Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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eating & prioritization

corn at the ready!
When I sit down to eat a meal, I subconsciously prioritize the food items before digging in. I mean, if there are several types of food on the plate, my goal is to have my last bite be of my favorite one – therefore I finish the meal with the best taste in my mouth. This practice involves a certain amount of “pacing” and forethought. Say for example there are three items: corn, mashed taters, and steak. Now, Dave loves steak, and taters, and even corn… but within seconds my brain is taking stock of the grub and spitting out my strategy. One bite of steak, maybe dipped in taters, then two or three bites of corn. The corn should shrink at approximately a 2:1 ratio compared to the steak and taters. It’s hard to decide between the steak and taters for who gets to finish last, but usually the steak will be smaller, so you have to gear ratio them correctly to each other in order to make them finish simultaneously.

Sometimes, however, certain “sleeper” foods require on-the-fly, in-meal, re-prioritization. For instance, let’s pretend I start my three-part meal mentioned above, and dig into the corn. What’s this? There’s some kind of spicy thing in this corn? And it also has little baby potato pieces in it? Man… this corn is awesome! Now the brain takes over and immediately begins running a secondary meal endgame simulation. Is this corn good enough to shake up the current food standings? Now we shift gears, suddenly I begin eating potatoes over corn at a 3:1 ratio. Mind you, this kind of re-prioritization can occur several times during a meal. I mean, it would have to, wouldn’t it? There’s nothing worse than ending a fine meal on a sour note of refried beans or something… you always want that last hunk of chimchanga to be the last thing delights your palette before pushing away from the table, fully satiated. At mealtimes, my brain is just a statistician for my gut, and a pretty accurate one at that.

Last night Ben and I worked on the Halloween display. I “aged” some tombstones using spraypaint, water, and other means. We spread Woolite on the fabric for the flying crank ghost, and we made more progress on the cemetery fencing. I also carved another tombstone epitaph with the Dremel: “Sharaun. She’s gone.” short and sweet. The projects are progressing nicely, and I am on track to have them all set up by next weekend.

OK, that’s enough for me for today. I gotta stop writing so much, blogs are getting long!

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what’d you say about…

was it something I drank?
Ahh… damn you barleywine. Damn you Anthony’s kegerator; your ease-of-use factor is seriously harmful. You sit there and tempt me with your sleek blackness and your silent offerings of cool delicious quaff. You make no audible sounds as I drop your hammer and top off yet another frosty mug, yet you thank me telepathically with each swallow. So what if I drank too much for a Thursday… or Mardi Gras, for that matter. You guys were cheering me on, chanting “drink! drink! drink!” Wait, that was in my head? You guy’s weren’t cheering me on? Dang.

Yeah well, we went to Anthony’s last night to watch Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine. I know, it’s totally B-list at this point, but I’d never seen it, and Ben talks about it like it’s right up my “thinkin’ man’s” alley. A lot of people have said a lot of stuff about this movie, and without getting too much into it – I’ll simply say that I liked it. I liked it a lot. Sure, Moore is an expert at making his point – and he’s cunning and crafty in baiting people into reinforcing that point, even when they are in total disagreement with it. Contrary to what a lot of people get from it, I didn’t really see Moore assigning blame to any one group or factor – I considered it a really open-ended piece. But that’s the beauty of it. Anyway, I said I wouldn’t really get into it, so I won’t.

On the music tip, I was extremely glad when Ben rang me up yesterday evening to tell me that the new Beulah album had been leaked to the ‘net. I grabbed it as soon as I got home. Beulah has a special place in my musical canon, their sophomore album, When Your Heartstrings Break, was the first album I got when I moved to California. I played that thing to death, and that sound kind of embodied the whole “I’m a Californian” thing to me. Anyway, the new album is called Yoko – and from the few times I’ve been able to hear it, it sounds much better than their last effort. Anyway, the leaking of the album bumped me over what I like to call the “comp line.” This is the point where I have enough good new music to compile an mp3 cd of “new shit.” For your enjoyment, here’s a filetree from the latest comp (albums not linked to reviews are early leaks for which I couldn’t find a proper writeup):

