Life as Jimmy Sees It!

2009-03-08T23:00:00.002-04:00

What are you willing to give up to have something else? We all know the phrase, “You can’t have it all.” And we all know how very true that is. But in most cases we can have what we desire, provided we give something up that we already have. Are you willing to give up smoking to live a healthier lifestyle? Are you willing to give up playing sports because your body just can’t take it anymore? These are just trivial things pertaining to ourselves and for most people the answers to these questions are, “No.” Now, are you willing to give up your free or personal time to spend time somewhere else? Probably not if it’s something you don’t want to do. But what if it is doing something that is "for the greater good?" Would you give up your time to be with someone who is dying, or with an organization reaching out to better your community? Would you give up the personal things you absolutely enjoy to be with the person you love? Would you give up your life to save another?

Sacrifice can be an extremely difficult thing to do especially when it comes to the things that we think makes us who we are. Fortunately it’s not what we give up that makes us who we are, but the fact that we do give up that makes us stand out as great individuals. Sacrifice is typically not a mandatory thing. It’s something we do because we want to be better people. Better to ourselves and better to others. Think of the great sacrifices in history that have brought us to the present we live in today. What would this world be without those sacrifices? What would the world be like tomorrow if we stopped living for others and only lived for ourselves? What would there be left to live for?

2009-01-16T17:17:00.000-05:00

Here’s something I was thinking about the other day while I was sobbing over the pathetic winter we’ve had so far. Color. More specifically change in color. In most cases a change in color of some object isn’t really a change in color at all, but more of a color diffusion of sorts. Let me explain a little more.

Remember back in your elementary school days when you took art class and painted some black stick-house comprised of a square and an isosceles triangle with two windows and a door with your little stick-family standing in front of it? No doubt, you learned then that when you mixed the blue paint with the yellow you got green paint and when you mixed the red paint with the blue paint you got purple paint, etc. You know; the whole primary colors thing. Well I bet you never thought about what actually was happening there.

Let’s advance a few years to high school chemistry. Remember learning about a physical change vs. a chemical change? You probably melted some ice and called it a physical change and burned some paper and called it a chemical change. Well you did good there sonny, until it came to color changes. Sometimes, a color change was physical and other times it was chemical and you didn’t really know which one it was so you guessed or made sure your circle covered both physical and chemical so you could argue your case as to what you circled depending on which one was actually correct.

Now let’s combine the two lessons. Back in art class, you mixed two paints (containing the same chemical structure) of different color and got the same paint, but with a new color. Well, that’s not exactly what happened. Theoretically you still have red paint and blue paint, but the paint molecules are so close together that it appears purple. Your eyes can’t tell that there are multiple colored molecules. Because the molecules are so randomly mixed and packed together, it just appears as one solid color. It’s sort of like way back in the day when you used Paint on that old 386, 32-color, IBM computer of yours. You needed different shaded of gray so you would paint with a “dark gray” that had more black dots in it than white dots, and a “light gray” that had more white dots than black dots in it. From afar it looked like different shades of gray, but really it was always just black and white dots.

When color change occurs like this, it is a purely physical change. The molecular structure of your paint isn’t changing; it is just getting scrambled around. Liquids and gases do this constantly. We just don’t notice it because it’s always the same color. Put a drop of food coloring in your water without stirring and you’ll notice there is always a continuous motion in the liquid. The food coloring isn’t bonding with water; it is just being dispersed into it. A physical change. The water isn’t actually changing in color; it is just spreading the molecules of the food coloring out to make the food coloring appear lighter in color.

So the next time you see something of color, take a closer look and see if the color is what it is, or just a mixture of other colors that are so tightly packed together, your eyes can’t tell the difference. Unless of course your object is light, in which case we have to talk about something completely different in the form of wave energy. And so begins the great contrast of particles vs. waves. Ah Max Planck would be so happy!

2009-01-13T18:12:00.000-05:00

What are my thoughts on this winter? Quite frankly I’d rather crap out 10 dollars in quarters than experience the likes of this winter. The main reason is because I can measure the amount of snow we’ve gotten so far this year with a soup can. Of course the other reason being I’d have an extra (although quite filthy) 10 dollars in my hand, which I could use to save up for another useless season ski-pass for next winter.

So far this winter we have gotten 3 major ice storms, multiple false alarm forecasts for heavy snow, inches of rain and precisely 2 point [insert profanity of choice here] inches of snow. That creates ski conditions at The Knob (my local ski resort) that attract only the likes of those who enjoy bruises, wipeouts, getting wet, throwing money away, and oh yeah, a really really crappy day of skiing. Of course, I have yet to venture there this season. My season pass which was purchased at the end of last season still awaits my pickup at the winterless wonderland. And quite frankly I do NOT enjoy throwing money away like that when quite frankly for half the price of a season pass I can buy a Wii Fit along with a copy of Shaun White Snowboarding and get my boarding kicks for the rest of my life (On a side note, that game really is quite awesome. If you are as put out with this winter as I am, I encourage your snow-excitement-lacking little self to head on over to your local or online tech company of choice and pick yourself up a copy. You WON’T be disappointed)!

So here’s the deal Weather. Either you bring some real snow my way by the end of the month or so help me I will personally make sure my pet spider monkey leaves you a little surprise on your front door everyday of the year (after all, that is less for me to clean up). So you think about that before leaving winter snow behind in PA altogether.

2008-12-15T21:07:00.000-05:00

Christmas cards. I have grown to hate them! But not because of the season, or what they represent, but because of the shear amount of time I put in to the blasted things this year!

If you're one of the lucky few that received a Christmas card from me this season, you may have noticed that the message was printed on the card instead of written. Now I must admit, I find the note typed on paper and placed in the card rather impersonal, so I figured I'd actually print the message in the card itself. For multiple reasons actually. One, it is now a legible note. Two, I can type way faster than I can write. Three, I can say actually what I want to say and then make sure I didn't spell anything wrong or screw up the grammar. And four, I just thought it would be a neat thing to try with my new OpenOffice 3.0 Suite on my Linux OS. However you're wondering why I didn't sign the thing, well read on my friend.

A few weeks I went out the local Hallmark at the Logan Valley Mall to buy my Christmas cards. Later the next week I measured the cards for width and height and built a nice little template in Writer (comparable to Word for you Microsoft junkies) and started typing away. I had ten letters typed out in about 1.5 hours, which by writing would have taken probably about 2.0 hours, but they would have had way more errors in them. So my next job was to print them all out. I stuck the card in the printer, clicked the print button and watched the card get sucked into the printer like a wet noodle in the mouth of a child. Suddenly I got the message on my printer that read, "PAPER TOO SMALL." I tried it again. Same message. Now I had printed out items much smaller than this before. So I stuck in a full letter size paper and clicked print again. It worked flawlessly. Like the stupid stubborn-head I can be, I stuffed the card back in the printer and hit print again. Again, to my surprise (why I was surprised is still a mystery) the printer told me, "PAPER TOO SMALL." Now keep in mind, when I'm in Linux and printing, typically my printer locks up every print attempt and I have to reboot it and wait two minutes for the darn thing to load up.

So my next step was to make my Writer template a little smaller. I took off half an inch from the template, stuck my card back in, and got the same result. I stuck the letter size paper in, and it printed. So I took off another half inch, and clicked print. Suddenly ink started to flow! Oh the excitement I felt! For I only wasted another hour getting to this point. But wouldn't you know it, when the card was ejected, the printer had inserted an extra inch of margin forcing my note into the crease of the card. The words, "why I outta" came to mind along with a mental image of my fist shaking feverishly at the laughing printer. I stuck in another letter sized paper. It printed, but with the extra inch of margin. Now at this point I should have just accepted my losses, printed the notes on regular paper, cut them out, and stuck them in the card. But no, I was determined! I decided the night was spent and was determined to print the blasted cards the next evening.

Now it's the next night. I decided I'd attack this thing form a different side. I logged into my Google Docs account and attempted to print a card from there. I spent about an hour just trying to figure out how to design something 4.5" x 10.25" in size. Ultimately I gave up on that angle. My faith in Linux was gone. I booted into my Microsoft Windows Vista environment where my printer never locks up! And since my original files were in OpenOffice format I had to download and install OpenOffice 3.0 for my Windows environment or else, well there was no else, I am too cheap to pay for Microsoft Office. So I installed the app, opened my file, clicked print, and guess what the printer told me. "PAPER TOO SMALL."Oooh I was hot! But still, I was determined.

I opened my print settings and and suddenly realized how absent minded I was. Of course the paper was too small! The printer was set for a paper letter size! So I set out to change the paper size to the proper setting. Wouldn't you know it, I could not for the life of me figure out how to set up a custom paper size. I'm a frickin ' Computer Engineer for crying out loud! I could build a computer from integrated circuits (a pretty slow and basic one at that, but still) if I so chose to! So I searched thru what seemed like 100+ paper sizes and found one that was closest to my card. With mental fingers crossed, I opened the document, inserted the card in the printer, clicked print, selected the close-matching paper size and clicked print once again. The printer started. And finally, 5+ hours (accumulated time) after I started my Christmas card writing, I was printing text on the cards! The text still wasn't where I wanted it position-wise, but I was willing to accept that.

Now as if things couldn't get worse, they do. Usually I print addresses on sticky labels and then stick those on the envelopes. Can you tell? I REALLY despise writing things by hand. It is so inefficient.Anywho , I spent some time updating addresses and whatnot and got my template prepared for printing. Now my label template in done in Word on my laptop which I know will not fail me thanks to years of doing this. However, I had to get this right on the first print because I only had one sheet of labels left. If I screwed up, I was hand writing addresses or going to the store to buy new labels (even less efficient). So I set my my addresses up in an order of most efficiency and saved label space and clicked print. I watched the labels get sucked into the printer when suddenly I realized, I needed to print JUST page 4, not all of the pages! Suddenly the words, "Son of a . . . " came to mind with a mental image of me shooting myself in the head. I watched shamefully as the label page was tossed out of the printed filled with the incorrect addresses as expected. Then, glass-eyed I watched as the remaining 3 pages (that were not label paper) were tossed out with the final page having my addresses on them. Again I was defeated.

So once again I shamefully took my cards out when I got home that evening and started handwriting all the addresses on the envelopes. I joylessly stuffed the cards in their envelopes, licked the disgusting glue and piled them in the center of the table. It was my stack of shame. I failed my Christmas card efficiency process. But if only this was the end of my story.

Earlier today I was recapping this story in it's entirety to a colleague at work when suddenly, mid-story, I realized that in my frustration and disappointment when addressing my envelopes I completely and utterly forgot to sign the cards. But it was too late. The cards were in the mailbox with the flag up, over 40 miles away. Truly, shamefully, opprobriously a failed life moment. I could barely finish my story to my colleague I was so distraught and disgraced at this realization.

So to those of you who received a typed, unsigned Christmas card from me, I apologize. If you'd like, you can write "return to sender," on the envelope, place it back in the mail and I will sign it, put new postage on it and resend it. Or, if you'd prefer you can just sign it in my place. Again I truly apologize for this Christmas card catastrophe and hope that you won't hold it against me. For those of you that read this and didn't get a Christmas card from me, well consider yourself fortunate and have a merry Christmas anyway.

2008-12-06T11:27:00.003-05:00

It’s been made obvious to us that Christmas is just around the corner thanks to Christmas at Rockefeller on NBC, Christmas TV specials, tons of holiday shopping sales, cold weather and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show special. Also noteworthy is all the Christmas music on the radio (both FM and satellite alike) right now. Some stations are already playing all Christmas music, all the time, which is just a little extreme if you ask me. I did find a great FM station the other day when I was in Pittsburgh that was playing a 50/50 mix; one song from today, one Christmas song; repeat until Dec 26th. I thought that was a great idea. Not overdoing it, yet still being able to appreciate the season.

But I’m rambling here. We all know the best Christmas music EVER is from our own homemade, custom Christmas Mix CDs. Some people prefer the good old traditional stuff (i.e. Perry Como, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, etc) while others like more contemporary tunes and artists. Myself being a more contemporary Christmas listener, I decided to put together a Christmas mix list that I thought was so extraordinary it deserved to be posted for all the world to see. Of course all the world doesn’t read this blog, so it will most likely only be known to you select few that have no life and read the crap that I type. You know this is the most awesome mix ever! Don't be a hata (pronounced h8-ah). Feel free to copy my mix to your own CD, but make sure to give credit where credit is due . . .

Captain Jimmy’s Christmas Mix CD 2008

Track 1 - Bryan Adams - Christmas Time
Track 2 - Carrie Underwood - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
Track 3 - Celine Dion - The Christmas Song
Track 4 - Dave Matthews Band - A Christmas Song
Track 5 - Faith Hill - Where Are You Christmas
Track 6 - Jars Of Clay - Little Drummer Boy
Track 7 - Jimmy Eat World - Last Christmas
Track 8 - Jose Feliciano - Feliz Navidad
Track 9 - Josh Groban - O Holy Night
Track 10 - Kelly Clarkson - My Grown Up Christmas List
Track 11 - KT Tunstall - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Track 12 - Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You
Track 13 - MercyMe - Silent Night
Track 14 - Neil Diamond - You Make It Feel Like Christmas
Track 15 - NewSong - Christmas Shoes
Track 16 - Sarah McLachlan - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Track 17 - Third Day - O' Come All Ye Faithful
Track 18 - Trans Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24
Track 19 - Whitney Houston - Do You Hear What I Hear

2008-12-04T22:12:00.001-05:00

If you’re not a modern computer programmer or would prefer not to be totally confused, then you may want to skip this post. But recently I’ve had a wild thought about what we as physical, and spiritual beings actually are, and in order to explain it, I need to use a little programming knowledge (and a diagram might come in handy too, but I doubt I'll have time for that).

Not too many people would disagree with the statement that we as beings have physical (bodies) and metaphysical (minds and/or souls) entities. To simplify the example I’ll assume the mind and soul are one and the same, but by no means should you limit the thought process to that.

First, let’s talk a little about Object Orientation or OO as it is abbreviated. This of course is a programming term where we model our programming code after real world objects. Our objects have properties, methods, constructors, etc, that define what the object actually is, and how it will act within itself and with other objects. Now when we create an instance of an object, we assign that instance a variable and create some room in memory for the object to be housed. Of course the memory can be allocated well before the creation of the variable if so chosen. When we access the object we access it thru the variable assigned to it. Where things get a little confusing is in understanding that the variable itself is not the object, but just a “pointer”, or reference to the object. The actual object resides in memory and cannot be accessed (safely anyway) without the reference variable. Now when things get even more complicated is when we want to make a copy of the object. We can’t just make a new variable and assign it to the same object. If we did that we would just be making a new reference to the exact same object, not a new object. The object would now have two variables accessing it. To make a second object that is the same as the first, we would have to first create a new instance of the object with a new reference, and then assign it all the same properties as the first.

Let's put this is 5th grader talk. I have a ball (the object) that I clear out room for and place on the floor (in memory). The ball has numerous properties, such as temperature, density, color, material, etc. The ball also has actions (methods) it can do such as deflate, bounce, etc. Now since I am a 5th grader and in a pen so I don't damage the rest of the house, I can only play with the ball (that is outside my pen) using a stick (the reference variable). I can't interact with the ball in any other way but with the stick. If I want a second ball just like the first, I can't just make a copy of the stick. If I do, all I get is two sticks that interact with the exact same ball. However, if I want a copy of the ball, I need to create a brand new ball, and then copy the properties of the first ball to the second. I then need to make the second stick to interact with the second ball.

So what the flip does this have to do with our physical and metaphysical selves? Well, let’s pretend for a minute that all minds since the dawn of time reside in a single repository out in some unseeable dimension. Think of it as a godly hash table if you will. These minds have properties such as personalities, thoughts, and feelings (which in themselves would be their own objects), but also constructors that are used to create the mind, as well as methods that let them interact with other minds. When the minds are created, they are assigned a body, or reference if you will. And we can interact with other minds safely thru our bodies.

Now comes the fun part; understanding how this can work. Let’s look at identical twins. Indeed they look like the same person, but truly their minds are different. They are copies of each other. However, we’ve all heard stories about twins liking the same things, thinking the same thoughts, even sensing each other's pain! What if their bodies weren’t pointing to different minds, but to the same one? One mind, two bodies. One object, two references. Now of course we know this isn’t the case because the twin’s bodies can act independently of each other, but if the properties of the mind were made up of other objects, such as thoughts, feelings, pain, experiences, why couldn’t there be references to those properties, and not new ones? Think of it in our ball analogy. A property of the ball is mass. Mass is indeed it's own object made up of all kinds of fun still like the base unit for mass. Let call that a kilogram. If for whatever reason wesuddenly define a kilogram to be something other than what it is today, we would want the ball's mass to follow suit. The ball's mass wouldn't still be the old mass, but would be the newly defined mass automatically. Hence, the ball's mass is a reference to mass, and not a copy of it.

If the world does indeed exist in this fashion, it makes perfect sense. Let’s take a look at love. People say than when we love another, we take that person with us wherever we go (not in the physical sense of course). They become a part of us in a sense. What if love creates references to the other minds or parts of minds? This would explain why we can know what the other person is thinking, or feeling without having to ask. It truly is a direct connection. Psychics may be gaining access to this mind repository in an unsafe manner, or hacking into it. This is how they would know what they know (assuming they aren’t just darn good observers) without actually interacting with anyone.

I could probably write a book on this whole matter, but I’ll leave you with one more thought. In programming when we are done with our variables, or references that access the objects, we destroy them. However, the object itself doesn’t get destroyed until the Garbage Collector comes around and re-allocates the memory, at which time the object is completely disposed of. When programming, we typically don’t control the Garbage Collector; it does what it does, when it needs to do it.

2008-11-04T19:38:00.002-05:00

Boy it's a pretty exciting day isn't it? I compare the feeling I have right now to that which I have on Christmas Eve. My anxiety can hardly be contained thanks to the surprises that awaits just a few hours away. Why am I feeling this way? Well it's election day obviously and here's my analogy for it all. It's like you've just gotten out of Contestant's Row on The Price is Right and Bob Barker (yeah I know the current host is Drew Carry but let's face it, we all liked Bob better [sorry Drew]) is staring you right in the eye with his goofy little pervert smile. You also know the last two contestants got somewhat crappy prizes (a hot tub and a pair of watches respectfully), so you absolutely know the next words out of Bob's mouth are, "And you could win that!" And then Ron Roddy screams, "A NEW CAR!!" There's nothing left to do but jump up and down like 6 foot tall man playing Slam Ball screaming you lungs out. No matter who the victor is, come tomorrow morning our country will be facing one heck of an exciting and brand spankin' road ahead. How can you not be excited?

2008-11-03T17:58:00.002-05:00

Recently I've been pondering the mysteries of our universe (which explains my blogging absence as of late) and while I haven't solved any of these mysteries I definitely have put some thought into them.

The first mystery is why, oh why, has the idea of the automobile not changed in the last 100 years? I'll give it to Ford. He had one HECK of an idea. And in the beginning of the automotive era, there were some really huge advancements and improvements. But let's face it. The last 30 years have been pretty lame when it comes to what we putts around in on our way to The Workplace. Sure the hybrid was a novel idea, but the overall vehicle concept remained the same. Check it out automotive engineers. Our world has changed a great deal since the 1950s! I think it's time to redesign the automobile from the ground, er road, up. Do you need some ideas you jolly little money collecting chair warmers? It's a good thing I'm chalk full of them (I don't really have any idea what that phrase means, but everyone seems to use it).

The first is why the 2-slash-3 pedal system? If you ask me, the engineers of the sky got it right. Let's devise a throttle system instead of one pedal brake, one gas and possibly one clutch pedal. That's so inefficient and slow-reacting. One lever is all you need, whether it works with the foot or the hand (or even possibly with weight shift?), one direction speeds you up, the other slows you down. And let's make the throttle a "smart" throttle. When you set the speed for 50 mph, it accelerates properly and easily maintains your speed. None of this cruise setting garbage that doesn't really work when going up or down hills. If my foot can maintain a more consistent velocity, then so can a computer.

And seriously? Internal combustion engines? Could we use a more inefficient mechanical system? Here's a novel concept. DC drives and motors. Ever hear of 'em?

And why this two-passenger-up-front thing. If you're any kind of sci-fi freak then you've seen countless TV shows and movies that depict the bridge of futuristic spacecrafts containing three passenger chairs. One for the pilot, one for the navigator and one for the weapons specialist (which believe me would come in quite handy some days). Come on now. If alien and futuristic spaceships clearly see the need for such a setup, then why would automobiles be any different? Of course don't forget the pilot chair is always just a little more in front of the other two passenger chairs.

Now let's talk safety systems. The headlights for example have got to go. You're going to sit there in your comfy little chair and tell me that the dual, corner mounted headlight scheme that was cooked up back when we discovered darkness cannot be improved upon? What about one long, halogen stile front light? Or countless ultra-bright LEDs. Maybe even laser scanners that illuminate everything within a 100 foot radius of the vehicle.

Look people, here is my general gripe. We have clearly lost the will and the desire to come up with creative, and brand spankin' new ideas. We have locked ourselves in a room with well defined walls and decided that we can only improve upon old ideas. I call that stupid, idiotic and unmotivated. Let's break down the walls and look at the world from a completely new point of view. We've all seen video footage of people attempting to fly off of bridges in their homemade flying machines, way back when the world lacked colors other than gray. And who can forget the amazing story of the invention of the light bulb? Why can't we do that kind of stuff again?

So it's time to stop trying and actually DO something. Let's get inventive again. Let's forget about what we have now, and look at what we could create tomorrow. Well, that's one mystery pondered, another 314 to go.

2008-10-15T16:50:00.001-04:00

It’s October 15, Blog Action Day. I figured that meant I better get on the blogging ball and write a post that concerns absolutely nothing whatsoever. Funny, you’re still going to read this anyway.

I switched to a different operating system lately. Linux Ubuntu. Am I happy with it? Most definitely! It’s free, all software for it is free (and legal) and I can still play my iPod on it. Sure I’ve got to Google everything to figure how to use it, but once you get the basics down, it’s still time consuming. But it’s free!

The presidential election is just 21 days away. That is 210 TV ads too far away. Although with Obama being up by more than 14% in the polls, this election is all but over. Unfortunately the ads are not.

I don’t even know who else I’m electing in the upcoming election. Our local elections have been so overshadowed by the presidential election; we have absolutely no clue who is running for local office and what they’ll do. I look for the local election results around the country to be completely random.

Who am I kidding? I’m still going to use Microsoft Windows. Just not as much. And I did make the switch to Vista. And yes, I confirmed that I wanted to switch, many, many times over.

October means autumn. Autumn means leaves change color and fall. Falling leaves mean clogged cutters. Clogged gutters mean a sore back and cold hands.

[Insert ad for presidential election here]

How much money have you lost in the stock market these days? Apparently not enough. I watch earnings from my 401K and an IRA disappear on a daily basis. And what am I doing about it? Wondering what I am going to do about it. At least gas prices are lower and Britain is able to come up with a plan to fix their economy. Luckily the U.S. is a country of followers and not leaders.

I started to watch Heros on NBC. Of course I have only watched the first episode of the first season, but I am already hooked and I think I am the English version of the Japanese dude that can bend the space-time continuum by acting really constipated. I bet you haven’t even noticed how much time you’ve wasted reading this ridiculous blog post. Too bad for you.

I’m also now using the stream-movie feature in my Netflix account. I have two words, LENGEND-DARY! It is so awesome, I want to take it home, make out with it, and then wear it like an old, worn-out shirt. Oh momma!

2008-09-15T21:01:00.003-04:00

It's funny the things you remember from when you were a child. Now I know some of my readers might imply that I myself am still a child, but frankly I've been hating my birthday since I turned twenty so really I consider my childhood days long gone. Especially since I have aches and pains like they're going out of style these days. By hey, I've digressed. Let's talk funny childhood memories.

Some might consider my family life a little bizarre; parents living hours apart yet still "together." It seemed normal to me growing up however. But I remember weird, random things like what I watched on TV when my sister and I would go to visit my dad. Stuff like a Disney firework special broadcast from Disney World or bits of a TV show that would preview small sections of all the Saturday Morning Cartoons, on Friday night (which I think is a genius idea). But what prompts all of these seemingly random and pointless memories? More randomness. A song on the radio from the 80's that I remember two guys singing in that Disney special. Or a clip from Everyone Loves Raymond because Marie played an ever-so-small role on that one cartoon preview show.

All this has made me think, "Why do we remember some of the stuff we remember?" Clearly I haven't locked away all my childhood memories as my dad is quick to point out how much of a pain I could be when I was a little tike and I don't seem to recall those moments at all. Clearly I am alluding to the time I "forced" my family to attend the early church service at The Barley Church. That doesn't even sound like me! I hate getting up early! Yet my dad and uncle still remind me of that time on a quite normal, and obnoxious basis. And while they still don't believe me, I don't remember that ever happening. Why? It obviously affected my family enough for them to attempt to remind me about it over and over and over again. Why does it not exist in my world of remembered consciousness?

Sometimes it concerns me because I think of what I am doing right now that I may or may not remember in the future. I want to remember everything I ever do like it's recorded in my head on super hi-def brain matter. The good and the bad. There is so much to learn from all our experiences. Even those ones that seem like long ago "funny" childhood memories. The thing that is so great about the memories we do keep is that they are multidimensional. Not only do we remember what we see and hear, but we remember what we smell, and feel and even think. It's those extra emotions and thoughts that we remember that seem to make those funny, random memories meaningful and worthy of being remembered.

So take it all in. Capture the world not only through your eyes and ears, but through all your senses, through all that you can feel and experience. Maybe in another twenty years I'll think back to some random time when I was 27 and I spent one weekend with a group of friends sometime, somewhere . . . It'll be a good memory. They always are.

