So here’s my gripe about American Idol. Keep in mind I try and watch this show religiously, so I’ll be fairly judgmental. First of all is it at all possible for Randy to act his proper age? I’m guessing you’d be pretty hard pressed to find another fellow born the same year as him saying phrases like, “Yo, so check it out dawg,” or “Aight I’m diggin’ it.” Also the three fingered hand wave can also fall in the Act Your Age category. Second I realize that the judges want some diversity in the songs but don’t pick a theme that doesn’t really have any brisk songs in it and then be disappointed with the lack of energy from the contestants. Stevie Wonder is a great artists, but lets face it, not too many 18 year olds are walking down the street jamming to Part-Time Lover on their iPod. Finally are the producers even letting the contestants choose what they want to look like anymore? If they were I’m pretty sure some of them wouldn’t have looked like they did last night. Maybe I’m a little obsessive about the show, but hey it’s Tuesday and frankly I have no life really during the week.

Happy Pi Day!

Jose Canseco is a bumbling idiot! And anyone who thinks otherwise can be labeled the same as far as I'm concerned. Only about 20% of the words coming out of his mouth can be deemed relevant or accurate. The rest are either blatant lies or phrases so ambiguous nothing could ever be concluded from them. Anyone that responds to questions regarding where one received his information by saying something along the lines of "my sources will be made public soon enough," should be whacked on the back of the head like the 12 year old he is acting like should. I'm convinced anyone who chooses to interview the guy these days is doing so for the soul purpose of humiliating him. No other outcome could come from such a dialogue for I have yet to see a discussion with the man where I haven't said out loud in an irritated voice, "What an idiot!"

Human emotions are an interesting thing aren't they? They can keep us from sleeping, keep us from eating, even keep us from talking to others. Sometimes I think how great it would be if we just didn't have to deal with all that stuff. Then I remind myself how dull this life would truly be without them. Sure the drama would be all gone, but how can you admire the beauty of a crisp sunny day without the damp and dreary rainy one? The emotions that we feel help define who we are. So even while a sleepless night is fine here and there, it's the massive emotional overflows that make me see how nice it sometimes is to live a very dull life . . .

By the way, if you're ever at The Workplace and you find the man that stole my mom's pink shirt, tell him to work a little faster and to quit complaining about not getting things done because the new hire is driving his van around!

A couple things tonight. First just let me say that everything I express on this site is my opinion, and pretty much my opinion only. If you don't care to know my opinion or you're going to be offended or complain about my opinion then you really shouldn't be reading this. Of course comments are welcome, but the fact remains that this is life as I see it and sometimes that could be hard for others to hear (for whatever reason). Of course this site is a prime example of my free speech at work so really anything goes. I realize not everyone out there is "down" with blogging and some see it as needless banter and crude remarks. Well it's a lot more than that. It's a huge knowledge bank filled with opinions and creative writings yet to be discovered. Sure sometimes we bloggers complain about life and the people in it, but that's our business to make it public. Even professional writers like Dave Barry and the like are making comments about people all over this planet for entertainment purposes only. So just for future reference to you readers out there, don't judge me because I'm judging you . . . well actually go ahead, that's what we do by human nature. But like I said before, if you don't care for my opinion then don't read my blog.

The other things shall remain private for now. There are some things in my life I prefer to keep to myself and a few select others. That doesn't include however my thoughts about life.

Does Deal or No Deal rock or what?! WHOAAAA!! You might find it creepy for me to have a picture of Howie Mandel on this post, but I find it perfectly normal. This guy rocks!

Is it just me or can our bodies only feel cold? By this I mean if one part of our body is warm and the other is cold, the cold will override the warm. Here's an example. Stick one hand in a glass of freezing cold water and the other in a glass of warm water. Leave them there for a little while and then take your hands out and touch them together. Does your warm hand feel the cold of the other, or does your cold hand feel the warmth of the other? My money is on feeling the cold. Could this possibly be because warm always goes to cold, high always goes to low, order goes to disorder, enthalpy to entropy? Probably . . .

Ahhhhh . . . .

Have you ever just taken a big refreshing gulp of Life and thought to yourself, "Yeah. Life is good . . ."

Well The Workplace Expo 2006 is finally over. It has occupied my time for the last four days and I am quite happy to see it go and not come back for another two years. We demo-ed our blacktop/popcorn plant again like last time. I wasn’t so sick of popcorn though this time around. This popcorn plant is probably the most expensive and extravagant popcorn machine that exists in the world today. If I acquire a picture, I’ll gladly submit it so you all can see it. You are also reading a post from one of the worlds leading experts of the physics of popcorn, and salt flow.

While IT did it’s little video game racing event again, I was not eliminated from the competition this year as I am no longer in IT, but Automation. Translation: I kicked arse in the game and walked away today with a brand spankin’ new PS2 Mini and steering controls! Next time I’m sure all of corporate employees will be excluded from winning. I just keep ruining it for more people. It’s their own fault though. Here’s a small tip: Don’t have video game contests when you have 20 some year old guys working for the company. Especially ones that have had and are recovering from an addiction problem and have “Video Game Night” every Friday from 5pm to 3am.

All in all the Expo wasn’t so bad. I got to know some fellow employees much better and even did a little social event with some of them last night. While I still believe that this expo is a tremendous waste of money and my time, I do walk away with a crap load of free stuff every two years! Here are some of my favorite booths from Employee Expo 2006:

1. Procare: A local fitness club, here you got to test your balance skill on a cool machine that was completely configurable with resistance and feet position.
2. UPMC Medical: This is currently my health care provider but at the booth they were doing bone density test. Despite the amount of milk I drink daily I was told I should be taking calcium supplements with magnesium, along with more dark green vegetables.
3. Altoona Medical: An Altoona medical facility that perfored a body composition analyzer. Some cool stuff I learned about my body:
   1. Total body mass that is fat: 24.6 lb
   2. Total body mass that is water: 103.21 lb (which is insane by the way!)
   3. Body Impedance: 529 Ohms
   4. I should gain another 10.61 lbs to be my ideal body type – no thanks!

To read posts of Expo Past, check out these great links!
02.17.2004
02.18.2004
02.19.2004

Is it me or am I the only person watching the Olympics these days? I haven't found a single person at work yet that could discuss in detail the events of the Olympics that had aired the previous night. Now Figure Skating I can understand (what I don't understand is how this could possibly be the most popular Olympic sport here in The States) but come on people, these are the games of the winter olympiad! These only happen once every four years! And for the record, talking to me about Michele Kwan doesn't count because frankly she's all over the news almost as much as Dick Cheney is these days and she's not even competing anymore. If you're looking for some good events to watch, here's a list of my favorites:

Curling: If you haven't seen this, you're missing out. Grant it you don't need to be in great shape to compete in this event, but the skill that is involved is just flat out ridiculous.

Snowboard Cross: While in the Winter X Games for quite some time now, Snowboard Cross made it's Winter Olympic debut this year. Simply put, four boarders race at a time in heats down a hill until contestants are eliminated by time and the final heat occurs. Just in case you have been watching this event, tricks and showboating before the finish line, or anytime during the race are NOT necessary and should not be attempted . . . Women . . .

Freestyle Skiing: If want to see people doing ridiculous flips that you will never ever even want to consider doing, then check this puppy out!

Alpine Skiing Super-G: All I have to say is good god! Are people really this insane!

I used to enjoy setting up PCs. Now . . . well just just say I won't be surprised if the PC I disconnected last week will be set up again anytime soon. Sort of makes me wish I had a laptop...yeah...

You knew this had to be coming, so here it is in all its glory:

Captain Jimmy's Super Bowl XL Review

To put it bluntly, even as a hard core Stillers fan, I wasn't impressed last night. As Bob Dole would say, "You know it. I know it. And the American people know it." I would have much rather watched the Stillers-Colts game again in its entirety. Neither Pittsburgh, nor Seattle had anything worthy of a Super Bowl performance. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was the absence of one Troy Polamalu. Sure you could see #43 out there running around but he wasn't involved in any kind of play! He had no rushes toward Hassleback, and I don't even think he had one tackle. Let's face it; he is the majority of that defense. Now I'm not saying he played awful, but you could tell the guy was hurt out there as he couldn't really seem to out run, out perform, or out maneuver anybody.

The Stillers rarely sent in the blitz and Big Ben played like he did last season. I can understand the man was nervous, you know second year quarterback in his first Super Bowl. That's no petty feat. But the last two games before The Bowl the Stillers played were off the hook! Ben's arm was firing! Bettis' bus was rolling, Foote's foot was stomping. This game was missing all of that.

The reason the Stillers win can be summed up in two plays: Parker's 75 yard run touchdown and of course the of the hook reverse to Randle El who then passed to Ward for a 43 yard completion pass for a touchdown. Of course Ben's touchdown helped some, but everyone made it out to be so controversial, I'll throw it out. Just for the record and with all Stillers' fan aside, the man scored a touchdown. John Madden is frickin' old and blind so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but come on Rest of the World! The ball passed the plane of the end zone. In football we call that a touchdown. Clearly the white lines on the ball were directly above the end zone white line meaning that the tip of the ball had to have passed the plane. Yes it then got knocked back, but it's too late by then. So Ben tried to be tricky and slide it across the goal line, but you show me one other football player who doesn't do the exact some thing on every single play!

