Yeah, I know it's my third post of the day, but I have nothing to do here right now and this story is actually entertaining. Well it's entertaining to me...

Jeff comes up from his office around 10:30, and the typical "What's for lunch?" question is asked. (This was after we spent fifteen minutes on typical WoW discussion.) He was out sick yesterday with some kind of stomach virus, so we agreed upon Denny's so he could have a simple Soup/Sandwich dealio. (Something that would be mild on the stomach, of course.)

So lunch time rolls around and we head out (with Rodney in tow of course, or maybe not since Rodney drove today...). Checking out the menu, I notice a new breakfast sandwich. I've been known to order breakfast for lunch when we go to Denny's, and this thing piqued my interest. It's called The Grand Slamwich. It consists of:

Two scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, mayo, and maple syrup spread all on potato bread.

Currently, I'm quite disgusted with myself. I'm also quite sure that my body is currently permeating Denny's grease as we speak. I was sitting here at my desk after lunch, and I swore I could smell maple syrup. I checked myself, and I did not spill anything on myself or my clothes, so the only logical conclusion is that it's seeping out of my pores. I went over to Mark's desk for confirmation, and he could also faintly smell the aroma of maple syrup as I approached.

Perhaps the sandwich is mutating me into some syrup based monster with super powers! I...am...MAPLE MAN.

The greatest Happy New Year I've received yet:

"And yes, I'm looking forward to 2009. 2008 can lick my ass. Happy new year."

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2008/12/31/or.naked.intruder.kptv

The part I found most humorous was the fact that they kept zooming in on her hands as they described how she grabbed the guy's sack. I kept wondering if she washed her hands afterward.

I'm going to remain skeptical of this game until I actually see it for myself, but this is a pretty nice video. I'm definitely going to play it if only to try it out.

I like combos. If you're currently sitting there thinking, "Wait a minute, you don't play a rogue.", then you are an addict and need help. I'm talking about the delicious crunchy snack food. My favorite type are the Pizzeria Pretzel variety, and I stopped at Sheetz this morning to purchase a bag. (I needed to fill my gas tank anyway.) Doing a quick scan, I could find only Pizzeria Cracker, Nacho Cheese Pretzel, Cheddar Cracker, and Cheddar Pretzel. No Pizzeria Pretzel.

WTFuken?

When I got to work, I quickly went to the Combos website to see if they perhaps stopped making that particular variety. They haven't. So this particular Sheetz just FAILS AT LIFE.

Next time I'm stopping at GetGo.

And yes, I've changed the font here on my blog. Verdana was too...formal. Bland. I deepened the orange color as well.


Alcoholic kind of mood. Lose my clothes, lose my lube.
Cruising for a piece of fun. Looking out for number one.
Different partner every night. So narcotic, outta sight.
What a gas. What a beautiful ass.

-- Nancy Boy by Placebo

Merry Christmas!

Ok, I admit it. Really, the only reason I'm posting a Merry Christmas blog is because I'm at work and have nothing else to do at the moment. Look, I even made the font a nice red color for the holiday.

In all seriousness, however, I would like to wish anyone who may read my ramblings a very Merry Christmas, and I wish you nothing but the best for the New Year.

With a lack of anything else to discuss and not wanting this post to be two pathetically tiny paragraphs, I'll share my holiday festivities for the next two days:

After I get off work around 5:00 PM, or earlier depending on how things go here today, I'll be headed to do the very last bits of Christmas shopping that I have to do. This equates to a stop at the liquor store for the booze I'll need for Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, including the champagne for ringing in the New Year. Then it's off to get my mother a Birthday card, that I forgot to get last night while I was buying her birthday presents (Red Door perfume and two Yankee Candles). Her birthday is December 27th.

When I get home this evening, I'll probably have just enough time to cut my hair, shave, and take a shower before we go to Christmas Eve mass. I actually have no idea which time slot we're attending -- that's my Mom's job to decide. I simply show up, heh.

Typically, we go to my brother's house after that for a Christmas Eve party, but I haven't heard any information about that this year and I suspect he's not doing it this time around. (He just went through a divorce not too long ago.) So, after Mass we'll probably head home and wrap the presents to put under the tree.

For Christmas Day, I'll get to sleep in a little before the family arrives. It'll be my parents, my brother and his girlfriend, my sister and her husband, and me initially. A little later in the day, my sisters in-laws will arrive. (Don't worry, I like them.)

We'll start with the stockings, then do the gift exchanges. Drinking will commence and Wii games will be played. Details will then be worked out for New Year's Eve, to decide if it's going to be my sister hosting, or if it'll be me hosting.

Very simple and down to earth, just the way like it.

Edit: Just got a call from my Mom that the party is on this evening.


So this is Christmas, and what have you done?
Another year over, a new one just begun.
And so this is Christmas. I hope you have fun.
The near and the dear ones, the old and the young.

-- John Lennon - Happy Christmas (War is Over)

Who is your role model?

Follow these easy steps to find out!

1. Pick your favorite number between 1-9.
2. Multiply it by 3.
3. Add 3, then multiply it again by 3. (Most computers have a calculator. I'll wait while you find it.)
4. You'll get a 2 or 3 digit number. Add the digits together.

Use your answer to find out who your role model is:




1. Albert Einstein
2. Nelson Mandela
3. Jacob Zuma
4. Tom Cruise
5. Bill Gates
6. Gandhi
7. Brad Pitt
8. Hitler
9. Steve Morris
10. Barack Obama


That doesn't surprise me. I'm just that awesome!


Cheesy fun with math, ftw.

I've often declared that my company has to be the worst run company in the world. Our CEO is a moron. Our CFO is a cunt. And every decision anyone with the title Vice-President and up makes is just horrible.

While I was on vacation, they decided to upgrade me to Office 2007. Now while this may not seem like such a very bad decision, consider this: For some reason, when coupled with our exchange server, Outlook 2007 delivers every email 20 times until you turn a certain setting off.

I hope no one emailed me anything important while I was off, because I just mass-deleted 548 emails. If they think I'm reading through them all, they're out of their fucking minds.

I was scrolling through the "Blogger Buzz" yesterday, and I noticed there's all these neat little modules that you can add to your blog, such as music playlists and post voting and stuff like that. All pretty cool stuff, and a few of them I would have liked to have used.

The unfortunate part about it, is that you must have your blog hosted on BlogSpot to be able to use any of the modules. I can't add any of them, because I host my blog on my own webspace. Therefore, I'm being punished for wanting full control of my data.

Such is life.

When I have a bad day, it's typically a lulu. Today is no exception, except that I knew ahead of time that today was going to suck more ass than a rim job factory.

The day wasted no time getting itself started. Soon as midnight rolled around, things turned to shit. I learned that Old Kingdom is not possible to do with a resto druid. Don't even try. It's not even worth your time.

Sleep was non-existent. I'm pretty sure my cat hates me now, because after the 3,685th time he knocked something off my desk, I vertically leaped out of bed and chased him through the room with my pillow. That really wasn't keeping me awake though, I'm accustomed to his noise. It's nothing compared to a screaming toddler, I'm quite sure. No, I was just wired to begin with, and sleep wasn't going to happen anyway.

Getting up this morning, I knew I had to get in a little bit earlier so that the midnight shift would still be here. I have one employee on that shift, and I needed to review their yearly performance review with them. Naturally, I couldn't get my ass out of bed any earlier, so I had to forego breakfast to get in here early. So now I'm fucking starving, and I'm fucking cranky when I'm fucking starving. Fucking fuck.

