guster
2003.09.27 23.55
What a day! I crashed at home early Friday night due to the aforementioned long work week (total time was 56 hours). Actually, I left work at around 6 PM but I got stuck in the most horrible traffic ever. I decided to pull over and watch a movie at a theater near Norristown. Home of Chuck Norris? Heh. Anyway, I saw Pirates of the Carribean and it was so funny. Great job by Johnny Depp. I am impressed. I would see it again. When I bought my ticket to go into the theater, I was accosted by the ticketing agent when she noticed I held a plastic bag. ''Is that a pint of ice cream?'' she inquired? ''No, that's cottage cheese and blueberries.'' ''Oh,'' she replied, somewhat disappointed. My idea of what makes up dinner since I went on the new regiment is mildly shocking. A friend of mine at work has called me ''weird'' because of it. I can live with that.
Saturday morning I went out to Home Depot to do some consulting with a friend who's going to remodel their bathroom. Pedestal sinks are all the rage now. We then hit Silk City, one of my favorite diners in the area. I had a Greek salad, cheese fries, a diet Coke and this Lime-Seltzer thingy. We then went to a Mini Cooper place and test drove a Mini. Personally, I'd get the Cooper-S with its sports package and better horsepower, but my friend seems content with the 115 HP five speed. My Eclipse would kick 115 HP's ass, even at only 4 cyclinders. Like I really know what I'm talking about. I made the day complete by taking a jog down to the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Spring Garden where I saw Guster in concert. They're wonderful. I bought a nice t-shirt and their latest CD. I only seem to buy their CDs at their concerts. Funny. The weather was just right. My only problem was that the *only* ATM machine there was was broken. Super broken -- meaning I couldn't fix it by vigorously shaking the machine and then unplugging it and attempting a reboot. I then met Ed, the chief of security. No, he didn't catch me trying to mate with the ATM. He allowed me and two other fellow ATM users to leave the venue and cross the street over to the Circle-K. I met a nice girl, nay, a hottie, named Tiasha who's a political science major and a senior in college in desperate need of a job. She claims to be available to work internationally. Oh, good. Anyway. good luck, Tiasha -- I have no freakin' idea what the heck a political science major does in REAL LIFE, so I can only offer my best. Whatever that is. But take it anyway. I did make a very minor attempt at reviving my flirting skills and asked her about her unique name. She told me her parents are into ''T'' names and that her sister was subsequently named Tyranny. I'm scared already. We did not exchange phone numbers. Duh.
the producerQ
2003.09.25 20.08
I'm on my way to another 12 hour workday. This is my third so far this week. I like it. I think? Well, I'll like it next month. In the meantime I am having fun with creating prototype simulations. Now, if I only worked inside a Las Vegas nightclub doing this.One of my friends that I put on the Where Are They Now list a few weeks ago contacted me. Trey, who I met back in 1984 or so, found me by doing a ''vain search for his name.'' Hey, whatever it takes. He is still SO much more funnier than I am. I aspire to be that funny. We also turned out to both be on Friendster. Anyway, I hope to get reacquainted again. Remind me to tell you the story about the time Trey thought he saw this guy he knew following behind us while I was driving my mom's Oldsmobile Cutless Cierra at age 15 without a license. Good times.
rubber bloggy
2003.09.24 7.19
|
 |
I've been the busy bee over the last week or so. A quick update on my car. It's in the shop and will hopefully be released on probation today. Extended warranty came through again. The shrieking eels... err.. I mean wheels... were due to power steering failure. Nice. In the photo above on your left I show the Bridgestone tire failure. The other is a DeLorean that I saw being towed in Tennesee. It brought back memories of when I towed my DeLorean from Florida, only this guy had a nice truck and an even nicer towing platform. I had an empty giant Ryder truck and towing platform clearly marked ''DO NOT DRIVE OVER 45 MPH WHILE TOWING WITH THIS PLATFORM.'' Did I do that? Uh... no. Duh. The Ryder truck, however, had other plans. It had a governor on it that wouldn't let me go over 60. That was an excrutiatingly long trip. Never again. I got my nice paid parking going at the Patriot Parking garage directly across the street from me. The green Dodge Neon that I'm driving is parked there in the interim. I hate Dodge Neons. Bleah.