Pittsburgh clearly won because of Seattle's lack of . . . well, they just blew it. Penalties were called when touchdowns should have been and just too many passes were dropped. Basically that's what it all came down to. They couldn't catch the ball when the play really mattered. Sure they were hot when it was a little 5 yarder, but eventually that just didn't cut it. And just to clarify again, you can’t push off another player to catch a ball, EVER and you can’t rap your arm around another player’s chest from the back and hold him from getting to the quarterback. Those are rules of football. So quit your wining about bad calls Seattle fans.

In the end it must have been really hard to pick an MVP for that game. But I'd say Ward was the guy it should've been. He had some key catches that made the game a winner for the Stillers. In conclusion, all was well with Jimmy and his Stillers. While it was no pretty victory, I'll take a homely win any day. The only thing, well okay, things I could have done without were the awful halftime and pre-game shows, and of course, the fact that Crap Face Tom Brady had to witness the coin toss in his butt ugly velvet sports coat. Like Madden said before the game. You show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser. That may have been the best thing he has ever said.

HERE WE GO! STEELERS! HERE WE GO! PITTSBURGH'S WON THE SUPER BOWL!!!!

I'm not understanding the hype over Groundhog Day. Does anybody actually believe in the myth? And how does Phil see his shadow on a cloudy day when nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing is casting a shadow? Heck how do we even know he sees his shadow? Is it because he is looking down? Maybe he has an ingrown toenail and is checking out. And when does Phil even have time to look down when those guys in the big coats drag him out of his hole and hold him up over their heads? I think this "holiday" is a bunch of moo-ha-ha. Now maybe if they gave us a day off work I might be more inclined to change my opinion...eh, wait a minute...probably not.

Tomorrow is Stillers Day again at work! HERE WE GO! STEELERS! HERE WE GO! PITTSBURGH'S GOIN' TO THE SUPER BOWL!

My big gripe today: winter has apparently ended and no one bothered to inform the calendar. This weather is ridiculous. I don't know if it's because of global warming or what, but for years now the winters around here have sucked with a capital S! And what's worse, I keep buying season ski passes for The Knob in the hopes that this year will be better than last and year after year it keeps biting me in the butt. Well that stops right here! Starting the end of this winter (or whatever season you want to call it right now) no more season passes to The Knob. If that means getting tons of snow, but at a 4 hour flex price, then so be it.

In other news, check out this blog if you feel like no one could ever understand how you think. You may be surprised. http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Here's how this day went. Volleyball tournament (coed 4's) in The Cove today. We started off doing quite well (I had a couple real sweet hits off a back 2 set, it was awesome (of course only fellow volleyball nuts know what the heck I'm even talking about here)). We wound up tying for first in our pool (although since we split with the other 1st place team, and they beat us in total points we wound up second). So it was off to playoffs. About this time we crapped out and lost in the semi-finals to a team that really wasn't better than us. So usually I'm down after losing in the playoffs, mainly because it happens quite regularly and I'm heading back to my chair to gather my things up when my phone rings. It's The Workplace. "Hey can you go fix this? So and so said they tried this, but I can't get a hold of them."

So I quickly leave The Cove and head to one of our most dreaded plants. When I get there what do I discover? Nothing short of sheer stupidity. Here someone laid a garden hose, with the water turned on I might add, on the floor and it had filled up an enclosure with delicate, yet very vital circuitry (Opto 22 to be exact) with water. Of course like most circuitry it doesn't work under water. So with the tools in my car and a terrific co-worker/friend/turned boss working on his PC from home being my eyes on the phone, Ashley and I switched some Optos around and got the thing working again for the rest of the weekend. Of course me being soaked by a hose, along with dirt, grime and a sliced bleeding finger did not add well to my already disappointed state of loosing in the semis.

So The Workplace will get my bill for 2 hours come Monday morning (I wonder how much I cost per the hour?) and I took off for home to shower. Luckily to cheer me up, my friend took me out to Hooters for my first time ever. Just to clarify, it was actually her idea (that's right, this friend is a girl and she wanted to go) since she loves the food there. I must admit the food was tasty, but I also must admit that I was slightly distracted from my normal food focused state by the people serving the food (for obvious reasons). Just for a heads up, there are way more families there than single guys if you can believe that. I don't think I'll ever take my 12 year old boys (not that I have any right now) there though. That's just got to be way too much hormone overflow for them. So the day's emotions sort of fluctuated like the Stillers game two weeks ago, but all in all I guess I'm still happy to be around.

Now in this world of ups and downs...
So nice to know there are jackalopes around.

I MADE IT!! HA HA HA!! I am at the top. Right now if you do a search at Google for "james barley", yours truly, me, the Jimmy himself, will be the number one result. Oh how I have waited for this day. No more James Barley the woodturner from Canada at the top. It's all me!

Sigh...Oh what a sad sad world I live in...

Here we go!!! Pittsburgh's goin' to the Super Bowl!!! Here we go!!!

Tomorrow is Steelers Day at work which means we get to wear Stillers gear at The Workplace! How kick a** is that??!! I'll be sporting number 43, Troy Polamalu of course...

I must be becoming an honest man or something. Suddenly I’m paying for the music (or TV Shows) I download and for software as well. I’m not quite sure what is coming over me. Well okay, maybe it’s not so much honesty as easibility. Downloading tunes these days has become such a hassle with those peer-to-peer applications. First you have to find about 50 computers that have exactly what you’re looking for if you want to download the thing this century. Second there is no guaranty that you’ve downloaded what you think you’ve downloaded. Take that time in college my roommates and I tried to download The Matrix 3: Revolutions before it was out. We ended up with some form of Swedish porn. These days there are wrongly names files, corrupt data, even incomplete, or poorly ripped tunes out there. Thirdly I’m sick of searching for hackz and crackz that don’t work on the latest versions of the software I’m looking for. I usually wind up with some sort of porn a long this search to. Also the software thing now I can sort of sympathize with since that’s pretty much what I do at work. If I were to write some simple little program I’d want people to pitch in a little bit (a few bucks) if they were going to download and use it (unless the thing was super-duper useful and it put bigger companies like Apple or AOL in a frenzy and they had to pay me to take the thing off the web, then it would be free). Maybe my days of illegal activities aren’t over yet, but frankly I just don’t fee like putting the time into it anymore.

Security Note: The opinions and actions expressed in this blog entry do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

We don'’t always make the best decisions in our lives. My life is no different than anyone else's. Luckily we have people know as friends that yell at us and are honest with us that attempt to get us back on the right track. The only bad decision we can ever make is to decide to not listen to these friends when all they want to do is make our life better. The greatest thing about friends however is that no matter how many times we decide not to listen, they will continue to stand by our side and yet still point out our mistakes.

In case you missed it this weekend I shall recap the Stillers game just as it took place exactly one day ago (subliminal message: New England Lost! Hee Hee! Stupid Tom Brady!!).

Wow Ben looks good today! Touchdown! Yes! That’s right! Owe come on, where’s the flag! Another Touchdown! Push ‘em back!

Half time: Can you believe what’s going on here?!

Nice! No! Yes!…Enter last quarter.

NO! NO! What happened to the blitz? NO! YEEESSSSS (jumping up and down) – NOOOOOOO (immediately falling on the floor)! WHAT THE #@$% call is that!? (followed by more obscenities). Yes! YES! YEAHHHHH WAAAH WHOOOO (more jumping up and down and high five slapping)! AHHHHHH NOOOOOOO (falling on floor yet again)!!!! GET ‘EM! GET HIM!!!! SOMEBODY!!!!

Block it! BLOCK IT! HE MISSED IT! AHH HAHAHAHA YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! Rapped up with extreme body fatigue and relief while slumping into a rag doll on the couch.

If football was like that every weekend I don’t think I’d watch but once a year.

I didn’t quite meat my quota last Friday as I only played Need For Speed: Most Wanted for 9 hours straight. The time was cut short by my need to get up somewhat early the next day for my uncle’s 60th birthday party/Solstivus celebration. I must say it may have been the largest Solstivus festivity ever! Not only were there heaps of gifts given this year, but there was a Book of Solstivus created by none other than Til himself. There should be a link up shortly so you all can read and learn more about the ridiculous holiday founded by my family. It has yet to be decided as to what gifts will make the Hall of Fame and Honorable Mention this year but some of my picks right now are “Old Used Couch Arm Rest Covers,” “Collection of Years Past Ski Passes,” and “Broken Single Earphone.” While the Giving of the Gifts observance was larger than ever, it will take some time for the Elder Committee to decide on what gifts were the best. Of course after the Giving of the Gifts we all partook in the Solsti-Bowl in which a Miracle of Sostivus Past took place not once but twice! This was of course the Miracle of the Jumping Gutter Ball. All in all I think this proves that not only do I have one of the most bizarre families ever, but we have fun being bizarre.

And by the way, can I get some colder temperature and a little bit of snow here? It’s frickin’ January and it’s frickin’ 50 degrees outside. This wouldn’t irritate me so much if it wouldn’t happen every year! Now I have proof. Just check out previous posts from past Januaries. What the crap kind of ski season is this?

