It's going to be legendary!

Crappy Day

2010-06-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

Well sports fans, today wasn't the most fun in the world. I stayed up too late last night, so this morning I ended up over-sleeping, hella groggy getting my ass out the door today. I knew today was going to suck at work cause one of my guys was going to be out of the office today so I was going to actually do some work today. The only ray of sunshine for the day was going to be at lunch.

Little background, there's this kick-ass restaurant in Half Moon Bay called Sam's Chowder House. This place serves the BEST lobster rolls in the world. These things won the top 5 sandwich award from NBC news. I've had one before, and it was awesome. I found out that this place also has a Mobile Lunch Truck that goes around to different places. Jen told me that they were going to be in San Jose today, and yes, they serve the Lobster Rolls! (among other seafood goodies and their famous chowder) I planned it out with a few of my co-workers so we were going to make the trip down there. The website said they'd be there from 1130 to 1330, so we figured getting there at 1145 would be early enough.

Whelp, we were wrong. First off, the website said they would be on the corner of Market and St. John downtown. We show up, and there's nothing. I call Jen (who's already there) and ask where the F* is this truck. She tells me to come up San Pedro about half a block, and the truck is there. We make it, and we're about 8 people behind Jen and Elizabeth, and about 30 feet from the truck, with about 20 people in line. So the fact that they couldn't get the location right was the bread in the shit-sandwich that was this afternoon.

We kick it for a while and notice that the line is not moving, and someone says as they walk past us that the wait is about an hour. This is not a good sign. We wait some more, move up closer, and then see the door open on the side of the truck and one of the dudes pokes his head out and announces that they are out of Chowder. So of course the chowder was one of the things I was going to get. I was not pleased.

We keep waiting in line, Jen orders her stuff, and we wait some more. I finally get to the front of the line! The guy taking orders finishes up writing the last one and leaves. As I stand waiting, the door of the truck opens up again and the same jack-ass sticks his head out and announces to the line that they ran out of Lobster Rolls. This was the absolutely the worst news ever. The two items I wanted to get all day were sold out. It was only around 1245 and they were OUT! The rage was building up and the only thing preventing me from burning the truck to the fucking ground was the County Sheriff in line behind us.

So I order the fish and chips and split an order of calamari with one of my co-workers. Jen graciously offers me one of her mini-lobster rolls, but I didn't take it 'cause she was going to save it for dinner, and I didn't want to eat one in front of my co-workers. So our food comes, the Fish and Chips were good, but when anticipating the Lobster Roll, it sucked. We spent over an hour waiting around and they didn't deliver. For only being there 2 hours, I thought they would have prepared enough not to run out of stuff.

After the disaster that I called lunch, I officially declare that Sam's Chowder-Mobile is now renamed Sam's Fail-Mobile.

Oh, and the cherry on the shit sundae that was this afternoon, I walked outside on a break and a bird crapped on my shirt.

SPORK?

2010-04-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

Hey there sports fans, so it's been a while so I'd like to start with something FUN and EXCITING!

Soooo I bring my lunch to work on occasion and use the plastic Costco silverware the office supplies. I normally use a fork for lunch and a spoon for snack later.

Sometimes I find that the office manager doesn't keep up with inventory control, and spoons normally go first. This doesn't bother me too much since I can still eat lunch, but I do feel like a total Jackass later when I'm trying to eat yogurt with a fork. I eventually get the job done, but I feel kinda "special" while eating it.

This doesn't happen too often, but juuust enough to be a minor irritation. The worst part happens when they run out of forks. I realized this last week when I was forced to eat a green salad with a spoon. I was still able to get the job done, but it took me a lot longer and I was pretty sure each minute it took me to eat it, my I.Q. was dropped one point.

So after this intellectually stimulating and challenging lunch, I decided to find my own silverware to bring to work. I saw some fork/knife/spoon combos at like Container store and stuff, but those cost close 14 bucks a piece. I wanted something a little cheaper, so the Google Gods lead me to this interesting website.

http://lightmyfireusa.com/spork.html

I was intrigued, complete fork on one end and spoon on the other? No weak-ass tiny tines of traditional Sporks! So I started small and bought a 4-pack of assorted plastic ones,

They haven't come in yet, but if they work as I'm hoping they do, I will upgrade to the Titanium model.

You know it baby! Titanium SPORK! Take that plastic silverware that makes me feel foolish! So I'll try to remember to re-post when the first ones come in to let ya'll know how they work out. (I say I will try to remember, but I probably won't).

Welcome To The Jungle

2008-03-29T22:45:00.000-07:00

Ok so I'm pretty sure you all have heard of the shows Survivor Man and Man Vs. Wild. If not, these are shows on the Discovery Channel that show guys going into the wilderness and trying to survive. They are pretty interesting to see how someone can survive in the different environments. I haven't seen too many of these episodes, but for these, the biggest thing they say is that knowledge will help you survive. After watching one episode, one thing I know is that I'm pretty sure that I would die if I was stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

So I was flipping through the channels last night and came across Survivor Man. This time he was stranded on a deserted island in Costa Rica kinda like Tom Hanks in Castaway. He woke up after the first night and decided to go into the Jungle to look for a trail or something. It was just one guy, a knife and 55lbs of camera equipment he had to lug around. It was weird the way they do this show because it shows him walking around the jungle climbing around stuff, but the way the shots were done, he would have to put the camera down, walk back the way he came, and walked towards the camera again.

He was saying how hot it was in the jungle and how dangerous it was. It came to night and he had to sleep on a log and put the camera on night vision. This is very creepy in the middle of a jungle. Spiders the size of baseball mitts, snakes walking around and lines of leaf cutter ants walking in a line (I know leaf cutter ants are harmless, but VERY freaky at night). He tried sleeping, but couldn't because of the bugs crawling around.

The next day he was lost in the jungle again, he came back on and he was able to kill a small lizard for some food. He made a fire and BBQ'd the hell out of it. He broke up the little burnt pieces and ate it. At this point, I felt really sorry for him, being all alone eating small lizards; but I was hungry so I got some cake, put a little dollop of Cool Whip on it and got a nice glass of milk.

So as I was enjoying my delicious piece of cake, I was watching this guy wander through the jungle. He gave hints about keeping your body temperature low, and the importance of keeping hydrated. He ended up cutting his finger and said how bad it was that infection is the most painful experience out in the wild.

Eventually the guy made it back to the coast and spotted a small village so he made it out. I finished my cake by then and I was thinking about that, and I'm pretty sure if I was stranded out there like it, I would have most likely gone into the jungle and get eaten by wild jungle parrots or something. So it makes me feel lucky to live in California and I sure as hell won't plan on getting stranded on any islands. The main thing needed to survive is knowledge, so now I know, and knowing is what??? (I'll let you answer it)

MEAT!

2008-03-02T22:23:00.000-08:00

Hey peoples,

I know it's been a little while so I decided to post about something simple. So the other day I was watching Tyler's Ultimate and he made a really good steak\potato dish so I decided to make it. It was a salt crusted, Ribeye over a baked potato hash brown topped with Bearnaise sauce. It looked easy to make and looked delicious.

We had some steaks in the freezer and I wandered to the store to get the stuff. I started with the steaks. The steaks were to be topped with whipped egg whites, folded with a blend of about 5 different herbs and a bunch of salt. Here is what the steaks looked like after being covered.

I know this looks weird and perhaps a little gross, but it's supposed to insulate the steaks and make a crust on the top. While these are all set up, I started on the baked potato hash browns. This starts with the something all things should start with. BACON! Bacon cooked down with shallots!

While this was cooking up, I had to shred the potatoes. One of these days I need to get a food processor or a mandolin, (or both muhahah) because using a box grater takes a while to shred them. After they are shredded, I put them in a kitchen towel and squeeze out the extra water. Man, I never realized how much water was stuck in a potato. It's kinda gross, but it makes the hash browns crispier.

Once the potatoes are done, they are mixed in a bowl, with Thyme, green onions, salt, pepper, one egg white, and of course the bacon and shallot. Even raw it looks good already.

Once all mixed up, it goes into the pan the bacon was in. (We can't waste any part of the bacon!)

Then it gets patted down and cooked until the bottom gets crispy. Next comes the hazardous part. I have to flip it over in the pan. Tyler did this all in one wrist flip, but I wasn't quite ready for that. I decided to take the safer route and put a plate over the pan, flip the thing over and then slide it back in the pan.

That was the plan to begin with, but as most plans go, this one didn't quite turn out (get it turn out). I started with the a nervous look,

Then the flip,

And finally the slide from the plate and ONTO the oven! Dammit, stupid potatoes fell down.

So half of the potatoes get flipped and the rest go into the oven. Soon after, the steaks come out with the crust.

While the potaotes finish up, I start with the Bearnaise sauce. Bearnaise sauce is basically a hollandaise sauce with a blend of shallots and reduced wine. So I start with the shallots and wine.

After the wine reduces, it goes into the blender with the egg yolks and then the butter!

With the completion of the sauce, the last things to do is to free the meat,

cut the meat,

Slice the potatoes,

and add the sauce,

So as always, a 40 minute recipe takes 2 hours to complete, a mess on the oven, but oh soooo worth it. It was phenomenal. The only thing that was a bit off, was the crust made the meat really really salty. So next time, I gotta make sure to scrape off more of the crust and do some major blotting. But all in all, this turned out really well and I'll have to work on the potato flipping thing. If you want to see a couple more pictures, I got them on the flickr thingy.

