when I need it. And if you try to come steal mine, I will shoot you in the face while sitting on a pile of useless gold jewelry.


Je suis canard gigantic!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I was recently at a party that was BYOB. I brought 6 beers. Since I was only bringing 6 beers, I decided to get a strange brew. Something way out there and wacky and new to try. In addition to the beer, I had my flask topped off with whiskey. My plan was to drink my 6 beers, then if I needed an alcohol boost, I would take a swig off the flask. I placed my beer into my friend's refrigerator, grabbed one, and commenced to hanging out. I grabbed another, then another, as time went by. I decided to start hitting the whiskey so that I could space out my beers over the course of the night. As the night progressed, more and more people showed up at the shindig, each having brought their own beer as well. Several hours into the event, I noticed one of my beers opened, sitting on the counter, about 90% full. Wha? How did this happen? Wow, someone decided to go ahead and sample of my precious 6 beers. I guess going with a strange alternative to the mainstream has cost me one beer, because someone could just not resist. Maybe they thought the beer was communal, or provided by the host. Maybe they just didn't give a shit who it belonged to. Then I began to think what I would do about it. It is not socially acceptable to announce that the beer was yours, and that no one should have penetrated your stash. That is not even an option. Next, I considered just grabbing someone else's beer to replace the one I lost. Hmmm. Busted logic. What if the beer I took did not belong to the person who took mine, then I have done the same thing to someone that was done to me. Bogus.

What is the etiquette when attending a BYOB type gathering? Typically, when going somewhere for a party, I bring way more than I need for the evening, and pass beers out freely to anyone who happens to walk by. The more the merrier, so its never a problem. So the one time I decide to bring exactly how much I will need, I end up getting screwed over. Maybe it is up to the host to make some sort of announcement that the party is BYOB, so please have respect for everyone's suds, or perhaps let people know at the time of the invitation, that they should bring community beer, where everyone just brings whatever, and it becomes a help yourself type of configuration.

I should mention that I am not angry or anything, and I hold no ill will whatsoever. I really do not care in the slightest bit that this happened. I had my whiskey, and even if i didn't there were people offering me other libations, so there was no shortage of available liquors. This is simply an analysis of the logic in a BYOB scenario, trying to determine what goes through a persons head when they reach into a refrigerator full of beer, and pull out one that they know for certain that they did not bring with them. It was just an interesting occurrence that I have not experienced for years, and it got stuck in my head for a few days.

I think the safest course of action in the future is to just make sure I bring way more than I need. Everyone needs to follow this policy from now on.

That is all. As you were.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

I do not like riding in a vehicle when I am not driving it. I found myself in a scenario the other day where I had to ride in a car with a complete stranger at the wheel. I would not say I experienced fear, but more unease, about not being in control of the car. Maybe this guy has had 150 car accidents in the last year. Maybe he really sucks at driving, or is perhaps one of these road rage people you hear about on the news. To make matters worse, he was in a rental car, so it is a vehicle he is not familiar with. Yet even worse, we were on a really busy major Texas highway. Unlike busy roads in a lot of places, where there are so many cars that its bumper to bumper slow type traffic, in Texas you can have really busy roads where everyone is going 70+ miles per hour. So to top everything else off, this guy is from out of state, so he is unfamiliar with the area and has no idea how to get to anywhere, and the entire time, he is trying to talk industry business. Also, for some unknown reason, this dude was listening to a Spanish talk radio station, and the volume was just loud enough to be annoying. All this is a perfect recipe for some sort of accident.

So after a few near misses, I started thinking about what it would be like if we got into an accident. At 70 miles per hour, it is quite likely that I would be thrown from the vehicle, or at least the car would be crunched up and pin me inside it. I do not believe that I am claustrophobic, I don't particularly mind being in small cramped spaces, so long as I am in control and I choose to be in such a scenario, but I don't think anyone would react positively to being forced into a small space without the possibility of being able to extract yourself from it.

So anyhoo, my heart started racing, and I was on the edge of my seat. Was this guy going to get me killed? That would be weird. I then started thinking about how my family would feel. It would be sad for them to have to deal with a situation where someone else was completely responsible for my being dead. Would they file a lawsuit against this person, assuming he was still alive? What if he died and I walked away unscathed, what would that be like? Could I handle being pinned in a crushed car, maybe with some serious injuries. Could I relax enough to make it through until a rescue team could extract me? That would be sme serious mind over matter work to do.

After going through all the possible outcomes over and over again, I sort of realized that there were no alternatives to what was happening. I could not get out of the car. I would also have to ride in the vehicle again on the way back to the office. So with some work, I was able to calm myself down and just accept the fact that whatever was going to happen would happen, and there is nothing I could do to change the outcome.

It made me think about fear. Is there a difference between fear and anxiety? I feel like what I experienced was anxiety. Fear, to me, is some sort of phobia of a known threat. For example, if you fear spiders, and you see a spider, you are afraid, so you have experienced fear. I do not think this some something that you can control. On the other hand, anxiety seems to occur as a reaction to something unknown, a perceived or anticipated danger. I think that fear could cause anxiety, but I think that anxiety could be controlled to prevent fear. For example, if you think a spider might be in the area, you could convince yourself that there isn't, until you know for sure.

I don't know. I can't figure it all out tonight, so I'm just gunna hang with your daughter.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

I just don't get dancing. I never have. Have you ever watched someone dance? It is stupid. I have always hated dancing my whole entire life. When people try to get you to dance, they are assholes. If you dance with someone, you secretly want to fuck them. If someone dances with you, they secretly want to fuck you. I am not sure where my heart felt opposition to dancing stems from.

While I was growing up, when there were school dances, I avoided them. If I was pressured into attending one, I would hang out on the sidelines and pretend to be busy doing whatever. As an adult, at weddings and other such nonsense, I avoid dancing at all costs. In grade school, in physical eduction class (gym class), I was forced to dance. Typically square, although I seem to recall some other styles as well, but I may have just imagined those. This was always a fucking nightmare for everyone involved. Children should not be forced to touch each other under any circumstances. I hated dancing then, so whatever caused my hatred of dancing started
before then, so I cannot imagine the source.

One night, as an adult, some friends, male and female, dragged me to a "club" of some sort where dancing was going on. They pleaded with me to dance on a dance floor with probably 50 other people, and I simply refused. At one point, these "friends" of mine, literally grabbed me by the arms in an attempt to pull me into their retarded desire to dance. I got violent, and at one point, I believed that I was going to be forced to throwdown and kick some ass over it. Ridiculous.

I never was good at dancing, but I feel like no one really can be good at something that has no set rules or boundaries. I never even wanted to be good at it. Dancing could consist of damn near any movement, set to music or not. Its odd that dancing is judged, on TV and/or in real life. At any given dancing scene on any given day, anyone dancing is being judged by someone else.

There is one time. Once. In my entire life when I enjoyed dancing, and it was not even a real scenario, it was more of a drunken joke. I was flying high on the alcohol, and whatever else, and I happen to be wearing a 70s leisure suit of all things. It was not Halloween or anything, its just how I roll sometimes. Anyway, an impromptu break dancing competition broke out in the kitchen. I had just enough liquid courage to think it might be a good idea to try and win the breakdancing competition. There were several people there enjoying the event, so its not like it was just me and one other person. I don't recall all the details of my moves, but I know I ended with the most awesome backspin ever, and clearly won the competition.

I have thought about my hatred towards dancing quite a bit over the years, and I have yet to come up with a reason why I feel this way. I guess dancing is just dumb.