2008-09-09T20:08:00.002-04:00

In case you haven't noticed, the 2008 presidential election is quickly approaching. In this corner (picture me pointing to my right with a silver microphone hanging from the ceiling) is John McCain, the "original maverick" (does anybody really even know what that means?) who just made the vice presidential choice of his life! He is a 72 year old, prisoner of war / cancer survivor. And in this corner (now of course I am pointing to my left, microphone still in hand) is Barack Obama, the first African American presidential candidate and according to his campaign speech, the only real hope for change. He's a frail man at best but eager to get himself on the same level as his supporters.

So what is a person to do? Well I'll tell you. Basically now all you have to do is watch as these two knuckleheads duke it out in verbally horrific television ads. Frankly I feel as though these elections have gotten quite out of hand. Is it really even about being a person elected by the people, for the people anymore? Or is it more about just winning? Looking at McCain it seems to be about winning. In one swift and completely unforeseen motion McCain gathered women of all ages and without warning got them to join his team without hesitation (I say team because really the way elections work is the person with the most voting team members wins). It was pure strategy and an amazing one at that.

But that appears to be what elections are these days; strategic movements to stun your opponent and to get people to join your team. Is that what they should be? I don't really think so. Shouldn't elections be the candidates voicing whom they are, what they plan to do and how they plan to do it? Of course we'd have to assume here that we live in a fact-and-truth-telling society. We know that isn't accurate because it takes Candidate #2 to point out Candidate #1's misleadings and vice versa.

Perhaps there in lies the problem (pun intended). We've become a society so consumed with winning, how we get to the end is unimportant anymore. We have TV shows like Survivor and Big Brother where the better lier you are, the more likely you are to win. We teach kids with movies like Election that it is better to destroy your opponent than to promote yourself.

So over time we have come to this; campaigns that are run strategically more like a game than like the election for our nation's leader. Even more so we end up with lives that revolve more around winning than actually living. Don't get me wrong, I like to win just as much as the next guy, but frankly I'd rather live honestly and in the moment. It's not about winning, but about making this life better for yourself and others.

So how will you vote come this November? Are you voting to be a winner or are you voting because you actually care to make a difference?

2008-08-26T20:43:00.000-04:00

I was a little disappointed with the Olympic Closing Ceremony the other night. Why? Because frankly they weren't even close to the spectacle of the Opening Ceremony. Sure it had some cool effects, like the guys climbing up and down the Memory Tower like ants up a tree. I guess what I was really disappointed in was the NBC coverage. Sure they showed Jackie Chan like a fool and some Chinese S Club 7 wannabes, but they didn't really talk to the Athletes. The Closing Ceremony is one of the worlds biggest parties! I just enjoy watching all the athletes have a good time celebrating each other's victories and hardships. Sure I envy them. Who doesn't want to be involved in such a spectacle, but it's neat to just sit back and watch people from around the world celebrate together and enjoy each other. It's such a rare things these days to see. Heck you can hardly see two people from the same city get along in different cars on the highway.

So my couple weeks of great sport watching is over until 2012. I think in four years I'll be taking two weeks off just to watch the games. I had to DVR most of the events while I was at work and sleeping (meaning I taped them while I slept, and while I worked, not while I was slept at work, give me a little more credit than that), which actually turned out quite nice. I could skip commercials and watch only the events I wanted to. My only grips were Bob Costa giving me the outcomes before I was able to watch my recorded events (not his fault though, he didn't know I taped them [I think]) and the fact that commercials would cut out part of my volleyball match. At one time it was 12-8, they cut to commercial and when you got back it was 12-14! What the flip happened?! I don't know?! I was watching a commercial.

All in all it was a satisfying Olympics. Sure the Chinese beat the USA in Olympic golds, but that's okay. As I've stated before, the games aren't really about winning. Sort of like Life really. It's not really about winning, but more about how you play, your determination and will to persevere against all odds. Even with the games of the 29th Olympiad over, there is still much to take from them.

2008-08-10T22:20:00.004-04:00

Miss me? Probably not. In fact if my popularity is anywhere remotely close to Big Brother then you didn't even know I was gone. Well your time of wonder as to where I went is over. To be anti-dramatic, I didn't go anywhere. I was just too lazy to blog. But things have changed. There is stuff to blog about these days! Like what you ask? Oh you silly silly people. The Olympics that's what!

I've been waiting for 8.8.08 since 02.26.06 (the end of the 2006 Winter Olympics). I live for the Olympics! So what are we looking at this year? A domination of swimming gold medals by Michael Phelps? A first-time, 2 gold medal achievement by volleyball greats Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh? Perhaps even a USA basketball revival by the Redeem Team.

No matter what the outcome of the games, the principle of The Games is always clear. A pursuit of sport with the purpose of peace and unity of all nations on the planet. For the next two weeks Beijing, China will be the center of our universe. During times of great unrest and conflict across this globe our differences will be forgotten for the single purpose of competing in sport. To be the best with our body in the world and for that to stand for the next four years.

Every country has its problems. China is no exception to that. But perhaps hosting the Olympic Games is China's way of stating they are ready to be included with the rest of the people on this world. They are ready to make a stand and begin to find solutions to issues such as government corruption and the violence at Darfur. Right now, in China all that is is sport. It will be up to China after The Games are over to take the next step.

There is something to learn from everything that happens in our lives. Maybe even from the creed of the Olympic Games.
The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.

2008-06-24T18:05:00.004-04:00

Unfortunately, I live about 10 miles from these people. Am I ashamed? I try to pretend I don't even know where Claysburg, PA is. Luckily Claysburg is NOT part of The Cove.

2008-06-20T17:50:00.002-04:00

In case you’re not an internet junkie, let me just inform you that the latest version of Firefox (version 3) was released this past Tuesday. Of course I had to download the application the hour it came out (10AM PST). And yes I did pledge my download beforehand. But in any event, Firefox 3 has indeed been worth the wait! Some of my new favorite features are the improved tab saving feature, the improved surfing speeds and the awesome support for new add-ons.

Add-ons! The outstanding feature that slaps Microsoft’s Internet Explorer in the face and stomps the crap out of it while it pukes and vomits all over its dining room floor. What browser could possibly compete?! That being said I figured I’d clue you in to some of the awesomeness that is Firefox Add-ons. If you don’t have Firefox, don’t sweat it. It’s free! And so are these add-ons. So download them now and make your internet browsing experience sweeter than an ice cream sundae on Tuesday!

Better Gmail 2 – Made by LifeHacker.com, and adored by Gmail users worldwide. If you thought Google Mail made you wet your undies a little before, you’ll be completely soaked by the time you change your Gmail skin. Google Labs has wised up a little and actually uses this add-on to build some of its features directly into the site.

Forecast Fox – Shows you the weather, radar, and extended forecast for your zip code built in to the browser itself. The best part is you can pretty much stick these icons wherever the heck you want! The only thing better would be if the forecast came from WeatherUnderground.com.

Gmail Notifier – Sick of checking your Gmail account every 5 minutes to see if you have any new emails? Well stop that! Let this add-on check it for you, however often you want. Then you can delete your shortcut to Gmail because when you click on the icon, you’ll go straight to your inbox. There’s even a popup preview as soon as the email comes in.

IE Tab – It really irritates me that we design our web applications at The Workplace for Internet Explorer browsers only. We’re so sufficient on Microsoft that you can’t even have a login ID that doesn’t start with the letters MS (okay, that is a stretch of the truth, but you get the gist). So with this bad boy I can tell what websites I want Firefox to open up in an embedded IE browser. I get the HTML rendering of IE, but the look and excellence of Mozilla. To all those websites designed with IE in mind, SCREW YOU!

PicLens – Oh my holy apple pie! If this graphic intensive add-on doesn’t get your mouth drooling, then you’re blind or lack salivation glands. What this puppy does is nothing short of spectacular! Visit a webpage that supports PicLens, such as Google Images, Picasa, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and much, much more and be completely bedazzled by how you can view the photos and videos there. By clicking the PicLens icon you are whisked away to a three dimensional world of photo searching, viewing, and wonder! PicLens even has a default search menu where you can search thru everything from sports videos, to TV shows and movies, to news pictures and broadcasts! You’ll be stuck just viewing stuff for hours! Endless hours!

Greasemonkey – For the advanced internet surfer and programmer, this add-on lets you customize code after a webpage has loaded. Don’t like how Facebook draws and displays its tables? With Greasmonkey you tell it what websites you want it to work on, what code you want to change, and presto! Before the page is rendered, the HTML is changed every time! Only you can dream up what you’re options on webpages could be! Make sure you know JavaScript before tackling this bad boy.

So how do you get all this stuff? It’s so simple you’ll wish you never asked. Just head on over to http://www.mozilla.com and download your very own copy of Firefox 3. Once you install it, head back over to the same Mozilla page, click on the Add-ons menu, and go to town! Some other awesome add-ons you’ll want to check out are FoxyTunes, DownloadThemAll, BlueOrganizer, and Delicious Bookmarks. Oh and don’t forget about the themes for Firefox. Make it look like whatever the heck you want! Someone let me know when the Campbell Brown theme comes out!

2008-06-13T22:35:00.004-04:00

While driving home from volleyball the other night my friend Brad and I came up with a great idea for GPS navigational systems. Now I've had my Garmin Nuvi since Christmas of '07 and I am totally in love with it (in a nonsexual way of course). I can find places to eat when away from home, but more importantly I can can find my way home when I'm away from home. When I first started using my Garmin I used the Australian Female Karen to get me around. She did a good job but I'd venture off course so often (because the roads around me are so remote) she just annoyed the CRAP out of me by saying "Recalculating" in her little British accent so many times. So I switched to the American Female, Jill. I like Jill. While she still says "recalculating" just as often, it doesn't quite have the same -turn-around-right-now-you-f'in-idiot sound to it. I like that.

Anywho, I have ventured off course. The great idea. Why not make nav units with celebrity voices?! These are some of the options Brad and I came up, but feel free to post your ideas. Maybe Garmin will get the hint.

Sean Connery - "You missed the turn. You're going the wrong way!"
Robert Goulet - First of all he sing all the directions to you and then end with, "GOULET!"
Harry Carey - "Hey! If the road up ahead were barbecue spare ribs, would you eat it? I know I would! I'd wash it down with a cold Budweiser."
Bill Clinton - "I would not . . . turn . . . down this next road. Miss Lewinsky Lane.
Kim Jong-il - "Make a reft turn on Arec Barwin Rane."

And my two personal favorites . . .
Yoda - "Make this turn you will. Yes yes. [Goofy Yoda giggle]
Darth Vader - "Turn right here, or give yourself to the Dark Side." Of course the unit would constantly be breathing heavy all the time.

2008-06-09T21:51:00.004-04:00

I started riding my bike to The Workplace today. And I'm not talking about a motorbike either. It's a pedal bike. It's light, weighing in at less than 20 pounds I'm sure. It's a distance of 11.5 miles from my house to The Workplace, which currently takes 50 minutes to accomplish. That's 11.5 miles early in the morning, then another 11.5 miles in the late afternoon when it's 95 degrees. Why partake in the trek? It's simple really. Rising gas prices. I calculated at the current cost of fuel, and my motor-vehicle's fuel efficiency I'd be saving about $15 a week by riding
4 days a week. It's not a whole heck of a lot, but that number will only go up as gas prices continue to break records on a now daily basis. We're in the beginning of a new era. The days of inexpensive fossil fuels are over. The trend is slowly going to become what new, reusable energies can we "manufacture?" Also, how we can save on energy costs is going to peak some interest. While in most cases we can't generate our own energy (unless we can afford personal wind turbines or solar panels) there are numerous things we can do to save energy and be greener. I've compiled a list of some easy, and very affordable things you can do to save on your energy usage costs. He's back and greener than ever! It's Captain Jimmy's Top 10 Ways to be Green (Don't Listen to Kermit, it is Easy)!

10. Ride a bike. Even a motorcycle is going to use less gas that your honkin' SUV or your compact car. Especially in the bigger cities, you'd be amazed at how many places you can get to in a 10 mile radius by riding a bike. In some cases, it might even be faster.

9. Switch to energy saving light bulbs. Okay, so you can't get them in three-way but 3 watts vs. 60 watts should make that a no contest. You'll see instant savings!

8. Stop getting paper delivered to your house. Paper being newspapers, magazines, pay stubs. You can get your news online these days, even your local news. All those junk magazines (Victoria Secret, Cosmo and Nintendo Power excluded) you trash anyway and some magazines now offer their publications in PDF format. Just don't be an idiot and print the stuff out. And if you have direct deposit at work, try requesting to not have a paper pay stub anymore. Every little bit counts.

7. Carpool with friends. To work, social gatherings, just stop driving solo so gosh darn much!

6. Unplug or power down your stuff! All your stuff, especially big honkin' electronics, guzzle up your electricity even when they aren't "turned on." Get power strips and shut 'em down. Your PS3 is pulling 10 times as much power as your LCD HDTV. Even your phone charger plug is waisting electricity when plugged into the wall and not your phone.

5. Do more that uses less. Read a book instead of watching TV. Go play sports outside instead of Tiger Woods PGA on your XBox.

4. Turn off the lights when leaving a room. No sense in lighting up rooms when there is no one there to enjoy it. You could even invest in motion sensor lighting that completely takes the effort out of the equation.

3. Stop going out to eat so darn much. Get some extra food at the grocery store and cook up some nice meals at home. On the grill perhaps. That's my new thing. I made some kick a** grilled broccoli the other day. And who doesn't love a good grilled steak? Stupid vegetarians that's who!

2. Do more during the light hours. Wake up a few hours earlier and get more done when the sun is out. This way, once night comes, you won't need any extra electric lighting.

1. Drink from your faucet! I could go to some fancy pants statistic website and find out how much plastic waste is produced a year thanks to bottled water, but instead I'll just make you ponder. If your water tastes bad, get yourself a filter. In the long run, you're going to save tons of cash. People carry around giant coffee cups and mugs, why not carry a stainless steel water mug instead?

Now I know what you're thinking. "That top 10 was stupid and so are you Captain Jimmy!" First of all, never call The Captain stupid unless you want to be poisoned while you sleep. Secondly, no doubt some of the stuff listed could be argued, like the energy it takes to power your PC to read the news vs. no power for newspaper reading. But basically it you'd just get your head out of the polluted clouds, all it takes is a little conscious effort and caring. Which unfortunately is something most people don't do anymore.

2008-06-02T19:45:00.001-04:00

Slap me thrice and call me Slacker! I know I skipped the whole month of May with my extremely talented blogging skills, but let’s face it; I can’t just do what the rest of the world wants me to do. Unless of course I’m getting paid for it, then I don’t mind as much (unless of course it tramples on my moral beliefs which I seriously doubt blogging would do).

So what the crap has been going on the past month? Here’s the quick lo-down. Early in the month I got my hair cut then headed on down to MD for a friend’s party. It was great! We drank; I played Guitar Hero, what could be better? I then went to Rehoboth Beach to play in a volleyball tournament where I completely crapped out (I’ve been seriously considering early retirement), but hey, I got hit on in a bar by a dude. Nice to know if I stopped attracting women (ha! Like that will ever happen) I won’t fair too badly with the other team. Not that I'm planning on switching teams by the way. Then it was off to Buffalo, NY for a few days to work. The weather was nice at least. I had a couple birthdays to celebrate then. Following that, I chilled with my old neighbors (old as in used-to-be neighbors, not old as in old people old) and then rang in Memorial Day with the fam. I closed the month with another hair cut and another friend’s party in MD where I once again drank and played Guitar Hero. Again, it was great!

That my friends was my month of May. Hardly anything to gloat about, but it was probably more fun than say a root canal or child birth. Oh I also had a few thoughts this month as well. Consider this a bonus to this entry! I know, you can wipe that drool off your face now.

How do one armed folk wash their hand?
My Garmin GPS (aka Jill) currently knows when the sun is setting. Will she still be accurate come the year 9424?
Also, if I went back in time to when GPS satellites were first launched would Jill still work? If so I’d impress the crap out of people!
If the Brits are currently paying more than $8.50 a gallon for fuel, then why would any oil conglomerate think Americans couldn’t afford that?
Not only can you not drive well when you’re having sex in the car in front of me, but it’s very distracting to me as well.

2008-04-30T23:02:00.000-04:00

For the last couple of months I have been in the process of purchasing a very, very nice digital SLR camera; a Canon EOS 40D to be exact. I spent a lot of time back in January getting pieces of the camera from different websites to save some money. A memory card here, a lens and filters there, a case somewhere else. And it was really panning out. I saved a fortune on my 16 gig memory card and I even swung a deal on my lens with the online dealer nearly throwing in three filters for free. Finally everything came in the mail except one thing: the camera body itself. I purchased the body from some obscure online camera retailer basically because it was dirt cheap. The camera body is the same no matter where you get it, so I figured I might as well pay bottom dollar for it right? Well, maybe not.

The retailer sent me an email stating that my item had been placed on backorder, but didn’t say for how long. Now I was getting one kick-a** deal so I didn’t really care how long it was going to be on backorder. When saving over $1000 you have some patients. I ended up calling the company however to get an estimate on when my item would be in stock (never mind the fact that the website said the item was already in stock). I was told 4 to 6 weeks. That was no problem. I could wait.

Well guess what? That time went by and then some. Then one day, Stupid Me forgot to get my check card out of the ATM one day so I had to cancel it. Now the retailer wasn’t going to charge my credit card until the item was shipped. However, since it had been over two months since I ordered my camera, I didn’t really care about updating that company with my new card information. They were done, despite the amazing price. So I conducted a new search to once again find the camera body at an inexpensive price avoiding any online camera retailers that had a webpage like the first company I encountered (which was ShopCartUSA.com in case you were thinking about buying from there) and believe me there was a number of them. Finally I decided to go with the retailer that supplied me my lens and filters. Re-enter 1WayPhoto.com. I called the company this time thinking maybe I could haggle them down in price again. They were having none of that and frankly didn’t even care I would go somewhere else to buy the camera. But they were the next cheapest so a few days later I placed my order online with them. I wasn’t totally shocked to get an email stating that item was on backorder (again despite the fact their website said it was in stock). However they did give me a 3-4 week backorder time frame. Again I figured I’d wait it out.

Well, today, five weeks later, I still have no camera body. I decided enough was enough. I called up 1WayPhoto and canceled my order. Not a single question asked. All I said was I wanted to cancel an order, gave them my order number, and they were more than happy to do it without question. Not a second later I received an email confirming my cancellation and apologizing, stating that item was just too darn popular (or something like that). That is crap straight from Hillary Clinton’s butt!

So with my ego defeated I started searching online once again. This time however I had enough of these silly waiting games. I hit up the websites I knew would deliver: Newegg.com, Amazon.com and the major electronics retailers! After a few minutes of searching and comparing prices, Amazon.com had won. With my income tax rebate check nearly spent, I am now one happy camper. I even ordered next day delivery so with any luck tomorrow I will be the proud owner of a fully functional Canon EOS 40D SLR camera!

Moral of the story is sometimes it’s just better to stick with the people you know will deliver and pay a little extra for it. It’s what my dad has been telling me for years and why there will be service people out to our house today to fix our microwave that broke last night. Second moral of the story is sometimes Dad can be right. As long as he’s not hassling me about getting LASIK!

2008-04-28T22:25:00.003-04:00

Curious about what kinds of things I contemplate throughout the day? Read on my friend!

You know how when you’re typing and you hold down a key, that character repeats quickly? An example of this would be holding down the backspace key to delete those last few words you typed. Ever wonder at what point does holding down a key become more efficient than hitting a key as fast as you can? Well I have.

After a few experiments I found I can quickly press the same key about 20 times in 3 seconds. That calculates to 6 2/3 presses per second, or a key press every .15 seconds. Not too shabby in my opinion. Now, I have my keyboard repeat rate set for Frickin’ Fast which “types” about 20 characters per seconds if I hold down a key, or a key press every .05 seconds. Yeah that puts my finger to shame, but the repeat delay is set for one tick shy of Short as Dani Devito which after several minutes of testing I calculated to be roughly a 1/2 second delay. This means that my keyboard does not repeat a key press like a mofo until half a second has passed with a key held down.

With all this data I came to the conclusion that if I need to type more than four of the same character in a row, theoretically it would be quicker to hold that character key down. Of course this is the real world and not Theoreticalville so holding down a key for ¾ of a second is going to be pretty cumbersome and will likely take up more time because I’d be forced to use more keys in order to fix the inaccuracy I’d get with holding down a key to get five characters out of it. But such is life I suppose.

2008-04-15T18:01:00.002-04:00

It’s time for an American Idol update. Season 8 so far has not disappointed! In fact I think I’m buying in to this whole Season-8-has-the-most-talented-singers-ever bit. It’s been a while, but it’s long overdue, so be prepared to read Captain Jimmy’s American Idol Season 8 Top Idols!

Jason Castro – I’m not thrilled about the dreads, okay I think they are sort of disgusting, but I do like Jason’ style of singing. He’s laid back, chill and usually doesn’t repulse me when he sings. His version of Another Hallelujah was tremendous however; the young hippie can’t last much longer.

Kristy Lee Cook – For the past few weeks now Kristy has eluded the bottom three. This was my pick from the very beginning to win. I still think she has a great voice, but she fails to choose good songs to sing. That one song in the final 12 was horrendous! You know which one I mean! And she could tone down the eye glitter too. I find it quite distracting.

Syesha Mercado – Syesha is no doubt one of the best singers on Idol this season. So far she has rocked out Whitney and Fantasia! I think she’s still holding back too. The only reason she keeps ending up in the bottom three is because she isn’t popular and I haven’t quite figured out why yet. I think she’s quite likable. And how can you not love the female fro??

Carly Smithson – Awesome tats, awesome voice, bad taste in clothing. Simon was correct, but he should have voiced it a little more kindly. I think if Carly sang Bonnie Tyler songs all the time she could win it, unfortunately the show isn’t called Sing like Bonnie Tyler Hour. It should however be called Watch More Commercials than American Idol Time.

David Archuleta – Am I the only person that doesn’t want to adopt this guy? With a younger fan base than Sanjia, Archuleta will no doubt reach the final three. I’m still waiting for him to sing some John Mayer because I know he sing the crap out of those songs. He can’t sing songs that have a fast beat or rock very well. Let’s hope Dad keeps his grubby little fingers out of Archuleta’s song book for the rest of the season.

David Cook – Am I the only person that finds it extremely unlikely that two contestants in the final 7 have the same last name? Apparently so. Let’s face it, this man has the confidence and voice to make the final episode this season. No song is too hard, no song too rough for Cook. His rendition of Billie Jean was as Randy would say, “Yo that was HOT DAWG!”

Brook White – Who could forget the girl that said she never saw a R-rated movie? By far the most professional contestant and most humble. If she can keep from boring her fans a second time it will be a Brook-Cook finally, with the winner being selected by the gosh-awful song that wins that crappy song writers competition. No matter what outcome, I’ll be buying her album. She may make it over to the dark side yet . . .

2008-04-03T19:30:00.002-04:00

With April Fools Day just a few days past, I thought I'd point out some of the awesome April Fools pranks I experienced. Okay, so it was really only two pranks and they both involved the Internet giant Google, but you're going to hear about them anyway.

So I've got a little thing called Gmail Notifier running on my Windows desktop. Basically all it does is inform me of when I get an email, sort of like Outlook does, but since Gmail is Internet based, much less frequently. So Tuesday morning I was notified I had mail. I cheerfully double-clicked the taskbar icon to bring me directly into my inbox. I don't even recall who emailed me, but what I did notice was a new red-linked feature of Gmail. It was labeled, "NEW! Custom Time Changer!" Or something like that. I clicked the link and started to read about how Gmail could now let you change the time of the email sent on past emails in recipient's inboxes. That's quite the feature, even with Google's e-flux capacitor. Numerous testimonials followed claiming no more tardiness and first-come-first-serve turn-around victories that had already ended. I had to smile and chuckle upon reading these as it was at that moment that I realized Google spent some time on something so little, yet so customer satisfying.

Later that day I went in to check my GCal (Google Calendar) and once again I was greeted by a little red-linked message at the top right of my page that read, "NEW! Wake Up Notifier!" or something like that. This time slightly wiser I clicked the link and was entertained by what read to be GCals latest feature: the ability to get your tired a** out of bed! Your first alarm would be a text, followed by more annoying phone calls, and if it came to it, water in your face and industrial molten steel spills on your bed. That ought to get you moving in the morning! And all this via a simple Internet Calendar.

Look, Google makes great products, no doubt. But sometimes it's the little things that can really sell something. Maybe it's the service, or an extreme attention to detail. Sometimes however, it can just be something as simple as making you smile. And if companies can satisfy me by making me smile, just think how I feel about the people in my life that make me smile . . .

2008-03-26T19:30:00.002-04:00

Have you ever thought about how much trust we put into people? I don't mean your best friend, or parents or co-workers (although you actually may not trust those people), but how must trust you put in total strangers? People you have never met, know absolutely nothing about, and would never strike up a conversation with have been given your life in the palm of their hand every day. Think about this next time you're on your way to work. How many cars do you pass on that 25.1 minutes journey? With each car you pass, you are putting complete 100% trust in that driver that they will not plow head-on, right into you, killing you both instantly. I know that's a bit dark and graphic for this blog, but frankly it's true. When you go to the grocery store, you're trusting that the producers of the food you eat didn't poison it. When you open a package purchased from an online retailer you're counting on that package not exploding in your face.