I bought a software package from Adobe over the weekend. It includes Illustrator, PhotoShop, Acrobat, and some In-Design thing that sounds worth taking a look at, plus included some freebies that went with the In-Design package. Total cost was around $1300. Yeah, I know. I never owned a copy of these things before, so you have to jump through the licensing hoop of fire at least once. Upgrades are way cheaper. Those dreams about the RIAA police breaking down my door and finding nothing but an unlicensed copy of PhotoShop will never come true now.
In other news, Chew Chew has figured out that he can jump onto my bed at will. I don't know what made him suddenly take a shot at it. The thick green sleeping bag will adorn my bed while I'm at work to keep out his special smells. He also started fetching recently. He really likes the running to grab the ball and then running back. He occasionally forgets the retrieving part, but we're still working on it. I also now know that I should not give Chew Chew any dairy products. Ever. He really enjoyed some cottage cheese a few weeks ago. My carpet, however, did not enjoy it. Resolve. It gets out anything. Anyway, he has made lots of dog friends since moving into the new building. The only girl I've met here that I think is totally perfect already has a boyfriend and they're in one of those ''We bought our apartment together'' situations. What a clever idea. No marriage necessary, just a mortgage. I'll have to remember that in the future.
good night's rest
2003.09.17 13.07
So this weekend I flew to Houston and went to Number's with a friend. I wore this black kung-fu lookin' top that I bought in 2001. I got a compliment. From a guy. Oh well. I think I was agitated from a combination of the pending LONG car drive, the unexpected deaths of John Ritter and Johnny Cash, and the fact that my friend was undergoing their own personal crisis. Saturday was much better. I drove the Eclipse to the dealership, bought a new rim to replace the crappy rim some body shop put on my car in 2001. $900. Ouch. Drove to Shields Firestone off Jones and West Road to drop off my car for install of the new rim and a new tire. I used my scooter to get to the storage place where the DeLorean is stored. I figure they are 3 miles apart. That's a long way to scoot and I was carrying my company bag filled with my papers and computer. Ouch. I drove the DeLorean to Wal-Mart on 1960 near 290 where it also got some tire loving. Full rotation and balance. I then did my 50 mile roundtrip and back. Parked back at the storage lot. Scooted BACK to the Mitsubishi place. Picked up my car and drove home and chilled out. I went out again with my friend and saw ''Matchstick Men'' which I loved. I ate dinner at Miyako which was great as expected. I turned in at midnight. The next day my dad and neice came with me to lunch at Marco's Mexican Cantina. We had the Mexicana Fajitas for Dos. The waitress was sort of goth and of course I got all flirty and tipped big. Mmmm. I like the goth girls. Okay, where was I? I packed up a lot of papers I intended to go over and got in the Eclipse and departed.Then things got weird.
My first sign of trouble came when my car made an odd screeching sound for about 5 seconds not 5 minutes after I left. I thought nothing of it. I drove 300 miles and got gas. When I left, my belts where squeeking like crazy for the first couple of minutes. The Jersey Village Auto Shop that my car had been oil changed and inspected at had suggested that my timing belt get replaced. Coincidence? Conspiracy? My records seem to indicate this already happened this past March. I think. I may possibly be mis-reading the invoices I have. I'm not a car monkey. Did these guys loosen my belts to screw with me? What's up with that? The Mitsubishi guy here said the timing belt needed replacing at 60K, although admitted that it probably wasn't what was making the screeching sound. Blah. And the car is filthy dirty, so tack on some detail love after the screeching belts are silenced.