In summary, if you dance, you are a gay assfucker.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Why is it that the most unqualified people are usually the ones giving the most advice, on subjects they know practically nothing about?

I went to Oktoberfest the other day. There were literally thousands and thousands of people there. So many people that its pretty much shoulder to shoulder when you are anywhere near the huge food tent, or any beer service lines. Sometimes the beer lines are so long that by the time you get to the front of the line, you have to go right back to the end of the line and start over, because your beer will be gone by the time you reach the front again. Now, I have always sort of hated crowds. Something about the noise that crowds make rubs me the wrong way. But, at some point, being immersed in a large enough crowd sort of makes the crowd kind of disappear. The crowd can be so ridiculously loud and big, that it turns into something completely different. This is mostly the case at Oktoberfest.

The first few times I went to Oktoberfest, my group would walk around and browse all the German wares, and visit each exhibit, and experience the entire thing. Over the years though, it has more or less just turned into getting together, eating German food, and drinking mass amounts of German beer. There is nothing wrong with that at all. We don't get together very much I suppose, so an annual city organized event gives everyone an excuse to hang out together.

So, I was at Oktoberfest and I was walking around, generally looking down as I walked so I didn't trip over stuff or another person, and I notice a pack of cigarettes laying on the ground. I pick it up. The pack appear to have been trampled on quite a bit, but was generally intact. I pick it up and take a peek inside. There are 19 cigarettes in the pack. Someone spent their hard earned cash for these fine Camel tobacco products, smoked one, and somehow managed to lose the rest. I suspect they fumbled while attempting to reinsert the fresh pack into their pocket, due to so many people bouncing around. Score.

I announce my good fortune to the group. Hey, check this shit out, fate has brought me a fresh pack of cigarettes, one shy of 100%! I look around at my team, and most of them have a confused or hesitant look on their faces. Wha?

I commenced to busting out one of the Turkish delights for a smoke.

Whoa! You aren't going to smoke that are you?

eh? Whatta you mean? Of course!

These peeps were freaked out that I was going to smoke one of these found cigarettes. I explained again that there were 19 of the 20 left. Clearly someone had inadvertently dropped them. What did they think? Was it possible that some weird sicko bought a pack of cigarettes, smoked one, poisoned the rest with anthrax, went to Oktoberfest of all places, found a good spot, put them on the ground, then stomped on them, with the intention of killing some random fool who just could not resist the cool smooth pleasure that only a Turkish tobacco could provide? Give me a break! Did they think someone had shat upon them, or used them as some sort of butt plug, or perhaps merely urinated on them? Oh Come on! It is not like I had a cut on my leg, so I found a nice used band-aid, or like I found some previously chewed gum to enjoy.

What if I had found a twenty dollar bill. Clearly someone has already used the money. Clearly they didn't mean to drop it. Would they have the same dumbfounded look on their faces if I picked up some money? As a side note, I would wager the cigarettes were cleaner than any found money could possibly be.

I later offered one of the cigarettes to a fellow reveler. He was hesitant. There was another conversation about how they were obtained. I eventually said, just smoke the fucking thing, it'll be OK. He did.

I found the entire thing quite interesting. What would you do in this scenario? Would you have smoked the cigarettes? Maybe you don't smoke, but suspend your disbelief and pretend that you do. Or, in your reality, let's say it was a fresh package of gum, with only one piece missing, and clearly untainted in any other way. Would you chew some?

I took the cigarettes to work a week later, and I offered one to a dude. I said, hey, I found these cigarettes on the ground at Oktoberfest and they were stomped on, you want one? He said, heck yeah! and smoked it right up. He didn't bat an eye or ask any further questions at all.

So, I guess it boils down to a person's sense of adventure. I have sort of taken on an approach that life is a garden, dig it. When something delivers itself, it should be taken advantage of. Maybe the unseen forces wanted me to smoke those cigarettes, so they put them there for my benefit. Life goes by pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. That's your homework for today. Find an opportunity, and capitalize.

OK, so that wasn't about unqualified people giving advice at all I guess, too fuckin bad.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I was at the grocery store the other day buying my weekly crap, and during the checkout process, the young man ringing up our junks was perusing the items we were buying... bratwurst, buns, an onion, a bell pepper, some beer. I guess he assumed some sort of event was taking place, so he says "So am I invited to the cookout?". Wow. Now, I think most people would probably just assume he was simply making small talk. I too, quickly drew this conclusion. But, what if I wrong? What if he truly wanted to come to my house and eat my groceries? What if his game was to ring up groceries all day and more or less ask each customer if he could go to their houses and hang out and have some food, just to see who would bite. What if he was just trying to push the envelope? What if he was running some kind of experiment to see how people would react when given something that could be read as small talk, or could be taken as a serious question. What if, on several occasions, someone said "sure, come on over!", and he went to their houses. By just letting this pass and not giving a definitive answer, what if he feels as though he has won this round. We all know how important having the upper hand is, and now this chump has it, possibly over every person that goes through his checkout facilities. DAMN IT!

So, when presented with his potential challenge, I went to my old standby. I said "hmmm... perhaps!" Ok, so what would be the worst thing that could happen if instead I said "Yes you are my friend." I suppose he could have then asked for my address, and later showed up with a weapon and tried to steal all my fancy shit or end my life. That seems unlikely. A little less extreme would be he shows up, hangs out, and eats my food. Either way, its a break from the norm, so what have I got to lose? If he tried to murderize me, I would reply with my shotgun. If he was really just hungry, perhaps I gain a new friend. Its win/win.

So what am I trying to say? Nothing really. I just thought it was interesting. I guess in the future, we should all consider not just taking the easy road. We should challenge ourselves to challenge others. Can anyone really afford to let someone else have the upper hand? I think not.

Phucket

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Wow, a new record period of time without posting. But, I am back from vacation and feeling back to my old form, so posts should start rolling out more frequently now, or least posts of a higher caliber. ...by the way, have I mentioned how bad ass squirrels are lately?

I have always sort of studied words and the way people use them. I think I have been more tuned into this study after reading a few books on psychology and human nature. Today I'd like to quickly analyze two things. One is related to the use of words, and the other is a quick analysis of a phrase I hear a lot, and how much I hate it.

This weekend Hurricane Ike devastated the Texas coast. For some reason, I really got into the whole event. I suppose it’s because I have spent time in the Galveston area, and have a lot of fond memories of it. I watched coverage end to end. DirecTV even put on special extra channels just dedicated to hurricane coverage. One of the channels they had available was a local Houston network, which had non stop coverage of the entire event. After the hurricane hit, one of the anchors from the local Houston network said something I found very peculiar. She said that a lot of homes on the Bolivar Peninsula were "completely completely destroyed." What? Really? Completely completely? This got me thinking about how often I hear people doing this... using the same adjectives and/or adverbs twice in a row to somehow try to give greater impact to the statement. Perhaps the most popular one would be "very very". "Hey, look over there, that's a very very large donut", or "Good Christ Tom, would you look at that, she has very very big titties!". I was a little surprised to see a trained news anchor do this, but I guess once they stray from the teleprompter, they are as dumb as a bag of hammers. Totally, totally dumb. Why stop there though? If you are trying to make your stupid babble sound more important why not pull out something like this? "Jeff was very very very very very very very very very VERY V E R Y angry, so he shot Donna in the stomach with a harpoon." It would be an instant classic to hear the television news anchor say something like "The Bolivar Peninsula was completely completely completely completely completely completely destroyed". You look stupid either way, so just go balls deep already.