Now I know what you're thinking, there are laws that keep all that from happening. Crazy people aren't allowed to drive, food is tested before it hits the stores and your packages are scanned at the post office. But again, you are trusting that all those people do their job to keep you safe. In fact, it could be argued that your existence this very second is solely due to the absolute trust you unknowingly give to the rest of the world during 99% of your day.

Luckily, the majority of us remain unaware of that trust we give (unless of course you are a paranoid schizophrenic). Why then is it sometimes so hard to place trust in another person knowingly when it doesn't even involve a human life? Just another action to chalk up to that thing we call, "Human Behavior."

2008-03-17T22:54:00.003-04:00

This just in! Here's a picture of me and the national texting champion! I've been trying for months to get her picture with me. You can read more about the texting champion here. Thanks Morgan! (and tell Lindsay to hold the camera steadier next time!)

2008-03-16T19:45:00.002-04:00

Well I took the old ski racks off my car today. I figured yesterday was going to be my last ski day this year. The snow was pretty crappy up at The Knob yesterday too. I mean, there were hardly any people there which was nice, but there also were giant puddles in the middle of slopes, only one lift open and despite the week of warm temperatures, there were still icy spots. Considering I purchased this year's season pass at the end of last year for a discounted $300, and that I made it to The Knob five times I figure I spent a whopping $60 per ski trip. Taking into account that my average visit was roughly 4 hours I would have done better not getting the season pass this year.

So now I need to figure out if I should buy a pass for next year at the same cost of $300. Taking history into account next year's winter looks mighty grim. However, taking my luck into consideration if I don't buy a pass we're gonna get dumped on next winter. So clearly you can see my dilemma. I could solve this whole issue by simply moving to Utah. Unfortunately there are no Sheetz in Utah . . .

2008-03-12T22:31:00.004-04:00

My favorite movie of all time in the eyes of a three year old! "The siney guy always worries." I can't get enough!

Star Wars According to a 3 Year Old

2008-03-06T21:14:00.001-05:00

So I've been reading up on the concept of Leap Year since we are experiencing one this very year and just had our Leap Day a few days ago. Of course we've all been taught in grade school that an Earth year is in reality 365.25 days, which is why every four years we add an extra day to our calendar. That way over time, our seasons don't get all out of whack. And for just about everyone alive and able to read this post right now, that rule will suffice just fine until we die.

However, what we aren't taught (at least I wasn't anyway) is that a standard Earth year is in reality 365.2425 days. Doing the math we can quickly deduce that our little add-a-day-every-4-years trick will truck the world ahead a few days after just a few hundred years, reeking havoc for our grandkids' grandkids' grandkids' whom would no longer be able to experience the Winter solstice on December 21 (assuming of course that the Maya calendar that predicts the end of the world on December 21, 2012 is incorrect). So to prevent this cataclysmic catastrophe the powers-that-be devised a sneaky little way to make that work. It gets a little complicated so try to keep up.

We in fact do not simply add a day every four years. Instead the logic goes a little something like this. If the year is evenly divisible by 400, then there will be a Leap Day that year. For example, 1600, 2000, 2400, 2800 are all years that have a Leap Day. If however the year is evenly divisible by 100, but NOT evenly divisible by 400, then there will be no Leap Day. Par exemple, 1800, 1900, 2100, and 2200 are all years that have NO Leap Day. Finally if the year is evenly divisible by 4, but is NOT evenly divisible by 100 UNLESS it is evenly divisible by 400, then there will be a Leap Day. Just like this year, or 2012, or 1980 or 1600. Here is how the math all works out. 365 days a year, plus one day out of every four years, minus one day out of every 100 years, plus one day out of every 400 years. 365 + 1/4 - 1/100 + 1/400 = 365.2425 days a year. Pretty clever considering I would just increase the time of a second by a fraction amount so that a year would be exactly 365 days. This however would eventually result in a completely night time, 12 o' clock "high" noon. Resulting in further changes by me in minutes, hours and days.

But like I said, unless I plan on living until I'm 120 (which I am not unless I look like I do now my entire life) a Leap Day every four years for my entire life should do fine. If we really want to get technical, a year is actually 365.242374 days long anyway, and increasing. Luckily the unpredictability of that increase should be close enought to keep on track with the above algorithm for millennia to come.

2008-03-02T21:39:00.003-05:00

The countdown is on to the election of a new president. Unless you've been sitting around picking your nose for two months straight you should know that the Republican nominee has been clinched by John McCain, however the Democratic nominee is still as up the air as the stratosphere as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama do battle in any state that has yet to have its Primary. This pretty much leave us with three (possibly four since I hear my buddy Ralph Nader has once again entered the race) possible candidates for the presidency of the United States. Here are my thoughts on each of those candidates.

John McCain - I've got to admire the guy. His face is shaped like an upside down light bulb but he could really care less. I'd be pulling some type of mandible liposuction or something like that on myself. Another good thing about McCain is that he already looks really old. This would save him that transition from middle-age to really old that all presidents seem to go thru during their term in office. Just look at Bill Clinton. His hair went from brown in gray in less than 4 years flat! Now he's as white as a ghost!

Hillary Clinton - Speaking of the Clintons, Hillary has a long road ahead of her. She failed to plan ahead during Super Tuesday and wound up out of money like a drunk Las Vegas gambler. She lost her commanding lead in the Primaries due to poor planning. If she's going to run the country like that she better be thinking about firing those sorry planning suckers and picking up some real thinkers. I will give her this, she can turn on the tear factory when she needs to. A good trait to have especially when the country turns on your a**. No one wants to see a male president cry.

Barack Obama - Let me clear the air first, the man is not a Muslim. Take it from me, I've read up on him. Unfortunately for Obama, 20 years of aging during a 4 year office term would cause him to look like a gray-haired skeleton. Or Ghandi. This could pose a problem when reading books about giant red dogs or foxes in socks to small children. Frankly I think that a skeleton president would scare the crap out of other countries so maybe they'd leave us the heck alone.

Ralph Nader - Oh Ralphie. What is there to say about you? You're as persistent as that flippin' raccoon that tries to tear thru the eight layers of trash bags my dad packs the trash in each week. I must admit, electing such a president couldn't really be a bad thing. Unless of course he is really insistent that other countries have WMDs. During his rule, the trees would make a comeback however. Possibly to the point that our president in 2012 would be a tree since trees and vegetation would outnumber humans a whopping 314,159 to 1. What am I saying? They probably already do. Does anyone take a census on trees anyway? Sounds like a job for droopie-eyed Nader.

2008-02-06T21:19:00.000-05:00

So did you happen to catch the Super Bowl just a few nights ago? First of all, we made just about the best chili EVER! In a ginormous pot that will last for weeks (the chili will last that long, not the pot). And the chocolate fountain we had going, oh that was amazing! The chocolate overflow-ith! Then the cherry on top was the fact that beyond all expectations, beyond all conceivable hope the New England Patriots lost! In their pursuit for the perfect season, one of the greatest teams in football history could not clinch the final game of the year, the most important game of the year, the Super Bowl. Not only have the Patriots become the Yankees of football (which Boston Nation seems to be oblivious too), but they have also become the worst losers I have ever witnessed. I'll give Brady credit, he took the loss like a man, and like the quarterback with mediocre skills that he is.Belichick however, well lets just say I've seen 5 year old kids act more mature after losing an intense game of Simon Says. In fact, T.O. might have pouted less.

So why are Patriot fans in complete shock about the loss. My insight is as follows. For years I have known that there really aren't too many great quarterbacks in football. What makes a quarterback "great" in most people's eyes (and by most people I am referring mostly to female Patriot fans) is the fact that they have amazing offensive lines that allow Mr. Quarterback to have all the time in the world to throw a ball. Give a man 15 seconds and he'll find any open receiver. Sure he needs to make a good throw, but seriously, these guys are getting paid millions of dollars so they better be able to make accurate throws to begin with. Now take away that impenetrable line and you end up with a series of unfortunate events like the ones that happen to the Steelers every other week, or like the ones that happened to New England just a few days ago. You end up with your average, mediocre quarterback. Pats fans have been praising Brady for so long because they thought he was the reason for the Patriots success, when in reality it wasn't just him at all. It was with the help of the offensive line. Same thing happened to the Colts weeks ago. You break the line, the quarterback has less options. So wise up here people. Stop worshiping your average quarterback with vanilla good looks and accept the fact that your team, in fact was NOT the best team to ever play the sport. I mean seriously, they lost to Eli Manning for crying out loud!

Note: Any attack made to me regarding Ben Roethlisberger and/or the Pittsburgh Steelers shall be disregarded based on the fact that:
1. This entry had nothing to do with Big Ben or the Stillers, and
2. Never will I acknowledge that Roethlisberger or the Stillers is/are the best quarterback/team in the sport. Heck I'll even admit the Patriots (and the Giants for that matter) were a much better team than theSteelers this season.
So suck on those nails and swallow!

2008-01-15T17:00:00.000-05:00

In case you were curious about my thoughts on the recent football games, keep on reading!

Lets start with Seattle vs. Green Bay. While I've never really been a huge Brett Favre fan (mostly because he's working towards his third retirement and his name is not pronounced like it is spelled) it was nice to see him win his latest playoff game. Seriously the man has all but sucked the last couple years. With his new skill of NOT chucking the ball up in the air like it was a free t-shirt at a baseball game, and his young spunky team, Green Bay seems all but unstoppable. After Grant's two fumbles the Packers rarely made a mistake. But seriously, when was the last time you saw 2 inches of snow on a football field and didn't enjoy watching the game being played there?

Next up was Jacksonville vs. New England. It's no secret I greatly despise Tom Brady and his team of video taping cheaters. However it was also a no-brainer who was going to win before the game even started. I must admit though, in the first half the Jags gave the Pats a run for their money, but by the second half Brady was done screwing around. He ended the evening with some crap-tastic 24/26 completions or something. While I'll admit, Brady is currently one of the best quarterbacks playing, that doesn't mean I have to like him. Nor do I give him all the credit. He's got one heck of a collection of linebackers and an amazing arsenal of receivers and running backs. I attribute liking the New England Patriots to liking the New York Yankees. Yeah take that you stupid little Boston Nation people! At least your basketball team still stinks!

Sunday proved to be hard on not only Indianapolis, but also the victor of that game, San Diego, as well. I'll admit, I thought Indy had it in the bag well before the game even started. There's not a single person around (that is sane) that would disagree with the statement that Payton Manning is one heck of a quarterback! I figured that with the return of Marvin Harrison (even if only for a decoy) and a healthy line the Colts would be on fire. Sadly this was not so. Rivers' ego was just too big for the Colts in the final game in RCA Stadium. The game was extremely physical. With the loss of Rivers, L.T., and countless others, the Chargers are now left with a second string team to take on New England this weekend. One good thing is I doubt this marks the end of Manning's TV career. Yeah, I feel ya.

The last game of the weekend was indeed a shocker. Who would have guessed that Dallas would suck it up so hard that they could scratch a diamond? Shortly before the game I was having a phone conversation with Andy in which he stated that relying on Eli Manning to have another kick-a** game was like relying on January to bring cold weather. Well, in fact Eli did have a great game and January did finally get cold! Do I think Romo lost it for the Cowboys? Of course not. His hooglabah with Jessica Simpson had nothing to do with the team's loss. It was indeed a team effort. The icing on the cake may have been T.O. balling like a little girl who lost her doll. Here's an idea, suck it up and play sports like a professional (and stop picking on his quarterback [That's just me making fun of the Cowboys (and T.O.). I don't actually care for them, or their quarterback])!

2008-01-10T00:19:00.000-05:00

Another January, another stretch of ridiculously warm temperatures. I'm starting to get tired of people claiming, "This is warmest January they remember!" Guess what? It was the same temperature last year, and the year before that and possibly even the year before that. Every year in January I get royally jacked because the weather is too warm for me to go snowboarding. This typically wouldn't bother me if I didn't buy a season pass for the current year at the end of the previous year. It's hard to drag yourself up to the mountain when there are 3 slopes open and the temperature is 66 degrees. But I might as well get used to it. I'm convinced that the days of large snows in Pennsylvania are over. With the increased rate of melting ice in the polar ice caps in addition to more and more man-made pollutants being released into the atmosphere, It's my belief that PA will eventually become an ideal temperature zone, sort of like San Diego, at least in the winter anyway. It'll still have hot summers, but even those seem to be on the decline. Overall I doubt too many people that aren't two-plankers or knuckle-draggers would mind the steady migration to a more temperate climate, but for the balance to remain, there needs to be other places that are more severely affected by global warming. Perhaps colder, crop destroying winters in the south, or maybe excruciating, life threatening heat near the equator. In my own opinion, I'd prefer to stick with the weather patterns of yesteryear where PA winters were cold and snowy, and the Earth functioned properly.

2008-01-08T19:58:00.000-05:00

There are some pretty neat technological ideas going on here in 2008. I think by the end of the year you'll be pretty impressed at what is being manufactured these days. Just to give you a hint at what's in the works, and what's to come, here are some of my favorite tech-stuff.

The days of Digital Rights Management (DRM) are over! It took some time, but the consumer finally won out (for once). ITunes and Amazon to name a few have been offering DRM-free music for quite some time now (at an increased rate of course), but the last major music supplier to go DRM-free, Sony, did so today. What does this mean for you? Well you don't have to worry about the songs you download not working on all your music gear anymore. If you download from iTunes, you can play that song on any device, and any computer. If you download from Amazon or NBC, play it anywhere. What a concept right? This gives companies new freedom at what they can offer you. Not to mention it gives you the ability to easily share that music you download legally with your buddies. This hasn't really been a hassle if you've been downloading music and videos illegally for the past few years, but who would have guessed less governmental control was what consumers wanted? Oh right, consumers (For safety sake, I don't condone illegal music downloading)!

Another cool thing making its way into 2008 is the new open standard for cable communications. While currently the FCC is not to thrilled about this (why, I have no idea) cable companies such as Comcast are eager to jump on board. This standard has actually been in the works since 1997! What does this mean for you? A whole bunch of new gadgets that's what! No longer will your DVR be specific to your cable company. TVs will now be able to have DVRs built into them and who knows what other fancy-pants interactive devices companies like Panasonic and LG will come up with. Panasonic hopes to have out a little portable DVR player by the end of this year. This would be a device you plug into your cable outlet, select what shows you want to record, record the shows, unplug the device and take it on the go with a little built-in 8.5" LCD screen. All without having to deal with that pesky cable service (of course you'll need video broadcast thru a cable company for this to work, it just doesn't matter which one).

Finally be prepared for some über-fast PCs to be making their way to dealers by the end of this year. Intel has been hard at work with multi-core processors (even more than the current 2 or 4 you can get now) and new-style transistors so they can cram even more processing power into the same chip, and have it work without as much heat dissipation. While these new processors will no doubt be costly, they will drive the price of current processors down. This is good for me because I always buy year old processors. No point in spending all that money for something that will be of date in a few months. There has also been some breakthroughs in flash storage capacities so expect giant sized wee little storage cards in the next couple years too. One really cool one has a built-in Wi-Fi so once you take your pictures, you're computer starts to download it wirelessly. Seriously doesn't that kick a** or what?

2007-12-29T21:31:00.000-05:00

This entire universe seems to work in steps. Even Life doesn't appear to happen gradually. Take for instance your aging body. You go to bed one night feeling great, and you wake up the next morning and your back is in complete pain. There was nothing gradual about that. You went to bed, you were feeling good, you woke up unable to bend over. Sure you were sleeping, but take it from me, your back did not gradually get worse.

Okay, so maybe that was a bad example. The weather has been a good example of this lately. With global warming becoming more and more apparent, we have seen quite the change in seasonal weather over the years. It wasn't too long ago that PA winters were cold and snow was plentiful. Then one year, it became warm and rainy. There was no gradualness about it. One winter there was snow the next winter there wasn't.

Gradualness has it's own scales. Sometimes the step is more noticeable than others. Even on the smallest of all scales, time and even matter itself are not gradual. Planck units estimate the the smallest length to be about 1.62 x 10^-35 meters and the smallest unit of time to be around 5.39 x 10^-44 seconds. This means that our entire universe, including all its mass, energy (those are actually the same thing, but you should know that by now), and time is a step function. Sure the steps are infinitesimally small, but they are steps nonetheless and since the universe often times acts as an immense fractal, these steps are not only multiplied, but magnified. So it only makes sense that the macro-world we experience be perceived in steps. Our brains sort of work that way. The emotions, sensations and ideas we experience, they all just happen. They aren't really gradual at all. So next time you decided to sit back, take it all in and wonder why things aren't happening very gradually, just remember, nothing really happens gradually at all. Ever.

2007-12-26T00:12:00.000-05:00

Twenty seven. I guess that's the magic number this year. Once again I can't say I'm thrilled about my birthday. In fact I'm pretty sure I can say that I would just prefer to not even acknowledge my birthday ever again. But alas this could never be the case. Mainly because The Parents seem almost obsessed with making a big deal about it every year. But since I will be alive for 852,055,200 seconds (using the approximation of 365.25 days in one year), I figure I'd tell you some of the great things that have happened in that time.

Of course one of my biggest achievements is the acquirement of my Wii over a year ago. I camped out, and stood in-line for nearly 8 hours in freezing temperatures with a bunch of rowdy college students. Not really my idea of fun, but the end result was well worth it!

Another fabulous achievement is my graduation from college with a B.S. in Computer Engineering. While I'm sure there are more difficult things to major in, there aren't too many that are more fun. At least in my opinion. I mean honestly how many degrees teach you how to practically build a computer and interface anything you darn well please to it?

Next on this unordered list is my job at The Workplace. Sure sometimes it can be a real pain in my rear, and the politics of it all makes me want to leave at least twice a week. But lets face it, there isn't really a job where this wouldn't be the case. Plus it lets me put my college degree to good use.

Skydiving! Yeah that was awesome. I have a list of things I want to do before I die and this, so far, is the only thing I've been able to cross off. Was it a thrill? Oh you better believe it! Will I ever do it again? Heck yeah! What else do I have on the list? Well that's a completely other list obviously.

My two year Christmas Party luck streak has been a pretty nice achievement I like to think. When people that don't even work at The Workplace hear that someone has won a TV two years in a row at the Christmas Party, well, you know you've accomplished something.

Of course the biggest achievement in my life has been all the amazing relationships I have formed with people. From very close friends, to family, it's these people that are probably the most important thing in my life (even more than my Wii). Since this achievement could have never been accomplished on my own, I send a thank you out to all those that have influenced my life and made it what it is. The best thing about this achievement is that it only gets better in time!

2007-12-19T22:00:00.000-05:00

With the Christmas of 2007 just around the corner, I'm sure you've been getting Christmas cards in the mail like nobody's business! Unless of course you have crappy friends that don't give Christmas cards, all your friends are single guys, and your entire family is dead. For you to be reading this post and all three of those assumptions be true; well I find that hard to believe. Mainly because you wouldn't read this blog if you had crappy and single guy friends and no family. It just wouldn't be funny. So let's get back to my topic of point here. Christmas cards.

My first gripe about Christmas cards this year is that it seems like glitter is slapped on cards like ugly is slapped on Rosie O'Donnell face! I can't even search thru my local Hallmark selection without getting glitter everywhere! Don't me get wrong, I think glitter is very festive and can be quite glamorous, but frankly I only like those features on cards and women. I don't want to look glamorous after finding the perfect card for The Mom to make her sob until the cows come home, just because there was glitter on the front of the card and then I got an inch on my face. Not cool! It is apparently mandatory too for all Grandmother cards to have some form of glitter, whether it be pink, blue, green, or ugly. And that stuff does NOT come off the fingers (except on your face)!

My second gripe is paying for postage. Most people within the age of the first 7 prime numbers (by the way, 1 is NOT prime) probably don't even realize that real mail works because you pay for it. In today's world of emails and IMs you don't pay a cent (except of course for your internet connection) for the message you send. You can even send e-Christmas-cards for free! And they sing and dance! Of course there isn't a grandma around that wouldn't love to see a dancing elf and pooping reindeer in motion on her Christmas card. Unfortunately Grandma needs a computer and internet connection to view that cute little scene. So in the snail mail world we are left with glitter and cheesy, high pitched, obnoxious sound clips of Jingle Bells and Santa Baby (which is entirely inappropriate for Grandma you sickos!). Now to make matters worse we like to send big cards that require "extra postage." At least that's what it says on the envelope. But with the Forever Stamp now, how does one apply extra postage without going to the Post Office? Can one stick two Forever Stamps on a card? Does that even mean anything other than, "Look at me, I'm a giant idiot!?" Is just one Forever Stamp good for "extra postage?" What I do know is this, two $0.41 stamps is NOT enough for extra postage. How do I know this? Well The Dad got me a very nice Christmas card this year, that was "big" and required extra postage. To my surprise, there was a written note on the envelope next to the two $0.41 stamps that read, "Requires extra $0.15!" Does that mean I owe the Post Office $0.15? What a fantastic Christmas surprise! "Merry Christmas Boy! You now owe the Post Office $0.15!" I think I may stick with e-cards next year. Merry Christmas indeed!

2007-12-12T20:21:00.000-05:00

Luck smiles upon me one night a year apparently; at the The Workplace Christmas Party. If you recall last year, I took home the grand prize after trading tags with Mr. Horseshoe-Up-His-A** himself. Well apparently we didn't just exchange tags that year, but it was indeed Luck. You'll never believe it, but I won the grand prize once again at this year's party! Last year's gift was a TV with built in DVD and VHS player. This year's gift was a 19 inch, LCD HDTV with built in DVD player. It's funny because I probably have only used last year's gift a maximum of 5 times since then. Of course when my Christmas tag was called I thrust my arms in the air and rode an invisible horse all the way past the tables of people and to the podium. Okay, so the riding the horse part isn't true but I did feel sort of bad winning the grad prize two years in a row. People were slightly irritated as well I think, which, honestly I would be too if I were in their shoes. Luckily and ironically I am not. Although Luck's brilliant shine was extremely short lived because I caught every single red light from the time I left the party until the time I got home. Who the flip gets stuck at a red light for 2 minutes at 1AM in the morning? Your's Truly that's who.

2007-12-07T17:41:00.000-05:00

My new obsession? The semi-new Espresso Bar at Sheetz. If you don't live in Central PA, or other Sheetz location, or you've never heard of the gasoline/mini-mart chain, then you might as well just move on to your next blog post because you're not going to want to hear what I'm about to say out of shear jealousy.

Now I'm not sure how long Sheetz has had this Espresso Bar because when I go to Sheetz (which is on average at least 2 times a week [3 if you're counting gasoline stops]) I usually just get an MTO. Usually an Italian sub, sausage sandwich biscuit or hamburger. Sometimes I get the chili dogs too. Or a chicken sub. The meatball subs are great as well! Anywho, I'm drifting here. Focus Jimmy! Espresso Bar. It's awesome and here's why.

Unlike their regular coffees which are made by Yours Truly, drinks from the Espresso Bar are made by Sheetz employees right in front of my eyes (but behind the tall wall of candy bar displays and electronic ordering computers of course). I use the same computers I do when ordering my MTOs to select the type of drink and any extras I may or may not want. Extras such as cinnamon, nutmeg, even a whipped cream topping. Oh yeah! I have my selection of what type of milk, skim, 2% or whole and whether I want regular or decaf (I do not recommend regular at 1100PM at night unless you want to sleep poorly because these puppies are indeed high in caffeine)! My favorites right this very moment? Raspberry-Vanilla latte, and Chai lattes both of course with whipped cream on top. Other flavors of lattes include Banana, Caramel, Hazelnut, Raspberry, Vanilla, Caramel & Vanilla, Caramel & Hazelnut and Very Vanilla (with a few sugar free versions of some of those too). But I'm not just limited to lattes. Oh no my friend. I have my choice of lattes, mochas, espressos, hot chocolate, steamers, iced lattes, and iced mochas. Shall I go on? There are frozen lattes, frozen mochas, frozen creamers and even fruit smoothies! Can there be a more heavenly place on Earth (probably, places such as New Zealand, St. Thomas, The Galapagos Islands and The Rocky Mountains may physically be more heavenly, but there are no Sheetz there)?

Now I know what you're thinking, "What's the big deal? Starbucks has been serving up those drinks for years you crackpot!" While this may be true (and I don't care for you calling me names), Starbucks is no Sheetz! Also with Sheetz Coffeez you can order without human interaction! That means no ear straining to understand the person waiting on you, and no smelling bad breath and looking at unkept, dirty high-schoolers. No worrying either whether or not the employee wrote your order down properly. Just touch your finger to what you want, and you're done. What could be more marvelous? If you want a full menu of Sheetz' new Espresso Bar, check out this link here. Oh did I mention the prices? And you thought the prices for electronics were cheep these days. It's almost more expensive to buy a soda than an iced mocha. Eat, err drink, that Star-flippin'-bucks!

2007-12-04T18:10:00.000-05:00

People are frustrated out the whazoo this Christmas season because they can’t find a Wii in any store. They search online, they search in the mall. They ask their friends and other family members and have half the people they know ready to buy one if they would ever come across one. I know you’ve had your ups and downs. After searching for hours online you come across a link that reads, “Nintendo Wii’s in Stock!” Wide eyed and excitingly tense you click the phrase only to be disappointed with either a broken link, or a page that reads the now disgusted idiom, “Out of Stock.”

You’ve been to Circuit City, Walmart, Best Buy, K-Mart, Toys R Us, Sears, Sam’s Club, and not just in your city, but in all other neighboring cities as well. You even checked that little no-named electronic store around the corner that reeks of wet dog and cigarettes that you said you’d never ever walk into after that time the “swanky” cashier with five teeth hit on you and you lost your left show in a loose wooden floor joint. Any and every place you go, nothing.