Next, I had to tell one of my employees they were nearly fired for trying to be helpful because HR is trying to micro-manage me. They might be micro-managing me out the door, because pretty soon I'm going to tell them to mind their own fucking business. (Which I'm sure won't make me very popular with them.)

Then, it was conference call time! I already know our CEO is a blathering idiot. I don't need a quarterly results conference call to remind me of this fact, thank you very fucking much.

Oh but the fun won't stop at work! After work, I'll spend 4 hours rolling dough, spreading filling, and wrapping rolls as I create 40 nut rolls for Christmas. Yes, 40 of the fuckers. Merry fucking Ho-Ho to you to. I'm going to beat the shit out of that fat bastard in the red suit when I see him.

Bah fucking humbug.


I'm feeling mean today.
Not lost, not blown away.
Just irritated and quite hated.
Self control breaks down.
Why's every day so tame?
I like my life insane.
I'm fabricating and debating
Who I'm gonna kick around.

--Korn, Right Now

Now I'm going to talk about the OTHER topic I rarely discuss openly -- religion. I'm prompted to do so because of an article I just read on CNN.

So in Washington state, a group of atheists were allowed to display a verbal placard alongside the nativity scene and menorah. The placard reads:

"At this season of the winter solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but a myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

I will be the first to admit that I have my own issues with religion. If you ask me if I believe in God, I will struggle with my answer. I was raised a Catholic, and I do attend mass mostly once a week. But my reasons for doing so are mostly because of my family, and not my own personal faith. I guess I can sum up my beliefs with the famous tag line from The X-Files: "I want to believe."

That being said, I view the words on this placard as a violation of my rights as an American citizen. Basically, these people are telling me that what I believe is wrong. What right do they have to tell me that? What right do they have to say, "No, what you believe in is wrong. You're being unreasonable." What happened to freedom of religion? What happened to my right to believe whatever I want to believe, without persecution?

This has nothing to do with me being a Catholic, or a Jew, or a Muslim, or an atheist. This is about the rights granted to me by the Constitution of the United States of America.

The group who placed the placard has stated they felt it was important to express their views alongside everyone else. They seem to be missing a very important fact here -- they aren't expressing any view. Instead, they are negatively saying that everyone else's view is wrong.

This quote really had me shaking my head at how ignorant this person is:

"If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to hell if we don't bow down to Jesus, we should be at the table to share our views."

Wow. Just wow. I know you're an atheist dude, but seriously, you should at least research what you're opposing before you start talking about it. Seriously now, has any rational person looked at a nativity scene and thought, "OH NO I'M GOING TO HELL! AUGH!" Give me a break. It's a baby in a manger, with his parents looking at him. That's it. Where's the fire and brimstone? Where's the text that says, "BOW DOWN TO ME OR SUFFER ETERNALLY IN THE FIRES OF HELL?" Show me. (You're going to struggle a bit with that one, because it's not there.)

The nativity scene is a symbol. The menorah is a symbol. They are used to celebrate the holiday. Now, THAT being said, I will agree that atheists should be allowed to display their OWN symbol to celebrate their OWN holiday. That's only fair, right? If I get to publicly display what I believe, they should also be able to publicly display what THEY believe.

But, they sort of find that difficult, don't they? I mean, atheism is based on the principle of believing in...nothing. So therefore, that's exactly what they should be allowed to display, in my opinion.

Or, if they are celebrating the "Winter Solstice", how about a picture of a snowman? Or the planet Earth?

But, a sign telling me that my beliefs are wrong is completely inappropriate.

After a long period of inactivity, I've written a rough outline for a new story. I've had that urge to be creative again for a while now, and it's finally gotten the best of me. I'm surprised it took this long, actually, since I don't have any other outlets for this type of thing. My job is that of a problem-solver, not a creator. So my creative side is not put to any use there. I also think there is a desire to create something that I feel I have created in the best possible way. I get a little bit of that at work: I can work on a project and at the end of it feel as though I did the best job I could possibly do. But it's still work. Not much of an outlet. Then, there's WoW, the game that will never end. No matter how much I work at it, I will never be "complete", I'll never be "done", and I'll never be the "best I could possibly be".

So my desire is to have something to do where I have complete control over every aspect of it. This is where writing is the perfect outlet.



Slip out the back before they know you were there.
At the worst, you'll see nobody cares.

Slip Out the Back by Fort Minor

I like Thanksgiving, and my reasons for liking it are quite simplistic. I like any holiday because it means a day off from work, and I enjoy days off from work. When it comes to Thanksgiving, I get exactly the same amount of days off as I do for Christmas. Christmas, however, takes exponentially longer to prepare and organize, whereas Thanksgiving is a simple dinner. It's less work for the same reward. How can I not possibly see this as superior?

That being said, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and the two days off I will have from work. Oh, and the dinner too, of course. I also really like how the actual holiday is on the very first day off, meaning that the next day and the weekend to follow are just a bonus with absolutely nothing to worry about. Rack up another bonus point in Thanksgiving's favor.

All that's left to do is survive the remainder of this work day.



Can we call it day?
Now would that be okay?
Can we just go our own separate ways?
Cause I'm cold and I'm wet,
And I'm willing to bet,
That you constructed this maze.

Call It a Day by The Raconteurs

It's performance review time here at my office. This year, my hatred of these reviews is at an all time high because of all the bullshit my company is putting into them. The thing I hate the most are the acronyms. The front of the review states that we are ONE LEARNing TEAM, and it breaks down each letter to mean something, like this:

One
Networked
Enterprise

Listen
Educate
Articulate
Research
Network

Transparency
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Accountability
Metrics focused on results

Give me a fucking break.

But alas, I can't just not do the review, since my job depends on it. But I can protest the stupidity and pointlessness of these things in my own subtle way. And I shall use their own methods to do so.

Section 1: Here I need to list the goals that were established for me last year and report on their progress. I had 4 goals from last year. Re-wording them a bit:

Convert PCTB calculable contract accounts and any other new accounts into Rate Builder.
Organize and expand the conversion team.
Create protocol for the transition of DRB conversion accounts into publishing maintenance accounts.
Keep gaining experience with SQL.

And using the first letter of each of those, it spells COCK.

Section 2: Here they have provided a list of 8 competencies, and I must rank myself and provide reasons for such ranking. So...8 of them. 8 letters. Take the first letter of each of my comments and you get ASSHOLES.

Section 3: Here I must provide examples of how I have developed additional competencies. I listed 4 examples, and they spell WANK.


This was the most fun I've had writing my performance review, ever!

Cool, the WoW servers are down for their weekly thingie. I can actually take the time to blog!

We had our first snow over the weekend. I like snow when I don't have to drive in it, but there's one other thing about it that is kind of annoying. When I wake up in the morning, my eyes are typically pretty sensitive. This is a completely normal occurrence. So, the last thing I want is the sun reflecting off a horribly bright white surface outside. I actually hit the floor this morning when I went upstairs it was so fucking bright.

It reminded me of Brad's frost traps in Scholo. My eyes!

I haven't said a word about Proposition 8 on here yet. I tend to dislike discussing a topic capable of causing such division. But, I recently saw a video of a Keith Olbermann commentary on the topic, and it prompted me to post it here. If you want to know what I think about this topic, watch the video. That's EXACTLY what I think.