Next up is these people that say "I don't have time". BULLSHIT. You have plenty of time. I am sure I am guilty of this from time to time when I hit a bit of a funk, but come on, there is plenty of time. This is the absolute easiest defense mechanism for people to try and use to justify not doing something that's hard or something that doesn't have as high a priority as something else. Let's get something straight here. Everyone has plenty of time. The interesting part is that people pull this out a lot when talking about something they really want to do. "I want to learn Spanish, but I just don't have time." Bullshit, it’s not like you have to spend 8 intense hours a day trying to learn it. "I would like to exercise, but I just don't have time". BULLSHIT! Quit lying to yourself. You have time. Obviously you have time to lie to yourself about not having time; you could have used that time to do something, rather than doing nothing. Just about everyone spends some time watching TV. If you watch TV for just 30 minutes a day, that's 30 minutes you could be exercising while watching TV. If you spend 30 minutes a day driving in your car, that's 30 minutes you could spend learning Spanish from audio CDs.

So, your homework now is to analyze your time, and see how much time you spend doing virtually nothing, or how much time you could multi-task and do multiple things at once. I think you would be surprised how much time you have. A whole whole lot of time.

So fuck off with your double adverbs and your "don't have time". Eat shit.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

I have always noticed something interesting that happens at the post office. If I have posted about this before please forgive me, but I just noticed it again the other day and it got me thinking about it again.

When people are at the post office and they are about to drop something in the mailbox, they absolutely freak out. Their brain sort of shuts down temporarily, or at least gets tied up so much so that they can not otherwise function. It happens to almost every single person. Next time you go there, take a look, and watch people.

I am talking about the outside drop box, and not so much anything in side, because a mistake inside the office is easier to correct than one at the drop box. People will approach the box in their cars, put the envelope to the opening of the box, then just sit there. You can practically see the gears in their brain kicking into overdrive. You can also see uncertainty and fear on their faces.

I am not exactly sure what causes this. If I remember correctly, and don't get me wrong, I probably don't, but I believe when I was younger, the mail drop boxes were different. For example, one was for metered mail versus stamped mail, and other such varieties. I also believe that now, all the mail drop boxes are the same. Additionally, what is the worst thing that could happen if your mail was to go into some sort of wrong box, would the mail just evaporate?

Anyway, people put their mail up to the opening and completely shutdown while trying to figure out if this is the correct move to make, as if it was a terminal decision. Some people are really fucking dumb, and they will put the mail up there, then pull it back, think for a few seconds, put it up there again, carefully inspect the other boxes, then their chosen box, then think some more.

When I was at the post office on Friday, a lady sat there for no less than 60 seconds trying to determine if she was doing the right thing.

It is an amazing phenomenon to witness. Me? I say fuck it, I roll up to that bitch, toss all my shit in whatever hole, and take the fuck off. My mail never gets lost, and always gets to its destination in a timely manner. The USPS has got the mail drop box system streamlined. There is no wrong choice. I would wonder if these same assholes would take the same amount of time to figure shit out if the USPS just had one single huge box with a nice big hole on the front. My money is on yes.

Speaking of where my money is at, I am off to Vegas tomorrow morning. I'll be there until Saturday, doing unspeakably depraved things, and living like a rock star. When I get back, I plan to get my regular entertaining posting back on a regular basis, and not just serve up plates of dumb shit no one cares about.

PUSSY!

Friday, August 22, 2008

I tend to think people suck. I don't really like people. I stay home most of the time, because people are just too stupid to be around. I do not care what people think about me, nor do i care what people think i think about them. All this aside, I am a civil person. I hold doors open for people, I give people a quick smile as I walk by to display my friendliness.

The other morning at work, I was about to snag some free coffee and this lady walks up beside me and and starts processing her own beverage. I do not know the woman, and she does not know me. I see her all the time around the office, but I have no idea who she is. She is a larger African American woman, not that it matters, nor is it pertinent to the anecdote, I am simply trying to paint a picture in your head.

This was early in the morning... approximately 7:30am. I was not up to speed yet. I was hazy. She is about 8 inches away from me, putting something into a cup, and I hear her make a noise, but I am not sure what it was. Uh oh. Did she just say something to me? Did she say hello? Was she talking to herself? Was she just clearing her throat?

About a hundred things went through my mind. A few of which were... If she said hello to be friendly, and I did not acknowledge her at all, then I might be perceived as an asshole, or some sort of elitist. If she was mumbling to herself and I replied, then that could be considered rude. What if she really did not make a noise at all, and i just imagined it?

It was at that point that I remembered that I just don't care, so I just ignored her completely and carried on with my process.

This seemed like a lot more interesting idea in my head before I started. I appear to have lost some of my blogging mojo. I am not sure why. Damn it. I assume it is because I am in the pre-fall funk where nothing much happens as summer winds down. At least I hope that is the case, and that the cycle gets mixed up a little bit after I go on vacation in 10 days.

I think this is the longest I have gone without posting since I started. I find myself thinking back about something, and coming here to look it up for a time frame reference. I have to get back on the horse.
...

Every day when Carl put on his socks, they ripped, which upset him greatly, because it was not until after the socks were destroyed each day that he remembered that his feet were razor blades. Poor Carl.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Preseason football started this past Sunday. The first Cowboys preseason game is tonight. To me, this means that Fall is officially "sorta" here, even though it really isn't.

I used to hate the fall. I guess it was because I was a kid and that meant summer was over and school started back up. I would have to wear blue jeans again, even though it was still well over 100 degrees in Texas. I usually walked home from school, which sucked. Although, there was that one joyful moment each day when you get home, and peel off your jeans, and toss on some shorts.

As I have gotten older I think Fall has become my favorite season of the year. The weather starts to cool off, football starts up, and I'm usually a lot closer to vacation than I am in the spring. I guess its hard to explain in words, but during the fall, I just feel nifty and keen.

Well, damn it. I have started this post 3 or 4 different times, and gotten to this point, and just ran out of gas, and now it has happened again. The past few times, I have just deleted everything thing and said fuck it, I'll do it later.

Well, this time I am not going to do that. This time you get some lame bullshit rambling. uh....

uhm...

Shit, I got nothing. I have been in major coast mode for several weeks. I am selling my ticket shit on eBay, trading stock options, playing hockey, etc... that shit keeps me busy enough to not pay much attention to anything else, so I am sort of drawing a blank on stuff to write about. Who knew doing stuff would cause writers block. Maybe soon I should scan every article from the year so far, and give a pointed numbered list on stuff I have sort of dropped the ball on. Remember my plan to start meditation? How did that go? What about my grill repair, or my electricity bill, or my debt reduction, or my conversion to pre-paid cellular service, or emergency preparations, or my gun adventures? How the hell did all this shit turn out? You'll just have to stay tuned to find out I guess because I sure as hell aint going through it all right now.

Anyhoo, I'll come up with more material. If I recall sometime last year I also hit this same kind of drought, but I recovered fully. My intention to to write about experiences and give my take on them, but when I get in these daily grind ruts, I forget about the stuff I encounter that is odd or worth writing about.

I have started having dreams again, after seemingly going months without really having any, so I figure I am starting to get back into "phase" with the world. Keep checking in, should be some interesting things coming down the pike... pipe? turnpike? hmm, weird.

No seriously, I want you to literally sit there and wait for me to type something new. Oh, hold your breathe too, that'll be awesome.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Well, its Football time again. The first game of the pre-season, the 'hall of fame game', is this Sunday. Wow, time flies. Football time is one of my favorite times of the year. Although it starts in the dead of Summer, to me in indicates that Fall is at hand. Along with football means buying my yearly tickets to the Thankgiving day Dallas Cowboys game, which is ALWAYS a fiasco. You can read more about it here: http://a0001718.blogspot.com/2007/03/every-year-i-go-to-thanksgiving-day.html.