Sure you can get the deal where you pay over $600 and get 6 games of your choice, but if you’re going to front that sort of money, you might as well buy a PS3 and if you’re going to buy a PS3 you might as well not bother because it’s just a glorified Blu-Ray disc player. All you want is the low budget, basic unit: One controller and nunchuck, one Wii, and Wii Sports.

If you’ve only gone as far as the last two tactics you’re never going to get one! Here’s some useful information to help you a little more. You need more contacts! And ones at the stores at that. While I did hear that Circuit City employees are no longer able to purchase Wiis, it helps if you know someone working in these stores that can buy one for you as soon as they come in. Because the Wiis were never NOT in demand since last November, stores have been completely unable to stock any in their warehouses, leaving Christmas shelves completely void of the video game console and its peripherals. Leaving you, Mrs (or Mr) Irritated Christmas Shopper more high and dry than a nerd on prom night.

Now, Nintendo Wiis are only shipped via UPS. So don’t waste your time waiting for the Best Buy or Walmart truck to come around. It won’t have any Wiis. This brings me to my next contact; make friends with as many UPS truck drivers as possible! Word is the drivers have been checking their inventory looking specifically for Wiis and when they find them, they call their friends to have them meet them at the store. Call your local stores and find out when Mr. UPS makes his weekly or daily deliveries. If you don’t get them off the truck, you don’t get them period! Stalk your local retailers. Make a schedule as to when deliveries come each day and how many units the store is expecting. Make the stores with the highest unit counts top priority and visit your stores on a daily basis if possible. Forget work because what is really really important is that you get your kids (or parents) a Wii for Christmas.

Finally be willing to pay! You can find Wiis on eBay no problem but they are selling for over $500! My suggestion is this. If you really want a Wii before Christmas for little Tommy, buy off eBay to guarantee your Wii and then continue to look in your local stores until you find one (either before or after Christmas) and then sell it on eBay to recoup your losses. While Nintendo has increased production from 1 million to 1.8 million units a month, the company is still unable to keep up to demand. And unfortunately your best bet at finding a Wii in the stores is to just be lucky. If your luck is like mine, you’re better off camping out in the cold when they first come out because in my opinion, you can never rely on Luck! Especially around Christmas. You also can’t rely on the state snow removal trucks to actually plow the roads when it snows. I mean seriously why should the government actually do something beneficial for us?

2007-11-29T23:14:00.000-05:00

I always feel like such a retard when I order apple juice at a restaurant. I'm just waiting for the day when the waitress looks at me like I have two heads and utters," Seriously? How old are you?" And that's so ridiculous too. Why should I feel idiotic when I order that drink? For some reason it just seems like a children's drink. Why don't I just say, "And can you throw in some Gerber smashed peas in a jar to go with that!" Why should I be forced into humiliation when I order something healthy to drink?

What's more, this country claims that it is very concerned with the growing rate of obesity, however just about every restaurant will give you refills of soda for free! What's the calorie intake on a single can of non-diet soda? 160 calories maybe? And that's just a can! Those giant plastic cups that are large enough to quench the thirst of Attila The Hun have to be capable of holding at least 3 cans! Okay, so you drink diet soda. Oh that is so much better for you! I mean there is no real sugar in that I suppose. Just cancerous artificial sweetener and the addictive, yet underrated drug caffeine. Rarely is a restaurant willing to give me a refill of juice for free. Plus typically a glass of juice costs on average $0.20 more^[1]. I guess one could argue that most juices contain just as much sugars and calories as soda, if not more-so. But I doubt that you would find a doctor that would tell his patients to drink more soda and less juice. Unless of course his name was Dr. Pepper.

¹My averages are based solely on the fact that I may or may not accurately remember the last 5 menus I've looked at and their restaurant's prices for juices and sodas. In other words, I just picked a number at the top of my head to make me appear like I know what I'm talking about like the rest of the world does.

2007-11-24T16:40:00.000-05:00

Remember all those times you got your change in Canadian currency instead of U.S. currency? Well, obviously I don't mean all of your change. But I'm sure you've gotten the Canadian quarter or penny from time to time. And there was always that sense of disappointment you know? Because that Canadian quarter wasn't quite worth the U.S. quarter you should have received. You kind of felt that was the store's way of screwing you over like an intern for the president. Well, that day is no longer my friends! Thanks to our country's failing economy the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the U.S. dollar. So last week, when I purchased some coffee at Sheetz and I got a Canadian penny for change, I felt like saying for the first time, "That's right! In your face America!" I know, it's not like I made out with a free hundred dollars or anything. I mean really it was more like .05 cents or something I'm sure, but for the first time ever I actually enjoyed receiving my Canadian change and I didn't mind using it later in the week when I purchased another cup of coffee. This one was at Dunkin Donuts though. And as long as the vending machines still take Canadian quarters, I'll be screwing over the vending machine companies next! Boo yah!

2007-11-19T22:23:00.000-05:00

I've been waiting months and months and months! Finally I have it! I am the proud owner of a brand spankin' new Cannondale bicycle! This is the story about how I finally acquired it, and why my new jeans are now ripped.

Way back in the warm summer months I decided I wanted to start saving some gas money and start riding a bike to work. The only problem at the time was I didn't have a bike. Not one worthy of riding to work anyway. So I started to search around and learn about bicycles. I never owned a real bike before. And by real bike I mean not a K-Mart, or Toys R Us special. A good bike costs money apparently. Name brands like Giant, Trek and Cannnondale are good bikes. Huffy, well not so much. Okay, so enough about bikes, I finally decided what I wanted based off of what I would be using the bike for. So back in the summer I put my order in for a large, bright orange, Cannondale Road Warrior 800. Ooh, I was so excited! So the summer was almost over and I was told that my bike had finally come in! Only there was a problem. It wasn't a large, but a medium. That wasn't going to work. The medium was just too small (good bikes have sizes apparently and need to be fitted. How cool is that?!). The error was the factory's fault so they were willing to take the bike back and give me a new one. Only there was another problem. The 2007 models were all out and the 2008 models wouldn't be available until November. So I had to wait. Another problem was that the 2008 wouldn't come in the same color. I really liked the bright orange! At one point Cannondale said they would do a special paint job for me since they botched up the size, but that fell thru when someone higher up in the company found out and nixed that.

So time went by and I waited. In the meantime, I was out on location one day for work and wound up catching my jeans on a screw and ripping a small hole on the leg. So that weekend I went out to the mall to buy myself a replacement pair (as I only have two decent pairs of jeans and I just alternate between wearing them at The Workplace). I like Gap jeans, so that's where I went. I know they are expensive, but I like them anyway. So I tried on a couple pairs and decided on a darker blue, Boot Cut jean. I stayed with my usual size, 32-34, which seemed to fit pretty nice in the dressing room. They seemed a little longer than usual but I figured they'd shrink once they got washed. Apparently I was wrong. The first day I wore them to the Workplace I noticed that I started walking on the bottom, heal of the pant leg after a few steps. Well that obviously wasn't going to work so I cuffed them about an inch to keep that from happening. Of course all of this could have been avoided had I went with the Relaxed Fit instead of the Boot. But, well, what's another bad decision on my part? So after about two weeks of wearing cuffed jeans I noticed that my brand new jeans had acquired a nice little rip along the fold. I would have returned the little bugger, but they were too long anyway, and my grandma had been nagging me for years to hem my pants a little shorter for me. I figured I'd finally take her up on her offer. So I gave her the ripped pants and she fixed them up all nice and they fit perfectly. But it still irked me that these pants were causing me a lot of issues when at the price I paid, they shouldn't have.

So a few more weeks went by and I got a call that my new bike was finally ready, fresh from the factory. And it was the right one this time. So I borrowed a van to go pick it up. The bike was beautiful! They changed the model numbers a little in the 2008 models, so now I own a Cannondale Road Warrior 2. And actually the 2008 models were cheaper than the 2007 models due to some change in the manufacturing process. At least that was one good thing that happened. So the weather was pretty nasty when I picked my bike up. It was cold, windy, a little snowy, a little rainy. But I got the bike home safely and returned the borrowed van. I wanted to ride the bike more than anything because I'm a big 8 year old, so when I got back home, I threw a sweatshirt on, turned on my house flood lights and took the bike for a little ride down the lane adjacent to my house. Now if you haven't guessed already I was wearing the jeans that had given me so much trouble the past few weeks. And as I was checking out the awesome gear changing smoothness of the Road Warrior, I felt my pant leg catch on the gear at the pedals. "Oooh!" I thought. I figured if I didn't tone it down I was going to rip my pant leg. Well, I had barely finished that thought when I felt the jeans catch again only this time I heard a loud SCRATCH! That was it. My pants had caught on the gear and ripped a nice three inch tear from above my ankle down to the bottom of the leg (don't worry, the flesh on the leg was completely untouched!).

Now most people would probably be pretty upset at that. Me however, well I just started laughing. I mean honestly, I had a brand new bicycle that was flippin' amazing (weighing in at a brilliant 24 pounds by the way) and I now had a pair of jeans that were not going to be giving me any issues anymore because they were going to get pitched. Sure I was out $60 or something but to be honest, I could hardly care. Will I buy a pair of Gap jeans again? Probably. Will I make sure they last me a little longer? Most likely. Will I rip another pair of pants some day riding my new bike? Oh I'm sure I will!

2007-11-13T20:24:00.000-05:00

AI, or artificial intelligence, in your home is still a far cry from happening. Don't get me wrong though, it will happen whether you like the idea or not. And to be honest, I think you're going to like it once it happens. Most people associate AI with robots and androids and I know a lot of people that wouldn't want a robot in their homes. But really, all AI is is the ability for a computer to learn. And whether you want to admit it or not, computers are EVERYWHERE! Even in your home. Your TV, Cable/Satellite box, vacuum cleaner, even your coffee maker, they are all micro computers. Basically these days, anything that is electronic is a computer.

Let's take a closer look at your coffee pot shall we. What do you do to make coffee? You measure the water out, put it in the back of the pot, put the grounded up coffee in, and turn that bad boy on. The coffee pot does the rest. Inside that little coffee pot is a microprocessor that turns the water pump on, turns the burner on and then shuts the water pump off when all the water is gone from the reservoir. In a sense, the coffee pot is programmed to do its thing when you tell it to go. It abides by its original program and will never deviate (unless of course something mechanical breaks, but even then the coffee pot will continue to execute its program, it just appears it's not working). I bet your coffee pot even has a timer so you can set it all up the night before and have fresh coffee waiting for you the next morning. Ooooh I love when that happens.

But what if your coffee pot was an AI coffee pot? Probably named the AICP3000, this motha trucka would truly be the most fantastic coffee maker ever! Like I said be before, the whole concept of AI is a learning computer. The AICP3000 would study your coffee drinking habits and change its internal programming, all by its mechanical, err computational little self, to better serve you. Maybe it would learn that on the weekends it needs to make the coffee two hours later than normal to allow for you and the hubby to have your weekend morning "romp." Maybe it would then learn that it also needs to make coffee when there is company over for dinner. It can learn that you usually let the pot sit for hours with the heat still on and a quarter of an inch of coffee still in the pot so it turns the heat off and flushes more water into the pot to keep that disgusting layer of tar from building up, especially since you don't actually wash the thing you just rinse it out. Heck it can even learn how many times to fill the pot up before you stop drinking for the day.

And AI doesn't have to stop with the coffee pot. How fantastic would it be if everything electronic could learn? Your car could start itself and warm up during the cold days, and learn what your favorite radio stations are at certain times of the day and switch to them automatically. Your TV could learn what types of TV shows you like to watch. Your shower could know what time to turn the water on each day and to what temperature. It's not just for robots and science fiction anymore. Computer code that modifies computer code. It's a reality! A world of AI is just around the corner and my guess is that it will be just like the Internet, once we have it for a little while we'll never know how we ever survived without it! I guess potentially this blog could write itself too . . . I don't like that.

2007-11-09T00:04:00.000-05:00

At the risk of sounding extremely girlie and/or possibly homosexual (which my track record can prove is not the case)(not that there is anything wrong with that), I'm still going to write about this topic. Why? Simply because, while reading it may sound girlie, I still know just about all 3 of my male readers think this too, but just choose not to discuss it at the risk of sounding, well, not manly. I just figure, screw it!

So with the advent of the cooler weather I decided to check out my sweater collection. Of course I really only delve into that drawer during the cold season because, well, only women wear sweaters in the summer. Upon opening the drawer I gazed in at my stash and was suddenly in sheer amazement. There, on the top of the pile, was my all-time favorite sweater! It shone like a brilliant light was cast upon it from On High at which time a chorus of Angels sang a single note that was the most beautiful sound ever known to Man! The sweater was less than a year old and was a birthday gift from The Sister (or so I seem to think. This little tidbit could be entirely not factual) last Christmas. Frankly the sweater isn't that impressive looking. It's a single shade of brown and looks like it is turned inside out all the time with the stitching and whatnot on the outside. I know, nothing to gawk at, but it could just be the single, most comfortable long sleeve shirt in existence today since the dawn of Long-Sleeve-Shirt time (or since year 0 LSSE [Long Sleeve Shirt Era]). In fact, I encourage any of you reading this to find a sweater that is more comfortable! Of course it ultimately would be my decision as to whether yours was more comfortable or not and to be honest, I would always pick mine just to prove that I was right. Because that's the kind of person I am, or so I try to project I am anyway.

So back to my point. I grabbed my brown sweater and threw it on, and headed off to work smiling like Steve Carrell who just told a joke only he thought was funny. How is it even possible that I forgot that this garment existed?! And now that I know I have such a thing, I'll be wearing it as much as possible while attempting to not allow my work colleagues to think I only own two articles of clothing, which frankly is much harder than it should be. People at The Workplace are way to perceptive when it comes to clothing.

Seriously (and I know you all think it), isn't it great when you find some article of clothing you completely forgot you had?! It's even better when it's your favorite piece of clothing. It's a feeling about as good as when you find a rolled up 10 dollar bill in your winter jacket that you haven't worn for 8 months. Although it is sort of the same thing really. I mean who doesn't love finding 10 dollar bills? Frankly I'd love to find 20 or 50 dollar bills, but I'm lucky to even have one of those in my wallet, let alone find one in a pocket somewhere. I'd also like to someday find a magic genie bottle and possibly even a giant vat of free Papa John's pizza, but preferably not in a pocket.

2007-11-07T18:21:00.000-05:00

I've had a fair amount of things on my mind for the past few days. Some are rather important, other's are just things that pop into my head because I am some kind of erotic turbo-charged organic thought machine. While you don't get to know the important things, I will share with you my pointless thoughts. Aren't you just so darn lucky!

Do blind people turn on the lights when they walk into a dark room at night? I mean it's just habit for me.
Do cops get irritated when they get stuck behind someone that is driving exactly the speed limit? I do when I'm behind a cop.
Will I ever pay less than $3 a gallon for gasoline ever again? Maybe when water becomes less than $1 a bottle.
I've had my bedroom furniture for over 4 years now and I have never once changed the drawers my clothes are in. How is it that I still get confused between which drawer has my white t-shirts and which drawer has my gym shorts?
Why does Scientific American charge you $35 to renew your magazine subscription, but only charges you $25 to get a new, gift subscription? Why would I ever renew when I can get myself a gift for $10 less? Stinks for those of you that already renewed this year I guess.
Why are toilets in the over-sized handicap stalls always elevated, but sometimes the toilet paper dispenser is not? This only benefits the handicapped if they have freakishly long arms and/or extreme flexibility.
Why doesn't Jay Leno just write his own monologue? Didn't he used to be a stand-up comedian? Oh what?? He still is???
Does anybody other than myself actually say the term properly? It's Daylight Saving Time people! Not Savings!

I guess that's it for now. It's apparent that my thoughts get more and more lame as I continue to list them. Might as well stop there before I start listing stuff that just makes you think I'm a complete wacko. Mmmm, too late.

2007-11-01T17:40:00.000-04:00

Ever plan on going to a Penn State football game? I'm sure you have. But were you ever curious what to expect when you got there for the tailgate? Well be curious no longer. The Captain is back with his list of what to expect at a PSU tailgating extravaganza! Of course this comes from personal experience so any opinions and/or views that may conflict with yours is just tough. Suck it up and quit being a baby about it. Here it comes, in your face! It's Captain Jimmy's Top 10 Ways to Get Jiggy Tailgating at PSU.

10. Make sure you bring your earplugs because if all the generators aren't loud enough, the music from the amps that they are supplying power for will surely make you think Beethoven had flippin' dog-like hearing!

9. Forget your 6-pack of beer? No worries. Just walk up to some stranger's cooler and grab one for yourself and your friends. They'll be too drunk to care. If the strangers do happen to ask, just say you were looking for some shots. Oh, and if you say that, you'll be expected to do some.

8. Forget your crazy, drunk friends that you don't like to hang out with because they are crazy drunks? No worries. There are at least two every 20 feet.

7. You'll definitely want to make sure you brush up on your Flip Cup skills. Or maybe your Beer Pong skills. Okay, maybe just your drinking skills.

6. Three words, Dizzy Bat Relay. Race your friends (or complete strangers). Spin around a Wiffle bat 10 times with your head down, sprint 20 feet, down a cup of beer, sprint back, next in line goes! Oops. Wiffle bat break? No worries, now you can fill it up with beer and drink from it!

5. Don't ever, ever, ever wear the opposing team's colors. Unless of course you enjoy getting the finger and obscenities yelled at you no matter where you are. I hope you like hearing the F word!

4. Make sure you have plenty of gas in your tailgate vehicle. Not so much for while you're tailgating, but for when the game is over and you're attempting to leave the parking lot. If you're one of the lucky 10,000 that get stuck in the middle of the lot, you're looking at a minimum of 2 hours before getting the heck out of there. I hope you like the smell of exhaust and getting high!

3. If you have a small bladder, you might as well forget about going tailgating all together. After you wait in line for 45 minutes you'll have peed your pants twice and gone thru 3 beers. By the time you get in and out of the crap-filled portipottie, you might as well get back in the line so you don't wet yourself when you have to go again.

2. Are you an attractive chick looking for a nice guy? Are you an ugly chick looking for the love of your life? Are you a chick that's drunk off her crapper looking for a dude that's the same so you can make out? What's the difference? They're all the same when you're a drunk chick.

1. Don't bother bringing petty foods like bags of chips and pretzels. What will most likely happen is some drunk guy that you just met will end up tripping over himself at some point and come crashing down on the chips, or he may just deliberately jump on your bag of pretzels, because, well when you're drunk that's fun apparently. In fact you're much better off meeting sober people in the other parking lots and being invited to kick-a** food tents with all the hot dogs and sausage you could possibly dream of! If that doesn't get your juicy intestinal track gurgling and leaking, I don't know what will!

If you really want to have a fun time, just bring your fun hat and join in the festivities. It'll be an indescribable experience and if you ever embarrass yourself just remember; nobody else will likely remember. Oh yeah, don't forget to scream, "WE ARE! PENN STATE!" "Thank you!"

2007-10-26T19:47:00.000-04:00

Go ahead and guess who was at Marzoni's (apparently known as Marz to the locals???) in Duncansville last night. You know what, just stop guessing because you'll never get it right. The USC Men's Volleyball Team! That's right, I'm talking about the University of Southern California's NCAA men's volleyball team right here in central Pennsylvania. At first when the host at Marzoni's said that the USC volleyball team was going to be there I thought he said USAV because honestly, why would USC come to Altoona, PA? I was obviously proven to be mistaken though when The Trojans walked thru the restaurant doors and sat down at their reserved tables. So of course since we were within touching distance of the team we decided to listen in on some of their conversations. Not surprisingly they were not impressed with the Altoona area or Harrisburg International Airport, the airport they flew into. Seriously though, what are the odds? Oh and their reason form meandering The Railroad City? A pre-season game with PSU. How nice must it be to fly cross-country, skip a day and a half of classes and play volleyball for a day? If I would have had a camera with me, I would have taken a picture. Of course I would have been in it, wearing a Trojan's sweatshirt and hoisted above the other players like a set of dumbbells!

2007-10-22T18:17:00.000-04:00

I'm not a huge fan of the food stores changing around their inventory from time to time. I mean, I guess I can see their little gimmick going on there. They figure that if they just suddenly mix up and re-organize their products, they can catch those product shoppers that know-exactly-what-they-want-and-go-right-to-their-spot off guard, and force them to look at, and pass by products that they otherwise would not. And frankly, I guess I'm okay with that. I mean I am one of those shoppers, but really this only gripes me a couple times a year. Usually I'm more irritated by the grocery store no longer carrying the exact product I desire. What I'm really curious about though, is when in the heck do the stores have time to do this? At night during closed hours obviously but in my opinion this would take much longer than a single night shift. Think about it. There are isles upon isles of items counting easily into the thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, that need moved from one side of the store to the other. Of course some isles cannot change like the refrigerated, fruit and freezer sections, but usually everything else will get completely re-routed. Somehow I doubt the workers are just filling up cart after cart pushing this stuff around the store all night long. Then as if that doesn't take long enough, all the price tags need to be moved around too. You know, those plastic tags on on the shelves that, as a little kid, you used to queue up and slide all the way down to the end of the isle with your index finger. Oooh, my mom would go ballistic when she caught me doing that! Secretly though I think the stores have "isle movers" that just lift the whole blasted shelving unit high to the ceiling, then maneuver it to the the other side of the store and lower it back down. Because seriously, that would be flippin' awesome! And of course who wouldn't want to see something go wrong and suddenly there is the domino effect going on with the shelves in the entire store!

On a completely separate note, I love pumpkin flavor! Pumpkin pie, pumpkin oatmeal, pumpkin fluff, pumpkin bread, I love it all! So why do we only have it during this time of year? I'm pretty sure if we can grow apples and oranges all year long, we can do the same with pumpkins. Why do we have seasonal foods at all really? If I want a delicious soft ice cream cone in the middle of the winter, then I should be able to get one! As long as it's not pumpkin flavor. Pumpkin ice cream just doesn't sound like something I'd like to stuff into my mouth. Not while I'm conscious and breathing anyway.

2007-10-17T21:14:00.000-04:00

It's that time of year again. The time when waves of new, unseen and ridiculously awful horror flix skip the big screen and head right to DVD and Blu-ray. The time when the air starts to get a little colder, then a little warmer, then a little colder, then crazy hot! The time when the entire outdoors smells like that time your college toilet backed up for three days. The time when bad Christmas movie previews start making their way to prime time. Yep, you guessed it, it's Autumn once again, or Fall as some people may have you believe. So what is there to do this time of year? Not too much, but I'm sure if we brainstorm long enough, we can come up with something.

How about watching butt loads of TV? Why not check out the new Fall lineup? I might recommend new episodes of The Office, House, and even the new sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Shows to avoid: Life, and really anything that comes on ABC. If the temperature ever gets colder outside you could go out and play some football with your friends. I'd recommend playing in the rain and mud (especially if you can get some chicks to play). Why not go for a drive, check out the changing leaves, however you might want to avoid all those construction zones. Don't confuse the orange road work signs for oak tree canopies though. Hey how about checking out some Homecoming dances? Can't find your own? Nothing like crashing one with a buddy, or chaperoning a high school one. Might I suggest avoiding the wall of stank leading to the teenage dance floor. Finally how about checking out the latest in clothing and personal apparel and gear. That's shopping for those of you that don't understand the words that I type. While I don't condone such behavior, if you're looking for a break from your way-to-clingy girlfriend, it can be a great suggestion. Need more ideas? Here's a final idea. Think for yourself and go have some fun you sexy trunk monkeys!

2007-10-10T20:17:00.001-04:00

What do Halloween and Winnie the Pooh have in common? While I may not know, it appears that department stores around the area have some kind of demented clue. Today, in my car I past a giant inflatable Tigger dressed as a vampire. Of course it was Tigger so I wasn't really that scared, but still, who ever came up with that? Heck why not dress Lisa Simpson up as a jumbo turkey and put her on your lawn for Thanksgiving? Or better yet, let's stick a beard on Bugs Bunny and give him a tall, top hat and inflate his gray, hairy little body up for Presidents Day? I think these holidays and giant inflatable objects are getting out of hand. Do you really need cartoon vampire tigers with capes in front of your houses? Do you really think you are amusing people that much that you feel the need to purchase such a thing to put it on display? I'm waiting for the day I see the inflatable Halloween Playboy Bunny! Apparently tis the season for all women to dress up as sluts and hookers anyway. Might as well promote it as much as costume shops, the Internet and Hugh Hefner. I still don't understand why the majority of women dress up like that for Halloween. What am I missing? Is there a day when I can dress up as a Chippendale's performer without anybody judging me? Because if there is, I don't want to know about it, nor do I want to even entertain that thought. I'd much rather have a day where I can dress up as my favorite Star Wars character without the world thinking I'm some crazed nerfherder. Although people do seem to get used to it after a few months . . .

2007-10-03T19:34:00.000-04:00

Into gaming as much as I am? Probably not if you're reading this blog, but in any event I'm going to tell you all about the great new Nintendo Wii games coming out in the next couple months. You'll find me owning probably all of these games as soon as I can get my trigger happy fingers on them. Heck, since this is going to be a list, I might as well make it, Captain Jimmy's Upcoming Kickass Wii Game List! (oh yeah . . .)

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - Yes ladies and gents, Samus Aran is back and that spicy little fox is rapping up her final a** kicking for the end of the the Prime series. While this is the firstMetroid game to utilize the Wii-mote, I'm informed that the first-person shooter style is nothing but simple and uber fun to use. If you have a Wii, be sure to download the video demos of the game in the Wii Shop. It's nothing but pure, jaw dropping, eye watering, brow sweating (and possible spandex wearing) action! Any chick that shoots aliens with plasma guns and wears an armor suit that can become a magnified ball is okay in my book.
Release date: August 27, 2007 (I know, that was over a month ago, but I haven't gotten a chance yet to go buy it).