Have sports actually gotten to be easier to play over the years? Think about it. Most sports these days include equipment to play with whether they be bats, clubs, rackets, skies, etc. And in most sports this equipment is getting better and better allowing the athletes using them to be worse and worse. Lets look at golf and tennis for the time being. Pull out one of your old grandfather’s one woods or moms old tennis racket and you’ll find a much smaller, heavier cousin of today’s extreme gear. The old golf clubs and tennis rackets we actually made of wood and the heads were rather small. A golfer needed to hit his ball perfectly in the center of his wooden club head to hit a beauty off the tee. A tennis player had very little room for error as well to get some topspin on the ball sending it back over the net toward his opponent. Now head into any sporting goods store and see the latest; super light, metallic golf clubs with heads bigger than beach balls and very light weight titanium rackets with mesh covering more surface area than my aunt Sally.

Now a golfer doesn’t even have to hit the ball center or swing with any type muscle to drill the ball home while a tennis player could hit a ball with his eyes closed! So while it looks like our athletes have improved over the years, really they don’t need to be as good as they once were to look like they are better. Technology makes the sports what they are today. Baseball bats can hit balls further today than ever before, parabolic skies make flying down the slopes easier than ever, shoes help you jump higher, play longer. Performance enhancers make you stronger, more focused. Even swim suits have developed to aid the swimmer with less drag.

But maybe this is the essence of sport itself. Perhaps sport does need to evolve with the times in order to keep all our interests. There has to be some kind of limit to which the human body can perform and what is the fun of sport if we have to stop there?

Here it is, by popular demand.

Why My Birthday Depresses the Crap Out of Me

Most of my friends know that my birthday is not one of my finest days of the year. The big question this year was, “If your depressed by turning 25, what are you going to do when you turn 50?” My response was always the same; “Be really depressed!” The concept isn’t that hard to understand and hopefully I’ll be able to present my case well enough here that even my readers will become depressed at their birthday. Sort of a messed up goal, but hey, I guess I’m sort of a messed up guy.

Birthdays are a simple idea. All it is really good for is giving you a point during the year at which you can relate your accomplishments and disappoints to. If someone asks you when you did something you say, “Oh yeah. I did that when I was 18.” Yes I do have accomplishments I look back on, but I also have my disappointments. Regardless of how either of those two notions make you feel, the two help demonstrate the master conception: another year of my life is over. Simple as that. Being 24, yeah that’s done, gone, yesterday’s news, just a memory, an infinitesimally small point on the timeline of history. And what will being 25 hold for me? The same thing. And as if the previous year couldn’t have gone by fast enough, this year will go by even faster, and the year after that faster still.

Remember how when you were a kid and would watch Saturday morning cartoons each episode of Thundercats and My Little Pony seemed to take up half the day? Well genius those episodes were just as long as today’s TV shows, being a mere thirty minutes. Yesterday they seemed half the day and now you forget that thirty minutes even existed. A fifteen minute trip to the corner seemed like FOR-EV-ER! Now fifteen minutes isn’t even long enough to use the bathroom in the morning.

Besides, what is there really to look forward to in getting old (as if I’m not already there)? The aches and pains of getting out of bed? The inability to control your bladder? The memory loss, vision loss, hair loss, height loss? Wrinkles, ear hairs, brittle bones, bi-focals, tri-focals, decreased muscle mass, change anxiety, countless wives (did you catch that one?), sleep stage loss, backs that won’t bend, unmentionables that do, countless bills, children, knee problems, feet problems, teeth problems, joint problems, loss of balance, loss of hearing, loss of all things important to you like your friends, families, jobs, significant others, houses, pets, the ability to eat what you want. Honestly need I actually go on?

I see others around me that play the sports and do the activities that I do that are older and frankly you can tell they are older. They move slower, don’t bend over the whole way, fall harder, jump lower, bruise easier, get injured more frequently, get tired faster. I don’t want that.

In my short 25 years of existence more people have come and gone in my life than I care to recognize. High school buddies erased from my life, college best friends never to be heard from again, neighbors that moved away, loved ones that die. And frankly this is just the beginning. In the future I will have more friends disappear, children move on, parents pass away, career changes. Are you depressed yet?
The lives that each of us live seem so small, so insignificant already, do we really need a day to celebrate all that we were and all that we may be, but will soon forget anyway? I’d much rather just be. Forget about the past because it’s in the past, forget about the future because it hasn’t yet come and just live right now, right here. As long as I can do that, I should be a-okay.

Well I did it again. Chalk up another great day in my video gaming career. Let me set the stage. In case you’ve been living in a bubble the last 6 months the first “next generation” video game console that is out in stores is the Microsoft XBox 360. So far, I’m frickin’ impressed. A buddy from work, Mike, picked one up and until yesterday we’d played games on it such as Madden, Call of Duty 2, and even Zuma. Yesterday Mike picked up the new Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

Now I am no stranger to the Need for Speed (NFS) series. One of my all time favorite games for the PC is NFS III: Hot Pursuit. So after helping me install my Sirius satellite radio in my car Mike and I set off to play a little NFS. We sat down around 500PM and began out play. Next thing we new it was 800PM and we were hungry as the dickens! We called for some pizza and called our buddy Josh to join the fun. After a number of arrests, countless races won, and even a drag race or two Josh took off for the evening around 1130PM and the game was once again left to Mike and myself.

It was as if the rest of the world never even existed. 200AM and we were still going strong. We had busted through roadblock after roadblock, destroyed countless personal vehicles and even had our car impounded on an occasion or two. Once 300AM, 2 beers and one heck of a giant root beer came around it was time for me to go. Suddenly once the XBox was turned off the world was suddenly back again. A wave of extreme tiredness came over me and I was left to drive home to my nice bed to try and get some sleep for today’s big evening. A solid 10 hour video game play has not been accomplished since the late days of my college career. NFS: Most Wanted will forever go down in the books along with Super Smash Bros. Melee and Dynasty Warriors III as one of the best, and longest game day in my short 25 year existence.

Have you seen the new greatest show on Earth yet? It goes by the title, “Deal or No Deal.” If you haven’t seen it then you either A). must be living in a mud pit wearing plad pink pants and a brown shirt, or B). are just so full of yourself to never fall into “what’s popular” you refuse to ever watch a single episode. In either event you are a fool! The show requires no real intellectual thought what-so-ever. There are no questions to answer, no stupid physical challenges to accomplish and best of all no Regis Philbin hosting! The host is the very underestimated misunderstood Howie Mandel. Sporting a stylish bald head and love patch these days the man is his usual comical self who seems to find an unusual delight in the tortured nerves of his players.

The concept is simple. The player picks one suitcase out of about 30 and holds on to it the entire game. Each suitcase, sported by a very attractive female, contains a different amount of money ranging anywhere from a penny to one million dollars (please pronounce one million dollars like Dr. Evil holding your pinky up to your mouth because that’s just how it should be read). Once the player picks a case to keep, he begins to open up the left over cases one by one to see what amounts are NOT in his case. After he looks into so many cases the player gets an offer to buy back his case. The offer is based on the dollar amounts left that the player has not yet found in the remaining cases. If the player found a lot of suitcases with low dollar amounts in then the offer will obviously be higher. The deal/no deal part comes in when the player must decide to either take to the offer to buy back his case (deal) or continue playing and picking suitcases (no deal). Frankly if I was on the show I’d pass out from extreme nervousness and disappointment. I sit and watch and I start to sweat for the person. I love it! Here’s to TV shows that are so awful they are awfully good!

By the way, HAPPY SOLSTIVUS everybody!

Let me add one more to the list. This also involves the merging process. Just for clarification purposes, the person merging onto the highway does NOT in any way, shape or form have the right of way. If you are merging onto the highway and the jack**s next to you refuses to get over to the passing lane, or if the passing lane next to him is currently occupied then you must either hit the gas and get up to speed in from of the jack**s, or slow down and gracefully enter the highway flow of traffic behind the current highway occupier. Never, ever, ever should you the merger assume that the highway drivers are going to modify their speed just so you can keep your RPMs at a constant rate on the acceleration ramp. If you’re a bad enough driver that you need to come to a stop on the ramp to work you’re way into traffic then do so, although I would never recommend doing such a ridiculous thing. If you’re having trouble following these simple highway driving techniques I would recommend you stay clear of the highways and spare the rest of us the grief of hassling with you.

Let’s talk about driving for a minute here shall we. Now I know I’ve brought up the topic before but let me just let some of you people out there know how to drive, and by drive I mean drive in a manner that does NOT irritate me.

First of all, merging. Merging is not a difficult task but the key thing to keep in mind is that the purpose of merging is to get up to speed BEFORE you get on the actual highway, not after. I realize that in some locations this is difficult to achieve especially when there is a lot of traffic or the acceleration ramps are short, but around here neither of those two items will ever be the case so let’s get up to speed! This will also spare you of frustration, as I will have no need to cop out of the acceleration lane and accelerate on the actual highway and pass you trying to merge.

Second of all, just because there is snow on the ground doesn’t mean that there is snow on the road causing you to drive at an unreasonable 20 MPH below the legal limit. Also if there is snow on the road but there exists tire lanes in which no snow exists please, PLEASE feel free to also not travel 20 MPH below the actual speed limit.