So this year I figured I would try a new approach. I will buy shitloads of tickets, and sell them for more than I paid for them, and use the proceeds to buy a pair for myself. I figure this way I can put up a little starting capital from my own pocket, and end up buying a lot better tickets for the same price, or maybe even free if I play my cards right.

In the past I have thought about just buying season tickets, and selling all the tickets except for the pair on Thanksgiving, but it just so expensive. While I am on this subject, let me show you something that will almost certainly piss you off and perhaps even make you want something bad to happen to good people. Observe:

http://www.dallascowboys.com/tickets/ClubPricingMap.pdf

WHAT IN THE HOLY FUCK? YOU HAVE TO GOD DAMNED BE SHITTING ME RIGHT OUT OF YOUR HUMAN ASSHOLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To sit anywhere in the new facility anywhere near the field where you can see the game properly, you have to fork over a MINIMUM of $32,000.00, just for the OPTION to buy a pair of fucking tickets. And then, as if that was not insulting enough to Cowboys fans, you then have to buy the mother fuckin' tickets themselves! And, on top of that huge fucking pile of shattastic fecal matter, you still have to pay even more for parking!

Also, in case your are sorta blind or just stupid, to sit in the _really_ good seats in the middle sections, YOU HAVE TO PAY $300,000.00, JUST FOR THE OPTION to buy the tickets, which are then another $6,800.00, plus parking on top of that. By the way, did I mention the sales tax on this shit would be nearly another 30 grand? BITCHES!

Ok, well, fuck that. Fuck Jerry Jones, and fuck the Cowboys. I'll just sit in the shitty seats....

http://www.dallascowboys.com/tickets/ReservedPricesWLoge.pdf

DOH!, foiled again! The option to buy a pair of tickets IN THE SHITTY SEATS ranges anywhere from $4,000.00 up to $12,000.00, and then the tickets are another $790.00 to $1,250.00.

So, then there is the option of sitting in the no seat option $59.00 ticket section, where you will not be able to see anything, except Jerry's fantastic glorified Jumbotron, which is 200 feet long. Oh, but those are usually all sold to season ticket holders as well. Most of these 'season ticket holders' are really ticket resellers, that charge you a minimum of twice face value, but usually closer to 3x or 4x face value.

I am not a religious person, and I don't believe in heaven or hell in any conventional sense, but I do believe in something similar to karma, and I would hate to be anyone involved with the Cowboys organization as a whole, because they've certainly got some bad shit headed in their general direction. What in the fuck are these people thinking? Believe me, I am all for supply and demand, but you'd think there would be a line indicating poor class and taste, not to mention unethical and immoral practices by such an entity. I guess greed and the almighty dollar rule the world, and that's just sad.

So, back to the matter at hand. I went on a bidding spree in eBay and have purchased 14 pairs of tickets so far. I am paying an average so far of $83.00 per ticket (total, factoring in shipping and everything), which is only $33 per ticket over face value, not counting tax and fees, and all the other junk they usually add. I believe I will be able to collect around $130.00 per ticket upon resell, for a profit of $47.00 per ticket, which will get dragged down to probably $40 after eBay fees, PayPal fees, and all these other bullshit fees that seem to appear. If I sell all 14 at that rate, I will make $560, profit, which will get me pretty nice seats to the Thanksgiving game. Also, if I can sell the entire batch for that much, I likely will buy another batch of 14, and try it again, and pocket that 560 bucks for more stock options, or for vacation fun.

So there you have it. Next time you see Jerry Jones at the K-mart buying a new enema bag, make sure and tweak his nipples, its only fair since he is already fucking you in your ass.

SCHIZO!

Monday, July 21, 2008

I really got nothing to say today, I just felt 'off' for not posting in a while.

I skipped work again today. took a vacation day. I sorta wish I had gone to save the vacation day for use later, but it's too late now.

I mowed my yard, refilled all my gasoline stock for my motorcycle, and tightened my chain on said motorcycle. It is so hot and humid that 5 minutes in the garage, and I am completely totally drenched and dripping profusely with sweat.

I spent the rest of the day researching stock options, and trying to find something good to jump in on. There are too many stocks and way too many options to make it easy. I also have learned that I really don't like to leave my money tied up in options for any long period of time. The craft of options is to get in and get out, and take your profit.

Another thing I was focusing on was trying to get as much profit as possible, which is a piss poor plan. A better method is to have a set amount of profit you would like to achieve and then pull out when you reach it. Most checking accounts, CDs, money markets, and other "solid" financial instruments will get you anywhere between 3% and 5% profit. That sucks monkey balls. That is virtually nothing. Sure, if you had 10 million in one of those types of investments, that would be ~400K, which is a lot of money, but think proportionally. If you had 10 million to toss around, 400K probably does not impress you any longer. I have set my goal 40%, plus enough additional profit to cover any commissions I may pay in the process. How did I arrive at 40%? Pulled it straight outta my ass. That's about 10 times what you might average with a savings account, so it just sounded good to me. 40% of 200 bucks is only 80 bucks, and that does not sound like a lot, but if you were able to get a 40% return on your money 5 times, you'd have over 1500 bucks, and if you did it 25 times, you would land just a hair under $900,000.00. Add another zero, and you have 9 million bucks... and that, my friends, is money momentum!

I saw Jerry Seinfeld over the weekend. I had great seats. No one in front of or to the left of us. He is doing well, and his comedy was terrific. It was like watching a weird episode of his TV show, only you were in it. I firmly believe in my heart of hearts, that he could start the show back up and it would not miss a beat in terms of writing style or the quality of the episodes. He would probably have issues with the other actors though. It is retarded to even think that would be possible.

I also booked my room at the MGM Grand for vacation. I snagged front row tickets to Carrot Top and to the Cirque show called Mystere. Should be interesting. Also, this time around, instead of doing some light gambling to fill time between doing other stuff, I am going to commit time to gambling as a feature, rather than a filler. When you are using it for filler, you tend to quit when you win or lose a certain amount, which is probably not a good thing. If you sat down and lost 50 bucks in 10 minutes, you would probably walk away... after all, you are just killing time, and that should be free. On the flip side, if you turned that 50 into 150, you would be happy and walk away, but then you have more time to kill. Also when I go this time, I am going to ask for a free or low cost room upgrade. I'd like to branch out in try another room at their fine establishment. If they won't do it, then perhaps next time I shall explore another hotel. Last but not least, the NFL season will kick off while I am there, so I will enjoy making sports wagers and raping the casino of their hard earned cash.

Also, I saw a dead raccoon on the way to work the other day. Obviously raccoons are not as awesome as squirrels.

Monday, July 14, 2008

A perfect day? is that even possible? perhaps.

Saturday morning I woke and and cooked breakfast outside on my grill. Sausage, fried eggs, waffles, and all the extras. It was fantastic.

I then grabbed my DRF and my reserved seat tickets and headed out. I swing by and pickup a friend, an then another, and then head to the track. I took $120 with me, and planned to leave with none, but I would have fun all day, so it would be OK.

