Love is an illusion

Billy Bob Thorton basically says here that instead of traveling around the world with one of the most beautiful women alive, doing good works, he'd rather sit on his couch and watch sports.

I'm speechless. That's so.... ... awesome!

I never knew he was such a role model.

I am a bad person

I love stories about group X being offended by some themed party making fun of them. I'm not pleased by the fact that people were offended, but by what the offenders did to irk them. Take this for example:

"People painted themselves black. Put fake butts inside their pants to signify the big booty black-girl thing. Fake gold teeth in their mouths caps and jerseys -- depicted us as wearing such things as that are disgusting to me. It's disgusting. It makes me sick to my stomach," [someone] said.

Hahaha!!

I'm going to hell.

Random blah

I see some asshat atheists are making a hullabaloo. The "rational response squad" -- how, um, not clever. Oh ok, so I'm supposed to blaspheme and this is supposed to accomplish something, so here goes:

Jesus has dirty knickers.

I don't feel any different. Do you?

I make no secret on here about my skepticism regarding religion, but I don't hold it against people for being religious. Assuming they're not trying to cram it down my throat, that is.

I see it more as an oddity. It's as though you really really like olives. I don't particularly care for olives, but if you want them on your half of the pizza, ok. Just don't expect me to enjoy them.

I don't mind the church, or temple, or whatever it is (I've spent more time in Hindu temples than any other kind of religious building). The people are great and it's a comfortable safe place to be, especially if you've got kids.

But I'm never going to get over all the damn praying (haha, get it?). I've gone to church with my friends on a few occasions, and everyone is bowing their heads and verbally prostrating themselves so band practice goes well. It's just weird. Like, grow a pair, ya know? Satan didn't detune your guitar. It just does that. It'll be ok if you just tune up and play.


I've got a bit of a cold. I must have gotten it at the hospital. It's a pretty strong strain because I'm in good health otherwise, and penicillin isn't killing it. I'm worried this is one of those super-bacterial infections that are immune to antibiotics. What's worse is that my Dad has no immune system of his own, and he's home from the hospital now. Everything is fine though.

Except I have to lie about my robotussin intake. My Dad's wife, my stepmom, whatever, is being my "nurse" while I get over this cold. She doles out the 'tussin at the prescribed times and in the right doses. But it's not nearly enough. I bought my own bottle that I keep next to my bed.

This is how you're supposed to take 'tussin: take a big swig, choke it down, take another big swig, and put it away. Wait 30 minutes. If your scalp doesn't start tingling, take another swig. Repeat until cold is gone and/or you wake up in the uncomfortable chair.

That's some good dextromethorphan. Dude.


This one is for the guys. Guys, you know that feeling when you get in a car and 30 seconds later you regret not insisting on driving? It was the second time we made a complete stop on the highway, fully blocking the right lane, so she could figure out how to turn the lights on in her own car, that I decided I would never let a woman drive me around again.

Yeah? Prove me wrong.

Everyone is an individual, sure, but only a woman could get more lost with an in-car navigation system than without. For whatever reason they have no confidence, and if you have no confidence, you have no business operating machinery. I don't think it's going out on much of a limb to say I would never get lost anywhere if I had one of those navigation things.

Another benefit of driving is you don't have to hear James Blunt, or whatever smarmy pap it is they're listening to these days (funny worksafe parody of that song).


So let's see: questioning the beliefs of half my readership, check (all 2 of you); excessive intake of chemicals, check; misogyny, check. Another successful post!

Brought to you by The Seattle Scribe and the good folks down at CVS pharmacy who sell extra large bottles of generic robotussin.

Cars

Every time I rent an American car I wonder how they stay in business. I'm driving one of these right now. My first thought after settling in to the uncomfortable seat: man, even the wipers suck, they thought of everything.

Home of the edible chad

The quick update: my Dad is doing great. Full recovery. The whole process has been quite remarkable.

The story: Looks like I picked an interesting weekend to be in Tampa. There's this festival called Gasparilla going on (sound). Basically it's Mardis Gras in Florida, but with a pirate theme. Yes, that includes beads and topless girls. I know, it couldn't really get any better, right?

They have a children's parade the weekend before, which led Jon Stewart to wonder why you'd want to teach your child about Mardis Gras. Florida, tis a silly place.

I've mentioned before how you never see fat women here. Well, I found them. They're all nurses. Every one of them.