WOW

2006-11-06T00:24:00.000-08:00

Ok, last Friday I was driving home and I was listening to the Tom Leykis show on Live 106.9 Free FM. This show basically has people calling in about their relationships and break up stories and things like that, but what got me this day was this particular caller.

This woman named Sue was calling from New Mexico or Arizona and she was telling Tom her story, her story was that she had a one-night stand with a guy and got pregnant. She told the guy but he didn't care, so she had the baby and then went to him for child support payments. He didn't want to pay, but she knew where he worked and got a court order to garnish his wages. He obviously didn't like that, so he quit his job, so she wouldn't get anything. She got pissed off, went over to his house, told him to give her money, he said no, so she shot him.

At this point Tom was very suprised and asked if she killed him. She said stuff like, "Yep, shot him twice in the heart." and "I'm a nurse too, so I knew exactly where to aim." Tom then asked what happened then, were you arrested, and she said "Nope! When the cops came over I told them he was drunk and shot himself, when they did a toxology report they found his blood alcohol level to be three times the legal limit, so they believed me and I never was arrested."

So Tom said wait a minute, and went over the entire story again with her step by step and all the time she was recanting her story, I could tell she was very proud of herself about how she killed this guy and didn't get arrested, but I was also thinking something pretty much along the same lines as what Tom did next. Tom's last recap of the story was that she wasn't arrested or put to trial, so he asked her if she relized that she just confessed to Murder on a nationally broadcasted radio show. He said that if she gets arrested, they can play this recording to a jury and she'll go to jail. She started to say how she didn't think that would happen, but Tom said that she called a 800 number to talk to him, and since they pay for that service, they get a log of every number that calls them. She then said that didn't matter either because she's using a friend's cell phone. He then told her that (obviously) didn't matter because when the police track down her friend, her friend will likely give her up. At that time there was a silence and then a dial tone blared on the speakers.

So she straight hung up on him and he was pretty mad about it. Not about the hang-up, but that she was stupid enough to say on the radio that she killed a guy. He said in his 23 years on the radio he's never heard anything like that, and he was totally prepared to assist the police in any way possible and was telling his producer or someone on the show to get that recording and the phone number ready. Sue was also dumb enough to tell Tom what town she was living in at the time as well. Tom then said on the air that if anyone from that town knew that voice, to call them then the police in the area and have her arrested. He also said that if anyone dropped any info that leads to the arrest and conviction of that person, he would give them $5000.00 of his own cash.

The next 15 mins or so after that was basically people calling in saying how dumb she was and how she'll so go to jail and stuff, so I basically turned the station at that point. I was really suprised that someone was really stupid enough to call in and brag about that. Now I know I hardly know jack shit about the law and penalties past what I've seen on "The Practice" and the occasional episode of "Law and Order", (the original one, not any of the spinoffs), but I do remember that there are no statute of limitations on Murder in this counrty, and this person is very likely going to jail. I also know that the fact that she didn't have a trial, and was not aquitted of any charges mean that she's not protected by "Double Jeopardy".

I don't think there could have been anything else she could say to give away who she was, she said her first name, which could have been fake, but she also said what town she was from, around what time this happened and what profession she was in. That with the "friends" phone number trace from Tom's studio hopefully means that the police will pick her up soon and arrest her for killing that guy. So I'm pretty shocked about this and that the fact that she sounded very pleased with herself when she explained what she did and what she told the police, and that she didn't hang up until Tom explained to her that she could still be prosecuted for this makes me think she didn't make it up.

The End of a Tradition

2006-10-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

As many of you might not know, but my Birthday is coming up this Friday. As such, as many of you do know, I normally put together a big dinner and invite everyone I know, some I don't, and everyone in between. I've always enjoyed these get toghethers, as it's always fun to have everyone at the same place hanging out. Getting everyone there always involved lots of planning, annoying phone calls in August, emails, evites and all sorts of modern day communications to organize it. As many others have tried getting large scale parties at the right time at the right place, it is an endeavor, and for me I think most of the fun is in the setup as much as the event itself. I think it's part of my ongoing God Complex.

So you might have noticed that this past few months, none of it has happened from my part. I find it kind of weird that my Birthday, an event that I hold very sacred, is kind pissing by this year. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not feeling depressed or anything, I think I'm just being lazy this year. I'm not entirely sure why I'm not more weirded out by this, but I'm sure it'll hit me sometime this week.

I know I'm being narsisstic about this, and I know that not everyone takes their birthday's differently, some march defiantly into the future denying the fact that they are getting older, others just want it to pass by as another day, nothing special, and some actually get close to forgetting. Not me though, I alwasys think of my Birthday as a grand celebration of the day I entered this world, and another year I've been able to flourish. I enjoy life and any excuse to celebrate the wonder that is Me.

So after reading this over again, I think I'm starting to bum myself out that this year I haven't planned anything. But if anyone out there has any other ideas, let me know, or even any plans or ideas for a fun weekend. I'm going to get going now and get some sleep. I hope my random thought of my birthday don't worry any one else, not should you even think about it 13 seconds after you stop readng this post.

Until next time...

Well, It's Been a While

2006-09-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

Hey there kiddies!

As the title states, it has been a while since I've been on the horn here, and I'm not sure where to start. I guess I'd better start with our little addition, Penny! As I'm sure most of you have already seen on Jen's website, we got a new cat last month. She's a little 4 month old Calico kitten. She's really cute, with a lot of white, brown, black spots. I forget how to put a photo in this blog thingy, but I'll figure it out or work on getting that Flickr thing that ya'll seem to love so much. But back to Penny, we got her at the shelter, and for like 150 bucks they were going to throw in the adoption fee, first round of vaccinations, Spaying, and the GPS tracking chip or whatever they call it. I thought it was a good deal until I get the call from them that she is sick with an Upper Respitory Infection and can't go into surgery.

So that totally sucked, as we then had a new sick kitten. We had to give her medicine 3 times a day and make sure she eats and drinks. It took like 3 weeks of back and forth, but she's all better now. After a few visits to the vet, we found that other people who adopted cats at the shelter also caught the Upper respitory infection. Also about this infection, some cases, it's a form of Herpes and the cat can sometimes never recover fully from it. As you can guess, this kinda freaks us out.

But she's all better now, which is good. We keep her in the second bathroom when we sleep and when we're at work. I don't think she like it too much, cause every morning she hears our alarm clocks and starts meowing like crazy until we let her out. The same goes for when we come back from work, as soon as we step in the apt, she starts meowing.

So it's cool that she wants to play with us a lot. She is a little wierd though. We found out that she likes Audrey Hepburn. That's right, Audrey Hepburn. If you've seen that GAP commercial where she dances around against a yellow background to AC/DC's Back in Black. When it comes on, Penny just totally stares at the screen and if she's close to the screen, she paws at it. Another thing she does is attack the cursor on my computer when it's zipping around.

Ugh, it's getting late. I guess I'll update again later.

Until then.

Clark needs a scooter.

2006-06-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

Recently, Jen has gotten Smallville seasons 1 and 2. I remember watching this when it first came out back in the dorms and it was cool. So when we start watching the DVD's again, I get hooked. So if you haven't seen the show, you should netflix it and watch the episodes. If you were any fan of Superman at any level, the show is interesting to see how he grows up in Smallville Kansas.

So if you have seen the show, you know that Clark Kent has all these powers and he runs around town saving people all the time. I recently noticed something while watching this show. We all know he can run fast, but he always seems to zip back and forth all over the place and apparetnly NOBODY questions how he gets there. Apparently he beats the school bus to school every day and Pete just chalked it up as wierd. C'MON people! I know Smallville is probably a little behind the times, but if you see your friend appear somewhere where he should have not business beating you there, ya think you'd question it at least once!

But NOOOOOO....apparently everybody in Smallville just accpets the fact that Clark shows up out of nowhere. One scene in one episode stands out a bit, where Lex gets thrown out of his Limo in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Of course Clark shows up, asks what happens, and then zips away. That's it! Lex doesn't question how Clark found him in the first place and where he suddenly dissapeard to in the middle of the night at the abandonded road.

So I was thinking that since Clark is all strong and what not, why didn't he just carry SOME mode of transportation with him where ever he goes? I think it would make it a little more plausable that he shows up in these places "all of a sudden". A Vespa, or one of those little gas skateboards with the handlebars, fuck even a bicycle or one of those Razor scooters would make more sense to me. Granted, I'm only on seasons 1 and 2, maybe in the later seasons he smarts up, and gets a car or something that could explain why he's showing up just in the nick of time.

Ok well hopefully he smartens up, and maybe in the new Superman movie coming out this month, he should at least make sure to appear next to a cab or the subway or something that could possibly explain how he got there.

Here I Go Again (Part 1)

2006-05-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

OK I started writing this on 5/4/06 on my trip to Ohio and didn't get to finish it till today 5/17/06 on my trip to Texas.

So, as I'm sitting here watching Blade II for the umpteenth time I think back to how shitty this week was. It started out as any other on Monday and on Tuesday, but apparently this customer has one of our newest units, the SlotServer and he can't get it to work. What sucks for me is that this customer is Protctor and Gamble, the biggest manufacturer of cleaning chemicals and brands. They make Tide and Downy among others. So since this is a big account and it's gonna suck if our first new unit fail, I find myself on a fucking plane out to Ohio.

Flying to the east coast sucks ass. I've gone twice now and with SouthWest it's always the same. A short hop and then a LOOOONNNG boring one. This time, I land in Chicago for a 2 hour lay-over before hitting Ohio. Unfortunately the pizza place at the airpot sucks ass. But there was a good hotdog vendor there so it ended up ok. The fligths suck and they are long. Normally, a movie would put me through it, but my laptop only holds a charge for about 30 mins. I think I wanna get a video player for my Palm or something for next time. Anyways, with the time delay, I end up losing a whole fucking day traveling to the east coast.