And now, by popular demand, a Wookie story.

I have probably mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again just in case because it is quite relevant to the story. The Wookie is not only very hairy, but she's also (according to her) very frail. Hypochondriac is more the appropriate term, if you ask me, but that's beside the point. She claims she is allergic to a lot of things -- including certain food additives, hand lotion, perfume, and smoke. Judging by her appearance, she must also be allergic to soap. Yes. Ew.

That being said, I will first share with you what she had for lunch yesterday, as witnessed by a horrified co-worker of mine who then had to come tell me about it: Chef Boyardee ravioli with popcorn on top. I'm still shaking my head over that one.

Anyway, some time last week I was at my desk talking to Mark. I think it was actually work-related for once, which is amazing in and of itself. So we're standing there, and all of a sudden we hear a sound that quite resembled the Pamplona Encierro. (The Running of the Bulls for you uncultured twits.) We turn around and see the Wookie go running down the hall, through the kitchen, and to her desk. As she was running, she had her right hand planted on her neck.

Mark and I looked at each other with bemused confusion, and I said, "I need to find out. I'm going to regret it, but I need to find out."

So I went in the direction from which the Wookie came, which was our Publishing Department. Apparently, this woman over there named Cheryl touched the Wookie's hand after applying hand lotion to herself. This is what caused the Wookie to run away in a panic. As far as I have learned, the Wookie did not actually get any lotion on herself whatsoever. She simply knew Cheryl used it and reacted accordingly.

I know what you're thinking, and I was thinking the same exact thing: "It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again."

As utterly disturbing as this is, I'm a pretty rational guy. I know this woman (thing? it?) is insane, and I accept that. But as I strolled back to my desk to let Mark know what had happened, my mind started to wonder. She ran from the Publishing Department and past my desk, where there is a door leading out into the lobby where the bathrooms are. If she was truly having an allergic reaction to lotion, she could have gone there to wash her hands. But she didn't. Also, she ran through the kitchen/break room. There's a sink there, where she could have washed her hands. But she didn't. Instead, she just ran back to her desk.

My guess is that she needed to be in her "safe, happy place" after being "traumatized" by the lotion.

And these are the kinds of people I work with. Actually, I won't even say I work with them, because I don't. They're in different departments. I just get to observe, but that's scary enough.

As a result of Blizzard's epic fail with their servers last night, I loaded up Doom 3 and played it for a few hours. Games like Doom 3, at one time, were the epitome of what a computer game was supposed to be. But in this day and age, it's all about the realism. Any shooter you pick up today will undoubtedly be tactical in nature, requiring you to play with a bunch of NPC team mates, give them orders, develop a strategy, and execute that strategy to complete your objective. I am not opposed to these types of games in the least -- I think they can be a lot of fun, and also rewarding. But for me, sometimes there's nothing better than playing solo and just blowing shit up. This is why my list of favorite shooters is topped by Half-Life (all incarnations), Doom (all incarnations), Max Payne (all incarnations), and Quake (most incarnations). While the stories of all these games are all quite different, one thing remains the same -- you're just one guy in that game world, and you get to shoot, blow up, ignite, run over, and slice up everything in your way.

I feel this type of game is a lost art, and I will lay the blame on two different sources:

1. I blame crappy game developers. You created too many shitty first-person shooters.

2. I blame the critics. You keep pounding your chests for MORE REALISM, MORE REALISM, MORE REALISM. Shut the hell up, you're playing a guy in a nano-suit who can jump 40 feet into the air while invisible and head-shotting aliens 300 yards away. Oh yeah, that's realistic.

All is not lost, however. My niche games still do exist, and they are still being made. And they are being made in such a way as to garner very favorable reviews from critics. You've got the Gears of War series, which has been very successful. Additionally, you have such games as Dead Space. That is one that I really think I need to play. It's your classic "sole survivor on a spaceship filled with killer aliens" game. And let's not forget that Wolfenstein is being remade.

The following information would have seemed disturbing and bizarre to me, if it weren't for the fact that I work in an office that has its own Wookie. As such, this really doesn't come as any surprise to me at all.

I was reading my PC Gamer magazine last night, and I came across an article about Spore. If you're been living under a rock for the last year or so -- Spore is a computer game released quite recently that allows you to create a little single-celled organism, and evolve it up to a space-traveling intelligent life-form. You can customize everything about your little creature -- how it looks, sounds, moves, eats, etc.

Back on track: It seems that the modding community went a little overboard with their...ahem...creativity. Apparently, a lot of people have been creating porn with their spore creatures. The community has dubbed this as Sporn.

Yes, Sporn.

Now, as I said, had I not been exposed to the types of individuals I have thus been exposed to, I would have shaken my head and said, "There's no way anyone would enjoy something like that."

But now I can actually name a few who probably would. I think this falls into that "furry" category, if you want to get right down to it. If you don't know what I mean by "furry", go Google it. There's no way I'm getting on that topic right now.

So there you have it. If you're bored with porn, there's always sporn.

Yesterday was bad movie day. I like watching a bad movie every so often, because it renews my dream of one day being able to make my own movie. If movies this bad make it to the big screen, I can certainly come up with something better. Ok, so I'm not really serious about that. But hey, who doesn't enjoy a bad movie every now and then?

The movie I watched was entitled Event Horizon. It's a science fiction horror movie, starring two actors that I particularly like -- Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill. The movie was released in 1997.

I decided to watch this movie after a friend of mine mentioned it to me a little while ago, stating that it was a horrible movie, but a horrible movie that you need to see once. That, coupled with the plot device of a man-made black hole (I have a fascination with black holes), led me to download the film this weekend and watch it.

The movie itself was not exactly what I was expecting. I'm actually trying to remember what I was expecting, because seeing the movie has utterly changed that idea I had about it anyway. I think I was expecting something like Alien, or a movie where the dangers of using technology you don't really understand bite you in the ass.

Instead, I was left with a very eerie sense of familiarity as I watched the film, because the events are ever so similar to that of the computer game Doom. It's uncanny.

1. Both take place in space and belong in the "science fiction horror" genre.
2. Both revolve around an experiment, which no on really understands. Said experiment then goes wrong and bad things happen.
3. Both suggest that the "other place", which is opened by the experiment, is actually Hell.
4. Both contain acts of self-mutilation, cannibalism, disemboweling, stringing humans up by creative and gory means, and insanity.
5. Both end with the survivors being found by a rescue squad.

I've also heard that the computer game Dead Space, which was released quite recently, actually follows the storyline of this movie even more closely than the movie followed Doom. Seems like a popular plot these days. Heh.

In any case, I got very little enjoyment out of the movie whatsoever, but that was the whole point.

It's the holiday season...OH NO!

The holidays are coming. I don't mind the holidays. The family all together, the food, the general feeling that everyone is in a slightly better mood than they are at other times of the year. It's good stuff. The problem I have is the gaming companies. They are sadistic mother fuckers, and I'll explain why.

What do kids want for Christmas? They want games, of course. The game publishers know this. So, what do they do? They release all of their best games in the two months before Christmas, because they know they're going to sell the best at that time.

What this means for me is that all these great games come out at once, and I have zero time to play them all. Damn you, Santa. Damn you and the fat ass sled you rode in on.