But not the doctors. The female doctors are all pretty skinny. I saw one sexy blonde little thing wearing a skirt, nylons, and high heels doing rounds in her white coat, which contrasted well with her ruby red lipstick. Florida.

Forget for a minute the inherent contradiction of a McDonalds in a hospital: I'll never get used to seeing fat people in hospital gowns with IVs in line for big macs. Or standing around smoking. I would call out Florida, but you'd probably see that anywhere.

I was behind a huge fat lady in the cafeteria who bought 4 gorditas (there's a Taco Bell too), 3 chocolate chip cookies, and a large Pepsi. There's no helping some people. I'm not exactly a model of perfect health, but at least I get a 6 inch turkey on wheat with a diet Coke.

Hospitals are weird places. There's alot more variation of care and luck involved than you might think. Get in good with the nurses, and you get food after hours. Ask certain doctors too many questions, and they shut off your information.

My Dad's room has a beautiful western view. We watch the sunset every night. On the night of the children's parade, a pirate ship "invaded" Tampa Bay and shot off its cannons (they invade again tomorrow). Then there were fireworks, right out the window.

I haven't seen sunsets this colorful since I lived in West Virginia. That's some good pollution they got here.

Some poor guy fell into the engine room on the fireworks barge and lost his foot. You learn things in the hospital elevator.

My Dad's room is right next to the nurses' station, which is both good and bad. It's good because you can get their attention easily. But there are downsides.

Today we heard the unmistakable sound of a flatline and the subsequent commotion. Alerts and announcements went over the sound system while the staff ran about. Someone isn't having a good evening tonight.

On the way home there was an accident blocking all traffic on Bayshore, my way "home". I was kinda pissed until I saw the crotch rocket crumpled up against the back of an SUV. I'd be surprised if he lived. I wonder if he was an organ donor?

Of course I'm going to change my status to be a donor now. It would be pretty damn hypocritical not to.

You never know how you're going to react to situations like these until they happen. The effects trickle down in ways you can't anticipate. I saw that motorcycle (or "donorcycle") and my eyes immediately welled up. Ordinarily I wouldn't give a shit, let alone for a suicidal guy on a rocket.

But there it was laid bare, not a quarter mile from where one stranger cut my Dad open and put another stranger's heart in him. Someone died and my Dad got to live. Was he/she a father/mother? They won't tell us anything other than the age, but someone's Dad or sister or son didn't make it. Someone else's family is grieving while mine rejoices. It's wonderful and unfair at the same time.

He was in a coma for a few days and the doctors were preparing us. It's hard to even think about it. My Dad looks better now than he did before the transplant -- and believe me, elation is the overriding emotion -- but it will always be with me, when we weren't sure.

Not to get negative though. Everything is coming up roses, so it won't do to look back.


I hope everyone else is doing well. I'll be sure to report back on the party and Spamalot, which is in town.

BTW, Garlic wins the O'Hare bet. My second flight was a paltry 20 minutes late, better than usual.

Taking all bets

I'm flying through O'Hare tomorrow. How about a gentleman's bet on how long my flight out will be delayed? [numbers changed so there's no overlap]


A) 15 - 30 mins

B) 31 - 60 mins

C) 61 mins - 2 hours

D) more than 2 hours


Since there appear to be no unroutine bottlenecks, I'll take B.


Posting may be light for a few weeks.

Not that there's anything wrong with that

In preparations for my trip I've been doing various things to get ready. Towards the end of the day I noticed a certain theme kept cropping up.


* While waiting for my prescriptions to be filled at the local pharmacy, I poured over my decision on which toilet brush to buy. I finally went with the one that matched the color scheme of my bathroom even though it's not as good as the other ones.

* I also sniffed all varieties of the scented candles there, and finally didn't buy one. I know what kind of fruity scent I want my apartment to have, and those weren't it.

* Your mileage may vary, but there's something emasculating about carting a pallet of Charmin's Ultra Soft around Costco.

* Ditto for a case of diet caffeine free Coke.

* I got home and simply had to clean the kitchen. I hate coming home to a dirty place. So on went the Star Trek, and out came the 409. I discovered something whilst cleaning: the cover on the stove comes up so you can clean underneath. I won't tell you how I've been cleaning in there for the past 12 months. Let's just say it wasn't efficient. At all.