Dollar day! Yay! One dollar beers and one dollar hot dogs. You can't beat that. I stick exactly $40 into the betting terminal. The first two races come and go. Bam, I hit the first daily double. Sweet! I don't remember how much my profit was, it was a 2$ bet, and I think it was around 50 bucks. I grab a beer and dog, and head back to my seat. A few more races go by, I win a few miscellaneous bets, but then i hit a pick 3. Bam... $147 on a 2$ bet. I have more than doubled the amount of money I brought to gamble with, and quadrupled or more the amount I stuck into the terminal. The rest of the gambling was pretty normal, I hit a few exactas and some 10 cent superfectas, and lost some other pick 3s and trifectas. I lost track of beer and hotdog counts. I cashed out my credit voucher at the end of the day with 157$ on it, after starting with $40, and that does not count the cash for the dogs and beers. Woot! I think I could consistently do well at the track. I have a system that appears to work fairly well. I think next time I go, I will take $200 instead of $120 and bet essentially twice as much per bet.

On the way home, we started thinking... food! We decided on Shogun, a local hibachi grill. So I had some fantastic jalapeno steak, prepared by a Japanese chef who flipped his knives around with precision. It was entertaining to watch and the food was quite tasty. Best of all, it cost me nothing. I plan to use the rest of my winnings to buy more stock options. Hopefully I can let it ride and turn it into even more money.

So, friends, good food, free money, good times. Does it get any better than that? I am not sure that it does. I plan for that to be what every day life is like for me when I am older. I might not make it to that lifestyle before retirement, but the day I retire, I will become that guy permanently.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Well, now I have gone and done it. I am an options trader.

For years, I have been trying to find some sort of financial instrument to allow me to gamble with spare money. High risk type stuff. I already have a 401k and a Roth IRA, and a money market account, so I am not worried about saving money for retirement, because I have those covered. I wanted to be able to take very small amounts of "spare" money, if such a thing even exists anymore, and use it to make quick turn arounds. If you have just 100$, and can double it 5 times, you end up with 3200 bucks… 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200. Is this hard to do? Yeah, maybe even impossible, but if you can't and you lose it all, it is just 100$, and you'd spend that much in a slot machine in a couple of hours in Vegas, or you would certainly drop that amount on a football game bet. So I was constantly looking for a way to truly gamble with the stock market. Let's face it, long term investments are great, but they are a bit boring. Watching golf on TV is the same way, until you bet money on it, it sucks donkey balls, and then suddenly it’s interesting.

Am I out of my mind? No. I educated myself enough to have firm grasp on the concepts, and I think I can explain it easily to anyone who might be confused on the subject. Options can be risky, but they certainly do not have to be. For the time being I am doing the most basic type of options trading, buying 'calls' and 'puts'. In these types of investments, you can NEVER possibly lose more then the amount you put into it. Never.

What the hell does that mean? Not much really. One thing I noticed while learning options is that almost every single term related to options is confusing and vague. I have no idea why this is, but it is. Here, I'll explain.

Trading Options is based largely on what you think the underlying stock will do, go up or down. For every Joe Schmo out there that thinks a company will go up, there is another who thinks it will go down. So similar to sports betting, there is action on both sides. "Options" are basically just guaranteeing the ability to buy or sell a stock as a specific price right now, regardless of what its future price is.

Let's look at the optimists first. They think a certain stock will go up, so they buy what is known as a "call". Again, no idea why it is labeled a "call" or "call option", but it is. I'll use a real world example so it will be easier to comprehend. I think Ford stock will go up. Why? Doesn't matter, I just do... I have my reasons. Ford stock was trading at around 4 bucks a share. I want 100 shares, but I don't want to spend 400 dollars right now. So I buy an option to buy ford stock for 4 dollars a share, regardless of its future price. To do this I have to pay a premium. In this case, the premium was .85 cents a share, or 85$ total for 100 shares. (**I should mention here that most options are always in batches of 100**). So in other words, I can pay 85$ now to buy 100 shares later for 4$ each. Pretty simple right? Oh, another thing, the "locked in" price of an option is called the "strike". Why the hell would anyone name it that? No idea.

So I do so. Now let's look at what happens. Each option has an expiration date. This simply means that I have to close my position on or before that date, and there are 3 different ways that it can close.

1 - Say Ford stock drops to 3$ a share. In this case, the value of the stock is worth less than I can buy it for, so I simply do nothing and let the option "expire worthless". It just disappears. I just lost my 85 bucks. No big deal I suppose.

2 - Say ford stock goes up to 8$ a share. In this case, I can "exercise" my option, and buy my shares for my locked in rate of 4$ a share. In order to do this, I would then need $400 to pay for the shares, but I will have just bought something for 4$ that is currently worth 8$. That’s money momentum! Pretty good shit. If I think the stock was going to go up more, I might hang on to the shares, but since I am only in it for short term quick cash, I would immediately sell the stocks, and enjoy my reward.

or

3 - Say ford stock goes up to 8$ a share, but I really don't want to exercise and buy the shares, because I just don't have 400$, or for whatever reason. Well, I still own a locked in ability to buy it for 4$ a share, so I then sell this ability to someone else, except instead of the 85 cents a share I paid for this ability (85$ total), I sell it for the new current going rate of that particular option, which at that point, would be dramatically higher. Now, the ratio of option price to current stock price is not 1 to 1, so the option isn't worth exactly double since the stock price doubled. In this example, Ford stock jumped about 25% in a couple of days, and the 4$ strike option jumped well over 50% in value. So I would have made some decent fast cash without ever buying or selling any real world stock had I sold it at that time. I plan to hold out a little longer and see what happens.

Ok, so that's buying a call, so what the hell is a "put"? A put is the exact opposite action of a call. Why name it a put? I assume because someone somewhere was a complete fucking moron. So you would buy a put if you think the stock is going to go down. A put is the ability to sell a stock at a locked in rate. So essentially there is someone on the other side, who thinks the stock will go up. The end of the option is also the same, it either expires worthless because the stock went up instead of down, you exercise and really purchase the shares at the lower current price then sell them at the higher rate you locked in, or sell the puts themselves for a handsome profit.

So as you can see, there is really no risk beyond your initial investment in the premium for locking in the rate in either one of these scenarios. The problem with options trading that people run into is when they sell options as opposed to buying them. When you sell an option, you are legally obligated to purchase or sell the underlying shares, whereas when you buy them, you have the right, but not the obligation. So if some jackass sells a call on shares he does not have, and the price of the underlying stock skyrockets, he is obligated to sell you the stock at the rate you locked in, even though it will cost him more to buy it than he will get in return. In other words, he sells a call of ford for 4$ because he thinks the stock will go down in value, then the stock jumps to 8$, and the call buyer exercises the right to buy, he has to buy the ford at 8$ and sell it for 4$. Bad business.

There are really advanced extravagant and complicated stock options strategies that involve buying and selling both calls and puts at the same time, but they are far beyond my comprehension on this time, so I am sticking to the easy stuff.

Ok, so stock options are not that scary, and have huge potential, so go try it!


"Try and fail, don't not try, or you're a pussy"
--Me 2008

Friday, July 4, 2008

Wow, its been two weeks since I last posted. A new record! The truth is nothing has been happening that has been newsworthy.

I have noticed lately that I feel 'guilty', for lack of a better term, when I waste time. Today for example, is the 4th of July. Short of that fact, it is just Friday. My main normal festivities for the holiday take place tomorrow. Then Sunday, I am going shooting guns, so its not like the entire weekend is just wasted. Instead of doing something on the holiday itself, I am using the other days for activities, yet I still feel almost retarded for just sitting around doing nothing. It is summer time, and its Texas, so its almost 100 degrees, and the humidity is high, so going outside is damn near unbearable. Plus, I know I will be outside most of the day tomorrow, as well as Sunday.