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock - You knew it was coming. As if I wasn't addicted to GH2 enough, once this puppy comes out I might as well submit my two week notice because I won't be leaving the house anymore. Luckily Activision decided to release this baby for about every system out there: PS2, PS3, XBox 360, Wii, even PC and Mac versions. With an awesome new battle mode and a co-op career mode, GH3 should just about rock out everybody's world! Jam out to many more songs by the original artists such as "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses, "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys and even "One" by Metallica. So much for all that cover crap. I also hear the push ups and pull downs are even easier in this version. I might as well start making my YouTube videos now of me rocking out like a crazy mo-fo, or 8-year old boy!
Release date: October 28, 2007.

Super Mario Galaxy - Let's face it; the last great Mario game that came jumping into this world was Super Mario 64 for the N64. Sure Super Mario Sunshine was fun, but what the flip was going on with that animated water hose backpack?Anywho , Super Mario Galaxy promises to have all the the great world artistry we have come to expect from the Mario Bros. series. Only, if you haven't gathered, this is galaxy, not world. Prepare for a planet hopping, spherical rotating extravaganza! This time you'll be collecting star fragments and even have a few new jump techniques in your plumber pants. Remember that thing you called sleep? Well you won't be doing it once you start playing this game. Oh yeah, the auto-camera is supposed to be a bazillion times better than the manual ones you're used to. Oops, I just wet my pants.
Release date: November 12, 2007.

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 - Who knows when this precious gem will find its way to stocked store shelves but be prepared for a frenzy when it does. With completely re-engineered multi-player action and a random Story Mode that will give you new games each time you play, the latest coke sniffing developers of this crazy who-haw should not disappoint you. Fact! Screaming, gurgling babies sound a lot like Rabbids. If only I could beat them and throw plungers in their faces, I'd be one happy gamer.
Release date: November 13, 2007 (provided the bunnies don't take over before that).

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Possibly the most anticipated game for the Wii ever! Remember the last version; Melee? I do. It kept me up all night during finals week at college forcing me to partake in a weeks worth of tests without a lick of studying. Did I pass all my courses? Of course. Was it way better than stressing out over some crappy tests and study habits? Hell yes! Will I be doing something like this again when Brawl gets released? Probably. Although instead of skipping study time for finals I'm thinking more about getting to The Workplace late and leaving The Workplace early. As a plus, it looks like this game can be played with the Wii-mote, or the virtual console controller, or even an old-school GameCube controller. New characters such as Diddy Kong, Zero Suit Samus and Wario promise to make this action packed game more fun than a room full of River Dancing chimpanzees, or giving your little brother a swirly. Maybe even more fun than giving that little weird nerd with the goofy clothes at school a swirly. Let's hope so anyway. The Captain still resents you for that.
Release date: December 3, 2007.

2007-10-02T23:40:00.000-04:00

The American people are hypocrites I think. More exact, the people of Central Pennsylvania are hypocrites. Of course I'm just making a generalization here. Forgive me if I have incorrectly included you in my generalization, but for now you'll have to deal with it. Why do I think this way? It's simple really. People complain until the cows come home about energy costs and pollution, but when given the option of switching to clean, renewable energy, these same people go ape poop! Let me give you an example. Within the last few years Wind Power has become quite popular here in Central PA. We're in a prime location for it! Thanks to our geographic location, The Appalachian mountains, and U.S. weather patterns, the wind nearly blows constantly at many locations in this Commonwealth. Why not harness that naturally generated power? Years ago 6 giant wind turbines were built in Somerset County to generate power for countless people across this state (and possibly other states). In fact, one of my college professors paid extra per month to get that power pumped out to his home in Grantham, PA (because, unlike even Heaven, you know you can pick your energy provider here in PA, at least that's what the commercials used to portray) simply because it was clean, renewable energy. Within the last year, nearly 100 wind turbines were constructed on a mountain ridge not more than 20 miles from my home. In fact, on a clear, crisp evening you can see their tiny, distant silhouettes against the bright orange sky. It's really quite a site to see

In case you're new to this term, Renewable Energy, I'll explain it because it's simple really. Renewable Energy is energy that can be generated without harmful emissions, and frankly, will never cease to be generated by losing its source. Current energy technologies such as burning coal, and nuclear power all have ends in site. When we run out of nuclear fuels, or fossil fuels, we are out of power and out of luck. Who knows how many years we have left of that stuff, but I can tell you, it ain't long. Sure maybe our kids' kids will still use that power, but probably not much further than that. Enter Renewable Energy! Like its name states, it's renewable. Examples of this type of energy are solar cells, wind turbines, and water turbines. Obviously even these sources of energy have an end too, but the human race won't be around anymore to see the end of our Sun or water. Water turbines have been used for decades to generate electricity. The best example of these are dams like the Hoover Dam. There the natural flow of water turns giant turbines, generating electric current. Newer hydro-electric generation technologies are coming in the form of harnessing the power of oceanic waves, and hi-tech (and so far highly expensive) hydrogen extraction of water. Solar cells have also been around for years, but are still pretty expensive and rather inefficient. This brings us to wind energy. Pressure differences across the planet will aways exist causing the phenomenon we have all come to know as wind. Using the natural occurrence of atmospheric pressure differentials, we are able to spin giant turbines, some of which the wings easily stretch the length of an entire football field, to generate a whole crap load of electricity. The cost of these units is quite minuscule compared to a giant electric plant, and maintenance costs to keep the turbines functional are minimal as well.

So what do people have against these renewable forms of energy? Really stupid stuff like appearance, damage to the surrounding environment, and possible noise solution. In reality what it is coming down to is people not knowing enough about renewable energies in our environment, yet still trying to make decisions. Sort of sounds like your workplaces doesn't it? Well guess what, the whole country seems to operate this way! Unfortunately decisions aren't made based off fact, education and long term benefits, but are "more importantly" based off money, personal interest, and possibilities of instant gratifications. Thanks to the American people's decision making process wind turbine farm proposals across Bedford and Blair counties are being shut down because of our inability to base decisions off of fact. We just assume that since these are big machines, and near crucial water supplies that they will destroy said water supplies. So we hire expensive environmental engineers and consultants only to refuse to listen to them because of what they know is too different than what we think we know.

What point am I trying to make here? Support any local renewable energy plans that are proposed to your communities. Okay, so maybe a 100 wind turbine farm does not express beauty the same way as trees do, but they are quiet, and sort of have their own beauty. Plus if the government wants to build them on your property, they'll pay you for many many years to come. More importantly though is the fact that you'll be involved in the generation of clean, renewable energy that even your kids' kids' kids will be able to experience (that's your great grand kids by the way, and if you plan on being around to see them, you better start thinking of how to make this planet better for them and not how you, yourself can profit from it).

2007-09-26T21:25:00.000-04:00

So here I am in a place called Reston, VA. What am I here for? Training. .NET training to be exact. So let's start at the top shall we?

The Boss and I signed up for this quite some time ago. The place where we go for the training is made for training. It's their job. They train people in technology for like two grand a week; stuff like databases, code, wireless, networks, all that good, fancy stuff. This company has training locations all over the world: Virginia, Maryland, even Paris and Tokyo. Now, less than a block from this learning center is a Hyatt hotel. And of course that is where the learning center recommends staying. Because then, you know, you can just walk yourself across the street and go to class. Like college but without the hangover. Well, The Boss had stayed in that Hyatt in the past and said it was too fancy for him. So instead, he signed us up for the "comparative," most cost effective Comfort Inn! Now if you've ever stayed in both hotel chains before you know that they really don't compare. Take these personal examples for instance. Hyatt - friendly concierge and helpful staff members: Comfort Inn - Ms. Personality at the front desk doesn't have a clue where you should eat or why the treadmill isn't working. Hyatt - big bathrooms with luxurious showers: Comfort Inn - the shower head dribbles water out slower than a tortoise onBenadrel . Hyatt - floors stacked so high with properly engineered integrity you don't even know there are 15 more floors above you: Comfort Inn - the foreign guests in the room above yours don't know how to use the shower curtain properly when they bathe, turning your bathroom door into a waterfall.

But sorry, I got off topic a little here. What I wanted to talk about was the city of Reston, VA. Let me tell you a little about this supposed "city." Now I thought if something was classified as a city that it had to have a certain population? That's how it was on SimCity anyway (remember that game? I loved building huge metropolises then demolishing them with a Godzilla attack!). Let's see, how can I describe Reston, VA? It's like a modern day ghost town. Picture, if you will, New York City: huge buildings and skyscrapers, little restaurants and shops everywhere, skinny little streets, parking garages, more high rises and construction. Yeah! That's Reston! Except NYC has PEOPLE!!! I'm missing something here because I find no people in this city! The streets are completely bare, there is no one shopping, no one eating, no one driving, heck I don't even see people working! I don't see people! Where are the people?! Before we get to the learning center, we park in a free parking garage. The garage is filled; filled with cars! Where are the people driving them!? Maybe at 5 o' clock the streets become packed with people leaving work and whatnot, but not during the hours of 9AM-4PM. I have no idea how this place employees anybody. In fact, if you can picture this, I literally walk down the streets and yell, "Where are the people!!" Of course after not seeing any speed limit signs either I made the assumption that most of this city must exists on some parallel plane of existence r dimension. Maybe if I can find the door that connects this Reston Dimension with my dimension I may find some housing property back in The Cove that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg to purchase.

2007-09-19T20:06:00.000-04:00

I am literally able to bend light! Okay, so maybe it's really not as cool as it sounds. I mean really anybody can bend light. All you need is a lens, or prism, or water, or mirror, or the list could go on and on. I guess really even inanimate objects can bend light. Objects such as black holes, stars and even planets have enough mass to literally bend a ray of light like it were a piece of rubber. What makes me able to do it in a much cooler fashion is the fact that I can only bend blue light and I can do it simply by moving my head and keeping my eyes still. Freaky huh? Here's what's going on.

As you can tell from my pictures, I wear eye-glasses to help me see. I cling to them like a child would a blanket. I'm not sure what your vision has to be for a person to be considered legally blind but I've got to be close. I mean I can't even read the big E on the eye doctor's chart. I'm pretty sure in order to check my vision without glasses would require an entire billboard with letters approximately the size of OJ Simpson's lies. Anywho, since my eye site is so bad, I pay a little extra to have special poly-something-or-other lenses that will not be half an inch thick when cut. These lenses are actually stronger and lighter than the typical plastic lens. Now, if you own a pair of glasses you've probably realized that around the edges of the lenses the lens gets a little thicker. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but it is definitely the case with mine. To top things off, my glasses are more of a rounded rectangle than circular. Put all these things together and my glasses end up bending the blue portion of the visible light spectrum towards the outside of the lenses. This can be most noticeable when staring at purple light made from blue and red light.

Basically what happens is as I look at this type of purple light thru the edges of my glasses the blue and red light will split apart and I'll be able to easily identify both colors. It sort of looks like those red/blue images do before you put the 3D glasses on to make the image pop out at you. Even some halogen white light will magically have the blue light bent away from it. While I'm not entirely thrilled with this effect, it is sort of neat. What's really weird is when staring at pure blue light, such as a blue LED, by merely moving my head I can bend the light right off the emitter so the emitter appears dark and a bright spot of blue light appears floating a couple inches away. Just one more reason why people think I'm a loon and could really care less about reading this blog.

2007-09-13T00:51:00.000-04:00

Email forwards. We all get them. Everything from Saving Baby John from Cancer, to raunchy jokes, to hilarious videos to "valuable" information regarding giant-sized Mars in the sky and poisonous spiders. On average I say I get about 5 emails per week that I'd classify as "Stupid Email Forwards." Don't get me wrong, I enjoy some of these. I love watching the funny videos! Did you see the one with the people on the ginormous slingshot? HAHAHA! That was a riot. Some of these, I don't really care for. Now it's well known that I'm very skeptical of "what I hear." I've debunked such stupid things as prune juice in Dr. Pepper, poisonous Daddy Long Legs and balancing eggs on their tips during an equinox. Heck I'm a regular Myth Buster if you ask me.

In fact, just a few weeks ago I had a co-worker forward me an email forward because she knows that I'm skeptical of them and she wanted to know if it was true. The forward stated that in just a few days Mars would be the closest it has been to Earth in the last bajillion years and if you looked outside during the evening the planet would appear in the sky larger than the Moon!! "Wow!" I thought. That's pretty impressive and frankly pretty darn scary. For if Mars actually appeared that size in the sky, our planet would be in serious jeopardy! After some careful research I discovered that just a few years ago Mars was indeed the closest to our globe than it would be for hundreds of years to come, but that was a few years ago (which meant the circulating forward had been forwarding since nearly the dawn of forwards!) and while I'm sure Mars would have looked fantastic in a telescope, to the naked eye, the observer would have noticed nothing more than a puny increase in the planet's magnitude, nothing more.

Then last night I had a friend forward me one about a super-poisonous spider biting people on the caboose after camping out on the underside of toilet seats in a Floridian Olive Garden. A few things spiked my interest on this email. One, the only really poisonous spiders found in The States are the Black Widow and Brown Recluse, and even those would have a hard time killing an adult human. In fact I think the most poisonous spiders, the Brazilian Wandering Spider and the Six Eyed-Sand Spider, reside in Brazil and South Africa respectively, without either one really being small enough to hide under a toilet seat. So you can image I had a hard time even remotely believing the email. I took off on the Internet highway and discovered this email had been started back in 2002 , and it actually mimicked an email dating from 1999! Upon wiping the sweat from my brow I thought, "Whew, another stupid myth debunked."

Really my point here I want to make to my readers is to stop believing everything you hear, er read! Even if it comes from the mouth of your closest friend. Be skeptical of the world! I'm not saying everyone lies, but just put a little thought into what you listen to. If it seems a little far-fetched, it probably is. Don't be afraid to question and investigate! Regardless of what you hear about Wikipedia (pronounced wikee/pee/dee/ah, trust me, I know all about wiki, what it is, how to program with it and how it is pronounced), it is a fantastic tool (go figure huh?). Ask your other friends what they think of the matter. If all your friends believe one thing and you another, odds are you're wrong. Sorry to say that, but it's true. Finally don't trust any email forward! No matter how sympathetic, or pathetic it may sound, or appear, don't have a blind trust in what it says.

Of course I could really say the same goes for blogs and webpages, but then I'd have to make an amendment if the speaker, writer or forwarder is a genius and already a skeptic, like me. Well, let's just make that amendment anyway shall we?

2007-09-07T21:30:00.000-04:00

I saw a Bald Eagle while driving to work today. It's been four years since I've seen one of those. Which got me thinking, "Wow! The last time I saw one of those was in Alaska, four years ago." Which then got me thinking to how many of those flippin' things I saw in Alaska. Which then got me thinking about how at that time I thought the Bald Eagle shouldn't be on the Endangered Species List because it was everywhere! Which then got me thinking as to whether the great bird actually is on the Endangered Species List. Which finally made me take some action and check it the heck out!

Here's what I found (just in case you've been curious about our national bird): As of 1992 the Bald Eagle was estimated to number between 110,000 and 115,000 in North America. Of course the bird can only be found in North America (with a few exceptions in Ireland and somewhere else).¹ Alaska's population alone numbers in the fifty to seventy thousands.² Which would explain why they seemed to liter the cities of Juneau and Ketchikan. Anywho, the Bald Eagle was actually removed from the U.S. government's list of endangered species on July 12, 1995 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It was at that time reclassified as a "Threatened" species instead of an "Endangered" one.¹ Don't ask me how they do their classifications. I guess that's another investigation all together. Finally as recently as June 28, 2007 the bird was removed from the "Threatened" status all together with an estimated number of nearly 10,000 pairs thriving in the lower 48 states. This up from just over 400 in 1963.²

So what's in store for the Bald Eagle in the future? Hopefully their population will continue to grow because to be quite honest, seeing one of these bad boys (or girls) soaring above the trees could be one of the most impressive sites in the animal kingdom. Can you imagine a bird with an 80 inch wingspan swooping down to grab a small meal of an animal? That wingspan is bigger than me! Even more impressive is the "mating flight" between two birds. As Hitchcock might say, "Bring on the birds!"

1. Bald Eagle. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_eagle.
2. Bald Eagle Soars Off Endangered Species List. U.S. Department of the Interior. http://www.doi.gov/news/07_News_Releases/070628.html.

2007-08-31T23:07:00.000-04:00

I try to stay current on the ins and outs, the ups and downs, the hips and hops. But where in the heck did this High School Musical come from? That was all my campers would talk about a month ago at camp. I felt like a retard because I never even heard of the blasted thing before. To top it off, it's a musical, so all my campers were singing it all day long. All . . . day . . . long. Then just a few weeks ago I heard that High School Musical 2 was premiering. Still, never heard of the first one! My curiosity was truly peeked when I heard what a hugely gigantic foobar this was going to be when it premiered. What was it, like the largest audience ever for a cable TV show? Something like that. I just don't understand the hype. What I do understand is this:

Kids are like one ginormous cult. Once the leader gets into something, so will all the rest of the little buggers.
TV shows can be addicting. Shoot I'm addicted to The Office and can just about quote every episode.
Kids love TV shows about kids. Remember Saved By The Bell? Yeah you do! Only one of the best TV shows ever. And as a plus, there was no singing, and a dude name Screech!

So in the end, I guess I can understand why this High School Musical is so popular. I may not understand the musical aspect of it (mainly because the whole musical thing is just down right weird. I mean honestly, when was the last time you were at a grocery store and burst into song and dance because you couldn't find where they moved to cereal to?) but hey, if kids these days prefer watching that over Sex in the City and Sponge Bob Poopie Pants, then hey, whatever floats their boats. Although just keep the singing down. Especially if you're a 13 year old girl. Honestly I've said this before but screaming is is no way, shape or form singing.

2007-08-22T21:22:00.000-04:00

In one hand we hold our lives as they are now. And in the other we hold a possible future. If we decide to continue living our current lives we can, yet if we dare to unlock the doors of the unknown with the key in our other hand, we can do that as well. But we eventually have to choose one or the other; and once we choose there is no going back. For once we pick the life uncharted, we become strangers in a foreign land and the only hope we have to return, is to become at peace with our new destination. And at that point, our old lives have vanished behind our new selves.

It's a hard choice sometimes. A choice consisting of more that one right answer. Of course the easy choice is to always pick the hand that holds the most happiness. But sometimes the happiness is unknown within the hand that lies the keys. So we drop the keys and opt to continue living our current lives. But sometimes we need to take that step of faith. We need to be curious and find out what Life potentially has in store for us. In the end, can we truly be happy with a hand that holds certainty, contingency, and apathy? There are times in our lives when I think we can, yes. But there are also times when we need to venture out of our comfort zones and into the shadows of ambivalence. And guaranteed, down that road lies turmoil, emotion, hesitation, zeal, fear and utter confusion and discontentment. But ultimately is that not what makes our lives real? Is that not what makes our lives worth living?

What hand will you pick? What hand will I pick??

2007-08-20T20:53:00.000-04:00

It was the best baseball game ever!! Saturday evening I went out to see the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Philadelphia Phillies at PNC Park. First of all, let me start by saying that if you haven't been to PNC Park in Pittsburgh, PA you should really get out there. It is probably one of the nicest major league ball parks in the MLB. It's also one of the smallest so you won't feel overwhelmed. Now I usually go to at least one Pirates game a year at PNC. And it has been about 10 years since I've been to a game where the Buccos actually won. So I've gotten into the habit of not really expecting much. Especially this game since the Phils are about 1.5 games behind the leader in their division. Now The Brother-In-Law was one of the people that went to the game with me and he's a bigPhillies fan. I don't hold that against him though. He's still a good guy. I knew there would be a fair amount of Phillies fans there at the game though. There are always a decent amount of non-Pirates fans at Pirates game. Good luck finding a non-Steelers at a Steelers football game, but not the case for Pittsburgh baseball. In fact one time I went to a St. Louis-Pittsburgh game and there was more red in the stadium than black and gold.Anywho, we all got our food and made it to our seats just a few batters into the game. With two outs down, the Phillies just started cranking shot after shot into the outfield. Suddenly it was 4-0 in the top of the 1st and the crowd was going crazy! Why were they going crazy? Because like The Brother-In-Law, they were allPhillies fans! We're sitting in flippin' season ticket seats and there are Phillies fans all around us! I was jacked! I peered to my left to stare down at the other 3 people that had gone with me to the game and told them we were leaving. I wasn't sticking around for a game like that. Of course I was kidding because I'm a sarcastic fellow. Finally a half bucket of chicken wings later the top of the inning was over, and the damage was done. Honestly, when had I ever seen a 0-4 comeback by theBucs ? Never that's when. I had seen them blow a 7-2 lead before to lose the game, but not the other way around. At least not since the early 90s anyway.

Suddenly, in the bottom of the 1st (yes I said 1st) it was hit after hit! Before I knew it, the Pirates had tied the game at 4 and wentthru their entire lineup in just one inning. I was standing, I was cheering, I was doing the pelvic thrust in The Brother-In-Law's face. Okay, so I wasn't quite doing that, but I was terrifically impressed as suddenly the Pirates fans came to life in a presentation rarely seen atPNC Park, even during bobble head night. Even more rare was the sellout crowd there that day. I have never ever been to a sellout crowd since the park was built years ago and the stadium only seats about 38,500 people. Try fitting Cubs fans into a stadium that size. Yeah, ain't gonna happen.

The events that followed can only be described as shear miraculous and joyous. After another two runs by the Phillies in a later inning, the Bucs responded with another 7 runs. On top of that, 2 strike outs were dealt to the 2006 home derby winner, Ryan Howard. Whatever Maholm ate after the second inning worked like talking marriage on a date. The Pirates pitcher effectively shut down the Phillies offense for the rest of the game. Come the 9th inning, the game was over; Pirates win 11-6.

The icing on the cake came after the game because in the mists of the shouting and excitement during the game, we discovered that there was going to be fireworks after the game. Not because the Pirates won a game (although that right there was worth fireworks), but because that was what was on the schedule. So while the grounds crew was hauling out gear at the end of the game we learned that not only were there fireworks, but there was also a freakin' concert! Insert here the Poverty Neck Hillbillies. Never heard of them an ounce before in my life. But buddy could they rock the country socks off a dead canine! And after every song, a gigantically large fireworks show. It was like a grand finale ever 5 minutes. Crap we even left because we thought it was over, but oh no. As we were leaving the stadium, KAA BOOOOM!! Another round of fireworks. Flippin' awesome! Flippin' awesome. Like I said, "Best baseball game ever!!"

2007-08-14T19:40:00.000-04:00

Wondering what the weather is going to be like tomorrow? Well fear not my little paranoid meteorological psychopath. I've got that forecast for you right here, right now. Mostly sunny with a 30% chance of thunderstorms. BAM!! Wondering how I knew that? Oh it's simple my friends. That has been the weather forecast every day for last month and a half! Every flippin' day! And does it actually ever storm? No! Well, okay, maybe 30% of the time. But honestly why even bother to tell me the day-by-day forecast? Why not just give me a monthly forecast instead?

For the month of August, the days will be mostly sunny with 30% of those days having thunderstorms.

Done. No more attempts at weather needed. I mean being a weather person in PA right now has got to be about as easy as it comes. Except of course for the weather people in San Diego, CA. Honestly how can that even be a real job? All you need to do is have some dope stand in front of a blank map of California and say, "The weather today; 70 degrees and nice." I guarantee no matter who they are they'll get the weather correct way more than 30% of the time.

2007-08-09T21:56:00.000-04:00

Love it, or hate it? That's the name of this game. Care to read on? Yeah you do.

HDTV - Love it! Even after months and months of viewing the same movies over and over, HDTV never gets tired, ugly, or old! Shoot I even watched In Her Shoes just because it was in HD.

Sirius Radio - Love it! My only complaint: when driving thru a wooded road in the summer, I lose the signal a lot. That and I also wish the music was less compressed. But hey, those are two small things a universe of greatness!

The Singing Bee - Hate it! The show has such great potential, but fails because it contains about 4 seconds worth of pure thought. The set looks like it took about 2 hours to put together and the way they chose contestants is just plain ridiculous. Good idea, bad planning. And honestly, can Mr. Backstreet be any more fake as a host?

The Weather - Hate it! It's hot, humid, and just down right miserable. If you're trying to get me to move south, you better come up with more of a conversation starter than, "Wow it's really hot here!" I'll take the mountains any day.

Guitar Hero - Love it! I haven't tried Rockin' the 80's yet mainly because the set list didn't look that great to me, but even after a month of playing Hard and still not being able to get thru all the songs, I'm still rockin' it like your parent's honeymoon night.

Lindsay Lohan's Arrest - Hate it! What truly baffles me is why Lindsay Lohan continues to drink her life away out in California when she could do the same here, with less consequences and be with me. It's just one of those things that will never make sense to me.

Campbell Brown's Move to CNN - Hate it! NBC really screwed up when they failed to make her the co-anchor on the weekday Today show. She's 10 times the news lady Katie Couric ever was and 10 times what Meredith Vieria ever will be. I wouldn't re-sign if I were her either. The up side here is that CNN may be giving Campbell her own show. Could this potentially be what gets me to watch CNN? The magic 8 ball says, "You know it bi-atch."

Possible X-Files 2 Movie - Love it! Come on now. Scully and Mulder back again on the big screen? What isn't to love there? So maybe it wouldn't be about The Conspiracy, but frankly I've been waiting for this since that last movie came out in 1998. I can't get enough of that show. Thank goodness it comes on everyday at 5PM. The only thing that could possibly be better is a Stargate 2 movie. But it would have to star Amanda Tapping as Samantha Carter and MacGyver or else it's not really worth watching.