And to put the shit-cherry on the sundae, I get a message from the Sales guy that I need to go to Baltimore to visit another customer's site. Now I'm annyoed because I barely brought enough clothes for this one trip to Ohio. Oh well, I'm half way there already.

The plan for Ohio is that I have a window from 6am to 2pm to get this working for the customer. The site is in Lima, about 2 hours away from everywhere in Ohio. Since I gotta be there by the ass-crack of dawn, I decide to drive to the hotel in Lima. Ohio sucks as far as driving anywhere. The freeway I have to take is like 40 miles long, there are no street lights anywhere and all around me is random houses and empty farmland. Since the freeway sucks so much, I'm basically using the compass in the car to figure out I'm still heading in the right direction.

I finally get to the right town, but they do a shit-job of labeling their streets, I get kinda lost twice before I get to the hotel. So I left Cali at 10am and finally get to my hotel by 10pm. SUCKS. Luckily there is a Waffle hut near the hotel so I can at least get a late dinner. I get back and hurry up because the customer is going to pick me up at 5:45, ya know, 245 back home. Ugh this job sucks sometimes.

The next morning comes, and of course I'm dead tired. I got to the site and work out some stuff. The customer isn't the most helpful and I was able to get some stuff done. I then leave and work my way back to the airport at Columbus. Luckily it was easier to get there during the day.

I get to the airport and ship my ass over to Baltimore. I take the hour+ flight and land. From there, I rent yet another car and drive to the next hotel. It takes me about 45 minutes and I end up driving to York Pennsylvania. This place is very nice, and built on a golf course. It would have been cool to play a round there. I end up getting there at around 8 and get some dinner at the Irish pub in the hotel. 3 Dollar Hot Wings are awesome! I then had some smoked Scallops which were good.

I then chill and get some sleep. I can't wait to get done with this trip and go home.

The next morning, I go down to the breakfast buffet at the hotel (which I was told was complimentary), eat some and then I know my ride is showing up. Now, I wasn't sure if it was really free, but I left anyway. I get a pretty nice tour of old York Penn. There are some really old school brick buldings and refineries there. We get to the company and find that the problem is on their side, and I see they fixed it in about 10 mins. I hang for another 20 mins or so to check in with the office and then we go to Lunch. I bought a flight at 3 to take me home. We go to an early lunch and get some kick ass crab chowder and a fried soft-shelled crab.

I then get another tour of downtown York and finally get to my rental car. I make the drive back and barley get on the plane on time. Now I get the long ass flight back home across the country. One stop off in Tenn, then in Phoenix, then Ontario and finally back home. This flight totally sucked ass because I had to stay on the same plane. This meant that when the plane landed, I didn't get a layover, just 20 mins before we were up in the air.

But it all worked out, I finally made it home. For now until my next trip.

Financially Upgraded........to BROKE!

2006-04-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

AND I CAN'T BE HAPPIER!!!!

WHOOOO HOOO today marked a landmark for me, finanacially. I'm finally BROKE! I realize that it might be a bit wierd to be excited about being broke, but after being in debt for the past year or so, it's quite a relief. I know I've been bitching a little bit about this to a few of you, but it's finally over.

I've finally finished scrimping and not buying any video games or DVD's for quite a while, I've finally paid off my stupid credit card! It's a strange feeling, not having to worry about the dumb visa anymore, and it'll take a few months to get back up my savings.

So what do I do on my first day being out of debt, I go to the mall and buy SHOES! Yes that's right sports fans, I end up spending 200 bucks on shoes. It sounds silly, but I realize that after I put two damn holes in my current work shoes every time I step into a shallow puddle, my feet get wet. And of course my next idea is to cancel my credit card, and get a new one. Geez I'm an idiot.

Well, I hope ya'll have fun with the coming sunshine, and I'll be out spending.

I don't even know where to begin

2006-03-20T15:04:00.000-08:00

Ok so I'm not even sure what day this really is, but I know I've been home here for one day out of the past week and a half. Last Sunday, I went to Ohio with the sales guy Bill for a demo at Ohio state. It went fine, Ohio was kinda boring when you don't have anywhere to go. I got back Tuesday night and went into work on Wednesday, I think it was on the 15th. The day was going ok, I was catching up on stuff and working on a problem for a customer who was in Mexico. They had one of our boxes out there and they were having electrical problems with it. I found out our guys were working on it for 2 days and they're still not getting anywhere.

Here is where it gets interesting. Apparently this place in Mexico was an Oil Rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The guy we were talking to was late on his project, and he was going to be getting hit with 50K per day charges every day this wasn't working for him. SO needless to say he was desperate. The guy out there (Enrique) was begging the president of our company to send someone out there to help him with this. So my boss was talking to the president and they were trying to figure things out. This meant either Me, Clarke (The new Guy), or Prashant would be going to an oil rig in Mexico. While we were all talking about it, I asked Clarke if he had a passport, and he said it expired. SHIT! So he was out of the running immediately. So that left Prashant and I candidates to go. Prashant had an appointment the next day at the INS office, so he couldn't make it. So it left me to go. But this was still in the "Might Go" phase.

While we were all discussing this, I thought I caught a break because the customer sent us a capture from his Fire Alarm Panel, our box connects to this thing. And it showed that the panel was sending messages in Spanish. Our box only recognizes English messages so I thought I was off the hook, because no matter the electrical problems they were having, they would never still work because of their panel speaks Spanish. So the only option at that point was to have my boss go, to translate the Spanish to English in our driver code and work out the electrical stuff. I thought I was off the hook, but they decided to have another developer do the programming and email me the code as he was getting it done. So I was locked in.

The president of the company didn't like this because the jackass on the rig waited till the last minute to work with our box and is now asking us to bail him out. Enrique on the rig wanted someone to go there that night to work on it. But my bosses said no, because if I take the redeye out there and get there at 3 in the morning, they would make me work the rig that night and get no sleep. So they worked it out that I would leave on Thursday and head to the rig then. Luckily the regional sales manager of our company was available and he is fluent in Spanish so it would help me a TON. So there it was, I was home for 1 day and then I'm getting shipped of to Mexico. All I knew it was an oil rig off the coast and I first flew into Mexico city and there some other city, then choppered to the rig.

So our secretary (oh, sorry Executive Assistant) was making the arrangements, but couldn't finish them at the office, but she said I would leave at 1 on Thursday. So I was planning to go to the office at 8 and leave from there. But that day, at around 9 I still didn't get anything and when she got it, she was going to email it to me but found that my flight was supposed to leave at 930. So here's where the fun begins because I obviously wouldn't make that flight. Basically I end up worrying about when I'm going to leave now. But everything gets worked out and I leave at like 130 to Mexico City. And at this point I don't know where I'm going after that. I never caught the name of the next town I'm heading to before going to the rig.

I end up going to LAX first, then I catch another flight to Mexico, While I was in LAX I was accosted by a bunch of Monks who wanted me to learn about their paths of enlightenment, which included a donation for some books they have, but I forgot to get any cash, so I gave the books back. After some lunch, I was offically on my way to Mexico.

I land in Mexico city and meet up with Clarence. He tells me we'er leaving at 645 the next morning (it's 11 already). This sucks ass because I'd only get about 4 hours of sleep. I get to the room, give a quick call to Jen since I've only been back for one day and left again. I test out the alarm clock and it works, so I catch some sleep, planning to wake up at 430 so we can leave on time.

I wake up to the phone ringing, Clarence is calling me from the lobby asking if i'm ready to go. I look at the alarm clock and the digital display is blinking at me. At this point, every blink is a "FUCK YOU" in spanish mocking me for trusting it. It's 515 at this time, and our plane boards in about 45 mins. I throw my shit toghether so quick and race my ass downstairs. Needless to say I was tired. But we make it.

I finally learn we're going to a place called Cuidad Del Carmen, on the coast. The flight is boring, and when we land, a guy is there to pick us up and take us to the boat that will take us to the Platform. We pack it up and he drives us. Now, I'm not sure if it was just a bad part of town, but we were driving through one real shit hole of a town. Everythng was run down, walls had broken bottles glued to the top to keep people from climbing. We finally get to the port by 8 and we end up waiting for 2 more hours because the driver had to pick up some other crap to send to the rig.

We finally get going and the boat ride, which we were told was only 1.5 hours ended up being almost 3. I'm glad I took the Dramimine with me, cause this little bastard of a boat was rocking around like crazy. On the way there, I notice in the horizon, that there are a ton of oil platforms out here. I counted at least 20 scattered around the 5 mile area.

After that, we finally come up to the rig and the crew boat the "Buccaneer". So to get from this small boat to the Buccaneer, we have to take something, which I call the Basket. I have a picture, but since I don't remember how to post it, I'll do my best to describe it. Imagine a 5 foot diameter circle of wood, with strips of nets tied to the outsides and comes toghether 10 feet above the middle of the wooden part. We place our luggage in the middle and then we have to stand on the outside edge of the wood, loop our arms through the ropes and hold on. Then a 60 ton crane lifts us up and carries us onto the deck of the boat. Luckily it's slow enough we weren't flung around, but it is a little intimidiating thinking that if we slip, it's a 30 meter drop to the ocean. AND to top it all off, I find out later from one of the guys on the rig, the basket has another nickname "The Widow Maker". Which is always comforting.