It seems that it is perfectly ok to just do nothing on a today like today, but I just can't stand it. All of my friends are doing various things today, and I sort of wish I would have joined them, but on the other hand, they won't be doing something for the two following days, so they likely will be doing tomorrow, what I am doing today. As much as I sort of regret doing nothing today, I think I might regret it more if I did something yesterday, today, tomorrow, and Sunday, because then on Monday I would be dragging ass all day wondering why I didn't use one of the days for R&R. Potentially I would even have taken Monday off to recover from the long weekend full of activities, which would suck. Burning a vacation day to recover is always shitty, plus, by doing so, I would essentially be wasting more time. 8-)

I suppose I am just over-analyzing the situation. So what if I just sit around.

Speaking of wasting time, and I am not sure why this just lept into my mind, but I started thinking the other day about how animals may lead better lives than humans. In particular, I am referring to squirrels. I see an inordinate amount of squirrels now, since I do my daily commute on my motorbike. [80 MPG bitches!, suck it OPEC] A squirrel does not have to be anywhere at any particular time. A squirrel does not have to stress about a shitty boss, or deadlines. A squirrel does not worry about money. A squirrel is free to wake up and/or go to sleep whenever the hell it feels like it. So just about any type of human function that requires attention, the squirrel does not have to deal with. Squirrels generally, in my opinion, appear to be happy woodland creatures.

Nextly, squirrels seem to live an exciting life. Clearly no one can be exactly sure what type of emotions squirrels may or may not posses, but they are seemingly timid creatures. They spend their time just sort of hanging around, looking for food, and doing whatever seems like a good plan at that time. It would seem that this pattern is interrupted several times each and every day by some sort of amazing situation that requires them to do amazing things. Whether it is a predator, or a car on the road, or any other sort of danger, they spring into action, make amazingly quick decisions, albeit sometimes the wrong one, and generally are able to get out of hairy scenarios. Can you imagine a few times a day almost being hit by a fuckin car, or a huge dog chasing you, or perhaps walking 35 feet in the air on a thin tree branch of some sort of cable? Your life would be incredible!

A lot of the squirrels I see are are flat as a pancake on the road. I'm really not all that certain that this sux for the squirrel. If you are trying to evade certain death from the wheel of a fast moving car, I would imagine that you are so amazingly high on adrenaline, that you don't feel a thing. What a way to go.

I suppose it possible that squirrels have the ability to reason, have memories, have to make decisions, and are capable of thoughts similar to those of humans, and just lack the equipment for manipulating items with an opposable thumb, or the ability to communicate through voice based speech, which could result in their lives being quite similar to human life forms, and the stresses that come with it, but even if this is the case, they appear to lead lives like some sort of adventure heroes that we can only enjoy through various media.

It is for these reasons, that if I were forced to choose an animal to be, I may very well choose squirrel. Go team squirrel.


"If you can't see it, it can't hurt you."
--Cody Wayne Adams 1992

Friday, June 20, 2008

today is friday. i skipped work. i watched the price is right. i brewed beer. i fixed my grill. i drank tequila. I played Xbox360. it was everything i thought it could be, and more.

i did this because next week is potentially going to sux. my fellow server dude at work is going to be on vacation for a week, so anything that would fall on him, will probably fall on me instead. i hate that. this week sucked too. i figured today was a good opportunity to skip work and do my stuff, and chill out, which is always therapeutic. it was.

i have a job where i really dont do much at all. i sort of get paid to sit there and do nothing and wait for something to break. a lot of people dream for the day where they have a job where they make some decent cash, and do nothing all day, but let me tell you, its not all its cracked up to be. sure, i have the internets, but after a year or two, that gets really old, and you run out of shit to look at. you think its a good opportunity to learn, but then you learn a lot of stuff, then that gets old. it fucks with your head, and its quite difficult. i go home sometimes so mentally exhausted that i can't stand it, having done absolutely nothing. just yesterday i wondered if i could stare at the fucking ceiling for 10 minutes straight and do nothing else. turns out i could. it is like being in prison, with only a computer.

i have considered taking up smoking as a way to break the monotony if the days, but that is detrimental to my health, so its a bad plan.

i would like to retire. i dont have enough money, but if i did, i would never work anywhere ever again. i know a lot of people claim you would get bored real quick, and run out of shit to do, but that has already happened to me, so i am prepared to deal with it. i could certainly find plenty of shit to keep me busy if i didnt have to sit at a fucking desk all day doing nothing.

i got joy, true joy, out of eating a bowl of chocolately delight special k with almond milk, and watching the price is right, and chatting up some old friends this morning, and i was truly happy doing it, and i suspect it would never get old. sure, i might switch up the type of cereal every now and again for variety, but it seems to not take much to keep my occupied and happy.

i just wish i could get into that happy zone at work somehow, but i can't seem to. i dont mind being there, but literally doing nothing for weeks on end makes weird shit happen in my brain. I have the strangest thoughts sometimes.

anyway, this is retarded and rambling, probably due to tequila. i found jimmy buffett tequila in the 1.75 litre bottle for only 29 bux. with one pint, i made Tequila Por Mi Amante:

http://www.slashfood.com/2008/06/14/raising-the-bar-tequila-por-mi-amante/

the rest i plan to just poor down me gullet.

Oh, woe is me
Such a burden to be
Oh, poor twisted me

Saturday, June 14, 2008

In case you are a new reader, I received a speeding citation back in February. You can read about it here:

http://a0001718.blogspot.com/2008/02/this-past-saturday-i-was-en-route-to-my.html

and here:

http://a0001718.blogspot.com/2008/02/quick-update-plot-thickens-so-i-called.html

I was on "deferred disposition" for 90 days, which is sort of like probation. Don't get any other tickets for 90 days, and the original ticket magically disappears from existence. I knew the 90 days anniversary had come, so it was time to go turn in my documents, and get the case closed. I knew the 90 days date was June 3rd, because I remember the lady writing it on my paperwork. Since the office I have to take the paperwork to is across town, and I do my daily commuting on my motorbike, I decided to wait until a rainy day when I would already be in my truck, or at least until a day when I would be going to that side of town anyway. My brother and I have a system of taking each other to lunch on or around our respective birthdays, so this would provide a good opportunity to do the paperwork at the same time. Perfect. Also, by freak luck, it was supposed to rain that day. Three birds with one stone? Perhaps.

So a couple of days prior, I pull out the paperwork, which I had stored in my truck so I couldn't lose it, to make sure there is nothing I need to bring with me or to make sure I sign anything that needs signage. I read the verbiage carefully and notice one key phrase in a sentence in the middle of a paragraph.

"You must appear on the above stated date".

Uh oh! June 3rd. Damn it. It was the afternoon of the 6Th. Son of a whore! Mother bitches! I read the document a few more times to make sure I understood, and it had this same phrasing not once, but twice on the page. It went on to say that if you fail to appear on the date shown, that the citation will then count as a conviction on your driving record, and the fee will be 'receipted', whatever that means. Holy assfuck! Now what the H E double hockey sticks am I gunna do?!

I figure since it is Friday and I already missed the date, that I was just fucked, so waiting a few more days wouldn't hurt. I seemed to recall seeing that phrasing worded differently on the same type of paperwork, so I felt confused. I had been on deferred disposition once before in another county for speeding several years ago, and I know that it was a 'any time after 90 days' kind of deal, so I guess I just assumed that was the way it worked. I guess assuming in this case was a bad plan. I dig some digging as I had before I turned in the paperwork and found a very similar looking document on their web page, with one slight difference. The paperwork on the website said "after 90 days" rather than the must appear on the date jargon from the paperwork they gave me. Shit.

