Friday, June 30, 2006

Instead of passing resolutions slamming news organizations, they should be passing resolutions slamming the CIA and Treasury. How secret can your program really be if it was discovered by the NY Times? If a newspaper can figure it out, anyone with enough time on their hands surely could to. So instead of yelling at the paper, why don't you go find out how it got leaked, or why the information was so easily accessible in the first place. Regardless of the legality of the information gathering, if you're going to do it, do it so no one knows about it. I used to have way more respect for the CIA's covert operation, but it seems like they've just gotten so lazy. NSA too. Jeez. The KGB would eat you guys alive if the Soviets were still around.

What happened to June? More importantly, what happened to the first half of 2006? Tomorrow is July already and I've only recently gotten used to writing 06 at the end of all my dates instead of 05. I guess I haven't really done much of note this past month (besides my previous post about winning poker). But we haven't gone anywhere since Ben's graduation and the O's game is in another 2 weeks. *shrug* Oh well. So the first half of the year has flown by, so what? Just that much closer to other cool stuff happening in the second half. And before I know it, it'll be 2007!

Thursday, June 29, 2006

It's a small world sometimes. Apparently, Todd's girlfriend reads my blog because she knows Bowers, whom Todd met last night. I've deduced that she probably knows Katie from Robinson (or perhaps UVA), which is why her name doesn't really ring a bell, though if she knows Katie, chances are 50/50 that I've at least met her before. We all know how bad I am with names anyway, I'm so much better with faces. I mean, I'm the guy who spent 2 months on Warped Tour, where I knew nearly everyone on the crew, including people I interacted with daily, and could not tell you the names of more than 5 people who weren't affiliated with PunkROCKS.net. Anyway, interesting twist of fate I suppose.

It's been a busy week so far, but at least that means it's been going by pretty quickly. The rain stopped just in time before I went looking for blueprints for an ark. The funky chugging noise from my back wheels turned out to be from a loose lug nut jarred out of place by the road construction near the new condos. Emily's parents are in town, so hopefully I'll get to spend some time with them before they leave on Sunday. Ben's got a couple interview lined up, but got in an accident on the way to one of them this morning and now his car is out of commission. Manish's going away lunch yesterday was well-attended. I've gotten into a pretty good run of luck at poker. The last 3 weeks I've played I've gotten first or second place every game. So in total, I think I'm up about $85 this month. I've managed to stop making the one really dumb mistake every game that causes my downfall and I'm getting out of hands when I know I should rather than worrying about the money I've already put into the pot. Obviously, I'm getting a lot of good cards at the right times too, but I'm paying better attention to my poker instincts now, and it seems to be working out. I think it's because I'm playing to place rather than playing to win. So I'm always trying to mitigate losses and outlast someone else until I get into a position to get a payout, then I can afford to be more aggressive and that how I've wound up actually winning (that and lots of good cards at the right times). The girls are doing fine. I've got some new pictures of them to post, so I'll get those up soon. My memory came yesterday (my first set had one bad chip on it, so I RMAed it), so I have to reactivate Windows, which means a phone call to Microsoft (I can't wait). I was getting tired of using my almost 7-year-old laptop as my primary computer anyway. Plus, I haven't been able to play Oblivion in weeks! I think that's about it. Time for lunch!

Monday, June 26, 2006

Ooo! Free oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip cookies! Thanks Hyatt! They brought us cookies and sodas for some reason. And not week-old clearance cookies or generic sodas either. There's an A&W sitting on my desk right now. Whee!

Stupid weather. I just walked by a window and thought I'd fallen asleep at my desk for 5 hours. It was sunny when we cam back from lunch and now it's nearly pitch black. If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was going on 7 pm. Oh well, at least I didn't have to commute on flooded Amtrak rails or roads covered by mudslides.

I've actually been thinkign about this for a while, but since I just came back from lunch, it's still fresh in my mind. What's up with cibatta? I don't know who started it, but apparently, it's the new "it" thing to have on your menu. It's in every commercial for fast food places now - McDonalds, Jack in the Box, Wendy's. It's all the rage at Applebee's. I'm sure I'm leaving a few out. I think the first commercial I saw for it was Sonic, so I'm going to blame the whole thing on them. If they weren't so damn tasty, no one would copy them. Sadly, for me to take my rage out on Sonic means driving like 4+ hours to their nearest location. And hey, don't get me wrong, I like cibatta, it's just, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon and trying to tout the bread like they're the only ones who've got it and that makes them so much more appealing. Nice try marketing departments...