* While transferring laundry to the dryer I decided that the mop and I just aren't going to work out, but my duster is really bitchin'.

* I took a break when my stomach started rumbling. I busted out my homemade pasta sauce and cracked a Perrier, my new favorite beverage. Ah!


And that's when it hit me: I'm a big huge pussy (sorry FF). This has been quite an effete day. I didn't even notice how gay it was to buy a case of Perrier while I was doing it.

I mean, not only is it carbonated mineral water, it's European carbonated mineral water. And not only is it European, it's French. I've been happily guzzling surrender water for the last day. Gah!


When I see my guy friends tonight, maybe I'll lie and say I've been repacking ball bearings or something. I don't know what that is exactly, but it sounds testosterone laden.



I wish I had fresh lemons for my Perrier

Confessions

* Sometimes I get a craving for McDonalds. And I eat it.

I always want to buy a few extra quarter pounders to throw at hippies. Not for being vegetarians; no, I respect that. I prefer to imagine slopping them all over the faces of meat eaters who claim a big mac is disgusting, because you know some self repressed part of them in there would love every second of it.

Join us, Lisa!
[/bart and homer]


* When I was seeing my family for Christmas, the first thing I noticed about the wife of a friend of mine was that her boobs were considerably bigger than the last time I saw her. She was already a size D. She's my step sister.

Ok, maybe it's sort of creepy, but we never grew up together or anything. We became "family" when I was 23 and she was already married. I would never check out my own sister in the same way (JB and RCR can just go ahead and shut the eff up right about now).

All of my step sisters are blonde knockouts, actually. Hot girls have hot friends, and they have lots of friends. And southern Florida girls have been objectified their whole lives, so you can't surprise them with common male crassness. The guys there aren't any different than guys anywhere else.


* I don't know why I haven't moved to Florida yet. Maybe it's because the first two questions out of every girl's mouth is what do I do, and what kind of car do I drive (a 2000 anything is the wrong answer, it just sits in the spot 98% of the time anyway).

I used to spin a yarn about pulling down some clown work at the Yakima Valley rodeo. But it was getting too commercialized. It was just obvious they were only concerned about the bottom line, ya know? It wasn't about the clowning anymore. So I've been looking for a new gig.

But it turns out someone in my new extended step family actually is a rodeo clown, so I had to hang that beaut of a story up. Oh, unemployed rodeo clown bit, we had a good run.

Now I've been gettin' some pretty steady work with a group of migrant farmers... [sigh] ...as long as the crops hold out.


* I'm worried about my Dad. He's doing ok, considering what he just went through. Obviously I'm more than grateful that he's alive, but trust me when I say, no one wants to see their Dad this way.


* I always feel a little ill after I eat McDonalds. Meh. That's just the satisfaction setting in.


* I wish I had a monkey butler.

Dorkometer pegged

Wesley Crusher snarkily recaps ST:TNG episodes.

... and one of his toys, a device that lets Wesley recreate speech from anyone on the ship. Any doubt that Wesley is a complete weenie is removed when we learn that he uses this device to have Captain Picard say things like, "Welcome to the bridge, Wesley," instead of having Counselor Troi say things like, "Smack my ass, Wesley, I'm a naughty, naughty bitch."

Heh.

Sometimes

I sometimes feel bad for the poor bastard who has my phone number, with two numbers transposed. His number is on every form I've filled out for the last 5 years.

Butter, what's it good for?

Is it just me or does butter have no taste?

More like your fat cousin Tony

Is it just me, or do sites like this one and this one seem like covers for some entity creating a database? I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but look at this from the first site:

Note: Most authorities agree that the full birth name as recorded on your birth certificate is the name that must be used for all calculations involving name. Nicknames, changed names including marriage name changes do not dilute the importance of the name given to you by your parents.

"Only your full address and estimated annual income can be used to formulate the Hebrew meaning of your name. Also, how much would you estimate you spend per year on entertainment?"

Sometimes I have an overactive imagination, so don't let what follows bother you too much.

I don't know how the particulars of cookies and all that work, but I know they can leave a little file in your settings that remembers stuff. Usually it's benign, like how your name and password magically fills in at YouTube, but it doesn't have to be. I've deleted cookies that were set to expire in 100 years and had names that were 11 random characters or something.

I'll bet it's not much for a mediocre coder with the right knowledge to plant a cookie in IE, set to the default settings of course, that could remember the name you put in on one site, and the birthdate you put in on the other, and then put them together and send it off somewhere. Finding your general location is simple enough, as the ads on just about any site can attest to.