Finally if you don’t want to use your signal, that is really fine with me. I’d be lying if I said I always use mine. In fact there are times when it is just simply unnecessary, like when it’s two o’clock in the morning and there are no cars around to watch me make a left hand turn. Heck if you’re stopped at a traffic light and don’t want to use it I’ll even let that slide. But if you’re making a turn in the middle of the road and there is someone behind you, please, oh please use your signal so the person following you knows why you are slowing down. And if you put your signal on even before you brake, well let’s face it the world would just be a darn better place.

So to summarize, to be a better driver you should accelerate on the acceleration ramps, don’t go slow when there is no snow on the roads, and use your turn signal when turning off the road. It’s that simple and it will drastically increase all of our qualities of driving. It will also most likely keep me from seeing how close I can come to your bumper without me actually hitting it.

It’s coming and frankly I’m scared to death of it. It connivingly hides in the darkness, in the stillness. It waits until forgotten about and then begins its attack. Its claws pierce flesh deeper than any knife; its bite more painful and long lasting than a broken heart. There is no place to hide, no place to seek refuge for it is not concerned with physical location and position. Timing is its most important element. For without time, it has no form of attack, no existence. It cares nothing about my life, my fear, my pain. Its sole purpose is to cut my legs out from under me and leave me to rot, to suffer, to die. It disguises itself as no one, yet as everyone. There is only one way to defeat it and that is with my death itself. While others have learned live with its presents even befriend it, I doubt I will ever be able to subdue such a creature. Someday I will conquer it I suppose, but until then The Birthday will forever be my fear, my haunting, my depression.

You know how it works by now. We get a big snow one night and I am off to The Knob the next day. That's just how it is. The Workplace can wait. It was great too today. I got to the mountain around 9 AM this morning and there were only two of us there living it up. Have you ever had a mountain all to yourself? No? Shows how much more important I am than you I guess. The only thing I didn't think thru today was preparing my body for a volleyball tournament tomorrow. I have a very bad feeling my feet aren't going to make it too high off the floor tomorrow. Deep mountain snows create burning muscles in the thigh. Hmmm, I wonder if it will ever stop snowing this December? Let's hear it for NOT living south of the Mason-Dixon line! Haha! Suckers!

To respond to Moose's comment I have provided the following statement.

I do still use mp3 formats (with LAME encoding). As big an open source advocate that I am I haven't switched to Ogg Vorbis mainly because of compatibility issues with that format and my music devices. My car, stereos, DVD players, portable disc players, not a single one can play an Ogg Vorbis file (though my iRiver disc player claims it will eventually support it with a firmware upgrade, however they have been saying that for years and countless firmware versions ago). So since I like all those devices that I already own and I don't plan on replacing them anytime soon and I don't plan on converting my music library once anytime soon, I doubt I'll be switching in the foreseeable future.

Speaking of open source though, have you checked out the new version of Mozilla Firefox (1.5)? It supports Del.icio.us bookmarks and I'm all siked about it (you can read more about it here)! For those of you who think I'm being sarcastic here, let me point out that I am still single and for probably obvious reasons...

I think I would consider myself an audiophile. For those of you who don’t know an audiophile is, according to Wikipedia, a person dedicated to high-fidelity sound reproduction and achieving high-quality results in the recording and playback of music. In other words when I rip my music CDs to my PC and other portable devices I like to rip them at a very high quality. My compressed music file of choice? MP3s. I have always been an advocate of the mp3 (except for my brief downfall to wma’s in 2001) since I discovered them back in my junior year of high school. Back then though you could find mp3s on websites and easily download them. It was great! Then freshman year of college I was introduced to Napster. Oh holy illegal, massive downloading, mp3 day! I quickly amplified my music library just overnight! Back then I ripped and downloaded mp3s at a bitrate of 128kbps. This was great until I invested in a fairly nice audio system where the high end sounds of my 128kbps mp3 just didn’t sound good.

About two years ago I began re-ripping my entire music library to mp3s with a bitrate of 192kbps. While this was very nice audio quality, until recently I was curious if maybe I could do any better with keeping the size of my music files still small. Enter in my mp3 savior, LAME.

Just some background info here, there are other music file types out there that don’t loose any information when compressed (called lossless compression) such as the Monkey file type however the size of these files are just too big. WMAs seem to not sound as good as mp3s in my opinion and I just refuse to switch to the Apple formats. While those of you out there claim that I’ll have to switch to an aac format or Apple’s lossless format once I get myself an iPod, I beg to differ and it’s just not going to happen. And here is the reason why.

LAME (LAME Ain’t an Mp3 Encoder) is the answer to my high quality music obsession. Like BASF, LAME doesn’t make the mp3, it makes the mp3 better. How is this so? Well LAME uses some super slick algorithms to compress your audio without a massive loss of sound. It does this by using whats called a variable bit rate (VBR) instead of a constant bit rate (CBR) when doing it’s thing. In other words, when the music in the file is pretty simple, it will use a lower bitrate. If in the middle of the song the music gets more complex, the bitrate supernaturally goes up. The result is an audio file about the size (or maybe even less) of a 192kbps mp3, but sounding way better! Of course this means spending hours and hours re-ripping my CD library once again, but hey sometimes we need to invest a little time so we can invest in great music listening.

If you’re wanting a very nice music ripping bundle, check out a program called Exact Music Copy (EAC) and then download the LAME codec. EAC is pretty complicated but it is a fantastic tool and I may just have to marry it if no women ever enter my life. You can find a very nice online manual for EAC here and from there it will guide you thru the setup and download of everything you’ll ever need to be just like me, a dedicated audiophile!

Hee hee! It's snowing! IT'S SNOWING!!

Let’s talk a little about this lovely state of Pennsylvania. For the purposes of this blog and to keep Roman from discussing the issue any further I will forever refer to Pennsylvania as a state and not a commonwealth for two reasons. One, state is just shorter to type than commonwealth but second and more importantly, there is absolutely no difference between the two. None what-so-ever! It would be like having to use the term flammable with only chemicals and inflammable with anything else that can catch on fire. And that makes about as much sense as a window in an underground bunker. Commonwealth is just the name that four states choose to call themselves (just to satisfy your curiosity those states are Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Kentucky and Virginia). No more, no less.

Anywho, so Sunday morning I took off to see the Stillers game in good old Pittsburgh, PA. Usually this is all fine and dandy except this Sunday morning I woke up to some ice and snow. Usually this is not a problem, however the snow plows seemed to be hiding somewhere at the time probably playing some form of Snow Plow Soccer with a giant turtle shell and some banana peels. The roads were covered with about an inch of an ice/snow mixture that really provided no vehicle advantage what-so-ever at seven o’ clock in the morning. So I was driving along slip-sliding everywhere on my way to meet people to go to the game. Even the major highways, I repeat, MAJOR HIGHWAYS, were snow covered with only one lane open for what I’ll call semi-fast travel.

So the big mystery (alone with how the Stillers could have possibly lost this weekend) was why were the roads not maintained this weekend? And here in lies my issues with this state. Supposedly PennDOT decided to cut back their spending this year. This cut back includes, but is not limited to working only 40 hours a week and no more than 8 hours a day. So now because this state wants a save a little money I need to jeopardize my life when driving after an evening snow? I don’t think so! Aren’t I paying taxes so this purposefully is NOT the case? Maybe all you other homebodies have no place to go on the weekends, but I’m only 24 and I’ve got stuff to do and places to be! I can’t tell you how many cars I saw this weekend that had ran off the road but I know it was more than the total I saw all of last year!

My solution to the problem? Get your big old state a**es out there and get those roads cleaned up! Not just for me, but for the people that go to church on Sunday mornings, and go shopping at 4AM on Black Friday and those people that go to work in the insane hours of the day. I just don’t get it. We’ve got men, we’ve got plows, we’ve got salt, FIX IT!!! And don’t come back until you do!

Since Andy brought up the subject of Joe Paterno I feel like I should elaborate on his opinion. Being one of those people that didn't go to school at Penn State, but attending a school in the great state of Pennsylvania I became a Penn State fan. Following State's last number of years of football I became one of those people as well that started to doubt the abilities of Joe Pa. The only difference is I still continue to believe that. It's funny, you watch ESPN and all the sports casters who just last year were Joe bashing are now Joe praising! Come on now! Andy is right. If the man were smart he'd go out on top this year, but I'm afraid he's here to stay. The only comfort I can offer is this. Let's face it the man isn't really coaching anymore is he? Sure State's D is great, but the offense is not the typical Joe Paterno. Paterno would never start a true freshman let alone two of them. Also the passing game is just too active for a Joe Pa offense. Whoever it is that is coaching the Nittany Lions is doing a good job this year and hopefully whether Joe is the face of Penn State or not they will be back on top for years to come.

If you want to know how to get me the perfect gift this Christmas/Birthday season you can check this site out! You can actually make it look like you’ve put some thought into what you give me. And the answer is no; that is NOT a picture of me on that web page. Don’t be a smart a**!

There are two days I look forward to all year long. One of them is Christmas and the other is today, Turkey Day! Some might think that this is because of gifts, or family, or the introduction of cold weather. Well it’s not any of those reasons (not that those are a turn off or anything). The big reason I look forward to these two days is the food! Turkey, turkey, turkey! What more could I want? Turkey and mashed potatoes and corn and stuffing and cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie and whatever the heck else is on the table! I usually starve myself from the time I get up until the time we eat just so I can eat more. You know what would be nice? If I had a trap door in my digestive track so I could just eat all day long and never get full. Of course when I am ready for bed I’ll shut the trap door and get full just so I feel like I accomplished something today.

