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."

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!)

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 . . .

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

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.

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.

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!

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])!

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.

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 butt or what?

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

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?

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.

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!

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!

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.