It's about time the computer industry (in this case, IEEE) came up with something new. Energy Star has been around for a long time, but that only deals with energy usage by the end product while in operation and not really with energy used in manufacturing or disposal. Good work IEEE for putting together a simple, easy to understand set of criteria for distinguishing between otherwise similar products, which ones are more environmentally sound.

Friday, June 23, 2006

I rolled over wide awake in the morning's bright sunshine and looked at the clock. Bummer! It's 7:30 on a Saturday and I'm wide awake. Oh. Wait. Dammit. It's not Saturday at all. Instead of just getting up and getting into work a little early, I decided to roll over and put the pillow over my head until 8:15 and my alarm clock joined forces. Oh well. At least I'm working a half-day today and tomorrow really is Saturday.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

We had a fire drill a few minutes ago. While baking outside, I decided that the arbitrary way that people take roll (alphabetically by last name) is silly. Yes yes, my name (both first and last) occur near the beginning of the alphabet, so what am I complaining about, right? I dunno. I just feel like if you're going to arbitrarily do it one way, why not a way that's way more fun? I wanted to have them call roll for a firedrill in order of importance. That way if someone like Dave is trapped in the building, people can rush to his aid before saving someone less business-critical, like, say, any of the executives on the 8th floor... But that would of course never fly with the powers that be. I frankly would like to know where I would fall on such a list. I mean, I know where I would put myself, but I'm curious what the organization as a whole thinks. So, anyway, I decided to come up with a better scheme for organizing people - by birthdate. But not just birthdate, I'm talking alphabetically by month, reverse numerical order by day, numerically by year, then, as a tie-breaker, reverse alphabetically by middle name when spelled backwards. So the first person on the list should be the oldest person born on April 30th with a middle name of Zzzzzz and the last person would have been born with a middle name of Aaaaaa on the most recent September 1st. And if all else fails to differentiate two people, use decreasing height measured in light-nanoseconds, then increasing number of eyelashes listed in octal, and finally hair-color as represented by 32-bit hexcode, ordered from 0 to F. I know, it sounds confusing, but just give it a couple of years of practice and it'll be as natural as breathing (through a straw with a mastodon standing on your chest).

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

ESPN's Ivan Maisel mentioned this in his column last week. I actually thought he was kidding. But today the idea popped into my head again, so I decided to investigate. Sure enough, it's a real thing and people actually go there, on purpose, and give him money. When I opened webpage, I actually burst out laughing. People in the hallway walking by stopped in to see what was going on and all I could do was point at his goofy haircut and laugh as I thought about all the moronic things he's done and how this is probably the top of the list.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Hell yes free Snickers ice cream bar! I can't help but feel that I'm being bought off or buttered up for something, though I don't know what yet... You know, the whole, "by eating this you agree not to sue" or "by eating this you agree to a 50% pay cut" or some such thing. I guess I'll find out tomorrow when my paycheck doesn't show up.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Today we'll be discussing the Because-I-Want-It Corollary. Has anyone else ever noticed that when you want something, it seems like everyone else suddenly has it? This perhaps has more of an impact on me because I subscribe to the Nothing-is-any-good-if-other-people-like-it school of thought. Though I doubt very much that if I decided tomorrow that I wanted to wear a lightning rod I would see other people doing it, it does often seem that when you want something, it becomes more visible. I suspect it's just because you've become more sensitized to the existence of the object of your own desire. For example, for the last couple years, I've really had my eye on a G35 Coupe, but the more I think I like it, the more I see other people driving it. This of course discourages me from wanting to own one based solely on its popularity. Well, that and the G35's 35K price tag. Anyway, much like when I was 13 and wanted a Diablo, I've more or less given up on owning a G35. Perhaps in 10 years, but by then it'll be some other car anyway. So I'm trying to set my sights more realistically with the expectation that I'll be getting a new car in the next year or two. So I've gotten hooked on Toyota's Matrix recently, but now I see them everywhere I look. I counted 9 on my way to work this morning, and it's not like that's a long commute... Corollary at work, or did the Matrix suddenly get very very popular? I don't have any evidence to support my claim of popularity (though in truth I haven't looked for any), but I'm going to just assume that the increased visibility is based solely on my own increased awareness.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

AH HA HA HA HA HA!!!!! He "is an outstanding student athlete of the highest character" says his agent. *bzzzzzzzzzzzzt* Sorry, wrong answer. we were looking for "he's a pompous jackass." He may have been a very successful college player, but his days in the NBA are limited because he's too small. This totally made my day. Even more so than Ed Nelson getting cut after a couple days of workouts because he's too dumb to be a football player. Thank you former college stars who are crashing and burning so damned hard its hilarious!