The point wouldn't have to be to steal your identity. It could just be collecting info for marketing, data which firms will pay for if they believe it's accurate. They would have to find a way to sniff out your online purchases too, but I doubt that's too hard if you allow all cookies.

I know this seems paranoid, but the point in collecting data in this fashion would be that the cost is close to nil. Like the cost of spamming, more than one occurrence costs the same as the first one, so you can easily scale up once you get it working.

Your gender would probably be more interesting to them than your name in this case. They'd probably be looking at regions and age groups. To get your address wouldn't be much harder, though, if they really wanted it. How many of you have your home address in Google Maps saved in your favorites (or the address fills in at least, I hope)? Don't tell me you write that in everytime??


Yeah, it's probably nothing. I still never put my real info in one of those. I suppose that's also partially because I couldn't care less what numerology says about my name.


Somewhat related, here's an interesting article from The Economist about "neuroeconomics", which is what it sounds like. Not surprisingly, we don't make rational choices when we shop.


The title was an attempted play on Big Brother.

C'mon Steve, get it

Are you gettin' it?

Distractions

(all the links here are worksafe, not vouching for comments)


This song/vid is pretty funny. Being about a code monkey, it reminds me of engineering school more than former work, though the label applies more to my former working life. I always felt bad for the maladjusted dorky guys who made fools of themselves to whatever female was unfortunate enough to work near their haunts (computer labs, nearest vending machines, etc).

Points for trying dorks, but the hot chick(s) working at the reception desk that literally hundreds of guys walk by every day is/are never going for a guy who slugs Dew and doesn't shower. Just sayin'.


And this is the luckiest son-of-a-bitch to ever drive a truck. Be sure to read through the explanations of the pictures.


Here are some neato pics of wind turbines. I'm guessing you'll have no concept of the scale of these things until you see these pics. I think the super long 18-wheeler carrying one fin does the job nicely (though I only count 12 wheels).


I don't know why people complain about these bulbs, but it's a bitchfest on the local NPR callins. Oh boohoo, the quality of light is slightly different. That really matters when the lights use a fraction of the energy and cost far less per hour of operation.

I have them in every socket in my apartment and they're fine. People are so resistant to change, even when it's painless and obviously beneficial. Kudos to Walmart for pushing them (credit where it's due).


[tangent]
This is completely aside, but I've often wondered why people are proud of never changing. "This is the way granpappy did it, and dadgummit, I'm-a gonna fry my fish spleen in freshly ground chicken beak too".

I spent a good amount of time with immigrants in college -- I was the only native english speaker on my project at times -- and it was really interesting to see how different people dealt with the culture shock.

Aside from obvious things like english proficiency and basic smarts, the most successful at adapting were the ones who kept their good traditions and left the bad, e.g. Indians dropping the caste system but keeping the wet sari scenes.

That said, I met a bunch of asian guys (Indian, Korean, whatever) who agreed
that women should be treated equally in polite conversation, but when it came
time to get married, most of them went straight for traditional girls from home
who "knew their place". You should see the unbelievable crap "traditional" women
will take from a guy, without question. But I digress. Back to link dumping.
[/tangent]


Here are some creepy pics of a praying mantis eating a wolf spider. Gross bug pics are just super for passing the time (that site is a gold mine). If you scroll down to the comments, there's an excellent pic of a praying mantis catching a humming bird.


This is one of the funniest pics I've ever seen, though it's the caption that really makes it so (this site is maybe NSFW for the paranoid among you -- if you poke around the site, you will likely run into pics you don't want your boss to see you looking at, but this one is fine).


And the final time wasters, this game called Samorost (sound starts at link) is a sort of annoying point and click "guess where the mouse pointer is supposed to go" kind of game. But it's a well-done guess where the mouse pointer is supposed to go kind of game.

Here's the sequel, Samorost 2. More 'o the same. I actually played through them, but if you get stuck, just look up the walkthrough somewhere. It's still kind of neat to see the little guy get his dog back, or whatever.

Here's another one just like it called The Polyphonic Spree that I haven't played yet [ed: turns out that's the name of a band, and this appears to be a form of viral marketing -- nicely done I say, as the music goes well with the feel and look of the game].