We get on the Buccanner and meet up with Enrique. We get some lunch first then get outfitted with jumpsuits, steeled toe boots, saftey glasses and hard hats. I have another picture of me in this getup, I'll try to figure out how to post them. We then take the Bucket to the rig.

I'll try to get through the next part without boring anyone. From my understanding, we were there to do two things. 1) Work out the Electrical issues between the alarm panel and our box, and 2) test our newly translated driver to see if it works. It's now Friday, and we planed to be there till Saturday night, in which we leave, go back to Mexico city and I'm on the 5pm flight on Sunday back home. I get the electrical stuff fixed in about an hour and test out the driver and so far it's working. Buy the end of the first day, I'm 80% done with what I'm there to do and I'm stoked. We go back to the Buccaneer and to our room. Ok for this room, imagine our dorm rooms, then imagine half that size. Then put 2 bunkbeds with the hardest cot-like mattreses in them, one small bathroom, and a closet. They fit 4 people in that room. Clarence and I end up taking the separte top bunks since the bottom ones are taken. These SUCK sooo much. There is barely enough room to climb up and roll over. Now Clarence is a guy in his 60's so imagine how much fun he had getting into this bunk (I coudln't watch).

The next day rolls around and we get an early start, since I wanna get my ass home that night. We are given to this guy Manuel who is working on the alarm panel. We test out the driver and it's working perfectly. We test it out and see that every event is working. So I'm ready to leave, and here is when Enrique turns into a rat bastard. We tell him it's working, but the front end system isn't working. He tells us he needs the entire thing to the front end up and running or won't be able to arrange transport for us back to Cuidad Del Carmen. I'm getting pissed, but I do the entire configuraiton file in about 2 hours. I also work out the other guy's connection in an hour. So I now set up a demo that works for everything in the room and it works. We call Enrique over again to test and he sees the things we do, but is asking about something else now. So now we're stuck adding more and more stupid points. And we're getting close to the last boat of the normal day.

I finally get everything working and we finally get to demo to Enrique's boss on the rig. They come in and I can feel my salvation is at hand. They pull one alarm, the light shows up on the front end just like we expect, but then they start looking at a light and talking rapidly in spanish about something. Apparnetly when the alarm is pulled, a light should have come on as well. So this was nowhere in the list of points I was given and I start to feel like I'm never going to go home. Enrique starts talking to Manuel and Pablo asking about what they can do about it, and they can't do much. The light isn't working electically, and they wired it back-assward in the panel, so I can't even map anything to the point. They finally ask if we can make any alarm turn on a stupid LED on the front end. I tell him I can do it, but it'll take a while. Clarence tells them if I can get it done by 12, they call the boat over and take us back to Cuidad del Carmen.

I start to do work, then Manuel starts getting into an argument with Enrique over the radio. They go back and forth for about 2 hours and at this time, i'm doing nothing because now we don't know if they are going to be assholes and change things again. Finally they come back over and ask that if anything goes into trouble, can I turn on another stupid light. I tell them yes and tell Clarence that we lost another 2 hours. SO I get back to work and finally get things done at 10. We demo it again and it works just fine. They go off to test other stuff and we end up not hearing back from them at all. We endup waiting around till 1 and decide to say "fuck it! let's got back to the boat" We go the crane and find out that Enrique went back hours ago. This royally pissed me off. We get back and Clarence finds that the boat is on it's way and should be ther aby 2. From there we'll get to Cuidad Del Carmen by 5 which was fine by me, I just wanted to get the hell off the damn boat.

I get packed and ready and then Clarence comes back and tells me the boat was diverted and we're stuck another fucking night on the boat. At this point I'm too tired to care and just go to sleep. The next day we go find Enrique to find out when the hell we can go home. We're told that a helicopter will be there by 2. We meet up with Enrique and he's trying to call the airlines to get our flights re-booked and he "says" he gets them done. We kick it and luckily on Sunday, they have a BBQ on the helipad. We get some good ass food and wait some more. We are then told the chopper will meet us at the rig. So we suit up and take the bastket over there one last time. We hang out with the guys for a little while longer and then we're told the chopper will be there soon. We end up having to drag our luggage up to the very top of the rig. It's at LEAST 6 stories up and took a helvua time.

We get there and the chopper is waiting. Nothing ever looked so good. But then 6 other guys run up to it ahead of us and the thing takes off. We find out that they were making a delivery on another platform and will be coming back. We wait and finally get on the chopper. IT's totally cool flying across the ocean in one of those and when we came up on the coast, the view was AMAZING. We finally land and it's about half a mile away from the airport. We end up walking in tropical heat over to the airport. We get there and now there's another hassle about getting our tickets to Mexico city. but we finally get on the plane.

We land in Mexico city and book the hotel again, I call Jen and it sucks that I'll be there an extra day. But it's all good and everything is set. The next day is soo sweet in the fact that I get to go home! It was a direct flight to San Jose and it felt awesome.

SO the trip itself on such short notice sucked total ass, the extra day and threat of not being albe to leave was very troubling. But it was quite the experience and the adventure. Being out in the coast and the view was awesome. I think it was definatly worth going once, but I think it'll be quite a while before I want to go back. I took a bunch of pictures, but I don't know how to put them in this blog. I'll work on getting one of those Flickr accounts and put them up there.

Bad TV!

2006-02-14T22:59:00.000-08:00

OK so some of you might have seen Jen's post a while ago where she put a picture of our TV that was showing a DVD in black and white. SO watching Madagascar on DVD was kinda interesting. The main menu was in full color, but when the movie actually started, only Marty and the penguins looked right. Well, since then I thought it was something wrong with the DVD player. So I swapped it with the one in our bedroom. I found that one had the same problem. We have a very strange TV out there, cause after about an hour of testing different ports, cables and devices, it appears that every DVD that plays on our players shows up in black and white. Well, almost every DVD played in black and white, NewsRadio played in color. Which is proof enough that NewsRadio is magical and above all attempts of corruption from the forces of evil.

Of course this is the worst news as it's now giving me that itch to buy a new T.V. And, being the good Consumer American I am, I immediately think of the biggest, brightest, most expensive TV imaginable without even starting to look online to shop around. So if anyone wants to take a look and see if they can fix the T.V. my credit card would really appreciate it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2006-01-27T01:08:00.000-08:00

HAPPY New Year Everybody!

Ok so I know I'm almost a month late, but it's still nice to hear. I'm acutally going off of the idea from Vijay and Umang that the year didn't start until after the offical party. Yeah, Vijay's party kicked ass, there were hella people there and a very minimal amount of being violated. It was cool cause almost everyone showed up, even Marc and Shanta!

They came back for a couple of weeks to visit and be merry, but I heard they just ended up cleaning the garage. But Jen and I were able to hang with them a couple of days which kicked ass.

What else, what else, oh yeah, I just got back tonight from Baltimore work trip. I was there from Tuesday to Today to work with some potential customers. On Tuesday, I was at the airport and kicked off the good luck by losing my boarding pass about 10 minutes after getting it. That was a lot of fun, luckily i had an hour before the flight and was able to get new copies. So 10 hours later, I get to Baltimore and meet up wtih Bill, our sales manager. I soon realize two things when we get out of the airport. One, I forgot to pack a jacket, and two, January on the East coast can get a bit chilly.

The next day I meet up with the customers and everyone asks me the same question, where's my coat? The cold wasn't that bad though, and luckily it wasn't raining or snowing when I was outside, so I didn't look crazy.

The rest of the trip went ok, it was all work, I wasn't able to do any sightseeing or anything like that, which sucked, but I got back now.

Sorry for the lack of exciting detail on this post, but I'm tired and my brain is about to shut down.

Hell, or something just like it

2005-12-01T00:20:00.000-08:00

Well today I finally knew what it was like to be in hell. Jen and I went to Michael's so she could do some holiday shopping. For those of you who don't know, Michael's is a super store that sells all sorts of arts and crafts stuff. It has pretty much everything you need for any creative craft project. So, needless to say I never buy anything there. So I was following Jen around as she was buying stuff for her projects as we normally do and then we made it to the checkstands.

As this place is big sometimes the lines to get your stuff are pretty long and if they don't have checkers, it's almost as bad as returning something at Fry's. So at this particular checkstand, they only had 2 checkers, and the line was about 15 people long. So of course, there was one woman at one of the checkstands who must have had at least 50 little and big items in a friggen shopping cart. At this point there were about 7 people in front of us and the other guy who wasn't working so fast either. So this lady was taking forever at the line, her pissant kid was running around all over the place, and she kept yelling every 5 minutes or so to tell the kid to stay close.

So already it was a shitty day at work, and now I'm stuck in this line for a store which I'm not even buying anything at and there seems to be no end to. I realized that I was either in Hell, or if I knew I was going to Hell, but haven't reached it yet, it would look exactly like the line I was waiting in at Michael's. I think the proper term is purgatory, the inbetween of heaven and Hell, but this line felt like the border line of Purgatory to Hell.

To make things worse, after the lady finally got her items rung up, she paid by CHECK! Damn check! Which of course the cashier had to see some ID and write some crap on it and this lady didn't even have a proper ID, but had to show some stupid paper or something which the cashier needed to get another confirmation from the OTHER fucking cashier! This meant that NOBODY was ringing up stuff and the line ground to an immediate halt.

After what seemed like an Eternity, the lady was finally done and she was walking out, but her kid wasn't with her, she was almost out the door and realized her kid was still by the candy endcap looking at candy, she bellowed another yell to her spawn and the kid ran to her, but he had a roll of bubble tape with him. He totally took the shit and everyone saw it. The cashier told him to bring it back and the other cashier saw it too, but they were too busy to walk over. Luckily the mom saw it and yelled at her kid to put it back.