The second problem occurred 60 miles prior to Tuskaloosa, Alabama. I heard thumping. I pulled into a gas station and inspected the tires. Nothing. I drove a little more. More thumping. What the? I pull over again and re-inspect. Nothing. Everything looks fine. I get back on the road. I get three miles away and then BLAM! I see something black go flying from my car and behind me. The a-hole following too close behind me freaks out and swerves out of the way. I freak out and pull over onto the median. I get out and discover that the tread on half of the front right tire is completely missing. This is not the tire I replaced over the weekend, but it was practically brand new. An Alabama cop stops to help block my car while I put on the donut and pump it up to 50 psi. He spotted a police property tag that was still attached to the donut when he was handing it to me. Long story about that. He wasn't too nosey and it wasn't brought up. I called up the Shields Firestone in Houston and they gave me some numbers to call. I drove to Tuskaloose and the Firestone place there replaced my tire for absolutely free. It was a 4 hour wait, however. Pauses. They're bad.
And to round out my story now that I'm speaking of pauses. The first night of my trip I stopped in Hattisfield, Mississippi and got a room at the Best Western. The next night I just stopped somewhere in Virginia off I-81 and slept for three hours at a Rest Stop. I got into Philly around 7:30 AM and stopped briefly to unload, take a shower, and drove on to work. Today I am feeling much better, but the aforementioned stress disorder is still around and annoying my brain. I am getting a ton of work done, however, so at least I'm not becoming agoraphobic. Woo hoo. It's the little things that count.
the link to click
2003.09.16 14.06
First off, a word from our sponsors. Check out the unique handmade mirrors from The Pinotti Collection. Any Color. Any Size.. And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog.I've compiled a list of similar incidents that have occurred to me over the last 34 years. These scenarios normally happen 5 or more years apart. See if you can spot a pattern.
- In the 4th grade I was in the Jersey Village High School auditorium rehearsing with my class for one of those ''America Is Great'' programs. I complain about feeling ill to my home room teacher Mrs. Schaeper. She's a b*tch and just blows me off. I pass out briefly by slumping up against the wall. She thinks I was kidding around. I think she sucks.
- In 11th grade during summer marching band practice, I feel out of it. At one moment I'm staring at the band hall. The next minute, my band director Mr. Cunningham is asking me what I ate for breakfast and I'm flat on the ground, wind knocked out of me. Nice.
- While attending college at HBU, I suddenly feel a weird unease and get up and walk out of my Microbiology class. I spot the elevator. I hop in. I pass out.
- While attending an Anatomy and Physiology class in 1996 at HCC, I pass out during a spinal cord overview. Actually, I cracked my head against the table and completely collapsed to the floor. Same deal as the others. Except now I was in a room with chiropracters and they sent my ass off to the E/R. Diagnosis? Vaso vagal syncopy. What's that mean? I dunno.
- In 2001 after The Great Broken Ankles Incident, I black in and out while waiting in the hospital emergency room.
- And finally, this past Friday night while I was at Numbers, I *nearly* blacked out again. I recognized it coming on (finally, right?) and shook it off.
yesterday, my troubles seemed so far away...
2003.09.09 16.50
Sorry about that rather disrespectful entry yesterday. This guy that runs MarkShields.org has some testimonial stuff up there that is rather pretentious. I don't know why the casual testimonial never caught on. I think that's the one that works the best. Everyone else's always included references to burning in hell for eternity and that they felt pressured to go through with it. They may not say that, but that's always the impression I get. ''I *had* to do it.'' Riiight. That's where the casual testimonial comes in. This doesn't have to to deal specifically with religion, either. We could be talking about Star Trek and how it's so entertaining. You casually mention that time travel, pretty girls and fighting are involved to your uninitiated, unsaved friend. Then... Bam! Your friend is a Trekkie.The Foo Fighter's Beanie Weanie is a good song. Go listen to it. Hmmm. I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but I got contacted by BMI about licensing some supposed downloads of copyrighted songs I had on my site. I think I may have had something up years ago, but I'm not certain. I do know my MOD files are probably going to have to come down even though the author tells me they are unique works. They are derivatives if you want to get down to it. The Seal single will be gone today, that's for sure. Anyway, I guess it was just a matter of time. I definitely have to disagree with the fool who believes that ''Information wants to be free.'' Yeah, right. And monkeys might fly out of my butt.