So I made a valiant attempt to write a Halloween themed story, with the intent of finishing it before Halloween rolled around. Surprisingly enough, I probably could have finished it in time, but I sort of got stuck on the plot. (Give me a break, it's been a while since I sat down to write something.)

I think the problem is that I really don't enjoy writing horror, and this excercise has solidified that opinion of mine. Additionally, while I would like to believe that I have a vivid imagination, I rarely allow books or movies to frighten me. The last time I can clearly remember being afraid was August 1st, 2005 when I was hit nearly head-on by a driver who fell asleep at the wheel. I can play that scene over in my head like it just happened this morning, and this incident is so frightening because of the possibily of death, which is something we're all afraid of. If even just a little bit.

The point is, this was frightening because it was REAL, and because it happened to ME. Reading about the same exact thing in a book or seeing it on a TV screen will not even come close to having the same effect. And this is why I have difficulties invoking the emotion of fear in my writing.

So, I'll just chalk this story up as a failure and file it way. I will, however, share the basic plot with you.

The story focuses on one man, who starts to notice strange things happening on Halloween morning. He feels uneasy. People are ignoring him or don't see him. He has trouble holding on to things. We eventually learn that these things are happening because he's beginning to disappear, and the reason for this phenomenon revolves around the spirit of Samhain slowly ripping him away from the physical world. I hadn't precisely fleshed out why Samhain was doing this yet, but it was going to be related to the way this guy was living his life. So basically, it was the guy's own fault he was being deleted from existence, and I just hadn't determined exactly what he was doing to cause it. On the most basic of ideas, it was going to be because he refused to show he cared about anyone else. But it was going to be more complicated than that, because the guy DID care about the people around him very much. He just refused to show it. I had yet to develop the psychological reasoning that was causing him to do this, which would have served as the "trigger". (Or "twist", if you prefer that term. For example, Chiitsu's transformation, Kobal's transformation, Ren's sword being unsheathed, etc.)

The story was actually going well until Samhain appeared. Then it just got silly. I should have picked a different villain, because all I could imagine was the episode of The Real Ghostbusters where they fight Samhain, who was a ghost with a huge pumpkin for a head. So.Not.Scary.

This idea of self-isolation (that's the best term I have to describe the theme) is a recurring element in the stories I've written, with Chiitsu probably being the best example. But none of my previous characters had kept themselves so tightly closed as this character, and he was actually beginning to intrigue me as I developed him.

I will have to place him into a plot that is more suited to my writing talents.


I close both locks below the window.
I close both blinds and turn away.
Sometimes solutions aren't so simple.
Sometimes goodbye's the only way.

Linkin Park -- Shadow of the Day

Typing Test.

It appears I haven't lost my touch since I left school.

A funny thing happened on the way back from lunch today. And by funny I mean utterly terrifying at the time, but funny now. Naturally.

Ok, first the setup. (I suddenly feel like I'm in some lame version of The Italian Job.) We were coming back from IHOP, which requires us to drive down the road that runs parallel with the mall. "Mall Road" is your standard 25-MPH 4-lane highway, split in the middle by a raised, concrete median. Very typical.

Now, there are a lot of intersections on this road, naturally, since it runs parallel with the mall and all of the adjacent shop plazas that go with it. So just about every 3 car lengths, there's a place to turn off to get to some store, restaurant, or whatever. What I'm saying, basically, is that you get cut-off a lot on this road due to insane mall shoppers.

Now, the event. I'm in the left lane driving back, because I know that at the end of Mall Road, I'll be making a left to get back to the office. As I round a sharp corner, I suddenly find myself speeding towards a car coming down the wrong side of the road, in my lane. Yeah, that certainly removed any post-lunch drowsiness I was experiencing at the time.

Luckily, the driver had already realized they were coming down the wrong side of the road, and they were completely stopped. So, I had no trouble stopping, thus avoiding what would have been a rather unpleasant head-on collision.

I could see that the driver was attempting to rectify the situation by turning (her left, my right) into the nearby bank. The problem was that on this road, the right lane was not congested but was instead a steady stream of cars moving too fast for that road. She couldn't make the turn safely, because no one was expecting a car to be making a turn from that angle.

I resolved the situation by waiting for an opening, and then turning my car to block both lanes. This stopped traffic completely, and allowed her to turn into the bank. Problem solved.

Wow. Just...wow.

A little research goes a long way. Take, for instance, my recent problems with Windows Movie Maker. For whatever reason, anytime I would attempt to work with a video file of any kind, the program would just shut down for no reason. Quite frustrating.

To the Google!

One interesting article I found stated that Nero 7 utterly breaks Windows Movie Maker. I thought that was interesting, but was pretty sure that wasn't my problem since I didn't even have Nero 7. At least, I didn't think I did until I looked at the programs in my Start Menu. Sure enough, I had it. And uninstalling it completely fixed my problems.

So for those of you who care, Nero 7 and Windows Movie Maker cannot co-exist.

She cracks me up.

What the fuck is this? It's not a Bond song, it's a train wreck!

It's official. Piece By Piece by Feeder is officially a PD Hit, since it has been looped more than three times in a row. And through the act of looping, I found out something quite unique about it. It begins as it ends, therefore it's nearly impossible to tell when it ends and starts over again. I like that.

Anyway, check out the YouTube video I posted. That's not the "official" music video, but one that was redone after the September 11th attacks. The original has the Twin Towers featured, and is quite rare to find. It is on YouTube if you look for it, but it's such a high quality video/audio that it's quite a lengthy download. I chose this more convenient version to share the song with you.

As always, if you want a high quality version, just look in my playlist -- it's there.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gHs5OM3gFG_DytQQZFbWfgPT08MAD93L609G1

I love the word usage in this article. Such as:

Suffered
Traumatic
Plunging
Despaired
Crisis
Heavy Toll
Hobbled
Starved
Dried Up
Spiraling Downward
Fears

They've got to be running out of synonyms, although I've yet to see Trepidation or Apprehension.

And the audio clip that goes with it: "Hurk!"

I will be the first to admit that SNL hasn't really been all that funny lately. With one exception. The Palin stuff is brilliant. I mean, just watch it for yourself.

I can see Russia from my house!

I find new music via strange means, sometimes. Take, for instance, the band I just discovered this evening. They are by no means new, since they've been around since 1992 and have released six albums. But, I have never heard of them before tonight.

I was on YouTube looking for an anime. I know I have it on a disc around here somewhere, but I couldn't find it anywhere in my 1TB collection. Go figure. Anyway, I didn't find the full anime on YouTube, for reasons that I won't explain. (Let's just say it's a very adult anime.) But, I did find clips of the show, and the one video I found was set to the tune of a song that sounded really good to me.

I read through the comments on the video. Sure enough, someone asked the question "What song is that?", and someone, in turn, answered. The name of the band is Feeder, and the song was Piece By Piece. I had very little difficulty finding the song, and I downloaded it. I've now listened to it several times, and I like it a lot. I'm probably going to forever associate the song with this anime I was looking for, but that I can live with.

I downloaded three of Feeder's albums, and have listened to several tracks so far. They sound great, and Piece By Piece is certainly not the exception to what they sound like. From what I can tell, they aren't very big here in the US. They're from England, and mostly tour in Europe. This explains why I've never heard of them until now. So yeah, I'm looking forward to listening to rest of these tracks, and hopefully finding more songs that I really enjoy.