I was quite amazed at the length of time I was in the line and that this lady was able to do everything that was humanly possible to keep the line stalled. So I figured if I wasn't in Hell, I was defiantly standing in line to get in the front door.

Tooth Fairy Investment Plan gone wrong

2005-11-27T22:21:00.000-08:00

So, I was at my house for the Thanksgiving Festivities and my mom told me to clean out the extra bedroom of my crap that's still in there. I always hate that cause it's all crap that I gotta move to my place. Well, I was cleaning stuff out and found something I haven't seen in a while.

So if you haven't figured it out, it s a jar with my old teeth in it. The idea was when I was a kid, I knew of the whole tooth fairy who gives you a quarter for each tooth under the table. I figured I didn't want just one quarter at a time, I wanted to cash out big. So I started gathering my teeth in the jar so I can get a huge chunk of money all at once. Well, as you can see, I somehow forgot to cash out on the tooth plan.

This sucked, and I'm pretty sure if I try to put the teeth under my pillow now, I won't get the cash. I'm guessing the statute of limitations on tooth fairy cash ends when the last tooth falls.

And now you know

2005-10-29T00:22:00.000-07:00

And knowing is what?

Well last week Maya definitely learned something new. The other week we met up with her and gave her a dvd set for her B-day present. She opened it in the car and left the plastic wrapper in the backside. I knew she was going to leave it there. SO when we dropped her off, yep, she left it there even after I was yelling at her to pick it up. So I grabbed it and left it on her doorstep, and rang the doorbell. She came back out and threw it back in the car through an open window. I ran it back to her door and tried driving away, but she lives in a court and I couldn't drive too far. She stuck in under the doorhandle on the passenger side.

So by that time, I was tired to run around so Jen and I left. Needless to say I was pretty annoyed at the garbage left in the car. I looked in the cupholder and saw another foil top she left earlier. SO by the time I got back, I was plotting my revenge and then it hit me! I went back to the apt, put both items in an enveloper, threw a stamp on it and mailed that shit back to her. It was perfect.

Now, I know what you're thinking, why in the world did he spend 37 cents to mail garbage to someone? Well let me tell you what made it worth it, I mailed it on Saturday and come Wednesday night, I get a call on my cell phone with her yelling on the other side. Now, I was laughing a bit so I didn't quite hear everything she said but yeah that made it totally worthwhile. So yah Maya learned a valuable lesson, don't leave garbage in my car or I'll mail that shit back to you.

Until next time......................

Happy Birthday tooooo............ME!

2005-10-24T21:50:00.000-07:00

AAHHH yes, one of my favorite times of the year. My Birthday! I always liked my B-day, not because of the presents (which rock), or the dinner (which super rocks), but I like it the best because I can normally get most of my friends together to hang out.

This year was very cool since my actual B-Day was on a week day, I got to move the big celebration dinner around a bit. It was pretty cool, I got to celebrate my birthday pretty much over the entire span of October. My parents were going to be out of town on the weekend of the 15th, they wanted to dinner the weekend before. So I got a nice piece of prime rib on the 8th. Then my b-day happened on a Thursday and Jen and I went to Todai for a free B-day dinner. Which sucked. Todai is kindofa rip off. The damn buffet costs 24 bucks for dinner and 25 on a Friday and sat. And those days are the only real ones to go on because they have the Lobster on the buffet. But I digress, the other cool thing was that since it was my B-day, I was able to take that Friday off from work. So Friday I had it all planned out where Jen and I go to B-fast at this place called Stacks which has some pretty good pancakes, then we took a trip to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Which, if you've read Jen's website lately was conveniently closed. Making me look like a Jackass. But the Arcade was open so I was able to play a game or two before resigning to defeat and driving home.

At the beginnig of Oct I took a quick poll of everyone if the weekend of the 15 or the 22nd would work better for them and everyone pretty much said the 22nd. Which leads me up to this next part about dinner.

If you haven't been to one, I normally get about 15-30 friends together and have a big dinner at a cool resturant. Aside from the disastrous, but educational 21st B-day, all of them have totally rocked. This year, I got 15 people together at Tony Roma's, which co-incidently, is a pretty good place for ribs. I always get the Beef Ribs when I go there. They are almost the size of my forearm and I feel like I'm in the Flintstones when I get them. And they taste good too. My first impulse for dinner though was the Texas Roadhouse up in Union City, but when I called those hillbilly bastards, they couldn't handle a party of 15 to 20. So that sucked because that place has the best Prime Rib I've ever had.

After the dinner, I planned to have everyone who could, come down to the Corn Maize over in Fremont for some haunted corn maize fun. But when we got there, we found that the damn place closed at 9 (we got there at 10). SO that totally sucked ass. Instead we decided to go bowling at the 4th street bowl.

Now I know it's been a while since I've been bowling, so I expected to suck for a bit, but my first frame I went up, my approach was good, the backswing solid, but the release didn't quite work as well as I thought. My feet slipped out from under me and I fell onto the lane. Now, I've been bowling on and off since before High school and this is the first time I fell on the fucking lane. I didn't do a full face plant and slid down to the pins or anything, but I smacked my knees on the passline and my hands went right into the oil on the lane. It was totally embarrassing and don't worry, Jen got a good picture of my ass on the floor. But I always like denial, so if someone asks about the picture, I'm going to say I was sacrificing my first frame to the bowling gods in an attempt to appease them.

So, in the end my almost month long celebration of my b-day was totally cool. I always enjoy hanging out with everyone and eating a lot of meat. Now normally I would take this time to reflect on the fact that I'm 26, which is a stone's throw away from the big 30. Most people would start to panic at that fact, would start to panic and question themselves like where am I going with my life? Am I working at the place I want to call "My Career"? I thought I would start to have the same questions about my life, but for some reason I don't care that much about dumb questions. I know I'm still kinda starting off and I still have time to work that crap out. I'm almost thinking I'm glad I'm one step closer to 60, so I can finally retire and be done with this work shit that I'm currently doing.

So in the end, I always enjoy the time around my B-day, I get to celebrate the day I was brought upon this earth, to begin my journey into this life and my work towards immortality. But more importantly, I get to have fun with my friends and eat good food.

Trip

2005-10-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

Well Kiddies,

It's certainly been a while since I find myself pecking away at the keyboard telling you all of my dribbles that come from this convoluted mind of mine, but I think I'm way overdue.

SO, as I know you have been wondering, the big question is what have I been up to? I guess the biggest thing was I just got back from a trip from Europe. If you haven't read from everyone else's blogges, we took a week and a half trip over to a few places over there. We started in Amsteram, then hopped over to Munich, took the train to Paris and ended up in London. To say the least it was a blast. It definatly was the life experience that everyone says needs to be done. I had a lot of fun hanging with everyone and seeing everything.

I call this trip the Shotgun trip across Europe. Althought we're not students anymore, we definately did the Student Backpack trek. We stayed in cheap Hostels, lived out of our backpacks and did everything we could as fast as possible.

So, as it will take me a long time to get everything down on this blog as to what we did, I'd have to start at the beginning. The first part of this trip was a long-ass flight from San Francisco to London. This took like 11 hours to get over there. Normally I would try to sleep on the way over, but I had the classic long flight entertainment. Yep, you guessed it, right next to me for the whole trip was the screaming 2 year old! She was sitting on her dad's lap the whole trip. To make it even better, in the seat in front of them was Mom with the screaming 1 year old. So needless to say, I got shit worth of sleep on the way over. I saw a couple of cool movies but that's about it. So we landed at Heathrow Airport, and from there we had to take a bus to Gatwick Airport for our connecting flight to Amsterdam. The Heathrow airport sucked big time. It was stuffy and hot. There were a lot of escalators and moving sidewalks that were taking us deeper and deeper. I told Maya as we were schlepping down there it felt ilke the fourth ring of hell. We finally made it out and took a very boring bus ride from one airport to another.

Well, I'm getting tired of typing, so I leave the story at the boring beginnings. I will do my best to log in sooner than a month, but until then.......ROCK AND ROLL!

The Best Show I've Never Seen

2005-07-18T23:58:00.000-07:00

Well, over the past few days I've been totally hooked the show BattleStar Galactica. This is a remake of the sci-fi show done in the late 70's. The original was basically after the Star Wars craze and ABC wanted a piece of the action. I've never seen the original series, but from what I've seen and heard so far, it was a campy, bad special effects, and cheezy dialogue. I also saw a behind the scenes special on the new series and it was awesome as well. The one thing that I found the most intersting about the original show was that almost everyone knows the name Battlestar Galactica. I've never seen the show, but I knew the name, recognized the bad guys and basically knew what type of show it was. One thing I found interesting was that the orignal show was only one for one season. I think it's amazing that a show can make that kind of a cultrual impact for only being on for such a short time.

So I don't know the storyline from the original show, but for this one, Humans created this race of machines called the Cylons. These were created as a slave race, which eventually gained sentience and rebelled against the Humans. They were at war for many years and suddenly they left. The Cylons were gone for a ton of years, and then they returned. They came back and exterminaed all of the humans on all of the planets that they colonized. All of the Humans were killed except for approximately 50,000 people in ships on the run.