I got myself a snazzy new watch yesterday. I'd been looking around for a while ever since my last watch broke. I tried going back to carrying a pocketwatch, but without beign able to wear jeans every day and without my wallet chain, it just wasn't practical. So I was looking at Seiko, Citizen, Bulova, and Fossil. The problem is that I have very tiny girlish wrists, so ordinary men's watch are just way too big. But I found some good midsize watches on ebay and wanted to go check them out in the store to see if they dwarfed my wrist or not. After a fruitless search and some very bad customer service at Macy's on Saturday, I gave up, though one watch at the Fossil store had caught my eye and I saw a couple at Macy's I wanted to look at, but was discriminated against for not being old, Indian, or black. In any case, I went back yesterday, and was again persecuted for being under 40, but eventually managed to get someone to open the display case, at which I point I found the exact watch I wanted, had two links removed, and purchased it. It's a Citizen with a day/date display and an otherwise plain black face with no numerals. When the light catches it just right, it almost looks grooved like the face of a record. And unlike the titanium-banded Seiko I really really liked, my watch didn't cost $375. I'm excited.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Oh, I also wanted to mention, thought it occured some time ago, that the PunkROCKS.net experiment finally reached its conclusion. Kevin shut the site down after 6 years of operation. It's hard to believe that a hair-brained idea to get free stuff from labels, hatched during lunch one day on the steps at Woodson, turned into what it did. From it's crappy inception as a frames-based abomination hosted by Andy's servers, to the PHP/SQL behemoth it became, the mountains of free (and mostly terrible) cds that it produced, and the stints on Warped Tour, I don't think anyone could have predicted the success that a couple of kids with a love of music could have. Of course it's sad to see it go, even though I haven't worked on the site on over two years. But to see something you helped raise from nothing finally collapse certainly carries with it a bit of melancholy. In any case, punkrocks.net changed my life. It opened my eyes and ears to all kinds of music I would never have known existed. It opened doors for me to so many concerts that I can scarecely remember tham all. How many other 25 year olds can put "Warped Tour Stage Manager" on their resume and mean it? It gave me some of the best moments of my life, hanging out with bands and friends, interviewing people I never thought I'd meet, being remembered by big name guys for just saying hello one time. I'm trying not to get all mushy here, but let's face it, that's hard to do. When Greg Graffin remembers you by name, when Stretch Armstrong plays your stage, when during your first month at college you get to interview No Use, when Fat Mike tells you to just call him Mike, when you get to party personally with Andrew WK, when you show up at a club and you're not on the guest list, but everyone working there knows you and lets you in for free anyway, it's pretty damned amazing. It certainly had its share of low points too, but those seem somehow less important. So ends the great punk rock swindle. I'd like to thanks everyone who believed in us and helped us along the way, the labels, the bands, the fans, our readers, my friends who boycotted the site after I left, anyone who ever told someone about us, gave us a place to sleep, or took us seriously. Sorry to everyone who sent me good music that I never reviewed. But through it all, my only real regret is that we were never able to convince enough people of how much Drive Thru sucks.