Oh, and if you're wondering, I did end up finding that anime I was looking for. It amounted to me using BitTorrent for the first time in...a LONG time.

I just read an article on Roger Moore. He's recently written an auto-biography, and he granted an interview regarding it. I read the article for a number of reasons, mostly because I like the guy. I think he's a fine actor, and I've enjoyed his movies. The reason the article stood out for me, though, is because I just this past weekend began watching the Bond movies all the way through. I actually just finished watching The Man with the Golden Gun a few hours ago. So I thought it was an interesting coincidence, and read the article.

I was happy to see that after all these years, he's not bitter about playing the role of Bond, unlike his counter-part Sean Connery generally appears. He even joked that according to the Internet, he was the worst one. (I beg to differ on that point.) While I will agree that he probably played the part 2 movies too long, I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Sab now has his own blog.

The plot thickens.

An Open Letter to Non-Elitist Assholes

I'm posting this here instead of on my guild's forums because this is more for my benefit than for anyone else. If I had posted this on the forums, I would have locked the thread immediately after and ended the post with, "This thread is locked and you cannot reply to it, because I don't give a fuck what you think."

This is a letter addressed to all the people I have played WoW with who I, at one time, considered a friend.

To those of you who disappeared without a trace: Fuck you. That includes you Nawee, and Atreyuhunter, and Gruten. You could have at least had the courtesy to say good-bye, you ungrateful sons of bitches. I've got news for you -- you know those characters you played with that helped you out? There are real people playing them, and they cared about you. Shocking, I know, but it's true. Way to say thanks, jackasses.

To those of you who left because we weren't good enough for you: Fuck you. That includes you Orgrom, and Cloris, and Bobotheassclown, and Ruzle, and Wonderbar, and Phrenzy, and Xelvan. Congratulations on...what was it you accomplished again? Oh right, I forgot, I don't give a fuck. We helped you through three tiers of gear levels, and you show your gratitude by abandoning us. Thanks, Judas. At least now we know that you all value PROGRESSION and GEAR and PLAYING THE GAME AS A JOB over friendship. Gratz?

To those of you who left for stupid reasons: You're as stupid as the reasons for your departure. That includes you Java, and Curative, and Lofts. Obviously, you didn't much care for anyone here in the first place if you would leave so easily.

To those of you accusing me of being an elitist: Fuck you and your silly crusade for the common people. That includes you Coopoe, and Lofts, and Phrenzy, and Tearsong, and Jederenn. Learn how to conduct an intelligent conversation without continuously contradicting yourself, and maybe I'll show some semblance of giving shit about what you have to say.

To those of you who we threw out on your asses: You got what you deserved. That includes you Jederenn, and Tearsong. My only regret is that I didn't realize sooner what a miserable excuse for a human being you really were.

But, there's one good thing that has come out of me having had the displeasure of meeting each and every one of you. You've cured me of my naivity. So in the end, you haven't been totally useless. Just mostly.

If any of you who I've mentioned above actually read my blog, good for you. If you want to contact me to protest what I've said or to flame me, go for it. I'll happily ignore you because as I stated before, I don't give a fuck what you think.

For anyone else who reads this and thinks, "Whoa! What an angry guy!", that's not the case, really. Those listed above are the subject of my wrath, and no one else. I'm tired of these kinds of people, and even though I have 5 different categories up there, they can all be pegged into one. They simply don't know what friendship means, or they don't care about it. I'm willing to accept that part of it is my fault for letting any of these people get as close to me as I did. That I can rectify. You want my friendship? Earn it. I'd like to think that I'm worth that little bit of effort. If you don't think so, then I don't see why I'd want your friendship anyway.

And this concludes the last time I'm displaying any sort of seriousness about a game.

I'm still supporting Pennywise for President.

Check this out.

It's great to see that we have our priorities in the right place, since most news sites have articles on the OJ Simpson trial listed above any articles pertaining to the stock market dying...

I've been having a bit of trouble moving forward with The Witcher lately, and this is due to the current chapter of the story being overwhelmingly boring. The only thing that is keeping me going is that I know some of things that are going to happen later on, and I very much want to see those thing. The problem right now is that I'm on a very long and extended quest chain that is at the very base a detective story. I'm trying to solve a mystery, and most of my quests revolve around questioning people and looking for clues. As such, there's so little fighting going on right now that I've taken to slaughtering beggars in the street as a source of entertainment as I'm running from one suspect to the next. I also had sex with a druid, which was a strange experience to say the least.

In any case, I'm looking forward to the action picking up once I finish these blasted quests outside the city. I think I'm about at the end now, probably only one or two more interrogations to go. I think the private detective I'm working for is the culprit anyway. I hope I can decapitate him the next time I see him.

It's strange, because I generally don't mind when RPGs do this. I think the problem is that I just need to go pick up a new shooter and play that, because I'm sure that's the type of game play I've been wanting lately. I almost loaded up Half-Life 2 over the weekend, but ended up watching some Bond movies instead.

I have devised the perfect solution to solve traffic problems. I've given this a lot of thought, and it's actually quite brilliant. I can solve the problem in 2 easy steps:

1. I kill everyone.
2. I enjoy no traffic.


If you're wondering, yes, some idiot ran into some other idiot this morning and made me late for work while we waited for some other idiot in a tow-truck to remove them from the highway.

I'm a horrible, horrible person. I'm getting this out of the way right now before getting to the point of this post, so I can refer back to that sentence when people try to chastize me for laughing hysterically at this:

Tasered Naked Man Falls to His Death

Watch the video. I laughed for at least 10 minutes after watching him fall. Yes, yes, I know he died. That's sad. But Christ that video is so pathetically funny. Naked man with a fluorescent light bulb just boards up and falls over. Fuck, I'm starting to laugh again...

Let's compare, it'll be fun.

First the background. I've been hooked on the song "I Don't Care" by Apocalyptica, featuring Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace.

Yesterday I downloaded the song. Immediately, I noticed a difference between that song I downloaded, and the one I had heard on the radio. I realized today that the different isn't minor...the lyrics are almost completely different, even though they sound exactly the same melodically.

I discovered that the version on the radio and in the music video is quite rare and hard to find, while the album version, naturally, is the version you get when you buy the album. Since I'm quite resourceful, I found both version and I now offer them to you to compare. You can find both in my playlist.

As for me, I prefer the Promo version.

In similar news, I also got "I'm Not Jesus", which is from the same album and featuring Corey Taylor of Slipknot. Also an excellent song.

I started this post with the intention of sharing the story of the week that will surely win the Worst Week Ever award at this year's awards ceremony. I actually had 3 paragraphs written before I finally decided I didn't really want to remember that week again and thus didn't want to right about it.

So, a quick summary instead. Power went out 8:00 PM Sunday and didn't come back on until 3:30 PM Wednesday. Internet came back on around 9:00 PM Thursday. I got a cold that thoroughly kicked the shit out of me on Thursday, which is persisting to this day. Thursday and Friday were clearly the worst of the cold, given that my sinuses were draining so much that I was actually throwing up.

All in all, it was lovely. I damn well better have gotten some positive karma points for that fucking week.

Ok, so I'm replaying The Witcher.

First of all, let's go over why I stopped playing it the first time. Basically it was time. I think I started playing this game the first time right when I was first stepping into Black Temple in WoW. Not really a good time to start playing another RPG.