I think that the show is extremely well writen and done in that it's not just another action show or a sci-fi show. What I find the most intersting about the show is how the characters act and do when faced with total extinction. Right off from the first episode, these people are in the race for not only their lives, but they have the responsibliby of the rest of our species. The way they deal with crisis that come their way and the decisions the leaders make to ensure the saftey of the rest of the people running. Out of the 50,000 people still alive there is only one Military ship, the Galactica with it's fighters to defend everyone. There are about 40 different ships that just carry the rest of the people around as they run away. So to me it's intersting to see how the military commanders not only have to worry about their own ship, but the the other defenseless ships in the fleet. Because one thing was abundantly clear from the beginning, the Cylons are after the extermination of the human Race.

Since I've never seen the original, I don't know what the oringial Cylons were and what they're plan was, but this show has impressed me with what they are now. Basiclly in the original show, the Cylons were big StormTroopers with reflective armor and a red glowing eye that moved back and forth like K.I.T from Knight Rider. One of the most major changes for this show was that now, the Cylons have evolved to make themselves look, feel, and act like humans. There are about 5 different models shown so far, and each has copies of themselves. They are even programmed to not even know they are Cylons. This brings up very interesting issues with Sabotage and paranoia within the rest of humanity fleeing for their lives.

What I find the most intetsting about the Humanoid Cylons in this series is that they seem to be experimenting. The focus of one experiement is Love. It's interesting that they would pick that particular subject but it does make sense to me. As everyone knows, Love is the one force that drives humans to disreguard their natural instincts as well as logical thought. To me it would make sense that Machines would not be able to understand this concept and try to experiment to find the true nature of it. The other phenonmenon that they bring up is God. The Cylons seem to be convinced that they are God's children and that they are doing his work. I also find this interesting in that God is the other driving force in human existance that has not been rationalized, or categorized, or even proven in the last 2000 years. I think that's why the Machines are also totally engrossed with the idea of God as well. So in the end, I think that this show is another example of why Humans are screwed as soon as we make the machines our slaves and then make them self-aware. It will always lead to disaster, but that is another discussion in iteslf. (Let me know and I'll try to find the paper I wrote on this particular topic).

So I really suggest that everyone watches the show, in that it's not what appears on the surface when you see previews or hear the name BattleStar Galactica. I think the show is a very intesting supirse. And hell, you just might like it too.

Fun with Commercials

2005-07-13T22:28:00.000-07:00

WELL! It's been a while hasn't it kiddies? So to kick off this random assortment of thoughts, I was watching T.v. one day as I normally do and I saw this commercial for Blockbuster, which had this woman talking to the camera kinda like this,

"Ya know my friends and I have been going to the same video store for years and alway's being charged these crazy late fees. So when I heard Blockbuster was giving me more time, I was like "Seeee Yaahh"

And they go into the whole deal on how Blockbuster doesn't charge late fees anymore. So I was thinking about what she was saying and I was thinking, "Hey here's a crazy idea, instead of complaining about the crazy late fees, how about taking some responsibility and returning the damn videos when they are due? I don't think it's that hard of a concept.

So the next commercial I was thinking about was the Pepsi commercial where it's in a cooler at a 7-11ish type place. The guy turns off the lights and closes the door, but he leavs the stereo playing that "Hey ho Let's GO!" song. And then all of the drinks in the cooler start talking and the juices and stuff start complaining about the loud music. The Sports drinks are saying that they have a workout at 7 the next morning. The camera then pans up to the top shelf and we see that it's full of Diet Pepsi's that are dancing around to the music.

The there's the outside shot of the cooler and we see the glass shatter and one can of Diet Pepsi comes sailing out and lands on the ground. Then every looks in shock and then the can on the ground spins around, jumps up and starts dancing around again. The music keeps playing and one can says to another, "he's always doing that"

Now the first time I saw that commercial, I thought it should go another way. everything goes the same until the guy goes out of the cooler. Then as everyone is looking down at him, a slow, steady puddle of soda starts seeping out of the top of the can as he lays there silently. Then cuts to two drinks on the ground next to a chalk, outline of the can, questioning the other cans, seeing if he has any enemies etc. Basically the rest goes into the standard Law and Order thingy with the Bing Bong sounds.

I also wanted to tell ya about something that Norman brought to my attention today. We were talking about going to see the new Fantastic 4 Movie and he said how their powers were the same as the Incredibles. I thought about it for a second and he was right. Violet can turn herself invisible and create force fields, Helen can strech every part of her body, Bob has super strength and almost invulnerability. Exactly the same powers as The Invisible Woman, Susan Richards, Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards, and The Thing, Ben Grimm. The only thing I saw different was that the son Dax had super speed and Johhny Storm was the human torch, but Jen then told me that the baby Jak-Jak also burst into flames. SO it's offical that Pixar totally copied Marvel's Fantastic 4 for their latest picture.

I was going to talk more about this but I'm getting pretty tired so instead I'm gonna get some sleep.

The Bat Has RETURNED

2005-06-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

As you can probably tell by the title, I just saw the movie Batman Begins. For those of you who havnen't seen it, you definately should. They finally did the movie right. They went the Spiderman 2 route and focused on the story of Bruce Wayne instead of the adventures of Batman.

Now the first two movies were good, but this one blew them out of the water. I'm just going to pretend that the third and fourth movies didn't exist or were just little fits of insanity from whoever owns the rights to the movies. I'm glad on this movie they put the Dark back into the Dark Knight. It was cool seeing how Bruce got his training and all his cool equipment to become the Bat.

Since this is a new start for the Batman, there is inevitably going to be a sequel to this movie. I'm all for sequels, but I know that since they told the story already in this one, there's not much else, except for Batman to run around fighting bad guys, which is the formula for Batman 3 and 4.

So i'm outta ideas on this one, but I would like to leave with my favorite quote from the movie, which pretty much defines Batman,

"I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you."

The circle Is Now Complete

2005-05-22T23:18:00.000-07:00

BOH YAH!!!!!

If you didn't know, the final installment of the Star Wars Saga was released this weekend. This is the big one that ties the two trilogies together. Although I admit I'm a bit biased, but I totally liked this one. The action was awesome, the LightSaber fights totally kicked ass and betrayal was intense. Now for the spoiler, Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader, he betrays the Jedi and hunts them down and kills them. OK yeah, lame spoiler, but technically speaking it's a spoiler nonetheless.

For the record so far I've seen it twice this weekend. Both have been at the Century 22, the Digital Projection Screen. I think I got about 2 more times to watch it in the theatre. But as always, if anyone wants to go watch it, I'll go. Now since it's been released, it now begins the long wait for all 6 movies to come out on DVD. I figure about 3 more months in the theatres, and then the 6 month wait for Episode 3 to come out on DVD by itself, and probably another 2-3 months for the ultimate box set to come out.

So thinking about the movies all in general, I think the single cause of the downfall of the Jedi was Qui-Gon Jin. He was the first one to identify the little punk kid Anakin as the 'Chosen One'. If you didn't know, back in the 'good ole days' of the Jedi order, there was a prophecy that there would come a 'chosen one' who will bring balance to the force. Now, since Qui-Gon believed Anakin was this one to bring the balance, his dying wish was that Obi-Wan trains the kid and allow him to complete the prophecy. I was thinking about it, and Qui-Gon was the biggest idiot in the galaxy for trying to find this 'chosen one'.

The Jedi Order already knew that the Sith only composed of two, a Master and a Student. SO why in the world would anyone want to find the one catalyst that would balance the equation? There are two bad jedi and a tons of good jedi. This has bad idea written all over it.

So, doing a quick headcount, at the time of Episode I, I would guess there's about 200 full Jedi knights and approximately 100 Padawans and Younglings serving the greater good, dispensing justice and peace across the galaxy. At the end of Episode II about 100 Jedi knights went to Geonosis and about 15 of them came back. SO already they're down a lot. Finally by the end of Episode III there are only two left, Obi-Wan and Yoda.

So the little snot was able to fufill the prophecy and was responsible for killing all of the jedi in the universe.

Speaking of Lightsaber fights, I've always wanted to have a Lightsaber as a kid. But as I think about it more and more, I find myself not wanting one that much. I'm pretty sure I'll end up killing myself or removing one or more of my own appendages. If I did have one, I would always carry it around, but it probably won't do me any good since I don't have a connection to the Force, therefore if someone shoots at me, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to block it. The only good use I can think of for the lightsaber would be to knock over bank vaults and armored cars.

So enough of this random dribble about Star Wars, I can't really think of anything else for now. So if you guys need anyone to watch the movie with you, let me know and I'll watch it.

Ready for Retirement

2005-04-24T23:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I was sitting around the other day, playing video games, watching t.v. and I was thinking to myself that I'm getting a bit tired of the whole work thing. I want to retire and just chill. Therefore I think I'm ready for retirement. That way I can just hang out, work on some real hobbies and have fun. But after looking at my current 401K plan, I found that I wouldn't last too long if I retired now. So as being a true American, I started thinking of ways to make an exhorbant amount of money as quickly as possible and with as less work as possible.

The first and obvious way would be to win the California State Lottery. This is one of the hardest ways, but well worth it. But I need to win it correctly. The starting jackpot after a win is 7 million dollars, the rules state that taxes get taken out up to 54 Percent. Which would leave a minimum of 3 million and some change, with housing costs and a high cost of living in the bay area, I figure it would be more difficult to live in the manner I want. Since I figure I'm only going to win the Lottery once, I am going to wait for it to become a substantial amount. I think 70 million jackpot will do the trick, with 35 Million, I will be able to set up some very long term investments and keep my family in riches for a long time.