So I spent Friday through Tuesday worrying about how to deal with the scenario. I was going by what had stuck in my head because of what the website said, rather then what was on the document they gave me. I went through all the various excuses in my head over and over again. I can get a little obsessive about planning ahead in scenario such as this. By Sunday night, I had just arrived at the conclusion that it was retarded to worry, because whatever was going to happen would happen, and I couldn't possibly deal with it until that time. Still, doesn't hurt to have a few catch phrases prepared. I figured that I would just hand it to them and see what they say. If they ask why I didn't come on that day, I would just explain that their website had conflicting data, and that they should fix it, and if they still were going to be dicks about it, I would deal with that when the time comes.

Then when Tuesday rolled around, and is grew closer to time to go do it, I just got this overwhelming doom feeling. I was feeling like some sort of criminal for not going on the right day. But, this was just a traffic ticket, it was harmless. Worst case scenario, it goes in the books as a conviction for 15 miles an hour over the limit. Big deal. I don't speed very much, and I have only gotten one other speeding citation in my adult life, so this was nothing.

I went to lunch with my brother and told him my story about the ticket, and asked his opinion. I showed him the paperwork. His opinion was that the paperwork was quite clear in saying it had to be THE day, and that the paper work they gave me, should trump anything on the website. He was probably right. Damn it all down to hell!

So I go over to the office after lunch. My stomach was turning and it was full of barbecue, and I had to take huge crap, so that didn't help matters any. I approach the window. The lady notices me there and asks if I need any help. I tell her I need to turn in my deferred paperwork. She takes my papers and flips through them a few times, then walks away. Now my heart starts beating quickly, and I feel like I am just about to freak the fuck out. She comes back a few seconds later with a red folder, and open it up. She asks me if I had gotten any more tickets within the 90 days, and I say no. She says OK, and asks me to sign one line on the page. I do. She says OK.

...

Silence. Silence that seemed to be 3, maybe 4 hours long. It was really about 2 seconds.

...

I finally say "Is that it?". She says "Yup, that's it." OK. cool. I turn around and walk out. And it was over.

This is where I should be happy and relieved, and on some levels I was, but on others, not. Sure I was glad that whole thing was over and done. But I was unhappy that I had spent so many days and night worried about the stupid thing. It would have been better to just say fuck it, and just chill until there was something to unchill about. It seems like a better way to live would be to cast aside any negative feelings, and just go with the flow. In this particular scenario, I should have put no thought into it at all, until I handed the lady the paper, and she asked why I didn't show up on the day I was supposed to. In my line of work, that's kind of my bread and butter. I deal with servers, and until a server breaks, you just chill. Then when something breaks, and hundreds if not thousands of people cannot function, and the pressure is, then you break out your bad self, and its go time. I am good at what I do, having to do so under extreme pressure, and I see no reason at all why I could not apply that technique to other facets on my life. So, from here on out, that is what I intend to do. I also encourage everyone else to make an attempt to be more laid back, and let life happen, and then kick in your mojo when the situation calls for it.

"Let's go to fucking Hawaii and get drunk in the sun; I wanna lie on Waikiki, and get a terrible burn."

~The Young Canadians.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

I really have nothing so I am shooting from the hip again. Everything has been sort of on cruise control for a little while here. Days and weeks are going by fast, yet not much is happening.

Speaking of cruising, I checked in on a cruise today, because it is coming up on vacation time again already. The cruise lines now charge a "supplemental" gas fee, which is either $8 or $9 per person, PER DAY! Take a 5 day cruise, two people, you are looking at $90. Plus, to drive from where I am to the cruise terminal will cost me $165 in gas. That's $255 and I haven't even got a ticket yet! So now I am having to rethink my strategies. The cost of flying has increased as well. A lot of places are now charging a fee per checked bag, per way! So a round trip you have to pay the fee twice. My math shows that flying to Las Vegas is still the cheapest vacation. On a cruise you get all the free food you want, but in Vegas you get all the free liquor you want. Liquor is way more expensive than food, so advantage Vegas. Plus, the airport is all of 15 minutes away from my house. I'll probably settle for Vegas, if that is even considered settling.

Anyway, I have been thinking about the speed of business. I am working on a project at work. I am having to work with an outside vendor, and multiple teams within the company. There is a lot of pressure to get the project completed as soon as possible, since it is a new product that we are going to selling soon. So in really general terms, I have to build the server that the product runs on. Sounds simple enough.

I get scheduled for a call with the vendor for the configuration. I spend all day on the call, and it turns out there is one crucial missing piece, which someone else has to get. That person has to wait on another outside company to get the piece ready. This ends up taking over a week. In the interim, the vendor flies down to my site, to work on it some more, and we use a spare piece he has for testing purposes. We work literally all day on it and get it working finally at the very end of the day. Great. He leaves.

Three or four days later, we finally get the piece we need and hook it up and it doesn't work. Great. What the fuck? I jack with it for 2 more days and finally get it working, after a few emails with the vendor. Great now the piece is in place and the overall product still doesn't work! Now yet another team has to get involved to do their part, and the guy is on vacation for a couple of days. OK.

He gets back and does his part, and it still doesn't work. So yet another department gets involved for troubleshooting purposes, and they don't know anything at the end of the day. So the next day, another department has to fix the "tubes" between my junk and their junk. This takes another 2 days. Wow. Anyone notice how much time is getting wasted here?

The finally do their part and guess what. Broken still. Great. OK, so now another yet another department (how many fucking departments do we even have?) gets involved to troubleshoot their point in the pipe between the previously mentioned tubes. Amazing. Their shit works just fine, and they prove it, so now its back to my shit after all that.

So I email the vendor to schedule some time, which takes another day. Finally get back on a call with him and we work again all day and finally, FINALLY, we get it working. How in the hell are we supposed to sell this to other people, if we had such a hard time getting it going ourselves?

And this was all when we were in more or less a hurry panic mode. What is my point here with all this? Nothing. But it is an interesting peek into a typical process in today's modern business world. Its amazing that with all this bullshit technology that is everywhere in our connected hooked up blackberry email fucking whatever world, that shit can still move so slowly. It blows my mind that anything ever gets done at all.

Fuck it, I'm going to Vegas!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Nothing major to report today. I wanted to update readers on a couple of things that might be of interest, to those keeping score at home.

Ok, I posted back in April I posted about electricity, and my plan to cut back, and save buckets of money each month. Well, the "measured" month is over so I wanted to let everyone know the results. They were far better than my wildest dreams. In case you missed the post, it can be found here: http://a0001718.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-cranked-out-my-first-loaf-of.html.

In a nutshell, I bought a programmable thermostat for my air conditioner, and replaced all the lights in my house with compact fluorescent light bulbs. Then I turned off my TVs when I was not actively watching them, as well as any lights not currently being used. For the lights, I am lazy, so I bought a few more X10 switches so that I can control them from my remote. This way if I settle in on the couch, I don't have to get back up to turn off unused lights. I also used to leave the TV on quite a bit while not watching it, and now I don't. Ok, Last year, my electricity bill for the period of mid-April to mid-May was $156.87. This year, which I should mention has been the hottest on record in a while for the time period, was $109.54, which is right at a 30% savings. A whopping $47.33! In my mind, there is a table with a bunch of stiff electric company suits sitting around pounding their fists on the desk calling me ripe bastard for figuring out "the trick" that leads to their ultimate demise.

That is quite a dramatic reduction, any way you slice it. The next 5 months are the hottest of the year, so it will be interesting to see how I fare the rest of the summer. Here in Texas, the mid-July to mid-August is the pinnacle of hot, and my electricity bill during that period last year was $289.91. So that will be the true test.