In other news it’s time to gripe about the weather people again. Why? Well it’s snowing outside right now which is great and there is about 2 inches of snow on the ground. The part I’m griping about is that if you look at the weather forecast for my area right now there is only the possibility for snow flurries today and the possible heavy squall. There’s two inches out there!!! I think we’re way past the flurry state here chief. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. How can people predict the weather in the future if they can’t even predict the weather in the past?

Top Ten Reasons to Want to Marry the Stillers:

10. They support their second string QB even when he throws 4 interceptions in one game.

9. This same QB still isn't as bad as Brett Favre.

8. It's all about the football and not the cheerleaders.

7. Two words. Terrible Towel.

6. The players aren't there for the money.

5. Hamburgers state wide are named after their primary QB.

4. They actually run the ball...with a man whose nickname is The Bus.

3. They aren't the Patriots, or a part of Boston Empire.

2. Their safety is some sort of organic magnet attracted to whoever has the ball on the opposing team.

1. They run plays where during a reverse their running back pitches it to their wide receiver who then proceeds to throw a perfect pass for 51 yards to their other wide receiver down field who catches the pass for one heck of a touchdown. Boo YA!

Why? It's a questions every single person has asked himself at least a dozen times. Today I asked this myself. Regarding what you ask? First let me set the scene...

To some people's surprise I still work at a camp during the summer. And although I take 2 weeks vacation from my current job each summer to be able to do this, I do enjoy myself and so do the kids. Anywho, Ever since I've started working there 4 years ago I've gotten to be good friends with another fellow counselor whom I'll call "Justin". Now "Justin" is a great guy, don't get me wrong, but the guy is the biggest movie buff in the history of the 21st century (which started in the year 2001 by the way, NOT 2000). This past summer was the first summer that the two of us roomed together, which at first I was a little concerned about (he's quite messy and darn proud of it) but soon grew accustomed too (my roommate for 3 years in college was a slob too). Justin is such a big movie fan that he owns movies that nobody has even heard of. It's quite possible he even owns Japanese movies that the Japanese have never heard of. It was always a race back to the dorm after camp was over for the day. If I got there first it was Nintendo's Beach Spikers for the next 3 hours. If Justin got there first, it was some noname, or really bad movie (I don't know how many times I had to watch Jackie Chan sing his stupid song from Mulan).

So one day I loose the race and I walk in the room and Justin is watching some black and white movie with awful acting, a poorly dressed mutant and a dancing skeleton with the wires clearing visible. The movie was called The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and it was by far the worse movie I had ever seen in my entire life. So incredibly bad and boring that I fell asleep within the first 15 minutes of me watching it. Never, no matter how bad, had I ever fallen asleep during a movie before.

So back to my original story. Today while taking a break from the wonderful world of college football I came across the above movie on a cable channel. I recognized the movie immediately and recalled how horribly bad it was when I had last viewed it over 5 months ago. And to defy all human nature, what did I do? Instead of turning back to the college games, I stayed on the channel and watched the entire movie in all it's awfulness. And all during the movie, to my own surprise and bewilderment I asked myself, "Why?"

Hi. My name is James and I have been video game free for 4 months now. It’s no secret that I am a video game junkie. In fact I would consider myself a videogame-oholic. And just like any other person addicted to some substance, whether it be physical or virtual, once I start, I can’t stop.

Despite my one time, ten hour straight marathon of Dynasty Warriors 3 and my secret affection for Morgan Webb, friends still call me to find out what is the latest and greatest in the video game realm. With keeping my addiction under control, my gaming lately has been very scarce. I feed my hunger by watching reruns of X-Play and wearing Mario Kart: Double Dash t-shirts.

But with the 2005 Christmas season quickly approaching, we are coming into another video game counsel escapade. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

The new XBox 360° is quite impressive indeed. I give it bonus props for using my favorite beverage, Mountain Dew, to advertise for the counsel and give them away every hour. The only downside is I already have one sitting right in front of me. I also have an original XBox as well. Sorry to burst your Microsoft gaming bubbles, but XBoxes, no matter how many times they spin around, will always be just glorified gaming PCs. Call me crazy but if I’m going to play games like Halo and Quake I’d rather have my trusty mouse and keyboard in my grip.

Moving on, Nintendo is going just crazy these days. First up is the new Game Boy Micro. It’s pretty slick and tiny. It mimics the old style NES controller with the D-Pad and the A, B buttons, but with a tiny screen in between. A pretty neat concept, but may be just a bit to small to really get into. I’ve tried to play NES games on my PDA and the buttons are just too darn close and small. But without having ever tried to play a Micro, maybe it’s completely different. It can play any GBA game so it already has a ton of games you can play on it.

Finally the big story here is the upcoming Nintendo Revolution. Sounds pretty incredible really, plus as always, Nintendo came up with a pretty cool codename for it (remember the Dolphin? Yeah it should have stayed that). Anywho, right now I’m pretty nervous about its controller. It’s completely…well…revolutionary. It’s a remote control style controller device that you might use to slice, dice, spin and win. Along with a built-in D-Pad, buttons, and expansion analog stick, the Revolution controller will also know your body movements. Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m playing a game where I want Link to slash his sword, I don’t want to actually to the slashing myself. These are video games after all not exercise routines. Call me old fashion but I like my two-handed, thumb controller and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to give it up to jump around the room like a 5 year old just to knock open a question mark block or two.

What I learned about Wisconsin during my first ever visit and long two day stay there:

1. Not as many people speak with the Fargo accent than I had hoped.
2. The state is completely flat. As one person put it, "flat as pee on a plate." What does that even mean??
3. They know how to drink. There a Bloody Mary is served in a beer glass and is followed by a cocktail chaser of beer.
4. Newly erect Walmarts require outdated and stupid traffic circles.
5. Rush hour traffic looks like this:
   
6. Most people there are closet Viking fans...Who would have guessed?
7. They get a whole week off for school at the start of the hunting season, not just one day (I realize people outside of PA might not get any. As someone who has never hunted, I enjoyed the free day off from school to sleep).
8. The people there give you cheese. Lots and lots and lots of cheese. I don't like cheese . . .

Relationships can be a funny thing. In the blink of eye your best friend can become your worst enemy, and that smelly guy who stands by the water cooler is suddenly your new companion. Most of us treat our relationships pretty tenderly. Instead of telling your friends what you really think, you chose to just continue on letting them think you are someone different than who you are. You're careful not to destroy a friendship when it is such a great thing . . .

You have them. Those people that just seemed to disappear; your best buddy from elementary school, the cute girl that sat next to you in Math that you finally got to know the last week of school, a college roommate or even an ex-girlfriend. Where did they all go? Will you ever hear from them again? Could you have done something different with your relationship to have made it last? How many people are wondering where you are right now and what ever happened to you?

My only wish in life is that the following two words never ever existed: What If . . .

SNOW! And it’s about dog-on time! I must admit, I’ve been very skeptical for the last week about this event the weather forcasters have been predicting, but I guess you cry wolf enough times eventually a wolf comes around. There may be only an inch on the ground, but that is one inch more than not having any on the ground. I may have seen the largest snow flakes ever this morning. Some were at least 3 inches in diameter. I think that constitutes as a snow chip instead of a snow flake. All I’m asking for is another 180 days of weather like this and I will be more than satisfied for the winter season. A couple days of three feet or more could just be the icing on the cake.

I think I heard about the greatest analogy of God and His "Master Plan" I have ever heard in my life. It went something like this:

Imagine our lives are one gigantic tapestry. We go about our lives watching and living as seemingly random things happen for some reason beyond our understanding. To us we are merely looking at the back of the tapestry. From our point of view there is just a conglomeration of threads and knots that make absolutely no pattern what-so-ever. But God has a completely different point of view. He is looking at the front of tapestry, and there everything is perfect! There is a marvelous pattern that is larger than life and as beautiful as a summer sunset.

It's amazing really; how a simple analogy can make such a complicated thought seem so incredibly straightforward.

Can you believe I know this guy??


Or worse yet, this guy?

It's no surprise to anyone that we have our own personal space that we don't like invaded. Ever have one of those close-talkers get up in your grill and talk the tip of your nose and you just had absolutely no where to retreat to? Maybe what you never realized was that even when you're in your car you still don't want others to invade your space and you remain conscious of encroaching other's. Remember the last time you pulled up to a red light right next to another car? I bet you didn't stop your car so that you could look directly over at the dude next to you. You either stopped slightly ahead of the guy, or stopped just short of him. Although maybe this was because you were singing at the top of your lungs to Jessica Simpson and didn't want that red neck next to you to see you doing it and you weren't about to stop singing for him. After all, it was a bangin' song!

Now me . . . I stop singing for cute girls . . . mostly . . .

So I'm pretty sure that this past weekend my friends and I were the first Messiah alums to ever tailgate in a pickup (or any other vehicle for that matter) at a Messiah College soccer game! And it was tons of fun too. Hoards of chilli, soda, and brownies! What could really be better? Maybe a victory by the Stillers or Penn State, but I guess we can't always get what we want.