The second way I figured to make that kind of money is to own the rights to something. Songs and books would be the best bet. I first saw this potential from watching that movie "About A Boy". In that movie, Hugh Grant's character had no job because his dad wrote a very popular christmas song and Hugh was able to make a living off of the royalties. I have always thought that was awesome, but I don't really think I would make a good songwriter. So the next way would be to write a book. Best sellers that sells a million copies are where it's at. I would also try to write something that could be analyzed in college classes. Thinking of the numbers 200 books sold every 6 months from one campus alone would mean bank.

Also with books there is more of a potential for a movie being made from it which would mean one thing, "Mo Money, Mo Money Mo Money!" Therefore I gotta start working on an Idea for a book so I can make the big bucks.

Ok enough about that, time for a movie review. Last week I rented the movie Electra. For those of you who don't know Jennifer Garner repraises her role as Elektra Natchios the love interest and fighting buddy of Ben Affleck from the movie Daredevil. This time she plays a resurrected assasin who fights the evil organization called "The Hand". Now, I'm a big fan of most movies, but this one fell a bit short. Marvel Entertainment has done a pretty good job so far to bring it's comic book characters to the big screen, but this one ranks up there with "The Hulk" and "Daredevil". From the previews and her character in the last movie, I expected some fancy fighting moves and good fight scenes. The movie had all of the elements of a good comic book movie, the conflicted hero, the group of bad guys who each had their own super powers, but the movie just lost it somewhere. The action sucked, half of the bad guys were killed either too quickly or no fighting at all, like a thrown Sai going 50 paces to just stab a bad guy. Even the "Big Fight" as all comic book movies have sucked as well. As all superheros do Electra had a costume, but she only wore it for 20 minutes at the end of the movie for the "showdown" fights. The only thing I found interesting about the movie was the deleted scene where Ben Affleck comes in as Matt Murdock in a dream sequence and wants her to come back. I kinda liked the reference to the original movie that spawned her. So if you are looking for a mindless movie to watch, I do suggest you rent this one, or get a ripped copy from someone it earned a solid C-.

The Little Blue Pill

2005-03-31T22:22:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I watched the Matrix Triology and I started thinking, which pill would I really take? LuckilyI know what happens and how the war ends. Thinking about what is left, I'm not quite sure that I would have taken the red one like everyone expects us to. I admit I am a bit selfish, but I'm kinda thinking that living in the Matrix might be better than living in the real world.

Looking at the world as it stands, Machines rule the surface, and non-jacked in humans are forced to live in the sewers like rats. The surface is a shithole where no sunlight passes through. There is no ecosystem, no plant life and no native animal life on the surface anymore. With no plant life, the atmosphere won't have any oxygen anymore. After Thomas Anderson's victory, I really can't think of what all of the fighting was for. The planet isn't worth it. The machines still dominate and it will only be a matter of time before they start fighting again. They really don't have any reason to let anyone in Zion live because Zion doesn't have anything the Machines want.

But now I want you to think of something, what pill would you take? Which one would you take after The Matrix? Which one would you take after The Matrix Reloaded? Which one would you take after The Matrix Revolutions?

After the Matrix, Thomas Anderson beats Agent Smith, proves he's "The One" and gives hope to the poor suckers still jacked in. I probably would have taken the Red pill, be a part of the action that would liberate us all. Things are looking up for humans.

After The Matrix Reloaded, I would have picked the blue pill. I just think it sucks that the fate of all humanity is left up to some asshole who is the biological equivalent of Danny DeVito in Twins. Zion is destroyed no matter what and one guy's choice could cause a system crash that could kill the billions of humans in their cozy little tubes. Following the Architect's description of the past 5 anomolys, the right choice is taken and I would have been safe in my tube.

After The Matrix Revolutions I still would have probably taken the blue pill. Peace is won, but it won't last. I think that being in the tube and knowing that the real world is out there would be enough for me.

Although Morpheus says I'd be a slave, I might have to agree with Cypher in the whole "ignorance is bliss" deal. Thinking of my existance outside the Matrix, I would be part of a crew, following orders and fighting a war that won't end and not really worth winning. Even though I'd only be used as a power source, I would be living my life as it is now, I'd have my friends, my family, everything would be as it is now. The Sky is blue, plants are growing, food is not regulated to the synthetic crap they have to eat. As being a power source, I wouldn't think of myself as a slave, basically because the Matrix does just a good job at making me think that my existance is my own. It's not forcing me to do anything I don't want to do. The one thing I think would suck the most is being in the wrong place in the wrong time and having an agent take over my body.

So I'm pretty sure what I would do, what pill would you take?

The Balance

2005-03-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

This weekend was all about Balance. I had almost an equal amount of work and play on this one. The first part was on Friday where I found out that I had to go into work the next day. This is suck-ass point number one. Our new product at work is currently sold to the Navy. They found some problems with it and I have been trying to fix it for the past few weeks. I was working on them so they could be shipped on Friday, but I got stuck and the Developer in South Africa who was helping me took off for the day. So my boss said that I and the other Lead Engineer had to come in on Saturday to get them tested and done.

I had the kick-ass going away party for Marc and Shanta to go to that night so this totally killed my night. I had to leave instructions for the developer to call my cell phone as soon as he woke up so we can arrange a time for him to help me out. Which meant that I needed to expect a call at liek 7 in the morning. SO I had to leave the party early. The party kicked so much ass, everyone was there, and it was fun chilling with people i haven't talked to in a while, Matt, Victor, Sarah, those peeps. We saw Matt's first movie, Soft Swap, which was, sorry to say one step up from bad softcore porn. This movie was pretty damn awful. Luckily, Matt didn't write the thing, but only directed it. So even thought it was bad, garbage In, Garbage out. Or like I put it, "You can only polish a turd so much". The rest of the night was filled with good times, drinking and general merriment all around. But I had to take off at like 1230. I got back and was getting ready to sleep, but then my phone rang and I was able to talk to the developer and get his ass ready to help me in 8 hours. I then went to sleep and got woken up again by Jen calling saying she was being brought back, so I had to get the phone and let her in since she didn't take her keys. As you can guess, I was a little more than annoyed, but oh well.

The next day sucked ass because I had to go into work at like 10 am and bust my ass to get this thing working and tested before Fed-ex closed at 5. I eneded up working all the way up to 1530 before I was able to finish that crap and get it going. Not only did it take me that long, but I missed lunch too. I went back, got dressed and took off immediatly to go to Al's for Shannon's B-Day dinner. We got there and chilled for a little bit before the Limo got there. That's right, Al rented a Limo to take us to the city. We got there and went to the Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. If you haven't been there I suggest you save up a month or so, and then go there. Hands down they have the best Ribeye I've ever had. I've eaten a lot of steak, and they have the best so far. The only complaint that I have about that place is that they don't have Prime Rib. The steak melts in your mouth and the Lobster kicked ass as always. Chillin in the city is sooo much better when you don't have to drive. The car took us back to Al and Shannons' place and we hung out a little while longer.

That day eneded and I had to look foraward to the next day of, that's right! Going back INTO work again! This shit totally sucked, because I had to get the compliation files ready on my computer with the Lead Engineer's help again because he's leaving in 2 weeks for India. This time I had to get there by 0930. I worked it till 1330 and left.

I was supposed to hook up with Marc, Umang and Matt to go check out tuxedos for Marc's wedding. By the time I got home, Marc and Shanata were there to pick up Jen. We went to Fremont and then Marc and I got some grub at Kaspers's Hot Dogs and then went to My Mall in Pleasanton. We found Umang and then we got fitted. Matt showed up late to that and we picked out most of the stuff while he was getting fitted. After we were done with that, we did what we do best, stood around and shot the shit for 20 mins. We finally decided to go somewhere to get some food and we were walking around, we stopped at a directory to look around and then I saw my Mom come out of JcPenny's. Tha was a shocker and a half. She then pointed and I saw that my dad was sitting on a bench behind us. I felt like a jackass and a half for not seeing him, but it was ok, he didn't see me. So we talked a bit then we went to the Sweet River Saloon in the Mall, got caught in waiter Limbo and then Marc and Matt left. Jen was done too, so I had Shanta drop her off at Stoneridge so Jen, Umang and I went to Dinner. We went to Fuddruckers and chilled and ate some good burgers. I saw they had a Kobe burger, which totally intruiged me, but Umang made a good point. Kobe is the cadallaic of beef and I didn't want to try it for the first time having it ground up at a burger Joint.

Thus ended a pretty balanced weekend. Party'd hard and had to work all crappy weekend. So now it brings me back to Monday in the shit of work once again.

How blind do you like your justice?

2005-03-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

Today I saw the pilot for Blind Justice. A show that has been hyped on NBC for weeks upon weeks. It's about a cop who was shot in the line of duty and ended up blind from a shoot-out. He then tries to prove himself by going back on the force and doing his job.

I thought it was a cool show except for parts that look like he's really seeing something. I know it's the show's way of showing us how he puts the sounds around him togheter to find what's going on. It's shaping up pretty well, showing a lot of dramatic potential where Jim (the guy) has trouble on the force and trouble at home with his estranged wife. (I think estranged is the right word, tv term for someone who give the main character a lifetime of shit in only 10 lines of dialogue.) All in all, I think it's a decent show, with NYPD blue going offline, it will give people their cop show fix. You should all go watch it.

Another show I saw for the first time, although not as glamorous is Robot Chicken. Yeah the name pretty much explains it all. Basically Seth Green and some other guy, (I'm going to call him the "other guy from Wham" since that's how important his name looks next to Seth Green), made a show where everything is animated with dolls and action figures. Although the show is incredibally short (a horrendus 15 mins), it's very funny. It's good because it's always giving you a throwback to your youth when they show things like Cabbage Patch Kids and the muppet band. This is another show worth watching, and being only 15 mins with a commercial in the middle, why the hell not?