This game called Gateway is much more logical. They may not be apparent at first, but all the solutions become clear soon enough and they don't rely on tiny mouse-click regions (there's got to be a better name for it than that). It may be a little on the pedestrian side, but it entertains.

And finally, Garlic reccommends this game, but I have yet to look at it.


Yeah, so I'm wasting time. Kind of on edge over here. I don't feel like going out, but I'm sitting on idle hands just the same. I can't seem to concentrate too much on anything substantial. I doubt I will until the situation with my Dad is resolved. He's doing fine all except that he won't wake up. That's what experts call a "sticking point" in the recovery process.


UPDATE: He woke up. Woohoo! Looks like I'm going back to Florida. This trip will certainly involve alot more inconvenience and work than the last, but I won't be dreading it this time.

To better times

Sun dogs fire on the horizon
Meteor rain stars across the night
This moment may be brief
But it can be so bright

Health issues

While I was still in mourning over the tragic loss mah boys took in the Rose Bowl, I got a quickly dashed off email from my Dad saying they were off to the hopital for his transplant.

We knew he was on the list, but it's supposed to take years to get an organ. I don't have stats on it, but I'm pretty sure ~2 years is less than average. So we were all taken by surprise, especially since we were just there for Christmas, and there was no indication this was impending. If I had known, I certainly would have stayed.

My initial thought was, I guess we don't need to implement our crotch rocket giveaway to young men with type B+ blood in the Tampa area. I wonder if that's legal?

It all happened pretty quickly, and before I knew it, he had the heart of a 27 year old beating away inside him. That makes his heart younger than mine.

The great news is that he made it past the first 24 hours. Woohoo! When a body completely rejects a new organ, it does it right away, because the immune system depressants (drugs) can't stop the body's natural rejection in all cases. But it's been a couple days, so it looks like his new heart is fine. Whew! [wipes forehead]

The worst may be over, but he's not out of the woods yet. Being in the ICU with tubes all stuck in ya ain't a good thing, no matter how you look at it.

It's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me. When I knew he was going in and my friends were dragging my arm to go out, I had to make a decision. So I stayed home and read a book by the phone. On one hand it would have been to nice to take my mind off it, but I didn't want to forget about it.

About 100 things could have gone wrong in the next several hours, and whatever it was I said to him last would become our last words. Thankfully, those were an exchange of "I love you"s, but have you ever thought that out? What your last words were to someone? If you have, that means you knew were facing tragedy or potential tragedy.

I did a good job of keeping my spirits up, but a part of me crept in there that made me prepare for death. To be ready with a Plan B, if the unthinkable happened. Is that wrong? I don't think so, but it sure made me feel uncomfortable, like I was writing him off already. It's not fun to put yourself through the thought process of: Dad's dead, now what do you do? It makes it all alot more real.

I wasn't assuming he was going to die, I just wanted to be realistic about it. He may not make it. Everyone else in my family is too busy raising a hoard of munchkins or being a single Mom while doing it, so this kind of intra-family stuff falls on me. I need to be ready.

On the other hand, in every discussion I've ever had with him about this stuff, I've been overwhelmingly positive and never gave off one scintilla of doubt that this would conclude successfully. We planned things to do soon after the surgery, so he would have something to look forward to. I wanted him to have the best possible mental state going in. Even though he's made his own preparations for the worst, he doesn't need to know that so have I.



In other health related issues, man, you should see the size of the boogers coming out of my newly expanded nasal passages. Good lord. There's something grossly satisfying in knowing you've got something huge up there, and then finally snorking it out, and instantaneously regaining super nose. [sniiiiiiff] Ahhhhh! It's alot like finally getting the water out of your ear. But sloppier. I carry tissues around with me now. And I have a beauty of an old man nose honk. Ah... sweet progress.


I hope all is well with my honkies, and that the new year is treating you well so far. How well mine goes will be determined in the next couple weeks/months.

Happy New Year, Honkies!

I had a lower key New Years than usual. It was just me and a buddy drinking whisky, and then milling about the crowds to see the (lackluster) fireworks. No getting off the hook or anything. And certainly no driving. I guess we're getting old.

May you all have a happy and prosperous 2007!


Today is one if the most important football days of the year, so I'm pasted to the recliner, gear already on. My boys take on USC at 1:30pm my time. It's not often that the Rose Bowl is the booby prize, but it's extremely important that we win this game.

Too bad the whisky's gone.