Let's take a look at something else here; the movie Doom. Despite what some people say, I have yet to see a good movie that has been based off a video game. And NO, Mario Bros was NOT a good movie. Tomb Raider may have been the closest, and I never saw it, but it would be the only video game movie I would consider seeing these days. As a former video game-a-holic the thing that Hollywood is missing is the fact that a video game is a movie, and it's an interactive one at that, that puts you the viewer into the lead role. The only people that would ever consider seeing a movie based on a game, are gamers themselves, and they are quite satisfied with their 3-D cutscenes and bad translations (remember All your base are belong to us!). So The Rock or no Rock, Doom was indeed doomed from the very beginning.

I found a new hobby today. I like to call it, Rub the Yankees' defeat in my dad's face until I can't take it any more. The man is a pure Yankees fan and it just bothers the heck out of me. When a single team's player is making more than entire team of players put together, there is something not right there. Although there is really something not right if said team still can't make it to the World Series.

Now I think its time for a little segment I like to call, Captain Jimmy's Odd List of Favorites!

Favorite Sheetz Milkshake Flavor: Strawberry
Favorite Programming Code Loop: For Each Loop
Favorite Female Video Game Player: Morgan Webb
Favorite Road Pavement Style: 60 day old pure concrete
Favorite Shirt Style: Short sleeve T worn over a long sleeve T
Favorite Car Manuver in the Snow: The E-Brake turn
Favorite Place To Floss: Between the second and third tooth from the middle on the top left.
Favorite Fog Style: When a layor of fog just covers the mountain sides and it looks like I'm driving next to giant cotton balls on my way to work.

The First Blog Chain Post

Hello everyone,

Just so you all know, this is a real thing! Nothing about this post is phony; it will work its incredible magic just as described. Not only are there starving people in “The Home World” that this will feed, but this post will also cure all Cancers and give money to every single sick individual in the solar system.

It’s not a hard thing to do. Just notify every single person and parakeet you know to go to this page. Once viewed, this page will automatically log every single thing about you, including your eye color, finger prints, blood type and every known boyfriend you have ever had. Once this is done, this page hacks into a government mainframe and grabs your address from “The People’s World Database.”

Once this is done, you will receive a check for $314.15 for every person that you directed to this post and twice that for every link you make to this post. Never mind that you only told your friends about this by word of mouth, this page still is able to determine that. Also a giant turkey (and complete Thanksgiving meal) will be sent to one hungry family on this planet and a $2718.28 donation will be made to a single AIDS charity, including ones that have yet to exist.

Like I said, all you have to do is get people to come view and read this post. This is not a knock knock joke and it will work 997% of the time. Not only will you never have to go back to work again, but think of all the unborn babies that you will be helping. Even little Johnny Barber who may or may not die in a car accident next year will greatly appreciate your participation.

Please, please do not ignore this request. Millions of endangered species may die if you fail to ignore this post. Thank you for your time.

Can I tell you that the most idiotic thing that this country ever invented was Daylight Savings Time (DST) (I would have said the English measurement system, but ironically the British beat us to that one). The fact that we feel the need to increase our time by an hour and then decrease it an hour, later in the year it just utterly foolish. Even more dim-witted is the fact that not all areas of the country participate in the beloved event! Yeah yeah it’s nice to have more daylight in the summer and the kiddies can see at the morning bus stop in the winter (not at the times I caught the bus back in the day), but honestly what else is it good for? The only smart thing about DST was that its occurrence was based on a timing algorithm. Now in typical U.S. fashion we are doing away with the only intelligent thing about DST. I am told that starting next year we will be setting our clock back to Standard Time a month later that normal.

If I wasn’t a programmer this wouldn’t bother me all that much, however what people don’t realize is what an inconvenience this is going to be. Any cell phone, VCR, computer or other electronic device that automatically adjusts for DST is going to need a software or firmware upgrade. Sure it’s nice if you use Windows Update, but Windows Update ain’t fixing the firmware in my TV.

About the only thing as dense as DST is the Julian Date system. This is where we keep track of the total number of seconds from the beginning of time, or Jan 1, 1970, to figure out what today’s date is. While most computers use this date method internally, what people don’t realize is that this system breaks down around Jan 19, 2038 thanks to the friendly little 32 bit internal counter. Not that this chaotic mess will matter as the Mayan’s have predicted the end of world to be Dec 23, 2012. You know, if we all just used Universal Standard Time it would make things a lot easier. What do I care if it’s light outside at 200AM. At least when I plan to meet someone at 415PM it will be 415PM everywhere and anywhere.

Is human nature to make things so simple and complicate them so drastically?

If you deal with computers on any type of basis then you are well aware of what a username is. In the workplace, this username is usually comprised of the user's first initial followed by their last name. In my case, usually my username would be jbarley (pronounced, ji-barley) however, since my dad has that same exact username, mine became jrbarley (pronounced jer-barley). Sometimes, however this may not be a good idea. Lets say for instance you worked with a rather handsome lady by the name of Wanda Hennch . . . well in this case I think you get the idea . . .

DISCLAIMER: Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental and in no way whatever-so-ever relates or refers to any persons I know at the time of this post.

So my dad talked me into getting my picture taken for his church directory this evening with him and my grandma. I wasn't opposed to the idea, it just sort of felt strange to me because while I am a member of that church, I do not attend that church anymore for personal reasons, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only 20 something member there. In any event, I did the picture thing mainly for my grandma because it was important to her. So after my dad tried to persuade me to wear a tie, I explained to him that I needed to be free to express who I am for this picture, and the person I am is a jeans and relaxed shirt kind of guy. Since he was going to show up with a shirt, tie and shorts, I negotiated that he would wear pants with his shirt and tie and I would wear a buttoned up collared shirt. With that agreed upon, we set out for our 725PM photo shoot at 700PM. For most people this would make perfect sense except we live about 2 miles from the church, and The Cove is NOT a high traffic area, despite the rumors.

Now I was told this was going to be a one--photo--taken--and--done deal. Buddy was I lied to! This was a whole darn photo shoot! The photographer I'm pretty sure was on some form of Speed, as the man must have said all our names about 4 times in every sentence. My grandma had me nearly rolling on the ground as she threatened to sue the photographer if she fell off the stool. Of course, this guy just ate it all up since he was clearly on the biggest caffeine kick since the great 2 Liter Dew Down of 2002! After 20 shots of Dad and Me, then 20 more of Dad, Grandma and Me, and then another 20 of just Me, I got the heck out of there. The one picture thing was a big old bluff I think and right now my dad is realizing that he owes me big!

An update to last week's clubbin' entry. Let's focus on the group I like to call The Pool Players. This group usually consists of 4 or more boys along with one or two girls. The girls are usually the girlfriends of some of the boys playing and most of the time they will just sit around drinking and smoking cigarrettes never taking their eyes off their man. Once in a while you'll see one get up and play a round or two of pool, but they'll completely stink and they might not even finish the game, having their boyfriend come in and finish for them.

The boys on the other hand will spend $30 or more just to keep using the pool table. If you ever enter a club and these people are already at the table, forget ever playing yourself. They'll have the table all night long. Of course the boys too are smoking and drinking to no end some of the players with ball caps on, but worn backwards on the head. As the night progresses play gradually gets worse and worse as the tremendous amounts of alcohol and cigarettes slowly take their toll.

In the meantime, the girls are taking their layers of clothes off in the hope that their boyfriends will sneak a glance and start to give them a little more attention. And if they get no attention from their significant other, they'll start flirting with the boyfriend's friends who are sitting out this round of pool.

Finally once everyone is out of quarters and livers for the night, the bar closes and The Pool Players leave. The couples leave holding hands with the girl almost being drug behind the boy by the hand.

Frankly I find this group of people rather boring and usually keep away from them because the amount of smoke they give off constitutes as first hand smoke I'm pretty sure. Maybe I should wear a shirt when I go out that says Save my lungs, smoke a pretzel!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a conversation with someone in person and see their mouth move now, but hear their words a second later? Yeah . . . that would be funny!

Did you ever stop and wonder what the world would be like if there was no moon? First of all, you might as well stop wondering because if there was no moon, you wouldn't be around to ponder its absence.

First of all the moon is what keeps our planet's tilt and rotation in it's slightly over 23 degree tilt and 24 hour day. Without the moon we are talking about wild 90 degree varying tilts and days that could be be just 4 hours long! This means that seasons would be way out of control and with polar ice caps melting and re-freezing, you might as well forget living on any kind of land even remotely near an ocean. Speaking of the ocean, you know those tides that control so much of this planet's ecosystem? Yeah you can kiss those goodbye too. And lets not forget that any extraterrestrial object soaring towards our planet now has absolutely no chance of being pulled off course by the moon's gravity.

So basically in a nut shell, without the moon I wouldn't be writing this Blog and you wouldn't be reading it. Also you wouldn't have such a beautiful site in the night sky. The moon however is retreating from our happy home at a little more than an inch per year, but I figure by the time it is far enough away to create such a chaotic world, there won't be anyone left here anyway, or we would have at least figured out a way to keep the moon nearby with some really really big jets!

So actually it's no surprise that we see the moon in our sky these days, because frankly, our very existence relies on its presence and orbit. The biggest coincidence however, with our moon is the fact that the distance is just so perfect that we have total eclipses. At one time, the moon would have entirely blocked the sun out, and in the future, there will no longer be a total eclipse as the diameter of the moon in the sky will no longer cover that of the sun's. But for now, the moon rests ever so perfectly within the sun from our perspective once every 8 years. How truly amazing that is...