OK while I'm on a roll, I think it's time for my DVD pick for the week. This week's recommendation is Las Vegas Season 1. I found myself totally addicted to this show over the last two weeks. It's ensemble cast rocks as they show people who run a big time Las Vegas Casino. I would explain more, but I've run out of words today and if you don't belive me then fine, you watch your own boring show.

Till Next time!

Socks and DVD's

2005-02-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

Well Kiddies,

Here we are again. I'd first like to start off with the amazing realization that I've finally become one of those working guys who works on weekends. I had to go into the stupid office on Saturday for a few hours to catch-up on some work. Ya'know I've never though that when I start working, I would be one of those guys, but it happened anyways. It sucks, I was there for like 3 hours and still only got one thing done.

But it all worked out in the end. After work, I went and got some pizza and then played EverQuest II for the next few hours. So I guess everything works out in the end. I was in an industrious mood that night and made some plans. Maya already asked me if I could take her to Costco and although I didn't say yes, I knew that I was going to take her anyways. So my big plan was to get up early, go to Safeway to get some food, then come back and take Maya. I set the alarm for 9, and the plan was set.

So at about 1030 when I really got up, I knew that the plan went straight out the window. I played EQII again for a few hours. Eventually I went to Costco with Maya and found they made one of the dumbest moves in arranging history. They put the DVD's right in front of the checkstands. As you all know Costco lines are a bitch to wait through, but now they put the #1 browsing commodity in front of all that traffic. I looked around and found a gift for Al, and that was it. I was kinda amazed that no other DVD's there were jumping out at me. It was kinda wierd. I was at Costco and my grand total was about 17 bucks. A new record. But as we were walking around, I found some new socks. I got some of my larger crew socks that I normally wear and some shorter ones that Jen thought I would look better in. So the total was up to like 50ish, back to the norm.

So there was some other crap that I had to run Maya around in and we eneded up at Best Buy. I looked around and found Las Vegas Season 1. I like the show and I've been watching on tv for season 2. SO when I finally came back to my apt, I was carying a bin with only two things, socks and DVD's. The story of my life. I felt like I was kidna back in college and I came back with the essentials. So as I said earlier, in the end everything seemed to work out. Good times, pretty good food, and the back to the basics, new socks and new dvd's. Till next time!

The Failed Paella

2005-02-10T22:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, I won't really call it a failure, but it gets a solid D. For those of you who don't know what Paella is, it's a rice dish with chicken, seafood, and sausage in it. It may sound kinda messy, but what makes it "different" is the addition of Saffron.

Saffron is the dried stigmas of the saffron flower, "Crocus Sativus Linneaus". Each flower only has three stigmas and each thread is picked by hand, which also leads it to be the most expensive spice in the world. If you look in Safeway, 11 bucks for about 3 teaspoons worth. SO! You may ask, what's the BFD about this expensive flower? It has a very intense flavor and the natural coloring makes it a very interesting spice. 1 Teaspoon in the 2 cups of water needed for rice will make the rice have a very interesting golden look.

Ok enough about that, so I got this cook book from my mom, Rachel's Ray's 30 minute Meals 2. Rachel Ray is this annoying food TV personality that has three different shows. She always has this big smile on her face and her attitude is very bouncy, happy, and she's never met a meal she didn't like. I swear, she could be on Fear Factor, with a pate of rotten deer on it and she'd be like, "MMMMM my favorite, the flavor is always good and blah, blah, blah while she eats it with a big smile on her face". SO she's annoying, but her cooking is "quick", which is convenient after work. She's always cooking in 30 mins, but I have yet to cook anything of hers in 30 mins.

So I'm working on this recipe for Paella, following it, and the downfall of this dish was the Chorizo. The recipe said to remove the casing, but chorizo is an encased sausage, and as I found out the hard way, does not hold it's shape when removed from the casing. The meat I was cooking soon became a mess of oily crap. It looked pretty bad. Also Chorizo is encased in a red coloring, which makes it very difficult to see when it's fully cooked or not. SO dinner was a real fun time. My own little Fear Factor going on. But so far I'm ok, but only time will tell.

I consider myself a competent cook, but this stuff just looked pretty bad. It tasted ok, and it's still edible, but all in all, I'm a but disappointed in the dish. I've had better luck with her Gumbo recipe, but I think I'll start following enrolls stuff. I'm looking back at this bloc and I'm a bit amazed on the amount of crap I can write about one disappointing dish I made for dinner. Ok I'm done for now, time to watch more MacGyver.

The Next Day

2005-02-08T00:35:00.000-08:00

Hi again Kiddies!

Well today ends another Monday in the long line of Mondays. Work was......well yeah work was just work. It was a little cool in the fact that I only got 2 phone calls the entire day, and none were new problems. I normally get about 10 to 20 calls in one day. So I figured that I can blow through my emails and get to some other stuff that needed to be done. But for some reason, it ended up like any other day. Support stuff till 330 and then an hour and a half to do something else. It's weird, but I think when we hire someone, I'll be able to get more done. But anyways, I'm starting to bore the hell out of myself, so I'll move the though to the day before.

The weekend was a little more exciting than usual, I'm talking about the ultra fun SUPER BOWL! Yeah! Whoo Hoo!...........GO FOOTBALL! Yep, that's right! The superbowl Sunday just passed, and I did the same stuff, went to a friends place, ate the required junk food and pretended to care about the football game. For some reason this year, my attention span was even lowered than last year. Even the commercials weren't really grabbing my attention. I was having more fun just chillin. I think my apathy is either increasing, or I need to take a larger interest in Football Americano.

But the game was just a wrap-up for the weekend up in Sacramento. Every once in a while, I kick it up there with my two friends L-Dawg and D-Man. I crash on the couch, and we spend the weekend eating, chillin', watching various DVD's and occasionally golf or visit some of our other friends from school. But lately it's been low key since I've been a bit broke-ass and L-Dawg is still in school. The past few times, I've helped them organize their apartment, I'm not totally sure why, I think I have some sort of OCD, but I'm not sure. But this weekend was especially a good job, when D-Man came back to his place on Sat, it was like Trading Spaces. He couldn't believe that was his apt. So that was cool. But I know that it really is futile since the source needs to be taken care of.

So aside from that, on Friday I went up there and met The R. She's been jocking around L-Dawg for a while and they hang out every once in a long-ass while. I was ready to beat L-Dawg over the head with his shoe for not hooking up with her, but hey to each his own, and I'll let him work that ish out on his own blog. But anyways, she seemed cool, we all watched Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and I introduced them to the wide world of trendy No Limit Texas Hold em'! L-Dawg sucked ass, and The R was getting lucky cards. So they caught on pretty quick and we played till like 3. Then it was pass-out time for everyone.

Well that's about it for now, I guess one of these days, I'll have to put some actual thought into this blog and taper off on the inane ramblings of my adventures. Hopefully I'll be writing again soon.

Numero UNO!

2005-02-02T22:07:00.000-08:00

Well! Here we are aren't we? I've finally taken that first step into the quasi-trendy, uber technical society of America in the year 2005. I got most of the stuff already, camera phone, PS2, Gamecube, and now the blog. This kinda throws me back to the mid 80's Doogie Houser endings with the typing of the day's lesson at the end of the episode. I think I'm going to download the mp3 of that music they played when he was typing so I can get the full effect. Well enough of that crap, now for the important stuff.

I'd like to start this with what I consider the ultra-super DVD buy of the year. Last tuesday, I caught wind that Alien vs. Predator is coming out on DVD. So, I decided to go to the only place to go for DVD's, BEST BUY! We went in, and I immediately went to the display where they had the DVD, and I saw they had about 20 copies sitting on the shelf. I took a look and saw that the first copy was the full screen edition, and the next copy, and the next, and the NEXT! All of them were the crappy Full Screen versions. I walked around, starting to feel the anger of defeat, thinking to myself, that mabye there's a copy sitting around somewhere else........but no. I was looking around and I overheard two sales associates talking, one was saying that a customer was yelling at her about how they should carry more versions of the widescreen, and why do they even make full screen anymore and blah blah blah, all this dumb crap. This made me think how stupid some people really are. Like some sales associate at Best buy will be able to make sure all 100 copies of a DVD are widescreen. After hearing all that, I was ready to give it up and just buy it later. I was looking around some more and saw the next shocking thing.....in the boxed set section, I saw the tag for....that's right, MacGyver Season 1!! Iv'e been waiting for YEARS for this to finally come out on dvd. But alas, this was empty as well. I talked to one of the sales people and she looked up if any other stores had it. After a 10 minute search on her computer, she found that two fo the stores that were closest had only 1 copy left. It was already 9, and I would never make it.

SO we left Best buy in utter defeat. I then remebered that there was a Ghetto Walmart (yes, it's thier offical name) near by. We went down there, and after parking, walked in, past the MacDonalds, I alwasy thought it was kinda wierd that every Ghetto Walmart had a MacDonald's in it, but oh well. We went to the electronics section and I finally found Aliens Vs. Predator in widescreen. I grabbed it, and looked around some more. I was looking around, talking to Jen and there behind her, I saw it, MacGyver Season 1!!! I was stoked (a little too stoked, but you can ask Jen about it). I also got the new Ratchet and Clank game. So I eneded up with a total victory and the best DVD buy of the year!

Ok well that was a nice first rant, I'll try to update it more, and if you don't like it, you can just stick it up your ass and make your own blog.