2007-08-06T22:16:00.001-04:00

So I was getting all excited a few months ago because the spam in my email inbox had all but disappeared. Ironically it seemed to coincide with the arrest of Robert 'King of Spam' Soloway just a few months ago. But now, my spam count is back up, and climbing like a tape worm gasping for air. The biggest culprit of the spam? A phisher! Someone apparently thinks they are just too cleaver. Well guess what, they are not, and it will never be Jimmy Season.

For those of you who don't know what phishing is, it's when someone sends you an email asking for information or luring you to a website, pretending to be a legit company. My current phishermen love to pretend they are from an online greeting company.

So far I have received emails from 123greeting.com, greetingCard.org, VintagePostcards.com, 2000greetings.com, freewebcards.com and Greeting-Cards.com. Sadly the subjects are all quite lame. "You received an ecard from a Neighbor," "You received a postcard from a Class mate," "You received an ecard from a Mate," "from a Family member," "from a Partner," "a School friend." Wow! Clever clever! This has got to be the equivalent of dangling a rubber ball in front of a fish. Entertaining, a little. Luring? Definitely not. Highly annoying? Absolutely!

2007-07-30T20:56:00.000-04:00

I gave blood again today as the American Red Cross was at The Workplace again. Today's gift for giving; a tiny cooler which looks like it's made for a six-pack. Two things that make me go "huh" here. The first is that the American Red Cross is providing you, the blood giver, a means to keep your six pack of beer cold when you go out. This is sort of like how public schools give out condoms to students I suppose. While the school does not condone sexual activity among students, it does want the students to be safe if they are going to have sex. So while the American Red Cross does not condone drinking, it will give you a cooler to keep your drinks cold in case you do happen to drink. The second thing here is where does one even obtain a six-pack of alcohol here in PA? A bar I suppose, but if you're getting your beer at a distributor like most Pennsylvanians then you are buying a whole case of the stuff and not just six cans. And a whole case ain't coming close to fitting in this cooler. I guess really if you're going to use the cooler for soda and not beer then this is really a moot point. But come on now, who honestly does that?

I guess it could also be used to transport an organ like a heart or something like that. Gotta keep those things cool you know?

2007-07-25T23:04:00.000-04:00

I still stand by the claim that I'll never be a city boy. I've never been a fan of the big cities and I never will. After spending an evening in New York City the other weekend I remembered why I never cared to venture into those places just for "something to do." As if the ridiculously bad service at the Film Center Cafe wasn't awful enough, the sheer prices of everything in the city would just make me never want to spend money period. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed spending time with my friends, it was a great time, but if I didn't have friends that lived there, I wouldn't have gone. Chasing down a train by rushing thru Time Square and sprinting thru the station to catch the 1140PM departure so we wouldn't be stuck at Penn Station until 140AM ain't my idea of a good time. Although it does give me good stories to tell.

Now, my friends say where I live now stinks. No, they literally say it stinks, as in smells bad. Sure there is poop all over the place (farm land people, not in my house) and a paper mill just miles away, but frankly the smell of poop is a fresh scent. When they get the liquid stuff out and start spraying the fields it's a little nauseating, but aside from that, you know you're not breathing in any toxic fumes. Now the big city smell; wow I don't even know what the ef that is! It's some bizarre combination of urine, exhaust and B.O. all wrapped into one scent. Yummy! Why pay $7 for a beer or $10 for a Margarita when I can get $1.50 drafts at Big Dogz (not to be confused with Big Guns) and free shots down at The Creekside? Also, when sodas come out in little 6 inch glass bottles, you know you have just forfeited your right to free refills and paid $3 for a Coke. And the people! My word the people! They are everywhere! What in the heck are mobs, gigantically large mobs mind you, of people doing wondering the streets at 1130PM? In Altoona you'd be hard pressed to even find a single soul meandering around at that time, let alone a single bar open at that time. The roads are practically bare!

So kudos to all you rich people out there that enjoy the city life. As for me, I'll continue to enjoy my much less stressful life here in The Cove. So you have giant skyscrapers, Lexuses and tons of things to do. I live in a two story house, drive a Chevy, and need to travel thirty minutes at 70MPH to get to the nearest mall. Sure it may not sound like much, but that's what volleyball and The Office are for. And boats too. Those are really fun!

2007-07-19T23:05:00.000-04:00

You know what I find truly amazing about this world? It's the fact that we can populate this globe with over 6 billion people and not a single one of us look the same. That is unless of course one has an identical twin or some freakish cousin that looks identical and looses control when eating hot dogs. Now I know what you're thinking, "Come on Jimmy. I see people all the time that look like somebody else." Oh you are too smart for me Mr. Thinker. Okay fine, let's assume that every person within an 8000 miles radius has another person that they look identical too. This is completely unrealistic I think, but I'm doing this just to humor you. So we now all have an identical twin somewhere, we just just don't know where, causing this planet to now contain over 3 billion unique faces. Let me give you some examples as to what 3 billion looks like. If all three billion of these people were to make a line, stretch their arms out and touch one another (in a non Madonna way of course) they would rap around the planet 114 times. That is of course assuming that the average wing span is 5 feet, we are on a major circle of the Earth and we can stand on water and permeate matter (I'm not really sure what the average wingspan is, this is just a guess factoring in babies, children and the ridiculously giant Chinese mutants). A pile of one dollar bills, stacked 3 billion tall, would measure more than 189 miles into the atmosphere, or if stacked horizontal would nearly stretch from Pittsburgh, PA to my hometown of Lancaster, PA. And if you ever wanted to count to 3 billion at the rate of one number per second, well you better start young because it will take you 93 years to complete. This is would be quite impossible though because honestly you can't even say numbers like one hundred thirty million three hundred and fifteen thousand nine hundred and ninety seven in less than a second.

Okay, I'm straying from my point here. What I wanted to get across was how amazing people's uniqueness is. Knowing that there are over 3 billion different people out there and each and every person could be identified simply by looking at his or her face is just nuts. Honestly can you even fathom that? I mean how many different combinations of Nintendo Miis do you think you could create? 3 billion? Maybe because you could put eyes on some one's chin or a nose on the forehead. But for our DNA to be so incredibly similar and each and every one of us look so completely different, well I just find it pretty darn slick. I mean think about it. How many ants or grasshoppers could you look at in a line and identify each one by their face? I figure 100 maybe. Two hundred if you have really good eyes (or can hear voices).

Special thanks to a colleague at work who took time out of his/her extremely busy day (extreme sarcasm) to find me information on one billion statistics. The arm stretch thing, I just did my own calculations, because I'm weird like that.

2007-07-16T20:36:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks I've had some time to hang out with friends, coach volleyball, and as if you couldn't believe it, play video games. With this year's 2 weeks of camp now over, I figured I'd give my readers what they want since I haven't posted in a while. So I shall stall no longer. Here it comes, Captain Jimmy's Top Lessons Learned Being At Camp This Year:

10. In order to master Guitar Hero on the hard level one must rest his hand so that his pinkie finger is on the orange fret key and then use the index finger to get both the green and the red frets. Of course one must also master that art of sliding the index finger across all the fret keys and be able to quickly improvise when note combinations come quickly that are completely unnatural for the hand to be it. Also it would be a lot easier too if one's hand did not cramp up while playing and sitting down.

9. When playing Marvel's Ultimate Alliance for the Wii tap A quickly most of the time and make sure you throw in a few B + A attacks and Hold A attacks as well. Also make sure your character is NOT punching the air with no enemies around at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.

8. Mama's Kitchen for the Wii absolutely Sucks and, oh yes, that is with a capitol S.

7. Applebees has 2-Fer Weeknights after 10PM where you can get appetizers for half price and 2 beers for the price of one. Unless of course your beer of choice is Fosters which is on the 2-Fer menu, but not carried at any Applebees location. Also for some reason if you order wings, Applebees puts the celery and carrots underneath all the wings and hot sauce. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose?

6. New York City is not as exciting when you have to speed walk 15 blocks at 1115PM in order to catch your train by 1140PM so you aren't stuck in Penn Station until 140AM when the next train comes.

5. British name takers at IHOP seem to remember the last name Barley quite easily for some reason. Although that may have something to do with going there five times within two weeks.

4. Fourteen year old girls don't sing, they scream at the top of their lungs in an ear piecing shriek that could only be appreciated by the deaf and other fourteen year old girls.

3. Having giant 20 person sword fights at night in the dark, with PVC pipes in the shape of swords can only lead to one thing: a left eye nearly being gouged out and eight stitches. Huh, I didn't see that coming at all!

2. Season 3 of The Office is just as funny the second, third and fourth times around. Fact. Bears eat beats! Bears, beats, Battlestar Galactica.

1. After watching Season 3 of The Office two, three or even four times, it becomes quite easy to quote the TV show in normal conversation without even knowing that you're doing it. It's just down right spectacular! That's what she said.

2007-06-26T23:04:00.001-04:00

I am really not a fan of diet sodas. In fact I just flat out don't like them. If that's all there is to drink, yeah I'll thrown one back, but heck I'd even do that with cheese and that isn't really saying much at all (just to point out I would never just eat cheese. That's gross. If someone put it on food not knowing [or evening knowing because they are evil] that I didn't eat it, I would eat it). So when I heard about this new Coke Zero thing I thought, "Yeah right, it's going to taste just like all the other low-cal, no-cal soft drinks; like diet."

Finally today, there was nothing in our fridge at The Workplace except for a few cans of this Coke Zero. I figured, "What the hey!" Now my boss has been telling me for months now (maybe even years, it's hard to tell) about how this stuff doesn't taste like diet. I just brush him off when he makes comments like that because he says Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi doesn't taste like diet and it sure as heck does!

So anywho I pop the can and take a swig. Aside from the slightest, and I do mean slightest, aftertaste of something not like regular Coca-Cola, I could not for the life of me tell that this had no calories in it. That's right my friends. No diet taste. Not even a hint! I was simply amazed that such a feat had taken place.

Now if only Pepsi would come out with Pepsi Zero (I know they have Pepsi One, but guess what, it tastes like diet) that tasted like regular Pepsi, I might just drop The Dew. Okay, forget that, that's not happening. Love The Dew!

2007-06-22T15:53:00.000-04:00

' I've decided that my typical work day could 
be devised into a single computer application that 
would be able to mimic me being at work. For those 
of you that can read Visual Basic code, here is the 
program for my new android, Jimmy Workday (greatly 
simplified of course).

Public Class JimmyWorkday

 Private codeLikeAMoFo As New Threading.Thread

 Private Sub Work()

  ' sleep until the alarm goes off
  While Not alarmActive
   Threading.Thread.Sleep(1000)
  End While

  ' get a** to work
  MorningRoutine.Shower()
  MorningRoutine.GetDressed()
  MorningRoutine.DriveToWork("Cavalier")

  ' do work
  alreadyEatenBreakfast = False
  alreadyEatenLunch = False
  While workToDo And DateTime.Now <= quittingTime

   ' check emails
   For Each email In Outlook.Inbox.Emails
    ReadEmail(email)
    If email.ConstitutesResponse Then
     Outlook.ReplyAll()
     WriteSemiCoherentResponse()
     Outlook.Send()
    End If
   Next email

   ' answer phone (if necessary)
   If Phone.IsRinging Then
    For i As Int32 = 0 To knownPhoneNumbers.Count - 1
     If knownPhoneNumbers(i).Number = Phone.Number Then
      If knownPhoneNumbers(i).ShouldNotIgnor Then
       Phone.Answer()
      End If
     End If
    Next i
   End If

   ' get bowl of cereal for breakfast
   If DateTime.Now.Equals(breakfastTime) And Not alreadyEatenBreakfast Then
    FrostedMiniWheats.PourIntoBowl()
    EatBreakfast(FrostedMiniWheats)
    alreadyEatenBreakfast = True
   End If

   ' use the bathroom if gotta go
   If natureIsCalling Then
    GetToBathroom()
    sitAndWaitTimer = 0
    While noReleif Or sitAndWaitTimer < TimeSpan.FromMinutes(15)
     TryForReleif()
     Threading.Thread.Sleep(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1))
     sitAndWaitTimer += 1
    End While
    ReturnToDesk()
   End If

   ' eat lunch
   If DateTime.Now >= lunchTime And Not alreadyEatenLunch Then
    Lunch.Devour()
    alreadyEatenLunch = True
   End If

   ' code like a mo-fo in a mindless state while doing everything else
   If codeLikeAMoFo.ThreadState = Threading.ThreadState.Unstarted Then
    codeLikeAMoFo.Start()
   End If

   ' take a break every now and then to stay sane
   If gettingBored Then
    If Not tiredOfSurfingNet And feelingLuckyToNotGetNannied Then
     SurfTheNet()
    ElseIf Not tiredOfTalkingToPeople Then
     GoTalkToPeople()
    Else
     WasteTimeDoingStupidStuffLikeCodingMyDay()
    End If
   End If
  End While

  ' when home from work, exercise and eat
  EveningRoutine.DriveHome("Cavalier")
  EveningRoutine.Exercise()
  If GoogleCalendar.VolleyballEventExists Then
   GoPlayVolleyball()
  End If
  EveningRoutine.EatDinner()

  ' watch tv or whatever else
  Select Case DateTime.Now.DayOfWeek
   Case DayOfWeek.Monday
    TV.Watch("HowIMetYourMother")
   Case DayOfWeek.Tuesday
    Movie.Watch(netflixMovie, neighbor)
   Case DayOfWeek.Thursday
    TV.Watch("TheOffice")
   Case Else
    DoStuff()
  End Select

  ' get ready to do it all over again
  EveningRoutine.Read()
  EveningRoutine.GoToBed()
 End Sub

End Class

2007-06-18T19:10:00.000-04:00

When you walk into your local Martin's or Giant Eagle grocery store to buy yourself some of those yummy Lays baked potato chips that you love so much, you wouldn't really expect to see an advertisement there in the store telling you to go to nearest Bilo or Piggly Wiggly to get more food selection and at a cheaper price now would you? Of course not. But that is exactly what television cable subscribers are experiencing. Those of you who subscribe to satellite TV may as well tune to the next blog as this doesn't really concern you (mainly because you get CSTV and I don't and I hate you for that!).

But cable users; how many times have you been watching your favorite episode of Swanky the Teenage Fish when a commercial break comes on and the next thing you know Jessica Simpson is dressed in her hoochie gear telling you to check her out in HD 1080i on DirectTV? If you stop and think about it, here's what's going on. You pay money (real money mind you, not that Monopoly stuff you steal from The Bank every time you play) to your cable provider to be able to watch the TV shows you crave, and those you'll never ever see in a million years. In return, your cable provider offers you its services like any good company would. However because television is a medium for advertising, your cable provider also gets money (even more of the real stuff in amounts you'll never see in your lifetime) from other companies wanting to get you to buy their stuff as well. It just so happens that there are other companies out there that want you to buy your TV viewing pleasure from them and not your local cable company. Your cable company has no choice but to let satellite television providers as well as other competing cable companies advertise for their services on your local's commercial space.

When you think about it, it's really absurd that a company would do such a thing. When was the last time you went to fill your tank up with ridiculously expensive gasoline and the Exxon you stopped at kept flashing messages at you to go fill up at BP where the fuel is 10 cents cheaper? HAHAHA! Dream on you deranged petroleum psychopaths!

2007-06-06T22:43:00.000-04:00

Picture this. You're sitting in the train station when a complete stranger sitting next to you lets out a monstrous sneeze throwing spit and snot half a mile through the air like an exploding car bomb. You turn to him with a courteous smile on your face and politely utter, "God bless you." If you were in some other English speaking country you might say, "Gesundheit" to the fellow. If you were in some Spanish speaking country you would state, "Salud." Frankly no matter what part of the world you were in, you would say something to the sneezer to wish him good health. My question is this: WHY!?

Why do we feel the need to say something to someone after he/she sneezes? We don't say anything to someone after they cough. Should we? Am I not being polite by not saying anything to my buddy when he's done hacking up a lung? Although if it were that bad I might ask if he's okay. But I certainly would not wish a blessing upon him or good health. Who ever started that fad for sneezing anyway? The Romans thousands of years ago? The Ancient Greeks perhaps? And why do we continue to do it today? I'm getting ready to start protesting this conception because it makes no sense whatsoever. And to top it off, Americans are too lazy to say the whole "God bless you" phrase so it has been truncated to "Bless you," but most people are still too lazy to even pronounce that properly so it has gotten slurred to "Bleshyou" which isn't even a flippin' word! Why is sneezing so special as to warrant a response from an observer? Think about it next time. Why do you do say anything (if you do)? Is that not one of the most idiotic habits or what? Although I still think it is polite for the sneezer to pardon himself afterwards. Just as he should do after coughing, burping or cutting the cheese. Ewe I hate cheese!

2007-05-30T20:37:00.000-04:00

Since I'm on the topic of TV shows, what the flip happened to quality cartoons? Huh? Shoot I remember growing up spending I don't know how many hours watching cartoon greats like the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ducktales (awoo ooh), Thundercats (ho!), The Smurfs, and heck there might have even been the occasional My Little Pony or Care Bears in there as well. Once I got a little older I graduated to the original Nicktoons with classics like Doug, Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life and sadly even the disgusting Ren and Stimpy. I mean honestly can Bugs Bunny and friends even be found on any TV station at any time of the day? Nowadays we have junk (oh yes I said junk) like SpongeBob SquarePants, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Yu-Gi-Oh, and whatever the heck the name of the cartoon is that put Boston in a giant state of Level Orange bomb threat.

I remember my Saturday mornings as a young buck started off with Loony Tunes, then Muppet Babies followed immediately by the non-cartoon-but-funny-as-all-get-out PeeWee's Playhouse. Once TMNT hit the airwaves I was hooked. All thru the three different versions. The first was nice and cute, the second had a little more violence in it and the third had super-mutants ninja turtles and down right scary villains in it. That was it then for me. Coming home from school usually consisted of watching Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Darkwing Duck, and/or Count Duckula. Evenings were made up of Doug, Rugrats and maybe a rerun of Inspector Gadget or Heathcliff. Or perhaps that was before school too. Eh I don't really remember when I watched them, just that I did. Want the full rundown of every cartoon series I can ever remember watching? Read on my Memory Lane travelers (preferably to the tune of We Didn't Start the Fire).

Alvin and the Chipmunks, Thundercats, The Smurfs, The Snorks, Loony Tunes, Inspector Gadget, Silverhawk, My Little Pony, Care Bears, Heathcliff, Muppet Babies, Transformers, Doug, Rugrats, The Ren and Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, Aaahh!! Real Monsters, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs, Ducktales, Darkwing Duck, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Talespin, The World of David the Gnome, The Flinstones, The Jetsons, The Super Mario Bros Super Show, Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Voltron, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, Ghostbusters, Dennis the Menace, Gummi Bears, Jem and the Holograms, Tom and Jerry, The Simpsons, Scooby Doo, Rocky and Bullwinkle, The Wuzzles, Woody Woodpecker, and Yogi Bear.

If I missed any, please let me know (of course you wouldn't actually know what I watched when I was younger so how about just letting me know of the cartoons you watched as a kid [unless of course you are a kid now then I don't want to hear them because like I said, cartoon these days stink {except maybe The Simpsons but even that show isn't what it used to be}!]).

2007-05-29T22:19:00.000-04:00

Have you seen the new Fox TV show On The Lot? Of course you haven't. Because it stinks. Shoot I haven't even watched more than 5 minutes of it and I know it stinks. So what do you do when you create a reality TV show that has, what, like 20 players, er I'm sorry, "directors" and doesn't have a single viewer? Do you finish out the season and go down with the ship? Or do you pull the plug and hope nobody even knew the show existed at all except for the few like Justin King who would then complain to me all camp long about how that was the best show ever and Fox should have never canceled it mid-season. Even the fact that Carrie Fisher is a judge doesn't even score points with me. Wow, how old is she now? 100? 150? No, she only looks that old.

This reality TV craze is just ridiculous. Sure we thought it was out of control a couple years ago, but now reality TV is literally (and I'm using that word properly here) all that is new for the local TV lineup right now. Everything from dancing to modeling, to making movies, to being 30 and dating a 20 year old versus a 40 year old. Yeah that's a tough choice. Of course there is cooking, and more dating and even band playing. I can't take it anymore and neither can the rest of this country. Reality is no more. The country has spoken, and they want more of The Office and Jenna Fischer. Ooh did you see Halpert's going to be in a new movie coming up (not playing Jim of course)? So is Michael Scott but that's a given funny.

2007-05-22T21:39:00.000-04:00

It's no secret, I'm a Google fanatic! I love Google, not only because it is the second largest number named by man (ten to the hundredth power, trumped only by the mind-numbing, ultra perplexing, google-plex, or 10 to the googleth power [that's a 10 with a google zeros by the way]), but because the company makes fantastic web applications. Google has quite the monopoly right now on the Internet. Snatching up other sites such as YouTube for nothing less than 2 billion dollars. All this from a website that started as a simple search engine only to explode into the mammoth Internet hierarchy it is today thanks to a few patented search algorithms that not only returned what you were looking for, but advertisements as well. Google is now capable of doing just about all your normal computer needs. Anything from from writing text documents to, email, the handling your photo album. All with the mighty backbone of the Google Search Engine that seems to only get better. Anywho , I'm rambling on here, but the purpose of this entry is to fill you in on some of my favorite Google applications. So without further adieu, here's:

Captain Jimmy's Top Five Flippin' Favorite Google Web Apps!

5. Gmail - If you've been living anywhere near the planet Earth and the Internet the past few years you should have heard of Google's wonderful email application. I jumped on this bandwagon way back when, in its first year of beta testing, (allowing me to get one kick-a** email address). The major bummer here is that it is still in beta testing and you need a referral to sign up (call me, I'll let you in). What I really like about the thing is how it keeps all your email conversations as one email. No longer will you see countless emails with the same subject to the same person over and over. It all automatically is kept organized as one expandable email. How brilliant of an idea was that?! More brilliant that my readers' that's for sure (unless of course they work for Google and created that concept but I doubt they would be reading this blog).

4. Blogger - Duh. You're looking at the thing right now. Allowing you to edit any part of the HTML template (which I love to do because I'm a giant nerd), Blogger takes the cake in my book when it comes to blogs (or web logs for you Internet lingo impaired). The site autosaves your entries when you're writing them and even lets you add labels. Xanga seems like it's specialized for friends to chat and give props (an incredibly stupid and thick concept if you ask me) and any other site just isn't that well known. The name is easy to remember: Blogger. Rhymes with Frogger, which ironically might just be one of the most inspirational video games ever. Coincidence? I think NOT!

3. Docs & Spreadsheets - Mwaa haa haa! Death to Microsoft is what this app says. Throw your crappy Word and Excel packages out the Window (pun intended [idiot Microsoft makes the Windows operating system!]). Sure Docs & Spreadsheets may not be as powerful, or able to read your previous Word and Excel docs, but what this app lacks in features (that the common user never uses anyway) it makes up for in usability. You save to the web so no matter where you go, there's your stuff. No CD, thumb drive, or any other storage device necessary to carry around. Autosaves every 30 seconds or so and lets you share with friends. Is your mouth watering too? I only wish it would let Firefox override its own spell checker.

2. Google Calendar - You can flush Outlook down the pooper! Especially since you trashed its email functionality when you signed up for Gmail. Google Calendars not only makes it easy to have countless calendars at your fingertips, but also lets you so very easily share your calendars with others, something quite foreign to Outlook users (the easy part is what's foreign). A nice little bonus is the automatic text message reminder that it can send to your mobile before your event. And the best part is you can search and display calendars for anything! Mine shows me my personal schedule, birthdays, phases of the moon, national holidays, the AVP Tour schedule and even times and descriptions of new episodes of The Office. If this mother trucker doesn't make you wet your pants, then perhaps you should have a few beers!

1. Picasa - Forget Flickr, Yahoo Photos, Facebook, and the beta Riya that should have taken off, but became stupid Like.com instead. Picasa is, in The Captain's genius opinion, the best photo management site out there. There's a nice little desktop app that makes managing and uploading photos a snap. They may only give you 1 GB (and counting!) of photo space, but they let you reduce your photos resolution to fit more photos on your site. You can pay if you'd like more space, but if you're like me and like free and to keep those hi-res photos all to your greedy little self then 1 GB will do you for a very long time. Tag photos, write witty captions, heck you can even create Flash-like slideshows to stick on your MySpace page. Share, organize photos anyway you want, even order prints. My favorite part: you can post your camera's video clips as well. Stick that up Flickr's pipe and smoke it!

Of course Google has a crap load more that The Captain's top 5. Stuff as great as Google Earth, YouTube, iGoogle, Google Notepad, the list goes on. Check out Google Labs to see and test what's in the works. The best part is if you sign up for one service, you've signed up for all of them. It's like the universal user ID that you've always wanted but never made love to. I'm telling you now, the day Google makes GoogleOS is the day that Microsoft will lose its nasty little grip on the PC realm. If you want the mecca Internet experience then Google is the way to go. There may not be any greater Internet experience. Except maybe for my online banking. Did you know I can see a picture of any check I write?! Any check at all!

2007-05-15T22:50:00.000-04:00

With the spring television season quickly coming to an end right now, I figured I'd let you all in on the TV shows that I currently watch so you can all be prepared to chat with me about them come the Fall. So in case you haven't gotten enough yet, here comes another:

Captain Jimmy's All Star TV Lineup.

How I Met Your Mother - An amazingly hilarious sitcom that contains one key character, Neil Patrick Harris, aka Doogie Howser. That's right my friends, that lovable little teenage M.D. is back again, only this time he "suited up" to be one bad a**, hellava wingman guy named Barney (yes like the purple dinosaur). Barney has the world at his finger tips and isn't afraid to do anything. Whether it's Foxy Boxing or a Cigar at the lounge, he'll be there for his friends. Of course Ted, Robin, Marshal and Lily also provide some pretty random comedy as well. Whether the entire cast will be back for next season could still be up for debate.