Now this truely is the ultimate personality test!

So I was sitting on my recliner today reading about Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado and his experiments in the 1970s with implanting circuit chips in the brain of animals and humans when all of the sudden there was a sudden BANG! at the back door. It sounded like someone threw a stone at the storm window. So I quickly stood up and looked over at the door and to see that it was completely shattered! I saw no signs of abuse or anything. The glass just seemed to spontaneously shatter in its place. Upon closer investigation of the broken door I was amazed to discover that the shattered window continued to shatter and break right in front of my eyes! It sounded like the door was made out of Rice Crispies and just kept snap, crackle and popping. Once I knocked the glass all out and cleaned it up, the pile of glass that now resided in the trash can continued to break and shatter! If anyone could provide me with any kind of explanation to this enigma, I would greatly appreciate it! Here are the facts:

• Glass door spontaneously shatters into thousands of pieces with no signs of any external stimuli
• Once shattered and what I thought was all the glasses kinetic energy had been expelled, the broken glass continued to shatter and break without any intervention
• Once knocked down and inside the trash can, the pile of glass continued to break and shatter even more

Could it be that by just reading about Delgado's experiments with the brain, I was able to use telekinesis to subconsciously destroy what was symbolically the doorway from a closed controlled mind to an openly vast new area of enlightenment?

There’s nothing like spending the day “working” at a science center in Pittsburgh. It is also nice to get done that work (which was actually a seminar) early to check out the center itself. The Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pa has tons of great hands on science stuff for all ages. There I was able to build and launch miniature rockets, build and test atomic structures, see the stars, become a TV meteorologist, and even step aboard a once active U.S. submarine. That was one of the neatest things we did. I’ll tell you one thing, I thought my freshman year at college was cramped, to live on such a marine vehicle is pretty much giving up every right you ever had to be comfortable. And the valves! My goodness the valves! There were knobs and wheels and switches all over the place controlling everything from air flow to fluid flow to every other flow known to man. How fifty-one men could operate such a vessel and live on thing is beyond me.

Another cool thing that was “test drive-able” was the earthquake simulator. You sit down in the thing like you’re at a diner in California and you select what Richter scale magnitude earthquake you want to experience. Never having experienced an earthquake before, let alone one that measures 7.1 on the Richter scale, I found it quite uncomfortable. The nice thing with the simulator was when I was sick of the shaking I just walked off. In the real world, it boggles my mind that just walking off is NOT an option.

Someday I may write a book about club etiquette, but for now, I'll just shorten it to a blog post.

On a comical side note I was at a seminar yesterday in Pittsburgh regarding Opto22 hardware and the group was asked a question as to whether anyone knew what a blog was. Only 3 of us raised our hands, I was just about speechless, but then most of the people there were mid-40 males who probably had 10 secretaries at work to do any sort of computer bidding they wished.

So back to the topic at hand, here's what baffles me about club etiquette. If you're a girl, you go to the bar and sit there, flirting with the bartender hoping to get more drinks at a lesser or no cost. Once the music comes on the girl is up and dancing with anything that moves. If the girl sees a boy that the girl may be into she turns her back to him and steals a glance every minute or so thinking, "How can this person not know I am into him? I am making it so obvious!" This sort of thinking could have led to the downfall of women had men not stepped in and drunkenly randomly danced with anything with two breasts. As luck would have it every now and then both Boy and Girl get lucky and make eye contact and dance around for a little. Sometimes however this does not happen so Girl goes back to her seat at the bar where she is back to flirting with the bartender, but now she has striked up a conversation with the girl next to her effectively blocking out any other conversation from the opposite sex that may come her way.

In the meantime Sober Boy is standing at the bar scoping out his prospectives for the night. He finds a target but is disappointed at the fact the girl already has a boy she is with. So the boy continues on. Then at some point Girl is trashed enough from all the free drinks that she is dancing with only other girls and no longer acknowledges that there are guys in the world. Anyone with two legs will be treated the same on the dance floor. The boy on the other hand never ever gets this trashed as he needs to continue paying for his drinks all night long.

The process continues until that lucky occurrence happens I mentioned before, or both parties get tired and dangerously drive home only to get just a few hours of sleep before needing to meet obligations later that day.

Of course the above observation is just that, an observation, and not all people fall into those categories. So if you find yourself at the club scene, be sure to remember what I just wrote and don't do the norm, it may just pay off. Although I have yet to experience it paying off . . .

So I was watching The X-Files yesterday and it got me thinking, "What if what we perceive to be the direction of time is totally incorrect?" Let's say every morning we get up, go about our day, and then wake up the previous morning with no memory of the day we just lived. Yet every morning we have memories of previous days that we have yet to live. It's something you could never prove. Or an even more crazy idea would be if our lives were just completely different day by day and we only had memories of the life we were living today. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up a pirate, or a rock star, or Jessica Simpson for that matter. But I'll never know because I'll have all the memories as if that's how I have lived every day. Today I woke up James Barley, friend to most and blogger extraordinair, but tomorrow maybe I'll be Kyp Durron, Jedi Master and starfighter pilot captain in a galaxy far far away . . .

So it would appear that the new color that is in this year is brown. Last year it was pink, and now it's brown. To make matters worse, there are items that fall within both years and are both brown and pink. Luckily, I'm not a girl so none of this applies to me (or so I think) but if I were, I don't think I'd be wearing brown. Why have two of the most absurd colors be "in?" It would be nice to walk thru a mall and see other colors like green, or blue, or bright orange! Is the world not depressing enough that we need pink and brown to depress us yet further? It's no wonder half the people of this country (by no means is this an accurate number) are on depression meds. With colors like that, who needs women to make you depressed?

Remember those good old elementary school days when you used to walk home from school? And on every corner there was a student safety patrol crossing person who told you when you could cross the street. It's a good thing you had that older kid there to tell you that the coast was clear and you could cross safely wasn't it? Okay, reality check here. Guess what, you were about 8 or 9 at the time and that "older kid" telling you when you could cross the street, yeah we was about 11. Now I'm not a parent and I don't play one on TV, but I'm pretty sure there's no way I would be letting my 8 year cross the street by himself just because a 5th grader told him he could. Sure when you're 8 a 5th grader seems so old, so mature, but know let's look back on things with our experienced eyes. Are people crazy?! Does this seem logical to you??!! Can schools actually allow this???!!! Actually encourage such behavior????!!!! Maybe it's different when you actually have kids, but I find that hard to believe. I'll let you know my thoughts then if that ever happens I suppose.

I have some how managed to avoid paying over $3.00 per gallon for gasoline. How was I able to accomplish such a feat? Well, last Monday when I heard about the destructive possibilities of Hurricane Katrina I made a wise decision to fill up the gas tank even though it was only half full (this is very unlikely as most often than not, I like to see how far I can drive once the gas light comes on). Knowing that gasoline prices would rise due to the damaged oil refineries on the Gulf, I got gas that Monday after work. By that Thursday gasoline prices had risen from $2.49 per gallon to $3.29 per gallon. You could watch the station price signs change by the hour. Then once the weekend came, prices dropped back $0.10. Finally by early week gasoline had dropped back to $2.99 per gallon. As luck would have it, I barely traveled this week in my car except to and from work so I have yet to fill up since last Monday, thus avoiding paying more than $3.00 per gallon at the pump. My Cavalier will be running on fumes come next week, but I'm getting gas as cheap as I possibly can. I have a bad feeling the $2.00 plus prices are here to stay though...

But it's hard to complain about such petty things these days when I have such commodities as a place to stay, and food to eat...

I never liked spam. In fact, I think it is the most unbelievable marketing ploy ever. Never once have I ever followed a link on a spam email nor do I ever plan on doing it. It baffles me that people would actually want to check out some of that stuff. But then I guess you could consider me "Not of the Norm." Yeah I guess it's weird I'm not into the penis enlargers or the super naughty mega horny monkey sex, or the German home interest rates, or more of the super naughty mega horny monkey sex, or the super mega galactic penis enlarger. I mean, all the people I know are just running to the stores looking for these items! I try to tell them, "No you can only get them online," but they just won't have it.

Okay, so here I am back to reality. Come on now! Why is anyone clicking on these things? But back to my initial grip, I now seem to be getting spam blog comments. You can check out a few of them below if you wish, but there won't be any more after today. Sorry about the inconvenience, but when you comment from now on you'll be prompted for a word verification. But don't be afraid! Just re-type the letters you see when you try to comment. I realize it will take you an extra five seconds, but I refuse to support such spamming tactics.

If the Moon was a cookie, would you eat it? I know at least one person that would.

And if the evening sky was a glass of milk, would you drink it? I know I would.

And if all that you could ever hope to do was spend eternity dunking a giant cookie in the most beautiful and gigantic glass of milk you could possibly imagine and indulging yourself in such a moment . . . Man wouldn't that just kick a**!

What is it that makes us different from a rock or a computer? What is it that makes us “alive?” Is it the amino acids that comprise our bodies? Is it the fact that we believe we are self-aware and have the ability to think? Although a plant can’t think, yet we allege that it is alive. Is it the fact that we adapt to the world around us and are responsive to external stimuli and grow and reproduce? While this is all true, it still does not tell me what makes me different from a piece of dirt or stone. Bottom line is that we all come from the same matter. Look up at the night sky sometime and you’ll see our origins. We are nothing more than mere star dust that at one time exploded from a supernova and for billions and billions of years floated around space until it came to rest in such a random pattern at such a random location that the growing, thinking, reacting you came to be. Funny how the star dust that once came from the same supernova wound up as a paper weight on that inanimate desk of yours.