D:>tree
Folder PATH listing for volume new_shit
Volume serial number is 71FAE346 9031:0187
D:.
+---appleseed cast - two conversations
+---beulah - yoko
+---death cab for cutie - transatlanticism
+---earlimart - everything down here
+---long winters - the worst you can do is harm
+---long winters - when i pretend to fall
+---snow patrol - final straw
+---stars - heart
+---stars - nightsongs
+---strokes - room on fire
+---the shins - chutes too narrow

On the “your mom” joke tip, Anthony broke the mold yesterday and created what I believe to be a whole new breed of YMJ. For the uninitiated, a “your mom” joke is a quick way to make the guys laugh. If the crew you run with is OK with rude and, more often than not, lewd jokes being told at their mothers’ expense – then you have the right ingredients. We make YMJs more often than any other joke, mainly because they are fast and easy, and generally get a hearty laugh. They can take almost any form, and don’t even really have to make sense. Nearly any statement can be turned into a YMJ. “Dang, this rock is heavy.” “Your mom is heavy.” “Man, that bike ride wore me out.” “I wore your mom out.” As you can see, the possibilities are endless. Anyway, Anthony came up with an unconventional, outside-the-box YMJ – and you, faithful reader, can read the IM transcript of it’s inception right here:

Anthony says:
you really suck as a friend
Dave says:
yeah… i know.
Dave says:
peanuts?
Anthony says:
on a call
Dave says:
damn
Dave says:
i need some peanuts
Anthony says:
my mom said you are packing a peanut…so why not just play with them
Dave says:
hey! you turned a your mom joke around on me!
Anthony says:
I just bagged on you through my mom…that is the best ever
Dave says:
that’s an innovation i think. a first.
Dave says:
that was awesome
Dave says:
a whole new breed of joke
Anthony says:
need to show that one to ben
Dave says:
i think i might copy this whole chat into the blog it’s so good
Anthony says:
hehe

To explain a bit: sometimes after lunch, I get a hankerin’ for these toffee-coated peanuts that the store in the lobby sells. Hence the “peanuts?” line above. Oh, and Anthony is always telling me I’m a sucky friend. The “new hotness” about this joke is that Anthony actually sacrifices his own mom for the sake of insulting me. Now, those are some high stakes – but I think the rewards can sometimes justify the price. Kudos.

On the random tip, I really thought this was a cool story. Who knew that diesel engines could run on vegetable oil? Well, not me, OK?

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breaking

Inspectors have not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but have found evidence of weapons programs, chief U.S. inspector says. Details soon.

Update! “Bannerwatch 2003” has had it’s first sighting, courtesy of CNN’s zealot style panic reporting. Thanks to Anthony for the heads up with enough time for me to grab the screen cap.

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human bug-light

hangin' with the aquaman and the snorks
It’s been a while since I’ve seen one of those “the end is near” doomsday red bannered news headlines on CNN.com. Seems like ever since 9/11, even the smallest piece of news is huge-bold-white-font-red-banner worthy. I mean, even John Ritter dying made the red banner. I wonder what the criteria is for being red-bannered? Most of the time, it’s someone blowing someone else up over in that middle-eastern place where people are always blowing other people up. Occasionally, it’s to make sure I’m aware that some crazy movie star is leading the pack of distinguished porn actors and other Hollywood-types in the latest election.

I have become, much to CNN’s knuckle-cracking delight, a news junkie. So much so, that when the news Gods don’t bless me with the red banner for a few days, I notice the fact, and even write about it. I check CNN.com like every hour, just to make sure that the human bug-light that is the red banner hasn’t appeared or changed.

I’d like to be in the room when they’re deciding what goes in the red banner. “Hey Mike, how many people died in that suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem again?” “Umm… lemme check the wire… it says here that two other people died.” “OK, we got three total people dead here, I’m thinkin’ we slap this headline in a huge ass white font, framed by an insane red banner, and slap it at the top of the page.” “OK, you want me to make that whole thing blink like once a second?” “Nah, let’s save that for something really big, like when the pope kicks it or something.” It’s sensationalism at it’s very best. Hopefully, the red banner will never leave. I would not know what to do. I will keep you, the faithful reader, updated – and as soon as there is a red banner headline again, you’ll hear it here first.