I did still have my saved game from back then, but I decided to start all over again from the beginning. The reasons for this stem from the same reasons I stopped playing the game -- time. When I went through the first time, I was only doing the primary quests that moved the story along. I ignored all the side quests. This time I'm doing every quest that I find, and it's really enhancing the story this time around. The only quests I'm not doing are the ones that I accidentally locked myself out of doing by moving the story forward before I was able to do them.

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about the game. The main story is that you are a witcher. Witchers are mutants, and they go around hunting monsters. You're basically a medieval Jedi Knight, wielding swords and using telekinetic powers. My favorite "force" move right now is the knockback one, which throws bad guys back and to the ground. I recently got one that puts a seal on the ground. Enemies slow down when they walk over it, and I can enchance it further to cause them damage.

What's cool about the knockback move is that you can use it to quickly kill what you're fighting. Something that would normally take you 5 sword attacks to kill can be one-shotted when they're laying on the ground incapacitated, and the moves your character does when you perform such a "finishing move" is very fun to watch. My favorite one is when I jump up on the bad guy's shoulders and shove my sword down through his skull. And then backflip off of him.

So yeah, how about some screenshots:

This is from the very beginning of the game. This place served as Witcher headquarters before it was invaded by the Salamandra, who stole a whole bunch of the mutagen secrets that are the core of the Witcher's powers. The rest of the game involves tracking these guys down and trying to find out what exactly they plan on doing with the formulas they stole.

The Frightener, the first creature in the game that thoroughly kicked my ass until I finally figured out how to kill it.

This guy was very happy to see me. Lawl.

The graphics are impressive -- look at the detail on the marble floor and the lighting effects from the fireplaces.

How romantic.

Your mother sucks cocks in Hell.

The talent screen.

Scary!

Time for my first 4-day weekend adventure story.

So just a few minutes ago, I'm sitting here in front of my computer playing Spore and talking to Lofts in vent. I lean back in my chair as I take a drink and then lean forward again to work on my creature some more.

Soon, it feels as though something is trickling down my back. I put my hand under my shirt and I feel something wet, and bring my hand out to see it's covered in blood. I'm mildly alarmed.

I looked behind me, and saw a sharp shard of metal protruding through the back of my chair. Realizing now what has happened, I took my shirt off and went to the mirror. At this point, blood was freely running down my back, and I mournfully looked at my now ruined Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt, soaked in blood.

I started soaking up blood with paper towels as I went upstairs and looked for a band-aid. Sadly, there were no band-aids in the fucking house large enough to cover my wound. Still soaking up blood with paper towels, I made a make-shift bandage out of a folded sheet of paper towel and six band-aids. After wiping off all the blood that was on my back, I quickly put the bandage in place. Then, I took the half a roll of bloody paper towels and arranged them nicely at the very top of the waste paper basket in the bathroom.

Someone is going to FREAK OUT tomorrow morning when they see THAT. LOL.

First impressions of Spore:

Ok, for starters, my expectations for this game were very high. I've known about it for about the past two years, and the whole concept of the game is really quite brilliant. In a nutshell, the game encompasses billions of years of evolution, and you get to tweak what happens every step of the way.

Given that premise, I was expecting something with a little more depth. But, it's a game rated E for Everyone, and was obviously made with kids in mind. And a lot of the stuff in the game is kids stuff, mainly the cartoonish graphics.

I'm probably being too harsh about the complexity, since I've only invested a few hours into the game thus far. But I've completed all of the Cell stage, and I really don't feel there was much to it at all. Eat, grow, have sex, evolve, and then grow legs and move on to the next stage.

The creature stage is a BIT more complex, but not much. I only hope that once I hit the Tribal stage, things will pick up a bit.

Aside from that complaint, I really enjoy the gameplay. The controls are fine and easy to use. Swimming around in the cell stage was quite fun, and it was really cool when my creature would grow, and things that were once HUGE became bite-sized to me. (That huge green thing that I had to swim around became a morsel I could eat, for example.)

The music is a lot of fun too, probably one of the highlights of the game so far.

I haven't quite figured out how the online portion of the game works. I'm always connected to a server when I'm in the game, but I'm not sure how you go about finding buddies to play with, or if you can even do that at all. I read somewhere in one of the manuals that it's possible to intereact with other people's creations, but all the creatures I've seen so far have been computer generated by the program (it actually tells you this when you click on a creature.)

All in all, I will say it's worth the purchase. It's a very different and new gaming experience based on the familiar idea of The Sims, but expanded into a much larger scope and scale.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1839708,00.html

Sooooo, a bunch of scientists just exclaimed that exercise will help you lose weight. Does this make anyone else want to hit themselves in the head with a blunt object?

As I was driving in to work this morning, the guy in the car in front of me decided to clean his windshield. The result was that my own windshield was sprayed with that vehicles windshield wiper fluid, which struck me as funny as I thought, "The car in front of me just gave my car a facial."

I then proceeded to clean my own windshield because of this, which I'm sure then sprayed onto the car that was behind me. So that person was getting not only my car's fluid, but that of the car in front of me too. I'm not sure what to call that one, but it's pretty gross when you think about it. It also makes me wonder how long the chain had been going on. Was the car in front of me prompted to clean his windshield because the car in front of him did so? And how far behind me did this go? Questions I will never have answers to.

I think my next goal will be to make about 5 cars in front of me clean their windshields at the same time. I will call that one car bukkake.

Spore!

OMG, it's finally time. I thought this day would never come.

http://www.spore.com

Spore is coming out on September 7th. I first heard of this game probably close to two years ago, and the idea just seemed quite brilliant: You start out controlling a single-celled organism, and you help it evolve until it's a space traveling intelligent life form. How epic.

Well, the game seems to have sneaked up on me, but I've rectified the issue. I just pre-ordered my copy two minutes ago =)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4682260.ece

I love stories like these, because it just gives me so much material to use in regular conversation here at the office (because Mark and I thoroughly enjoy making fun of mankind).

First, the two of us spread panic through the office by delivering completely exaggerated versions of what, exactly, these scientists are about to do. We now have half the office convinced that on September 10th, we're all going to be sucked into a black hole in France while being attacked by mosquitoes and chased by clowns on bicycles. (They all float.)

I also like the fact that the Swiss are doing this. So they've gone from making watches, to making doomsday machines. Quite a step up, isn't it?

I remember a dream from last night. This happens only rarely as I typically don't remember my dreams at all, but when I do I always try to figure out the source of what was in the dream. First of all, the setting was the Old West. That's an easy one -- my father watches Westerns a lot. Yesterday when I walked by his room on my way to take a shower, there was a Western on his TV. Now, in addition to me, there were 3 other people in the dream. One of them was my grandfather, and I don't know who the other 2 were. I've thought about my grandfather pretty recently, so it's no surprise he showed up in one of my dreams.

I'm not sure the meaning of what happened in the dream, however. All I can remember is that the 2 people I didn't know disguised themselves as my grandfather and me, and vice versa. Then, those two guys disguised as us were killed. I seem to think it was a shootout between them and the two of us, but I can't be sure. After the shootout (if it was such a thing), my grandfather and I looked at each other, not sure who we were, and then we both took off our disguises at the same time. Then we smiled at each other, and that's when I woke up.

This would be my reaction as well.

I don't like family gatherings. This is not an uncommon statement by any means, but my reasons for not liking them are probably a bit different when compared to that of the common man. I'm sure most people dread such events because there's always that family member that no one can stand, but who is inevitably invited to every family gathering out of necessity. That person is family, and therefore must be included even if everyone hates them.