Ok, the next update is regarding the grill issues I am experiencing as you may have seen in my post: http://a0001718.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-have-reached-turning-point-that-i.html. With my new plan of being really aggro on reducing debt, I decided to spend the lower amount, and repair the grill, rather than spending $700+ on a new one. I went with the cheaper ceramic coated cast iron burners, rather than the new brass ones. This saved me 50% on parts cost. The total for all the parts was $181. This is not too bad considering it replaces everything inside my grill. This should easily carry me another 5 years, at which point I can reconsider buying a new one. Maybe I will photo-document the process of repairing the old grill, that could make a half interesting post.

Now that I mention it, I have reached absolute critical mass on debt reduction. After careful consideration, I chopped my 401k input temporarily to 0%. Coupling that with my recent pay raise from work, I am now able to pay well over $1000 to the credit card company each month, and not really affect my lifestyle much at all. I am still paying myself into a savings account, still investing in the stock market, and still setting some aside for vacation expenses later in the year. At this rate, my debt will be gone lickety split, and I can buy a house farther away from the city. I don't like the city anymore I don't think. That's a post for another day though.

Anyway, eat that fuckers!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

I have a post, but it is too picture intensive for blogspot, so I stuck it over on

http://www.snotpocket.com/SQFgarden.htm


If you are too stupid to figure out how to click on the link, or are too lazy, or you just want a condensed version here are the highlights:

1. build a square foot garden out of old stuff. That ends up looking something like this:



2. Fill it up with special dirt. Then it looks like this:



3. Then plant stuff and keep it watered. Something like this:

I recommend you follow the link to see the full spread, because it can't be done proper justice here.

If you don't follow the link, then you support terrorists, and you want little kittens to die painfully, and you are some kind of big asshole.

Monday, May 19, 2008

So, it was bit hot out today. I decide to go ahead and catch a quick breeze while I make my gentle drive through the horse farm area on my way home. All of maybe 3 seconds later, a fucking bee flies in my helmet at about 45 miles an hour, stings me below and to the left of my left eye, and gets trapped in my fucking helmet!

At first I didn't feel it, then I started thinking about how if something flew in, it couldn't possibly have gotten out. So I glance over in my rear view mirror, and I see what appears to be a little bloody spot or something, and a few inches away is the bee. So I start flailing wildly about my head trying to get it out, never thinking about what an awesome idea it would be to stop, or even slow down a little. I check maybe 15 seconds later in the mirror, and the bug is gone, but the spot is still there. I kind of shrug it off until it starts providing some pulsating pain. At that point I realized what happened and figured there was nothing I could do about it, so I kept cruising. When I came to a stop sign, I took another look, closer this time, and realized what I thought was a bloody spot was actually the damn stinger hanging out of my fuckin face! By this time it had injected enough poisonous material to make my face puffy and discolored.

Fortunately, I am not allergic to stings, or I would have been a goner for sure, I was more or less in the middle of nowhere. I am not sure how long anaphylaxis takes to screw someone over, but it would have been at least 5-10 minutes before I was anywhere that I could likely get any sort of help.

Anyhoo, so now I have a big purpley swollen patch on my face, which, although I am sure adds character, I would gladly trade in exchange for not having one. So what have we learned today?

1. Leave your visor up. Bee stings don't hurt unless you are a pussy. Plus, chicks dig scars.
2. Well, I guess there was just that one.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

OK, its been about two weeks since I posted. First off, I am not dead. I have just been rather busy with various things. Secondly, I am working on a big project that I plan to post about, but to do a proper write up, I need to be completed, and I am waiting on a couple of parts to come in. I can assure you it will be informative and entertaining, and worth the wait. The other things I have been working are either not post worthy, or perhaps things I have already posted on before. I have not even experienced any wackiness in a couple weeks that merit postal effort.

I feel bad for making this post with virtually no substance so I will squeeze in one observation I made last night. We went to the grocery store to buy groceries. We usually go on Saturday afternoons, but this week is our annual crawfish boil, so we went on a Friday night instead. We also went to a different grocery store than we usually go to, to mix it up a bit. Anyway, we bought some ice cream sandwiches. Our normal store usually only has our favorite brand in vanilla flavor. The new store had a combo of chocolate and vanilla in the same box, so we went for it. We got home and decided to sample the sandwiches. I opened the box and the sandwiches were flat. It almost appeared as if they had been squished. I inspected the box and did not see any signs of stress whatsoever. upon further inspection, I noticed that some of the ice cream in a couple of the sandwiches had melted to the point where the water content of the ice cream had separated from it, and refroze. So it looked rather disgusting. Apparently, these sandwiches had melted almost completely, then got stuck back in the freezer. This is unacceptable. Luckily, they were on sale, so I got two boxes. I dive head first all off into the other box. Wha...? These are melted too!! Son of a whore! Now what the fuck am I gunna do.

I debated for about 10 minutes on the correct course of action. It would cost maybe a buck, 2 at the most, in gas money to go back to the store. It would easily be 2 more bucks worth of pain in my ass. So that's maybe 4 bucks. The 2 boxes if sandwiches were only 6 bucks total. so I would damn near break even if I just said fuck it, and went back the next day to get some more. I decided instead, to return the sandwiches immediately. I really wanted to eat one, and I didn't want to let "the man" get the upper hand with his oppression this time. We decided to take my gal's more fuel efficient vehicle to return them.

We entered the store and marched right up tot he service desk. no one was behind the counter. I looked around for one of those old school ding bells that you ring for service. No such luck. There was a young man in a store uniform doing something along side the counter on the same side of it as I was. He says "Uh... the service desk is actually closed, it closes at like 8". This immediately made me think two bizarre thoughts. 1. He did not need to use the word 'actually' in that sentence, he could have just said that the service desk "was closed", and 2. he said 'like' 8. Well, maybe to me, 4 is like 8, or 11 is like 8. I glanced at my watch and it was around 10:30. I raised the sack up to his eye level and said "What about my bad ice cream?".

He went on to say that if I just wanted to switch them out, that he approved of the switch out, and that it would be no problem whatsoever, I could just go grab them, and everything would be cool. Wow, he didn't even want to see the receipt. OK, Cool. So I go back and grab two more boxes. This time, I grab two from way at the back. I carry them back to where I left the other ones laying. While approaching the other sandwiches, I see the guy walk out the door. Hmm.

Well, now what? As much as I am a non conformist, I don't want to be accused of shoplifting or anything. Maybe he will be back in a minute. So I commence to popping open the new boxes of sandwiches to make certain that they are not bunk like the last ones. They are 100% primo. Perfect specimens. I stand around for all of 30 seconds waiting for anyone to take take notice, or for the guy to return and I get neither. Fuck it. So I walk out with my sandwiches. We get int he car and start to back out of the spot, and there goes the guy, in his truck, leaving. I guess his shift was over.

Now, in my head, I think about my former sandwiches laying on the service desk melting. The only employee having any idea of why they were there had just left. So tomorrow morning perhaps someone see a large pile of nasty goo on the service desk. They wonder why they are there. I know its unrealistic, but in my head at this point, they review some sort of magic security tape to see how they got there. They see me walk in and set them down, bring up two more boxes, open them, pour them out on the counter, stuff them back in the box, then leave, and they are mystified for weeks.

OK, so whats the point? None, really, I told you I didn't have anything solid to post on. I guess the point of the amazingly boring anecdote is just that customer service isn't what it used be. These young kids don't give a shit about anything except beer and poontang. But can you blame them? I can't. I used to be them. Now I am still them, but beer and poontang are a hell of a lot easier to come by, so I have time to ponder customer service.

VAGINA