What else is going on? Well, Anthony and Ben and I took his new truck out for a test run the other night. We went out to this construction site that I hadn’t seen any kind of barricade on. We drove up some pretty dang step inclines, tilted the truck up on two wheels (it was too dark to see what degree we were at, he has a tilt-o-meter gauge). A couple times we started just spinning tires since the terrain was a lot of loose dirt and rock, but it was really fun. And, what’s even better – no cops came and arrested us. Next time, we’ll have to find a real 4×4 place where we’d not be breaking the law to drive. Anthony said we might take it up to Ruck-A-Chucky this weekend and try to ford the middle fork of the American. I want to go underwater so bad.

I totally haven’t been working on the “cast of characters” page. I need to finish a few writeups and add some images, and it’ll be done. For now, it’s in the perpetually-coming-soon category. Until later…

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no thanks, i’ll wait for the free one

lay up in the cut and retain some milk
I was thinking about Frank being at Fort Knox now, and how awesome it would be to be near all that bling. I mean, you can probably smell the bling as you’re driving up right? There must be some steel-reinforced cavern full of gold-brick-bling. Awesome. Bling bling, dubs, and Cristal – what else do you need in life? Wow, my brother is totally in the Army….

Yesterday I got a junk call from SBC (the phone company). The lady was telling me that they have a telemarketing-blocking system that you can subscribe to, of course the 1st three months were free as part of some introductory deal. The conversation went something like this:

Her: You wanna buy our anti-telemarketing thing? (paraphrased)
Me: You mean like the National Do Not Call list, right?
Her: Yes sir.
Me: Like the free National Do Not Call list, right?
Her: Yes sir.
Me: But yours costs money?
Her: Not for the 1st three months sir.
Me: So… you’re telemarketing me, selling a service that stops telemarketing?
Her: (awkward pause) Yes, I guess I am sir.
Me: Seems kinda self-defeating, doesn’t it?
Her: Our system blocks more calls than the National Do Not Call list sir.
Me: No thanks, I’ll wait for the free one.

What an odd conversation.

As music goes, I’m listening to the new Snow Patrol album, I don’t think it’s out in the US yet, but here’s a review of their old album. I grabbed it from absmi last night, and so far it sounds pretty good, a little predictable – but I am really jonesing for some new tunes. The more tracks I hear, the more I’m liking it.

This Saturday night is the Hot Hot Heat show at the Crest. Hurray for a show that’s 20min away and in a small venue. I think this one is gonna rock. If you’ve never heard of Hot Hot Heat, they are a rock outfit with a punkish tinge, and they remind me a bit of the Strokes. The lead singer sounds nearly identical, vocally, to the dude from Dexys Midnight Runners… you know, the band that sang that awesome 80’s one-hit-wonder “Come on Eileen.” Anyway, should be a good show.

Oh yeah, I got a new haircut. I have been “slicking” back my hair for nigh on 10 years now, so I decided it’s time to stop. Steve used my clippers to tighten up the do. Now I brush it forward, it’s awesome. I’m awesome. Chicks are all over me.

You guys read the internet, right? Check out Matrix Ping Pong (wait for it to load) and some Time Traveler spam.

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working out the kinks

So, I take back the thing from below about the comment script not working. Let me explain…

To make this blog, I used a bunch of freeware apps/code that I hacked up into what I want. The s/w I’m using to write/edit/upload these entries is called “Blog.”

The Blog s/w has a built-in commenting feature that is implemented thru e-mail… and I didn’t like that. So I Google’d and found some freeware ASP commenting scripts, which I heavily edited for my purposes (specifically, I went to work on this script source: Blogcomments).

The toughest part was the comment counter at the bottom of each journal entry. Believe it or not there’s about ~100 lines of code just to get that counter working correctly (and for some reason it’s still got a stinkin’ extra space after the comment count!). Anyway, the commenting feature now works, as does the majority of the blog. However, there is still a lot to be done, adding archive links, formatting, eyecandy, etc.

Hope you’re enjoying it so far.