review of hp media center pc m280n
2003.09.08 11.43
I paid exactly $1999 for my HP m280n this weekend while I was in Delaware. Shopping.com says that's the same price as the online/retail cost for the machine. Rock on. HP charges tax for online purchases, plus there's the matter of shipping an 83 pound box -- all avoided by journeying 30 miles into Delware. I like it... a lot. I'm using my Compaq MP2800 projector instead of a monitor, so a slight apartment rearrangement was necessary to maximize viewing comfort. I think the projection is, like, 100 inches diagonally on the wall. [insert happy nerd grunting sounds]. The media center found my Comcast cable guide with no problem. That's the first time I've ever seen a cable guide that matched the wacky channel line-up that I've had to put up with for the last 1+ year. I thought for sure my channel line-up was top-secret as some kind of punishment. Wrong. So I ''subscribed'' to record the entire seasons of Joe Schmoe, Enterprise, and that Nick Lachet / Jessica Simpson reality nightmare on MTV. The playback is very good even in ''Good'' mode and there were very few problems other than a couple of glitchy jumps when I was doing 2 other CPU intensive things on the computer while I was recording. Okay, admittedly, I started copying a 13 GB file over to see if I could screw up the machine. It handled it WAY better than the old machines. Another cool thing is that Media Center records live TV so you can pause the thing if you need to run to the bathroom. I captured my Prague video so eventually you'll see that whipped together. My other machines had failed all previous attempts. The Klipsch speakers are snap. It's my first subwoofer that wasn't a hand-me-down. I know, I'm late to the sub-woofer party. I wonder if my neighbors in the apartment below me are pissed about the party.I am working from home today. I've got a strange tight sore throat. It's not tight like good tight. I briefly considered that I'd been poisoned or that this was the onset of initial Lock Jaw symptoms. Perhaps a touch of meningitus? Am I paranoid or what? Anyway, I still have a lot of stuff to do so this will be a short entry during my ''lunch'' break which is basically just me running down 3rd street to the Cafe Olay. I wonder what would happen if I called and tried to order a bottle of Oil of Olay.
dell aware
2003.09.06 21.50
Friday night went out to The Bent Elbow and drank many Heinekins. The opposite sex was present in full force during happy hour. When the free food ended, the opposite sex vanished. We released the hounds in a vain attempt to figure out where the hell they went, but to no avail. Our efforts to locate them again were fruitless. I had some okay pizza from this little store in Willow Grove. I then drove home and crashed. I woke up at 3 AM to walk the dog and take out my contacts. I then re-crashed.Let me tell you a little bit about My Favorite Pillow. I got My Favorite Pillow when I was around 15 years old. My parents were trying to help me deal with my face breaking out all to hell, and one of the solutions was to switch to a softer pillow. So, mom and dad went out and surprised me by buying a down feather pillow. It was soft. It was squishy. It was... My Favorite Pillow. I took that pillow to college. When my ex Betsy and I lived at my parents and eventually at the house I just bought last week, I had my pillow. If you do some simple math, you will note that I have had My Favorite Pillow for 19 years now. That's not good. It is old. I know this. I have cleaned it many times. The pillow has gotten considerably smaller since we first met. So, for this reason and probably much more, I am officially retiring the pillow tonight. I don't know exactly what I should do with it. Donating it to the Salvation Army seems out of the question. I almost think I should trek into a field and bury it. Perhaps I will do that. Right now it is in a zip locked plastic bag that my new replacement pillow came in. I actually have two replacement pillows. One is a proper down feather pillow, and the other is this IsoPerfect visco-elastic pillow that you see at Brookstone and other gadgety places. So, anyway, the era of My Favorite Pillow is coming to an end. Tell your friends.