There's a twinge of irony in that, for me.

For myself, I don't like family gatherings because my family really doesn't know or understand me. I will be the first person to admit that mostly, the reason for that is my own fault. There is obviously no reason why I couldn't let them know who I really am, aside from my own unwillingness and fear of doing so. That fear being the fear of becoming the person that I mentioned up in paragraph one. That would be the irony I was talking about.

Do I know for sure that it would happen? No, of course not. But that doesn't stop the anxiety when I think about it. Typically, it didn't much bother me that my family doesn't really know who I am. Not until recently. And this is the part of the whole thing that has be intrigued, and has had me analyzing it. Why does it sort of bother me now?

It's probably a combination of things. It could be that as I'm getting older, I'm desiring more and more to act like myself. It could be that after years of typically not saying more than 5 words to my family members, I would like to be able to carry on conversations with them if they would accept me. It could be that after being brutally honest with a few other friends in my life, that I would like to continue the trend with everyone else.

While all of those are probably true in a way, I think there's one other reason. And, I think it is the main reason.

I lost a friend, recently, and I lost this friend because I wasn't honest with them. There were other contributing factors, but I firmly believe the lack of honesty was the main reason for the destruction of the relationship. The reason I was not honest with them is because I believed everything would be much better if I wasn't. And for the longest time, that was true. But then they started to make incorrect assumptions. They started to (and probably still do) believe that I was just naturally a liar and two-faced. And, no matter how much effort I put forth, and no matter how honest I was with them after they started believing that, it didn't matter.

I also understand, however, that if this person would have had any shred of maturity, or even any bit of understanding of my situation, things would not have concluded the way they did. But it doesn't make it any easier, and it doesn't stop me from wondering what I'm supposed to do.

My feelings are mixed. In one sense, this whole situation has given me a desire to be more open and honest. In another sense, it has made me want to construct even larger barriers. And in the end, I'll probably end up in the middle where I've been my entire life -- putting everyone on a need to know basis. And most people don't need to know.

I feel better now though, because writing about something always helps me.

This is quite possibly the greatest news article in the history of national media.

http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/421948

I really have nothing to talk about, but I just finished training and I have 15 minutes left before I can leave. So, I'm certainly not going to do any work with only that much time left.

The training went well. I was a little nervous because I was pretty much ad-libbing the entire time. We had a rough outline of things we wanted to cover today, but that was all. But it went really well.

The two people here for training are from Argentina, so there is a bit of a language barrier. But, I expected to have more trouble understanding them than I actually did. It was funny, because a lot of the times I would have no idea what they were saying when they started asking their questions, but then I would get right when they finished speaking. It just sometimes took a few seconds, but I handled it well.

It was even funnier when they would talk to themselves, though, because that's when they didn't speak English at all. I'm sure they were talking about me, that goes without saying.

Tomorrow is the last day of training.

Ahahaha, so true:

Wow, I'm writing a blog entry when I'm at home, as opposed to when I'm at work supposed to be working. What is this madness? =)

I've updated the songs in my playlist (the music player I have embedded into my site). It actually wasn't as outdated as I initially discovered -- I kept two of the songs there, and added several new ones. Check it out if you'd like; you should know the link.

For those of you unfortunate enough to have seen 2G1C, check out Kermit the Frog's reaction to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOn1htjSZic

Today was "Fun With Contact Lenses" day. It started out normally enough: I woke my eyes up as best I could and put the lenses in, feeling no ill-effects whatsoever. Then, on the drive to work, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the right eye with a rusty nail.

So, three quarters of my drive consisted of my either having one eye closed, or me poking myself in it. Finally, whatever was in there worked its way out. It was probably an eyelash...those fucking things hurt.


Oh, and I really love when they do this:
http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/174

I'm very, very close to the end of IT now. Less than 50 pages to go, I would say.

Remember the last time I posted about this book, and I hoped that Stan's reasoning for committing suicide would be explained in detail? It was probably the stupidest explanation I've ever heard in my life, but it does fit his character. I honestly can't think of a better explanation for it, so I suppose I accept this. (He didn't want to get dirty again.)

The only complaint I really have about what's been going on in the story here at the end is that if I didn't already know a lot of the mythology that Stephen King created for his books, I would have been totally lost when IT was talking to itself. I would have understood that IT was feeling fear for the first time in Its life, and that IT wanted revenge on those kids. But when IT started talking about the Turtle, the Macroverse, and where IT really lived, I would have been left scratching my head in confusion if I hadn't read The Dark Tower books.

I'm quite certain I had no idea what IT was talking about the first time I read the book.


Now I should do something constructive. Inland scripts, here I come.

Someone sent me this rather long write-up about my astrological sign. I've never been one to put much merit into these things. My opinion is, if you read a bunch of these without anyone telling you which one was yours, you probably wouldn't be able to pick yours out of the bunch. I'm sure anyone can find a few things that apply to them in each and every one of them. Nevertheless, it is kind of fun to read them and try to apply each of the points to yourself and say, "Ok, yeah, I am kind of like that."

This isn't the first such write-up I've received about my sign (which is Aries, by the way). Most are the same: "Born leader, stubborn, blah, blah, blah". I received one a few years ago that really struck me as unique, because one of the points it brought up was right on the money for me in a way that I had never seen before. The sentence is still in my head:

"An Aries doesn't just need love; they need to be loved."

That can be true for anyone, but it then went on to explain this in more detail, and what it said was very true of myself. I don't remember exactly how it was worded, but I can create an example. At a group gathering, such as a party or whatever, most people will mix into the crowd and talk in groups. An Aries, however, will prefer to talk to one person at a time. The reason for this is that an Aries wants each person to like them, not all of the people as a group. And as such, they treat each person as an individual too, since that's what they want in return.

THAT is me, period, end of story. I find myself doing this at any family gathering I've ever been a part of, any party I've every attended, and so on. Hell, I even act this way in the games I play. When I played counter-strike, I would quite often play maps with only one other person. I also find it funny that I still do this in a game like WoW, since it's an MMO. But I do -- I have more 1-on-1 conversations in that game than group conversations, and that's because it's the way I prefer things to be.

So it's not that I'm anti-social, as it would appear to those who aren't familiar with my intricacies. Quite the contrary. I just prefer to be more personable than I am able to be in a group. And if I single you out and talk to you individually, congratulations. That means I like you.

Just remember to single me out from time to time as well. We Aries need that, and we're too stubborn to admit it.

Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr_Horrible

I laughed. But I didn't laugh because this was funny. I was laughing at myself for being stupid enough to actually watch it.

Bad horse. Bad horse. Hi-Ho Silver, away. Signed, Bad horse.

I haven't been keeping up very well with anime these days. I've kind of gotten away from it a bit, and the interest just isn't there for me anymore. However, I had a little bit of a blast from the past today, so to speak.

I was listening to my Zune here at the office, and a song by Three Days Grace came onto my playlist: "Get Out Alive". I like the song, and I wondered if there was a music video for it, so off to YouTube I went.

Sifting through the search results led to many EMO-related home-made videos. (EMO kids love this song, apparently. I can see why, it's pretty moody.) I couldn't find an official music video, but one of the home-made ones caught my eye instantly. It was a montage of video footage from an anime by the name of Elfen Lied, set to this song.