American Idol - I know, it's no secret I watch this pop series (I know what you're thinking, The Captain is NOT a loser!). But what can I say? When you have finalists like Blake, Jordan, and Melinda, there really is no excuse to miss the final few remaining episodes. Besides, Simon throws enough insults to fill a freight train in each episode!

House - Immediately following American Idol you'll find House M.D. House has it all! You want drama, you've got it. You want disgusting medical stuff, you've got it. You want a doctor souped up on Vicodin that doesn't give a rat's behind about the patient but only the puzzle of curing his or her disease and takes tremendous pride in putting down the entire staff that works for him (and he works for) all the while trying to hit on every chick in site, well guess what, you've got it. Just like any other Medical Center in the US! If you don't like British actors who play cocky Americans with a limp and flaming walking canes, then this is not the show for you. I also watch because Cameron in flippin' hot! The question of the season: will Foreman actually resign? My money is on, HELL NO!

The Office - Wow, if the fact that I own both seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and my iPod is no clue as to how much I'm in love with this show, then perhaps you have a concussion or you're an idiot. I think what makes this show extra funny is the fact that I work in an office environment with cubicles all over and "interesting" co-workers. If there was ever a co-worker like Dwight Shrute at The Workplace, I would never leave. Some favorite moments of this season were Michael outing Oscar, Andy going to anger management, "Big Tuna," a fax from the future from Future Dwight, Jim impersonating Dwight ("False! Black Bear!"), and a beach trip to the 8th largest lake, Lake Scranton. As long as Pam and Jim never get together, the show should last for seasons to come (I know you're rooting against me on this statement but let's look at all the great shows that declined shortly after the main character hookup: Lois and Clark, Ed, Friends, heck even the X-Files for it lost Mulder after he finally got it on with Scully).

Scrubs - I hate to see this series come to end, but when you have a prime time show that never makes it to HD, you know it isn't going to last much longer. I must admit, the humor is quite bizarre, but frankly, that's what's so funny about the show. From bizarre sexual day dreams, to a whacked out janitor, to insane speeches that ramble on meaninglessly for minutes on end, to some bizarre man-love relationship between JD and Turk, this show only provides me with a half hour of pure funny. JD right now is in quite the predicament, but frankly what else would you expect from a guy that passes out when he poos naked in his neighbor's house?

Reruns - Of course I'm not just a new show kinda guy. Throughout each day I typically watch The X-Files, Stargate SG-1 and two episodes of Seinfeld. While Spooky Fox Mulder and Major Samantha Carter give me my science fiction fix for the day, I'm sure to always get a laugh with Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine. It should be noted that the Stargate SG-1 series finale is this spring, however since new episodes air Friday evenings, I haven't (legally) seen a new episode in over a year. The show sort of went a little down hill once MacGyver left. I mean seriously, he's MacGyver!

2007-05-14T20:35:00.000-04:00

I typically don't write about specific other people (in general) however I'm willing to make an exception in this case. I'll change the names here to protect the innocent though (although if you'd consider any of the people mentioned in this post innocent you must be on drugs or something). So this past weekend there was the annual First Rites beach volleyball tournament in Rehoboth Beach, DE. I came out with a nice 3rd place victory on Saturday and a 1st place win on Sunday. But I'm not really here to talk about that. If you aren't familiar with Rehoboth Beach, well then either you haven't been reading this blog for more than a couple months, or you're not up on your current Delaware beach geography. It's funny. I'll tell someone that I'm going to Rehoboth Beach for the weekend and they usually respond with, "Oh the gay beach?" "Yup that's the one."

Rehoboth Beach is known mostly for its, well its homosexual atmosphere. If you're not into playing for my team, and you're looking for a good time at the beach, Rehoboth is the place to be. Just to make myself clear, I'm not homophobic, nor do I hate these individuals. Frankly they're welcome to do whatever (or whomever) they want. Just because I don't share their same viewpoint on members of the same sex doesn't mean I don't like them or am afraid of them. So now that we have that cleared, let's move onto my story shall we.

Some friends and I were groovin' at the Frog Pond Saturday night. Now in case you haven't read my post on bars that are named after animals and colors, dated 05.20.2006, then you should check that out first before reading on. We go to the Frog Pond because there is a great band that plays there and the music is pretty much the best around. The fact that chicks are making out with each other all over the place really doesn't inspire me to be there (mostly because they aren't as hot as they should be). So like I was saying, some friends and I were out getting down with our bad selves on the dance floor when suddenly a stranger named Kathy approached my friend Darla. Kathy reached a hand out as if to introduce herself to Darla. For the first couple moments I thought perhaps that these two dancing machines knew one another. Approximately 3.14 seconds after that thought, I realized what was actually going on there.

Now picture 5 friends dancing in a small circle having a good ol' time: loud music, drinks in hand, smiles all around, wild crowd surrounding them. Now picture only those 5 people stop dancing in an instant with super large eyes and mouths wide open while the rest of the club continues to jam. It was a scene right out of some horrible porno made in my buddy Tim's basement.

Finally Darla extended her hand which allowed Kathy to shake Darla's hand for what seemed like minutes on end. Kathy's mouth was going none stop while Darla just held her gaze with eyes the size of golf balls and a jaw dropped half way to the floor. Finally after what seemed like ten minutes (probably only really being less than one Earth minute, unfortunately the mind seemed to wonder while all this was going on mostly to the thought of, "Why is Darla not talking??") Kathy left. There Darla stood, unmoving, like a deer caught in the headlights of an encroaching sports car. Now I don't remember if it was one person or all of us at the same time but I know at least one person said, "Who the heck was that?!!" According to Darla, who may or may not have been actually experiencing some form of disrupted reality at that point in time, the conversation when like this:

Kathy: Hi, my name is Kathy.
Darla: (head slightly nodding) Uh huh . . .
Kathy: I was sitting over there at the bar and thought you looked pretty awesome and hot.
Darla: (head slightly nodding) Uh huh . . .
Kathy: So I just moved here not to long ago from [enter city of choice here] and just got out of a three year, long term relationship. My dad died not to long ago and since then I have been blah blah blah blah blah.
Darla: (head slightly nodding) Uh huh . . .

At that point Kathy finally walked away. Note how there was no introduction from Darla, nor was there an exchange of greetings or farewells. All Darla could muster up was the phrase "Uh huh." I mean seriously here. How much nerve does it take to walk up to some stranger in a club, obviously dancing with a small group of friends, and tell them you think they're hot (and gay for that matter)? A heck of a lot more than I'll ever have. What makes this story even better is the person Darla was dancing next to during all this was her boyfriend. Who, by the way, was just as speechless as the rest of us and said absolutely nothing during the above conversation. Now Darla claims to have been giving him the I-need-help-now-idiot eyes, but I can assure you that wasn't the case. And frankly when you're witnessing a train wreck, there really isn't anything to say to anyone at that time.

But I think the best part of the night, may have been the car ride back to the house. During the walk to the car all we did was recap and laugh at the incident. Then, after about 2.72 minutes in the car Erin buzzingly blurted out, "I'm sort of jealous! Honestly why didn't some chick hit on me? What do I need to be wearing some kind of color or something?"

2007-05-08T22:59:00.000-04:00

Unless you're living in 1987, which I know approximate 32% of The Cove is, you've probably seen the commercials that pit Mac (i.e., Warren P. Cheswick from Ed) up against PC (i.e., some stocky quirky fellow). I, being a computer engineer and all, find these commercials to be highly amusing. In case you didn't know, I'm a PC junkie. I don't care much for Macs. I'm not saying Macs aren't good, I personally would just never buy one. I find the commercials amusing because usually the concepts Mac likes to brag about aren't entirely true. Take for instance the commercial I just saw tonight. PC is spinning a big wheel with the six different versions of the new Microsoft Windows Vista OS to determine which OS he should acquire. Mac implies that his OS already has everything one needs so there is no reason to have to choose, nor is there an option to choose. While, yes, Vista comes in many flavors depending on what you do with your PC, I can guarantee Mac OS is not going to have everything you need (unless of course you want exactly what they have which could still be the case with your selected version of Vista). The second commercial I enjoy is an older one. It's the one where Mac and PC are talking about the latest digital cameras. Mac states that all one has to do is plug it in, and boom it works. PC says that might not be the case with him. The facts here are as follows: 1) Pretty much all digital cameras you can plug into a computer are USB and simply appear as a new hard drive. No software needed unless you're using a Windows OS from the 90's (or the dreaded ME in which case, if you are still using, you should be shot). 2) If the camera uses some kind of brand new technology, newer than the OS, you're going to have to install new drivers whether your computer is a fruit or not. 3) If you dropped a lot of cash on your camera it probably uses Firewire instead of USB which is normally not standard on a PC (which is probably what Mac is exactly referring to hear), however this concept falls thru the floor if #2 is true.

My other favorite is when Mac wants to show PC his latest art project and all PC wants to do is calculate how much time they just wasted. I have no argument for it, I just find it entirely humorous! My main point throughout this entire post though is this. Who exactly is Apple marketing to here? Not my dad. He doesn't understand any of the Get A Mac commercials. And when I start to explain them to him he tunes (pun intended [iTunes you idiot, it's made by Apple]) me out. Those are the kind of people that Mac should be targeting. People that what something simple and straightforward. People that aren't interested in upgrading hard drives and processors and video cards. People that don't want to play kick a** games or download music illegally. Macs are for people that want to easily edit their home movies or pictures, easily listen to and download/edit music, or surf the net in a very simple, one button mouse fashion. My guess is only 25% of people understand the Get A Mac commercials and 90% of those people are actually PC junkies like me.

The world doesn't understand computers my friend. The world doesn't seem to want to understand computers. People just want them to do what they want them to do. The question you just need to ask yourself is what is it you actually want it to do? I want mine to lecture me on flower pedals and the 1950 Jaguar Roadster. I would also like it to give me a neck massage from time to time, but sometimes that's asking just a little too much apparently.

2007-05-03T23:32:00.000-04:00

Let's be honest here. Those 272 friends you have there on your MySpace; how many of those people would you really consider to be "friends?" Not to insult those people on my MySpace friends list, but frankly not all of them I would consider true "friends." Some of them I've never even met before except online thru MySpace. Others I went to high school or college with and haven't seen since while others I met once at a wedding, or a group gathering, or may even be the friend or spouse of a friend. Now at the time of this post I have a mere 67 friends on my Myspace. I have even less on Facebook with a staggering 38 of which only one have I never met before (so consider yourself a decent, person-worthy-of-knowing if you can be found on either site).

So who are these people you're making friends with when that number is over 100, or 500 for that matter!? I don't even think I could name 500 people that I know! And the 50% of people that I do know probably don't even know how to find MySpace.com on the internet (sad I know) let alone spell it. So what are you really gaining by having 314 friends? Are your Friday nights better now that you "know" more people? Probably not because you're spending it and the rest of the weekend leaving comments and messages for all the people you've never even met! Why? Why would you ever do that? Is it in the hope that one day you will meet these people (half of which probably aren't even using their own picture [oh yeah, how can you miss those perky little breasts the girls like to flaunt])? You Facebookers go crazy over befriending every single person that went to your school! You don't even know most of them! Why?! Why are 12 year-olds wanting to create MySpace accounts? Call your friends on the phone, go play outside, do something other than stalk your other friends!! You're not old enough yet to not like people to the point of obsessive hate-stalking (usually that doesn't start until after college).

So the next time random Jane Doe friends (I can't believe that's used as a verb now [sort of like Google, but I refuse to use that as a verb, I still "search"]) you, think twice before accepting. I mean if you're truly interested in this person, by all means, use the internet's potential to the fullest, but if it's just so you can brag to your friends (real or virtual) about your new record high 997 friends, then honestly I think you may need to find something more constructive to do with your time. How about spelunking?

2007-04-30T21:36:00.000-04:00

Can you say, "The Summit Wallyball Tournament Champions?" Okay so it was the B division (not quite A, but definitely not C), but I mean seriously do you see the size of that trophy?! The last trophy I won was back in little league baseball. It was the only other trophy I ever won and it was no bigger than a slice of pizza. Grant it we only got one big trophy for this win, so we decided we'd just take it on tour sort of like Lord Stanley's Cup.

On a different, yet slightly related note, I met the one and only Stan Sheetz last night at the wallyball after party. For those of you not from the great state of Central PA, he's the President (though not CEO) of Sheetz Inc., one of, if not the, greatest gas station/convenient store chain in the history of the world (thanks to the MTO). Yeah I shook his hand and asked him how he was doing. Some people dream of meeting famous people like Michael Jordan, or Will Smith, or even Gandhi, but not me. Oh no; I dream bigger! Sheetz baby!

2007-04-25T22:11:00.000-04:00

I don't understand why people on this mass we call a planet do the things that they do. If anyone could help me out with some answers here I'd greatly appreciate it!

I don't understand why school buses stop on the train tracks and open their doors. Just about all train crossings these days have red flashing lights and drop gates if a train is coming. And if indeed the buses are stopping for safety, wouldn't it be more safe to get the bus the heck across the tracks just in case a train is coming instead of slowing, stopping, then continuing on?

I don't understand why nurses and doctors continue to smoke. Grant it I don't know why anyone does it really, but these groups of people know more than anyone else what smoking can do to the human body.

I don't understand why some pregnant women think that showing off their bare, full bodied stomachs, with a belly shirt is sexy or even remotely attractive. Yes I can see you're pregnant thru your clothing and frankly I think if any person finds a gigantic protruding navel even remotely close to being sexy, they need help.

I don't understand why we have 4-way stop signed intersections. Why not just have two stops, and two yields, or a combination of stop-except-right-turns? On the same topic I don't understand why there are one lane bridges that tell both directions of traffic to yield to oncoming traffic?

I don't understand why people should even have a choice of turning on or off their headlights while driving. What's so wrong with forcing the lights on when you put the car in drive?

I don't understand why it's "so hard" to develop an online, internet voting application. You log on, supply your voting verification code (SSN or other unique number that only you should know) and cast your vote with the click of a mouse. Instant voting, instant results. And don't give me that security crap! Today, all I'd need around here to cast a presidential vote is someone's drivers license. And I bet I wouldn't even need that!

I don't understand why we as an entire people refuse to rise up and help our fellow brothers or sisters when all we'd have to do is just give the slightest amount of money, or the smallest ounce of food, or the lightest article of clothing, or most importantly, the tiniest bit of time.

I don't understand why there aren't more people that think up these same stupid questions that are in some kind of position to change things. Sort of makes you wonder what kind of people we have that are actually making this world operate the way it does.

2007-04-23T18:09:00.000-04:00

4 doze of u dat tnk dat 0 gud cUd cum frm d Cove, gaze yr Xquisit Iyz upon dis. f ur 2 laZ 2 read d blasted RTcL, basicaly it sums ^ dat d 1st evr nat txt msgN chmpN isa teen frm Claysburg,PA. u read correctly; we nw av comps 2C hu cn tx d fastst. 13 y/o Morgan Pozgar of Claysburg, PA practiced 4t championship by txtN her bff mor thN 8k tmes a mth. Sure she may av ndless txt msgN on her ph, bt I hope her bffs cn rx em 4 fre. mayB she wl share sme of her 25k $ winnings. IDK bout u bt I tnk we may av got a lil %-) hre. btw, Morgan trns ot 2B d bff of d dautA of a fellow co wrkR. hu knw?

[Translated]
For those of you that think that nothing good could come from The Cove, gaze your exquisite eyes upon this. If you're too lazy to read the blasted article, basically it sums up that the first ever national text messaging champion is a teenager from Claysburg, PA; You read correctly, we now have competitions to see who can text message the fastest. Thirteen year old Morgan Pozgar of Claysburg, PA practiced for the championship by texting her friends more than 8000 times a month. Sure she may have unlimited text messaging on her phone, but I hope her friends can receive them for free. Maybe she will share some of her $25000 winnings. I don't know about you, but I think we may have got a little crazy here. By the way, Morgan turns out to be the best friend of the daughter of a fellow co worker. Who knew?

**Note: Claysburg may not technically be in The Cove, but if The Cove were a Papa John's pizza, then Claysburg would be the cup of garlic butter on the side.**

2007-04-18T23:56:00.000-04:00

Okay, so I've been viewing HDTV (hi-definition television for those of you that are acronym impaired) for the past few weeks now. And frankly I have come to the following conclusion: If you don't have it, don't get it because once you do you'll never want to watch regular TV again! It's like hi speed internet. Once you get it, there is no possible way you'd go back to using a telephony modem ever again. Sure it's crap loads cheaper, but frankly it just doesn't cut it anymore. I get about ten station in HD right now with my cable plan. I'm hoping that number will increase as time goes on. I get the important channels though; all my local stations, as well as ESPNHD (love the sports!), DiscoveryHD (Planet Earth in HD rocks my flippin' world!) and two movie channels, StarzHD and HBOHD (Nicole Kidman never looked so good!). Of course I have a few miscellaneous others like TNTHD that seems to only play episodes of Charmed and Miss Congeniality (just like regular TNT) and TOCHD (The Outdoor Channel for all of you that have most likely never heard of it before) where you can see that crazy hunter guy shoor black bear in the wild with a bow.

The beauty of the HD picture though is its clarity and color. I can see the pores on people's faces for crying out loud! Sure it may not be as attractive to see the extra forehead wrinkles or the small spot of poorly applied makeup, but it is pretty darn impressive. Why would I want to watch something in a 4:3 format when I can get 33% more picture at 16:9? In other words why watch puny square when I can get beefy rectangle [grunt grunt]? In reality there is no downside to actually watching HD picture. Heck even golf is less boring to watch because you can awe about the scenery when you start to hemorrhage from boredom of the actual sport. The thing that stinks about HD is that you'll wish all your channels were in HD and you'll be quite disappointed when you tune to the Sci Fi channel only to see Samantha Carter and Dania Scully in pitiful 480i resolution with black sidebars. In the meantime Donald Trump is living it up in glorious 1080i just so I can see in more detail, how ridiculously bad his toupee is. It's not really fair, but then Pam Beesly sort of makes it balance out I suppose.

2007-04-17T22:50:00.000-04:00

Poem #61: Starry Night

Sometimes when it's late at night
I go outside where there's no light
To gaze upon the stars up high
And slowly watch as they creep by.

I then think back, light years away
To when that star was just a babe.
And wonder just where I could be
And think that star is part of me.

From dust to dust the bible states.
What makes up me has come from space.
And then someday when I am gone,
My body will become part of the dawn.

And more of me will drift away
Back up to space where I will stay
And may become part of a sun,
A sun whose life has just begun.

So late at night when I look up high
I see myself up in the sky.
Of course it's just my body's home
Whose final stop will be unknown.

-- James Barley

In case you were curious I wrote this back in college for my poetry class. It was my favorite one. I don't think too many of my fellow Christian students appreciated the viewpoint, but then again I guess I'm not really your stereotypical Christian now am I?

2007-04-14T22:42:00.000-04:00

It's the end of an era. We all come to them. Call them whatever you want. End of an era, the next chapter, a new path, they're all the same. Yet your end is so much more final than mine right now. It's all new for you now. But I know you'll prevail. That's all you've ever done is prevail, that's obvious. So much now comes to its finale, but there is so much that will begin anew. Who knows what's in store for each of us. Life can never stay constant. It never will stay constant. Those that expect such things are ill-considered. But sometimes it sure would be nice if it did. But you're a dreamer and your aspirations have now taken you into uncharted waters. And while it may be scary and stressful, you're not alone. The world is filled with people like you! People starting new chapters, ending old eras. We'd never grow as people if that weren't the case. And it's my guess that soon I'll be in the same boat, that's just the way Life goes. So don't ever look back. Don't ever lose hope. Don't ever give up on your dreams. Ever!

2007-04-09T20:31:00.000-04:00

In case you have been out of the bar/club scene for a while, here's your chance to get clued in to the Do's and Don'ts of today's music hoppin', alcohol consumin', chick sweatin', smoke fumigatin', drug dopin', glass droppin', dance crazin' club scene. Keep in mind that my experience has been solely influenced by the city of Altoona, PA. In other words your bars and clubs are probably not as trashy and hole-in-the-wall-ish as the ones I frequent, but I'm sure these little helpers hold true to just about anywhere.

Do make sure you have your ID ready at the door. Especially if you don't attend the club every Friday and Saturday, or if you don't have a pretty face or big boobs or if the bouncer is a complete idiot and doesn't remember you when you show up every Friday and Saturday.
Don't complain to your friends at your table when you are NOT carded because you’re 30. Quite frankly all your friends will do is laugh at you because you’re old.
Do make sure you hold on to your drinks tight when you’re going at it like Ricky Martin on the dance floor, especially if you’re sweating.
Don't try and pick up your broken glass or bottle that you just dropped with all the other Ricky Martins going at it like Jim Carry with a frog down his pants. This may cause severe painless bleeding that won’t be perceived until you have a giant blood stain on your pants or your foot is wet and red.
Don't make a face or comment if you’re a waitress and your customer is drinking a Pepsi instead of a beer. I’m sorry for upsetting you when I’m trying to be responsible. Clearly, what am I thinking?
Do make sure you still tip your waitress after they throw a snide comment your way because you’re not drinking beer. This ensures that the flow of Pepsi will continue to be regenerated in your direction.
Do make sure you wear underwear under your extremely high-cut mini skirt, especially if you plan on dancing. This ensures that, even though you’re slutty and high as a kite, you don’t end up showing off your privates to half the dance stage.
Don't be hypocritical when it comes to whom you dance with. If you’re willing to dance with anything that has two legs but then as soon as no-underwear chick shows you her real hair color you get appalled, you can't leave her and go over to your friends and say, “Wow that’s just nasty!”
Do be friendly with the band especially if they come to talk to you or if they ask you to sing into the mic while you’re on the dance floor.
Don't yell requests at the top of your lungs in between songs from your table, especially when the songs you’re requesting are complete crap and no one wants to hear them, not even you.
Do make sure to do some people watching and keep a smile on your face at all times. It will make you very approachable which is good if that's the kind of thing you're after.
Don't be the creepy lone staring person that stands on the edge of the dance floor with their drink in hand, arms crossed just watching the whole night long as if pondering which person they are going to grab, abuse and then throw in the trunk of their car, or more likely the bed of their beat up pick-up.

So remember, the club scene can be a fun time. If you abide by these Do's and Don'ts you should never have a problem enjoying yourself. Now of course there will be memories you wish you didn't have from that evening, but then again, when are you not out with friends where you don't come away with wanting to not remember something? Oh yeah, the final Do: Do make sure you're with good friends and not ones that ditch you for the band, no matter how trashy and disgusting they may be (the band, not your friends, although I guess that could work for a friend too, but I doubt you'd be their friend if they were trashy and disgusting).

2007-04-08T23:31:00.000-04:00

You've obviously come here for the now annual Easter Weekend Recap. Just like the previous years (2006, 2005), this one did not disappoint. So without further ado, here are my favorite moments of Easter At Grandma's 2007:

This year's major theme: What edible materials did my grandma have that did NOT expire in 05?
Schooling my now 7 year old cousin once again in Mario Kart 64. Yes I know, I'm a competitive freak!
Again being told I was to let her win or she would break my glasses.
Spreadable Land-O-Lakes butter that looked like soup. Guess what, expired Apr 05 (and was probably present at the last three Easter Dinners).
Whipped cream that shot out of the can so fast it knocked the strawberries right off my grandma's cake! You guessed it; expired Dec 06.
The Brother-In-Law and I waiting at least 15 minutes while the rest of the fam picked up my cousin from kiddie church. Funny how there was no one else coming out, the next service was coming in and the excuse of the time delay was, "We just couldn't move back there, there were so many people!"
My uncles going at it at dinner like their own episode of The Odd Couple. I nearly lost the fruit salad in my mouth.
The dinner conversation this year going from whores, to inner-racial relationships, to mocking Chinese, Spanish, and Native Americans in a matter of minutes (I do apologize for the disrespect given to all people at the dinner table by my relatives)
Who is this Joe Jencho and why does he keep coming in to to any and every story ever told at the dinner table?
My grandma's female dog apparently wanting a relationship with my cousin's leg. But don't worry, it's completely non-sexual . . .
After drying myself with a towel when getting out of the shower Sunday morning, I had dog hair in my mouth! No place is safe in that house!
Pick your salad dressing of choice: Ranch Lite, expired Sept 06, Fat Free French, unopened, expired Jan 06, No Carbs Italian, expires May 07.

So yeah once again it was nothing but laughter the whole time. If I ever wend up taking a significant other to this event it could very well be the last family event they ever attend. I'm not exactly sure why The Brother-In-Law continues to come back year after year, but despite the judgments and gossip that gets tossed around like a dead fish at the market, if you just picture yourself as a star in a soap opera it should all really be all right. Who doesn't like Easter Weekend with the fam?

2007-04-05T19:43:00.000-04:00

In case you were curious, here are two pictures from the world's most elaborate, and expensive popcorn machine. Built and controlled by your's truly and my co-workers at The Workplace, the popcorn machine models an actual blacktop batch plant. It's controlled by custom written software (written in VB6 thanks to me and Ashley) running on a laptop and an Opto22 B3000 SNAP rack and modules. For you non-technical people, that reads gobblie gooblie ploppie ploo. Check out the pics!

2007-04-01T22:17:00.000-04:00

This ain't no April Fools joke, but if you're ever in Gettysburg, PA looking to transport a giant 15 foot stalk of bamboo and root, get something larger than a van.