Where did I go to buy my replacement pillow? Wilmington, Delaware. Tax free shopping, dude. I drove through there last week when I had to go to Maryland to wire my down-payment from my bank to the title company. There were so many stores there and they were so huge. The factory outlet for KayBee Toys. I was there. The company that made my new kitchen cabinets, Thomasville, also had a giant store there. I was tempted. I stayed out. I hit Target, Bed Bath and Beyond and Circuit City. My big purchases included a microwave oven complete with rotating glass plate for only $27 from Target (wow). The high end purchase was an HP m280n media center PC. The last computer I bought was a Sony 800 MHZ machine and it sucks ass now. This is 3 GHz multithreading monster. Yum. I am gonna enjoy the hell out of the media center features. I'll give a review on the machine after I crack it open. I still have to take Chew Chew outside for draining.
believe it
2003.09.05 15.27
My whole casio watch fiasco is actually coming to an okay conclusion. The guy is sending me another watch. I only had to mention the Better Business Bureau and a small claims laywer in LA I was thinking about hiring, and WHAM! I'm getting a new watch. Of course, I'm extremely nervous and won't be able to relax until the watch is strapped to my wrist, unable to escape. Only then will I be able to relax and enjoy my beer. Mmmm. Beer.I plan on seeing ''Dickie Roberts'' this weekend. It's also First Friday today here in Philadelphia and the area around my apartment will be buzzing with activity. It's also the first week that people are ''back from the shore'' and the people meter should be off the hook. To the uninitiated, The Shore is the New Jersey shore where everyone and their mom goes off to visit during the summer. They rent shore houses and just party day in and day out. We don't really have a good equivalent to that experience in Texas. True, we have Galveston and people do go down to The Strand to enjoy our ''beach.'' But over here it is like a rite of passage. I haven't taken in the shore yet. Perhaps in 2004? When I'm living in NY? Heh. Hey, don't count me out.
I finally closed on my house. I'm now a proud homeowner. Unfortunately, I don't live there. There are no plans for me to live there given my current workload here in Philadelphia. I do, however, plan on spending around 4 weeks on vacation before 12/31/2003. There are advantages to staying with the same company for 6+ years. I don't think I would have had the same opportunities if I'd remained a teacher all those years ago. I also wouldn't be a script monkey, either, so you give and take.
kraft cheese and macaroni
2003.09.01 19.45
Okay, let's sum up what' happened in the last eight days. Trip to Houston. Successful DeLorean inspection. Saw Freddy vs. Jason. Thumbs up. Saw Freaky Friday. Thumbs up. Signed papers to close on my house. Cleaned out garage. Ran two miles. Learned I don't need to run two miles. Beat a ticket in Philly traffic court. Rearranged my apartment. Decided 152 pounds is an ideal weight until I hire a trainer and buff up. Got into the habit of walking the dog late at night wearing sunglasses. Expanded closet space by putting junk in the attic. Concluded my dog worships me when he freaked out by being left behind at Petsmart for grooming.I'm in a Fantasty Football league. It's my first time. My team is called The Dregs of Humanity. Not sure what I'm expecting out of it. I hear my team sucks, but I have no clue. I do get a lot trade offers however, so I'm holding on to these dudes until at least I can see how they do next weekend. Well, okay, I'm not literally holding on to them. We're just holding hands.
I am thisclose to renting a parking spot by my apartment. It's a tie between the parking garage that is directly across the street from my window, and this open ghetto lot that's over by The Iron Works, a gym within walking distance of me. Anyway, I need a spot. I'm tired of having to dig through the bowels of memory where I store my most recent parking location on a daily basis. I need to store more valuable information in there. Like, say, my new debit card PIN number. Good to know.