I haven't thought about Elfen Lied in a few years now, but I remember the anime quite well. It is one of the most violent and disturbing pieces of entertainment I've ever seen.

I'm not sure how to classify the show, but a good term for it would be psychological horror. But the plot is so confusing I'm not even sure that's the proper term. The first 7 minutes of the first episode are the most bloody, gory, and disturbing minutes you will ever spend watching a TV show in your entire life.

Watch it. I dare you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdIiMONsh4k


In any case, it's one of my favorite anime shows. And maybe I can teach you something useless. Elfen Lied is actually german, meaning "Song of the Elves". There's also a German poem called Elfenlied. These two things are from where the title of the anime comes.

Also, I wrote up my own summary and review of the anime, as I did with many of my favorite shows. You can see that here: http://www.pastatdude.com/anime/elfenlied/

Time for a debunking!

http://www.wow-heroes.com/

I spit on your website, Wow-Heroes. I spit on your website because you are ranking people by the quality of their gear, and not what they do with it. I spit on your website because you're telling me how to play my class. I spit on your website because you're telling me that the neck I'm wearing now isn't as good as the one I replaced months ago, when I did the analysis and came to my own conclusions.

Mainly though, it's bull shit that you allow people to compare their toons to other people, and tell them they are rated "higher" or "lower" based solely on the numbers assigned to their gear. There are too many ways to play every single character for you to flatten it like that. Perhaps a mage who is currently in Hyjal has spec'd for more mana regen so they are more effectively able to handle the waves and waves of trash. Perhaps a priest has spec'd for more potent single target heals because they constantly find themselves healing the main tank. Perhaps a tank stacks stam because he wants to be effective against ANY boss, not just ones who deal solely melee damage.

Have you taken any of that into account? No, you didn't. You assigned a number to every piece a gear and added it up. Congratulations. You can do simple math.

I, meanwhile, will continue to gear, enchant, and gem myself the way I think is best. That mentality has gotten me to Black Temple, so obviously I'm doing something right. A website that is nothing more than a glorified calculator can't tell me what piece of gear is better. I'll make that analysis on my own, thank you very much.

I need a third choice for the 2008 Presidential Election. Allow me to present you with my candidate.



If you donate $10 to the Pennywise for President campaign, you get a free balloon.

They float. They all float.

Like the movie Unbreakable, I also believe that comic book heroes walk the Earth. I believe that just about everyone has super powers. We don't notice this, because most of the time, those super powers are utterly worthless.

Take one of mine, for instance.

One of my super powers is the ability to identify almost any song within the first 2 seconds of hearing it. Utterly useless power, but it's my own. This morning was probably one of the greatest examples of it in action. I was at Sheetz getting my breakfast (a bottle of Vault and a donut, rawr!), and I hear a song come on the overhead speakers. Immediately, I knew it was "I Know" by Dionne Farris. I don't even like that song, nor do I like her. And, I haven't heard that song in YEARS. A decade even, maybe. But there it was, and I knew what it was right away. She hadn't even started singing yet, and if you know the song, you know that the beginning rift sounds nothing like the rest of the song. But that didn't matter. I still knew.

Then I paid for my items, and flew away into the city wearing my red tights, cape, and suit with a huge red musical note on the chest. They call me Music Boy.

I was having lunch with the crew today, and Jeff started telling us a pretty amusing story about his son. The kid is a teenager -- 16 or 17, something like that.

Anyway, his girlfriend is out of town, and she is having him bunny-sit for her. Bunny sitting! That in itself was comedic enough. Last night, the two of them were playing WoW, and Jeff noticed that his son's voice was cutting in and out pretty badly while talking in vent. After a few minutes, he whispers "come here". Apparently, the bunny chewed right through the cable on his headset. Mwa-hahahaha.

I actually had that happen to me once -- my cat chewed through the cord on one of my headsets as well. Now I keep it tucked securely in a drawer when I'm not using it (which is wise, considering the headset).

It's a beautiful day. One of those days that begs for you to be outside in it.



And now, a song lyric portion for your consideration.

When I showed up and he was there
I tried my best to grin and bear
And took the stairs but didn't stop at the street
And as we speak I'm going down
Think Twice by Eve 6

I'm almost half-way through reading IT, and I'm beginning to question whether or not I have actually read this book before, or not. Of course I remember reading it, but I certainly don't remember many of the fine-details. It's been well over 10 years since I read it the first time, and all of those interesting side-plots and tidbits were long forgotten. So in essence, it's basically like reading the book for the first time.

There is one story-line that is really surprising me right now -- Stanley Uris. Due to the way his character was portrayed in the TV mini-series, I was left with a certain impression of his character: That of someone who really didn't want to deal with this whole situation. That was brought to it's ultimate conclusion with him committing suicide after received Mike's phone call that It had returned.

While he also kills himself in the book, you are left with the impression that he just wasn't simply taking the easy way out and avoiding the need to confront It again. In the mini-series, even as a child he was the most reluctant to believe It even existed, the most reluctant to go and confront It, and the most reluctant to make that promise to confront It again should It return.

This isn't true in the book, where he is sometimes the first to suggest certain courses of action. He takes the lead in cleaning up the blood in Bev's bathroom. It's hinted at early on that he knows It must be confronted. He's the one who cuts everyone's hands as they make the promise. So at this point in the book, you are left wondering, "Why did he kill himself?" And you're left thinking that because everything you know about this character up to this point would never give you the impression that he would be a coward.

I don't know the answer to that question, because I don't remember how it's explained (if at all). I'm sure it is, and I'm looking forward to finding out (again), because it can't be just as simple as that.

Today is Italian Sub Shop Day. I love Italian Sub Shop Day, because I love the food at said shop. They have this AMAZING buffalo chicken hoagie. It will make you cry, melt your throat, make your eyes water, and burn out your sinuses. But dear GOD is it tasty. I just require a gallon of beverage to go with it. And an occasional trip to the emergency room. If I'm not feeling suicidal, the chicken parm hoagie is also very good.

While I'm on the subject of food, we're having a company picnic on Thursday. HR has been pushing this thing for a month now. Since we're a branch office, I can only guess that main HQ is responsible for this. I can see it now -- I'm standing around looking at people I never talk to, thinking to myself, "If this wasn't work related, I would so not be socializing with you."

That doesn't mean I don't like ANYONE here at the office. I have several good friends here, and they are the people I have lunch with every day, and who I chat with when I have any time to chat. But there are also people in this office I would just as soon avoid, such as the Wookie, the Weebl, the Sloth, Lurch, and Miss Mary Sunshine-Shut-The-Fuck-Up. (Yes, those are all nicknames I gave them.)

Bottom line is, I gotta bring something to this blasted picnic, so I have decided to make my nacho dip. A block of velveeta cheese, a can of chili, thrown into a bowl and microwaved for several minutes. Voila. Nacho dip. The wookie can't have any.

One of my many interests in life is planting -- mostly flowers. I took 2 years of floriculture, and 2 years of horticulture in high school. I've always enjoyed working with plants. As such, I always handle the flower planting in the beds around my house. Here are a few pictures of how they're doing so far this year.

I got a new camera yesterday. It's an Olympus Stylus 10.1 mega pixel, with a 7x optical zoom. Pretty neat stuff. Since Blogger thoroughly rapes any image you put into a profile, I will post a better resolution here.