Like Chappie says, "The state will pull you over and give you a ticket for not wearing your seatbelt, but they won't do a thing when you have a giant marijuana plant obstructing your view."

2007-03-26T21:47:00.000-04:00

I think it's safe to say that we all have free will. That's what I believe anyway. I hate thinking that I'm not in control of the choices I make. I mean really, what's the point of living if everything has already been determined? Predestination just doesn't do it for me. We're given free will for a reason.

I think of Life this way. When we're born, we pretty much have one path to walk, er crawl. We can't make decisions yet on our own so we just go with whatever Mom and Dad decide. Then as we get older we acquire the gift of choice. We have the ability to determine how our lives will play out. The more we live, the more our Life path forks and splits and veers and at time's we'll want to just get off and other times we'll want to go back and walk the same path again! Every path we take, has purpose. Every path we take has direction. Higher-ups show us our options and say, "All right, go to it kid!" Then it's up to us. What's amazing is that The Man With The Plan is not concerned about our choices. He has set it up in such a way that no matter what path we chose, we will make a difference on this planet (if that is out desire). Sometimes our own paths will cross and we'll wend up in the same place even if we had chosen a different route. Sometimes we'll end up in no man's land with what initially seems like no way out. In the end though, all paths lead to the same destination, unless of course we give up and take the easy path to nowhere. So we start out on a single path and end on a single path, but in between that there is a huge web of trails to take! In the end, it's up to us to chose. We have been given that freedom. We can ask for help and guidance and then just sit around all day long for a response, but sometimes, I think, our choice doesn't matter, there is no guidance. Sometimes we fail to see it, but this annoyance, this difficult wall we come across time after time, this choice we have; it's a luxury, because in our walk of Life, all roads ultimately lead to the same end. A luxury that at times definitely seems like a huge dilemma.

So what do you do when you're in that situation? Yogi Berra (the baseball player, not yogi bear, the picnic basket stealing cartoon bear) said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." That's exactly right. Make a choice and have faith that it's the right one. If you do what you think is good and right, you'll be taken care of. No matter what you chose you'll have suffering no doubt, but you'll also have times of great joy and happiness. Difference decisions, different time lines, different lifestyles. Same result! It's amazing isn't it? Nothing about our lives here on this planet is simple, yet at the same time nothing about them is complex.

The best advice I can give when needing to make a choice is to just pick something that you will be at peace about. If you're going to be concerned about whether or not you chose the right way, choose another. No matter what your choice, it will be fantastic. And it will be scary. Probably very scary. But like I said before, you'll never be alone. Ever.

"Get busy living or get busy dying. That's goddamn right" - Ellis Boyd 'Red' Redding (Shawshank Redemption [1994])

2007-03-21T19:08:00.000-04:00

I mean did you watch American Idol last night? Sweet fancy moses! So check it out dawg. This is my third season of being an avid viewer of the show. The last two seasons I've been pretty impressed with the contestants. This season, not so much really. I mean yeah there are about four or five I think are really good, but the rest just aren't going to cut it. Now I'm sure this next guy has probably gotten a lot of slack from the blogging community, but he's about to get a little more. This Senjia kid. Frankly the boy creeps me the heck out! He's like a cross between Michael Jackson and Prince, but without the singing and dancing skills. And lets face it, without their dancing and singing skills those two artists are only left with creepy. Last night's rendition of You Really Got Me originally by The Kinks made me want to get up from my seat and lock all the doors in my house! And did you see that 10 year old girl balling her eyes out? She must have went thru some kind of drama before the show because really there is no one there to cry like that over! Especially Creepy MJ/Prince Boy. Was she crying because she was extremely happy or extremely traumatized? I don't know, I don't understand it. Right now my two favorite picks are Blake Lewis - The Human Beatbox and Melinda Doolittle, the humble backup singer from Tennessee. My next two favs are the rocker Gina Glocksen and white fro boy Chris Sligh. Is it just me or do all the contestants seem the have names like rock stars already? Anywho, perhaps if Nicole Kidman or Campbell Brown was in the competition, I might have had something to cry over.

2007-03-14T01:59:00.000-04:00

In celebration of Pi Day (which ironically enough falls on Einstein's birthday), I figured I'd tell you my top 10 reasons for being obsessed with the number pi. If you were hoping I didn't know it was Pi Day today, then think again friends, think again, because it's time for Captain Jimmy's Top 10 Reasons for Being Obsessed with Π!

In one of my favorite movie trilogies, the Matrix, Neo has exactly 314 seconds to reach the "source" of the Matrix in The Matrix: Reloaded. Coinkie dink? I don't think so.
Π is a Greek letter and what is not to like about the Greek? They love food, so do I. They love to party, so do I. The ancients loved mathematics, what do you know, so do I!
I remember this little rhyme from my Calculus class in high school. Cosine, secant, tangent, sine, three point one four one five nine!
You really can't get any more random than the number π. In fact if you ask me, π is the epitome of randomness as all the numbers from 0 to 9 each appear eerily close to 600,000 times within the first 6 million digits of π.
I knew a guy in high school that could calculate any equation you threw at him instantly in his mind. He'd approximate π with the square root of 10 in his mental calculations. He also always wore sandals and denim shorts every day to school, even in the snow. And he made up his own language of grunts and odd sounds. This doesn't really make me obsessed with π, I just find it funny.
Π is an irrational number (and not in the same sense that women are irrational). The fact that π is infinite just boggles my mind. You can't comprehend forever or even half of forever! For a number to just go on and on without repeating is nothing short of spectacular! I'd say the same for e or the square root of 2, but the only downside is those aren't Greek letters.
Π is also a transcendental number. This generally means that you can't use an algebraic equation to obtain a root value of π. This also means that someday π will be just as confusing as my 10th grade English class.
Ever hear of the Buffon's Needle problem? Consider this. We have a floor with parallel lines evenly spaced, drawn on it. Because we're insane, we drop an infinite number of needles of known, consistent length on the floor. Provided that the space between the parallel lines is greater than the length of the needle, the probability of having the needle lie across one of the lines after we drop it is, you guessed it, π!
While you can't eat π, you can certainly eat pie, and as you are now well aware, pie is one of my favorite desserts!
Π is always π. Even if it isn't called π, the ratio of a circle's circumference to twice it's radius is always, now and forever the same number, 3.14159 blah blah blah. I don't care if you're measuring in inches, miles, kilometers, furlongs, parsecs or what-have-you. Unless your circle exists in warped space-time or a non-euclidean space, this will always hold true no matter what age, planet, galaxy, universe or state of mind!

2007-03-12T23:24:00.000-04:00

I can't comprehend where you could possibly be right now. How will you come back from your deep dark thoughts and emotions? How will you possibly survive when you're entire world is taken away? How will you hold back the anger? How will you possibly find peace? How will you ever find your way, when you think your Light and path have been stripped away forever? Life can give us such joy and happiness and then take it away again in the blink of an eye. To you, there are no reasons anymore. There is nothing anymore that is fair, nothing that is right, nothing that is true. And in this deep disparity, there are no words. No words that will comfort, console, or caress. For there is only us, and our thoughts and our prayers. And while it may seem worthless now, it's not. Because while lost in your anger and fear and confusion it will be that Light that guides you back. It's a Light that can never be distinguished ever after being abandoned. And in time you'll come to find and rely on it once again, for you'll be lost forever if you don't. You'll never forget what Life was before, and you'll never forget what it will be to come. All will be made right. The only words I can muster now are, "I am so, so sorry for your loss." And in all honestly, what good does that really do you right now?

2007-03-11T23:16:00.000-04:00

Wow! I just found out that I am officially ranked in the nation in the GAV (Great American Volleyball). Check it out! It may not be much, but it is me!

2007-03-07T22:58:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you all know and have heard that we are observing a new Daylight Saving Time this year, and for a couple years to come. What you all apparently don't know is that it is NOT Daylight Savings Time. Please stop saying it that way, and typing it. About the stupidest thing I have seen yet is an email I got at work about updating my PDA for the new DST. I was so happy to see the subject "Daylight Saving Time" and read about Daylight Saving Time in the first sentence. Unfortunately every sentence after that it was back to Daylight Savings Time. We are not keeping a multitude of savings of daylight here people. We are saving daylight in the singular form on a daily basis. And since I'm on the topic of pronunciations, it's pronounced Alz'hime-ers. No where in the word is there a T, and no where should there be a hard T sound. It's not All-timers. And the planet is NOT your-anus, it's yer-a-nis. And the last time I checked, you were going to get your prostate checked out, NOT your prostrate. And the word height never did and never will have a th at the end of it. Sweet fancy moses!

2007-03-03T16:29:00.000-05:00

Someone explain to me why a urinal cake would be completely missing from a bathroom urinal? Now I know that eventually the urinal cakes disintegrate and/or chip off over a very long period of time from people that urinate sand and small stones apparently. But there is no reason why a cake would be there in the morning and then not there in the afternoon. Especially when the cake is actually in a plastic cage. The only possible reason would be a change in cakes, but of course this would involved a cake replacement. You know, where a new cake (that isn't invisible) gets replaced with the old one. This brings me to the only conclusion. There is someone who thinks it's funny to reach into the urine infested porcelain manifestation, lift up the cake holder, grab the urinal cake and then walk out of the bathroom with the cake in his hand. While I find this much more disgusting than power peeing sand, it is unfortunately much more believable.

2007-02-28T23:35:00.000-05:00

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about older women sporting nose rings or studs. I was at Bed, Bath and Beyond the other day and the cashier that checked me out, err checked my items out, err assisted me with my purchase rather, was wearing a nose stud and was probably in her late thirties. Now my dad would probably knock me for considering her an “older woman” but let’s face it, late thirties is more than ten years older than I. Anywho, her nose stud caught me a little off guard. Now don’t get me wrong; I have some friends with nose studs although grant it they are roughly all my age and I don’t think they look bad. My thought on nose studs is this: the nose stud doesn’t make you more attractive, but it can be an enhancement if you are already attractive enough to pull it off. Makeup, for instance, can make someone more attractive. If you’re an ugly gal and apply some makeup, generally this will make you less ugly (unless of course you stink at applying makeup). If however you’re an ugly gal and decide to pierce your snot factory, you will not become less ugly. That’s just how it is.

So back to my original thought. Can older women pull off the nose ring or stud? Let me just clear something up right now. I’m not a fan of the ring. The stud is quite all right, but the actual ring, well it’s just makes you look like a bull. I think really only time will tell who can pull off the nose piercing. Right now I think it just looks weird for older women (and it always does and will for men) to show off their studs but as my generation gets older it will probably become more commonplace and less awkward looking. I do know this for sure though, any grandma with a giant piece of metal in her tongue will never ever look normal to me.

I don't even remember why I was writing this post to begin with. I really need more of a life here.

2007-02-21T19:18:00.000-05:00

In case you didn’t know, I love to eat pie (I also love the number pi, but that’s a different story all together), and the best pies in this entire galaxy are made by my Grandma B. In case you have been entirely sheltered your extremely bizarre life and never had pie before, here’s The Captain’s list of all time favorite pies if you’re looking to live a little and eat one sometime. Of course my opinions on this matter are completely biases as all the pies I’ll be referencing are made by my grandma (did I mention she makes the best pies ever?). So without further adieu, here’s Captain Jimmy’s All Time Favorite Pies (not Pis; there’s only one of those).

8. Chocolate Pudding Pie – While I do like chocolate pudding I’m not a huge fan of the egg white foam topping off this delicious pie. Basically that’s the only reason this pie bottoms out at number 8. Saying this pie is my least favorite of the pies though is like saying The Phantom Menace is my least favorite movie of the Star Wars saga. I’m still obsessed; there are just better ones out there.

7. Shoofly Pie – Evidence of my Pennsylvania Dutch heritage, this pie’s wonderful molasses center sticks this pie at the number seven spot. My only aversion to this pie is that my add-on whipped cream topping doesn’t stick to the soft powder-crumb topping. No worries though. A scoop of whipped cream followed by a scoop of pie with my fork never hurt anyone!

6. Lemon Pie – As a child I hated this pie because I thought it tasted like Pledge, you know that cleaning solution stuff. Recently I had a taste of this pie again 15 years later and while it still tasted like Pledge, my taste has apparently changed for some reason to really like the taste of Pledge, oddly enough. The only reason this pie couldn’t clean up anymore than number six is because I’ve only had it once in the last 15 years.

5. Cherry Pie – This sweet, yet sour pie really tests my taste buds. While not quite as American as apple pie this pie might be the next well know type of pie (I’m sure you’ve heard the song Cherry Pie by Warrant). I don’t quite know how both the sweet and the sour tastes can exist at the same time, but it’s definitely the cherry (pie) on the top of my sundae!

4. Pumpkin Pie – Everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving Day, or Christmas probably has the traditional pumpkin pie for desert with their giant meal. What The Brother-In-Law has quickly learned however is that this pie shouldn’t really be treated as a seasonal goodie, but should be eaten during any time of the year. While I have no idea how a pumpkin made up of giant seeds and orange stringy glop can be formed into a fantastic custard that tastes so wonderfully delicious, I could really care less. I don’t know whether it was the Pilgrims or Native Americans that the stories say brought this item to the first Thanksgiving dinner, but I do know that whomever it was, they were one heck of a pie connoisseur.

3. Blueberry Pie – It’s sweet, it’s good, and it’s purple. What’s not to like? If pies could talk trash to other pies I’m pretty sure this one would do its share by saying stuff like, “You taste like smut,” or, “Your momma was a hooker,” or possibly even, “I had sex with your wife!” Its attitude is well justified though as this pie nearly tops the charts at number three.

2. Peach Pie – While this is The Sister’s favorite pie, it falls just short of the obvious number one on my list. In reality, what is there that this pie cannot do? I’m still working on the calculations but somehow I’m going to prove that the Golden Ratio is used in making this pie. I don’t know how, but anything that tastes this good has to have some kind of beautiful mathematics involved. I just know it!

1. Apple Pie – I feel like the movies have really put shame to my big number one pie of all time. This is not a pie that should be screwed around with (literally). Unlike America’s football team, America’s pie definitely soars above its competition (that’s right, I said the Cowboys stink!). The Bible surely left out a verse in Genesis because after God created the universe we have come to know, I guarantee He sat down and had Himself a ginormous piece of apple pie. Then He saw that it was good and thought that His children could only eat something that good in moderation so He made pie pans roughly 9” round. Tasting this pie is truly like tasting the divine (only in a non-cannibalistic way of course).

So there you have it. The Captain’s top 8 pies of all time! If I missed your favorite pie it’s probably not because I didn’t like it but because I never had it. So if you want me to critique your favorite pie, come make it for me. Of course my list left out the infamous pizza pie, but let's face it. Pizza is in a category all in its own.

2007-02-19T19:30:00.000-05:00

I gripe about driving quite often on The Blog, but frankly people irritate the crap out of me with their driving and here’s why:

The first thing is merging. Sweet lord do people stink at it here. In case you were curious (which obviously no body is) the proper way to merge onto a major interstate is to get up to speed before actually merging onto the interstate. Now let me define the “get up to speed” part because that apparently confuses people too. Now I understand that by definition speed limit means that is the fastest you should be going. But in reality this means that by all means you should be making your best effort to maintain this speed, if not go 5 over. I’ll come back to this after I finish my gripe about merging. So yeah, when you cross that white line to officially be on the highway you should at that point be going the speed limit. The actual highway is NOT where you should be accelerating. If you are, you merged completely incorrectly and I am now flying past you, staring with a confused look on my face that says, “What the flip are you doing?” in the left lane. The same goes when getting off the highway. Decelerate once you are off the actual interstate. Now there are times when the deceleration ramp is too small to do this, in which it is okay to slow down before getting on the ramp, but frankly here in PA, rarely will you find this. We have obsessively large entrance and exit ramps for our interstates and we should use them as such.

Now, back to the speed limit grip. Yes I understand sometimes the weather calls for you to slow down to under the speed limit. However one example when this is not the case is when there is snow on the side of the road (key words there are side of the road). If there is no snow on the driving road, or there are perfectly dry 2 feet wide tire paths, the speed limit should then be maintained until driving actually does become hazardous. Also just because its nighttime doesn’t mean the speed limit has decreased; remember that. 50 MPH during the day is the same speed as 50 MPH during the night. Just like Shakira’s hips, your speedometer doesn’t lie. Oh yeah and just blatantly ignoring the speed limit by going slow is just irresponsible and obviously tells me that you are not paying attention to road signs whatsoever and you should be removed from the roadways immediately.

I’m not exactly sure why these things bother me. I’m not really in a rush to get anywhere. I guess I just think if we are allowed to drive vehicles weighing thousands of pounds and affect tons of people all around us, we should not be driving in a idiotic, brainless, dim-witted matter. Of course, just like everything else on The Blog, this is my opinion.

2007-02-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

The Neighbor wanted me to post the following entry so Happy Valentine’s Day to her!

Unless you’ve been living on the planet Kashyyyk with all the smelly, hairy Wookies you would have known that this past Wednesday was Valentine’s Day. As most people would probably tell you, it’s a holiday for lovers and the romantics. Couples get each other gifts ranging from chocolates to roses to fine, expensive jewelry. Now as it happens I am a single guy and have been for probably about 89% of the Valentine’s Days I have been alive for. This means that I might have celebrated some form of the holiday, either gift giving or what have you, maybe three times in my life. Some people read this fact and think, “Awe, that’s so sad” or “He needs a girlfriend.” But I however must request you to reconsider.

It seems to be a pretty popular belief that single people are rather unhappy with being single (as evident by the sheer amount of people that wish to “hook us up”). While this may hold true in some cases, I think the majority of singles are rather happy and content with being single. Now I’m not saying that I would be unhappy in a relationship, I’m just stating that I am at ease with my singlehood. Being single is not something that should be looked upon as a disability and just like the disabled I am not looking for, nor desire your sympathy of my state of life. Frankly I am not ashamed by it, nor am I unhappy with myself. I am not looking to be set up with anybody nor do I enjoy those that try to do so. I’m not looking to join couples on their dates out of pity because let me tell you, that is just oh so much fun! I’m not depressed because I’m 26 and not married. I’m not miserable because I spend some nights by myself with a good book, movie or video game. I have friends that I enjoy being around and hanging out with, and I have hobbies that I enjoy doing by myself like snowboarding and reading. I’m not searching desperately for romance nor am I sulking around because I have no one special to spend my free time with. I am very comfortable with who I am and what I do. It doesn’t matter that I’m a guy, as I know some girls that feel the same way (although it does appear that more males enjoy the single life than females).

So on this Valentine’s Day I am opting to not celebrate that holiday but instead partake in what I like to call Single Awareness Day. Yes we the single population are out there, and yes we are content with who we are and how we live. We don’t desperately desire a significant other and we definitely don’t want to be forced into a relationship by a friend who thinks we do. We aren’t to be feared, or misunderstood. We are simply a joyful people that want nothing more but to live our lives day-to-day, minute-by-minute with little expectation of the immediate future. If we were to come across a relationship in our lives we would definitely be content but until then, we will remain satisfied and pleased with our current lifestyles.

2007-02-12T22:29:00.000-05:00

I’m a shallow fellow. I’ll admit it. But so are the other 3.36 billion males and 3.33 billion females on this rock we call a planet. Well okay maybe not everybody but I’m pretty sure most people are they are just too stuck on themselves to admit it. Anywho from time to time friends will tell me about some chick they know or someone they want to hook me up with. Typically this response is met with much skepticism, but almost always my response is in regards to what she looks like (I know extremely shallow but it’s the truth). In order for my friends to effectively communicate the person-in-question’s attractiveness, I have come up with the following ratings of attractiveness. Please Note: Under no circumstances should any of my readers ever ask me where they fall on my rating definitions. EVER! Second Note: This ranking system is based on physical appearance only! While personality does play a role in overall attractiveness, it has nothing to do with Captain Jimmy’s Chick Ranking System.

Hot – This would mean the person is just down right, drop dead gorgeous. Legs are nice, body is nice, and the face could (and should) be on a magazine cover. If looks could kill, she’d be cancer (ironic since cancer is pretty ugly to look at).

Pretty – Since hot is pretty darn hard to achieve (and sometimes undesirable due to personality restrictions), pretty is next highest on the rankings. This chick may not be the star in every single one of your fantasies but she definitely plays a major role! And she’s still the envy of all your friends.

Cute – Nothing wrong with this chick either. Most attractive girls fall under this category in my opinion because cute allows for imperfections. Cute is “the girl next door” who is completely down to earth but still turning some heads. Since you can rarely have perfection, this ranking is one of the next best things.

Doesn’t Hurt to Look At – I coined this term back in my college days. When asked to describe what some girl looked like, I thought a good minute before responding with this ranking. Grant it while my female friend that asked me the question to begin with was slightly appalled; I thought my answer was uncannily honest. This ain’t your typical Sally Walker walkin’ down the street, but to be honest, there are more attractive people out there.

Average – Pretty much what it sounds like. Most of the 3.33 billion women within an 8000-mile radius fall under this category. There’s lots of leeway in this ranking and unfortunately these people tend to have a great personality and are often overlooked because Hot No-Personality Girl is walking right past her and well . . . damn!

Yike! – I hate to write about this one, but it must be done. Sadly there are people out there that physical appearance-wise just need some help. A lot of help. They could be the nicest person in the world, but sadly they don’t own a mirror. In my opinion most women have the potential of a Doesn’t Hurt to Look At (without surgery and the like), but some people just opt to not help themselves. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe they don’t want to spend the time or think they aren’t worth it, but the fact is they are worth it and they’d be amazed at how much better their lives (and mine) could be if they only invested in themselves a little bit.

So there you have. Is it heartless and cruel that I have such a rating system? I’m sure some of you think so. The sad fact is that the first thing we notice about a person is what they look like. That’s just how life goes. And the majority of us are sizing others up well before we have a chance to talk to them. Of course if you keep an open mind about people in general, it will be much easier to form opinions about people based off of the person and not their appearance. But a rating system does help a twenty-some year old when trying to determine if a blind date is worth the time. If you take my stance though, no more blind dates (unless she’s hot), this should never be an issue.

2007-02-10T18:26:00.000-05:00

With how widespread and far-reaching the Internet is today, it has become easier and easier to express ourselves to the world thru various different mediums such as writings, pictures, and videos. As an inhabitant of this country, the Constitution protects my rights to free speech allowing me the liberty to express my opinion to whomever I choose (to a certain extent). It is becoming more and more frequent though for people to be punished in this country for speaking their mind. Why is this? Our opinions are no long just heard by a select few. It’s easy to control information when data flow is extremely limited. Now however, since the world is exposed to the Internet, the bottleneck and restrictions on the way communications used to be has been completely made over. As a blogger it is more apparent to me that I am being targeted because my opinion is heard not only by my small group of friends anymore but also by people around the globe that I don’t even know. People are reading about my thoughts on Life, The Workplace, people, religion, and anything and everything else. Honestly this is a dangerous thing. People’s opinions are dangerous. A lot of people don’t care to hear other’s opinions especially when it clashes with their own opinion or their lives (which makes me wonder why they choose to acknowledge other’s opinions in the first place). Take for instance these two girls that wrote about the Catholic Church on their personal blogs. They work for John Edwards on his campaign. Some supporters of the Catholic Church (and not of Edwards obviously) wanted these two girls fired for some opinions expressed on women in the church. As bloggers, that will only add fuel to their American Rights Fire. Edwards however decided to not fire to bloggers, instead accepting regrets written by the two women.

With so much of our country being run off of commercialism, any bad publicity has become grounds for punishment. How long will this continue on? If our constitutional rights continue to be baked over by commercialism and people’s hurt feelings, where does that leave us that just want to let other’s know what we think? Is there no place for expressing creativity and opinions in the country anymore? Yes lets all be mindless drones that agree with everyone else where nothing is accomplished and there is no need to change. Sounds like a wonderful place! Where do I sign up? Better yet, where’s the door?

2007-02-05T22:42:00.000-05:00

I’m having some issues in life right now. If you care to hear what they are, continue reading.

If it’s cold enough for the schools to close, then it should be cold enough for The Workplace to close, especially when the geothermal heating is not working.
The Super Bowl in 56 inches of high def, absolutely amazing! A 3 second plus delay between audio and video, nothing short of bewilderment.
Snow falling from the sky day after day after day could be the most wonderful thing that has happened this winter; however the fact that there is less snow on the ground in the evening than in the morning day after day after day just irritates the crap out of me!
If Cingular used to be AT&T, and is now becoming the New AT&T what will it be in another 2 years? The New Cingular? What kind of sick f’in game is this? Its times like these I’m glad I’m a Verizon customer. At least the Death Star AT&T logo is back.
“Secret secrets are no fun. Secret secrets hurt someone.” So does my bed board when I walk into it!
Why does there always have to be a reason for someone nearly passing out when giving blood? Why can’t you just accept the fact that sometimes I do it, sometimes I don’t? I don’t try to do it purposefully. Does it look like I’m having fun to you, sweating and turning white? I eat, I drink, I give; let’s just leave it at that and call it a day.
Did I mention the wind chill is 30 below? Flip that’s cold!!
Drinking 72 ounces of water and eating a doughnut or two in 1.5 hours can make you gain 6 pounds in, well, 1.5 hours. Drinking 72 ounces of water will also make you pee at least 5 times in the 1.5 hours that follows. This is not good when you’re half a building’s length from the bathroom. Your pants also get a little tighter after the 9 cups of water.
If you had my Luck and all the Colts had to do was kick an obvious 30 yard field goal on fourth down with a few minutes left in the game to absolutely seal a Super Bowl victory and win me $120, you wouldn’t have won $120 either. Why wouldn’t you kick the field goal?!!! WHY?!!!!!!!