Thursday evening, after dinner at Angies, Ben found himself a room in a townhouse in Burke for the next 6 months. He's got 2 roommates and his bed is being delivered today, so everything seems to have fallen into place pretty quickly on that front. Now we'll just cross our fingers that getting a job is so painless.
Friday night Emily and I went to the Fairfax Fair. She spun a wheel and got a $20 gift certificate and a free dessert coupon to Mike's in Springfield, so we'll have to go check it out. We saw Getaway Car play, who I swear I've seen before, but can't think of where. Regardless, they were pretty good. Then after a brief rain shower, Collective Soul played a 45 minute set. They're quite the live act. I haven't heard anything of theirs since their self titled record came out like 10 years ago, but I knew like half the songs in their set, so that was pretty cool.
Yesterday we helped ben move a few of his things into his place and had dinner before Ben and I went to see Xmen. I enjoyed the movie, but it left me feeling comflicted. I mean, having read so many of the comics, I have certain expectations for back-stories and characters that aren't always fulfilled in the translation to real-life actors. I won't (excessively) bore anyone with the details, except to say this: 1) I understand that the origin of the Phoenix Force too long to go into as a subplot, but as one of my favorite storylines, I didn't like the (otherwise perfectly reasonable) explanation in the movie. 2) I want them to make another one, and I want it to be about Apocalypse, since his motivations are less transparent and greed-motivated than Magneto's. 3) Wolverine isn't supposed to be the school-saving hero, but I'm willing to ignore that fact if a subsequent movie explains more of his origin via Alpha Flight. I'm cutting myself off there or else I'll go on and on forever. Just remember nothing in the Marvel universe is ever permanent.
The weather this weekend has been awesome. So after droppign my mom at teh airport this morning, I've decided to go put my car on jack stands and see what's going on with all the squealing under the chassis. It's more than likely my brakes and probably at least partially the power steering. Two things I don't really want to have to pay to fixed, but are kind of important to the vehicle's operation. Well, the brakes at least. Time to go get dirty.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

The thermostat on my office wall (which I have decided isn't actually connected to anything as adjusting the dial has no effect on the temperature) is currently reading 83. I'm not sure I really need for it to be 83 degrees in my office. I'd be better off dragging my computer outside and working underneath the shade of a tree, at least there it'd only be like 75 and I might get a nice breeze. Oh well. I'll just be a sweaty, smelly wreck by lunch time. That's cool, right?

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Who wants to go to France with me in less than 3 weeks for their very own Hellfest, featuring an amazing lineup. Darkest Hour, Agnostic Front, MPB, A7X, Celtic Frost, Opeth, Obituary, Madball, Arch Enemy, Ignite, 36 Crazyfists, Damnation AD, and most importantly, the legendary Motorhead and the cello-metal prodigies, Apocalyptica! Now if only I understood French so I could figure out where in the country Clisson is...

Happy evil day. Since 06:06:06 came and went long before my alarm went off and I didn't climb out of bed into a pool of lava or trip over the recently-smited corpses of non-believers on the way to the bathroom and the shower head didn't rain blood, I think it's safe to say the world didn't end. Unless God is on Hawaii time, in which case I've only got 10 minutes left to repent. Speaking of evil, the GT Athletics Office has made it nearly impossible for non-season-ticket-holders to obtain entry to the Notre Dame game. I expect to get decimated anyway, but it'd be fun to be there in person. There's still hope of going, even though Libby moved her wedding to the same day and is utterly failing to take advantage of the 3 day weekend. But in the mean time, Emily and I got tickets to Homecoming against Miami instead. I love being on campus for football games, can't wait! In other news, I had (steak) dinner with my dad on Friday before he returned to Tel Aviv an dgot a brief synposis of the Alaska trip along with, to quote Dave Barry, I am not making this up, over 500 digital pictures to sift through. Then there's the slide film. And that's just my dad! Between him and Ben, there were reportedly 5 cameras, so when all is said and done, there should be a couple dozen really really good pictures. Sounds/looks like they had a good time, and they brought me back a really cool gold rush centennial license plate! My mom and Ben arive in Fairfax today to find Ben a job and a place to live. I hope that's less painful than my own job search. At least he's got enough sense to start in an area where there are a lot of jobs... Speaking of which, back to work.

Friday, June 02, 2006

I think I'm most of the way over being sick now. My head is still a little stuffy, but the decongestant seems to be doing its job, by which I mean that I'm am constantly dehydrated no matter how much water I drink. Oh well. For only being effectively a 3-day work week for me, this has felt like one of the longest weeks in the history of all time. I know I have no business saying that given that it was a 4 day week to begin with and I took a sick day to make it a 3 day week. But I never said I felt that way justifiably, only that I did. Whatever. It's Friday and I don't have much going on this weekend yet, so hopefully I'll be fully recovered from my drug-induced state (which consists of hyper-irritable-sleepy-restless) and back to my normal irritable, restless, lazy self.

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  • I'm Rev. Adam
  • From Oakton, Virginia, United States
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