You can argue that my belief in evolution is unbiblical, but I ask you, what is more impressive to you? A God who waves his hand an snaps his fingers and POOF there the world is with its deceitful artifacts and its out-of-date universe, or a God who carefully orchestrates the existence of the universe and life itself in such a way that it takes strict rules, billions of years and seemingly random patterns of quarks and molecules for a habitable planet to come about and a barrage of living creatures, one of which that would eventually become capable of understanding the universe and it’s origins.

I think that some of the most valuable lessons we learn in life come in regards to our failures. There have been countless times in my life where I think, "Boy I wish I had never said that." or "I should have done something different then." There's not a whole lot of times where you succeed in doing something and learn a valuable life lesson, though those times do exist, they are slim in comparison to the times of our failures. But in order to grow as an individual we need those failures, we need those hard times we can't possibly get thru alone. So take a step back sometime and look at yourself and think, "what did I do to become the person I am today?" What were the failures in your life that made you a better person? A stronger person? A different person? And as self aware and individualized as you are now, you can only imagine what failures lie ahead that will help you evolve even more. Our lives are a never ending chain of events that are constantly defining and redefining who we all are!

So this is why I don't watch and/or listen to the weather, and it's because the weather people 'round here make statements like this: "You know how when you shake a can of soda and then pop it open and it just explodes and sprays everywhere? That's the atmosphere right now." Now, I'm no meteorologist and I don't play one on TV, but I do know enough to know that the above statement makes absolutely no sense what-so-ever! And the even more ridiculous thing about this scenario is that at the time of the said statement there were people in this area watching the news thinking, "Wow I better not go outside or I'll get pop all over me!" Although if the weather guy would have said the word beer instead of soda, you'd find most of The Cove looking up at the sky with their mouths open right about now...

It's coming down to the end! The Arcade is nearly complete! Since it appears that I have given up on the arcade blog, I'll post my pictures here.

Apparently I have a copyright infringement problem. Not only did the copy place refuse to print out Jimmy Neutron, but now I'm being told at work that some of the names I have named applications may be a copyright concern. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the software I code at work is used only for The Workplace and not sold to outside vendors then I should be able to name them whatever the heck I want right? As Group X would say, "WROONGGGG!" This irritates me slightly because half the fun of coding an application is naming it. Of course, I'm going to be creative so if I were to theoretically (or actually) develop a program to be used for weighing trucks on a scale, I might name it Libra Scales because Libra is a star constellation that is a balance scale. To me, that's creativity. To others it's copyright infringement.

Let me give you another example. Let's say a colleague and I were to develop from scratch a time clock and real time transaction system for The Workplace and we decided to give it a name. We might come up with a catchy acronym like CenTiUM (Centralized Time Unit Manager) but sorry, that could be copyright infringement. So now I have decided to be completely dull with my application naming conventions and create something like Dull Named Scale App. You think I'm kidding but the next beta version is going to be called that. People also didn't like my Libra dancing hedgehog...

So I've been pretty light on the blogging as of late, only because I've been spending so much time on The Arcade. I'm hoping to get it done by next weekend. It's looking mighty fine too. I'll post pictures shortly. Now it's back to work...

Have you seen the TV show Boston Legal? Not only does this show star James Spader (star of Stargate the movie) but it also includes such characters as William Shatner, Murphy Brown (I realize that is not her real name), and two fairly hot chicks. The camera man also has some sort of fetish with hands...I'm not quite sure why that is. Anywho, the show is hilarious and just down right diabolical. Although, what else would I expect from a show that begins it's title with Boston?

I can't remember the last time I just spent a weekend here at home. If I take a look back, it was definitely back in June sometime. Since then I have been to weddings, volleyball tournaments, camp, and then more tournaments and even more weddings. I am all weddinged out for the season, so please, no more! This coming weekend I'm just going to sit around the house and do nothing...Well okay maybe not nothing but it will be great to just not have to drive anywhere. Although with the price of gas these days it might not be too much longer before I can't afford to drive anywhere anyway. I'm sure Andy can counter, but I'm slowly thinking it is the government to blame for our increased gas prices. Don't get me wrong, I realize that prices in Europe are even higher than ours, but we do have our own reserve oil supply. Why we aren't threatening to use it is beyond me. I believe that our country probably uses the most gasoline out of any other country. Why people continue to buy SUVs is beyond me. The forever on-going GM Employee Discount still doesn't have me fooled to buy one. Let's take a vote, who thinks gas prices will hit $3.00 by the end of the summer? I'm talking national average here, not California prices.

This may just be the best performance piece I have ever seen! The readers of the younger generation may this video completely wacko and unintelligible, but I find it a true masterpiece! If you grew up playing old school Nintendo, you gotta check this out!

So this past weekend I went to the beach for another volleyball tournament. This wasn’t just any beach though; this was New Jersey beach. Point Pleasant to be exact. So the first thing is it just costs way too much money to go to the NJ beach. It was $20 a day to play in the tournament, $20 to join some volleyball AVP cult so you could pay the previous $20 to play each day, $12 a day to just park the car, and $6.50 just to step foot on the beach. As some people on the trip pointed out several times; it’s a public beach! Why do I need to pay to walk on public land?! In any event Steph felt her stay at NJ beach wasn’t going to be complete until she found a needle floating thru the ocean, but instead she found something much better…

Sunday was day two of the tournament. The weather was beautiful by the time we got to the beach. It was cloudy and not hot at all. By the time we were up to play, the clouds had vanished and the sun was beating down on us like a little kid on the drums. The sand was hot enough that we couldn’t stand in one place for two long or we’d start to burn the souls of our feet. By the end of the first match we were completely drenched in our sweat and just covered from head to toe with sand. The only logical solution to our condition was of course to jump in the ocean and just cool down. So we strolled down to the water, weaving in and out of the half million people there at the beach until we were knee deep in the Atlantic. A few feet ahead of me I saw white clouds of what at the time looked like foam on the water. Having spent many a vacation at the beach, I was used to foamy waters. However once I found myself swimming in the so called foam I realized that this white haze was rather hard in nature. It felt like floating pebbles everywhere. At the time I thought, “Huh, floating pebbles. That’s something I’ve never seen before.”

So there I was half bathing in the ocean. I was brushing the sand off of me, cleaning the sand out of my hair and shaking my swimsuit out underwater so that darn sand would stop scratching that area down there. At that time I noticed Steph and I were the only ones “swimming” in this pebbly area (which was quite unavoidable if you wanted to be in water deeper than your waist). Everyone else was back were the waves were breaking or out way far where the lifeguards were signaling them in. Once Steph and I were cooled down and free of sand, we headed back to the shore. Once out of the water I looked down at my arms and saw little clear gel balls about the size of a dime with small black centers all over my arm. I quickly realized we weren’t swimming in floating pebbles, but a baby boom of baby jellies!

Have you ever seen the movie Stand By Me? It’s about 4 young boys who leave home in search for some great adventure. Well there’s a scene where these boy come across a small lagoon on their journey, and the only way to get to the other side is to wade thru it. The lagoon is about chest deep and the boys strip down to their underwear to cross. Then as they begin to step up onto the shore on the other side they look down to discover leeches all over their body! They start flipping out grabbing the leeches and throwing them to the ground sadistically. Then one of the boys stretches his underwear elastic to look down at his “goods.” He reaches his hand down there and when he pulls it out his hand is covered in blood. The boy’s eyes cross and he passes out there on the spot.

This was what was going thru my mind the instant I looked down my shorts and saw the baby jellies everywhere! I turned to Steph and said, “Ahhhh! They’re all down my shorts!” Steph took a gander down her bathing suit top to see baby jellies all over. She started flipping out just like the boys in the movie and made a mad dash for the public showers. I headed off for the nearest hose and rinsed myself down with a sour look on my face. It was after showering that we decided we’d avoid the ocean water for the remainder of the trip and just suffer the effects of the intense heat and burning feet. Ugggg…Baby jellies…

One might ask himself, if he were to awake in the AM at 4 o'clock, why would he still be awake come 11 o'clock in the PM? That is the very question I am asking myself right now. Should I be tired?

Also for those of you who have inquiring minds regarding the time of day of my blog entries, sometimes you just need to write when the time is right. Posting however is always done outside of The Workplace. The time merely reflects the instant I reflect. Does that sound like a Yogi Berra-ism or what?

And as an even sider note, for those of you cogitating about my "bland" topics, keep in mind the title of my blog.

Everyday I pass thru a small town on my way to work with two churches that always have different Godly sayings on their welcome signs. Usually these sayings change every month or so and often they are quite interesting to read. This month’s one sign though hit me a little more harshly than usual. The statement the church’s signed displayed was this:

Big Bang theory? Yeah right! –God

Obviously the sign is insinuating that God would make such a statement. It would also then imply that to believe such a theory would not only be foolish, but also unchristian-like.

It has always amazed me at how un-welcoming and un-accepting churches can be. I understand that for the church to remain strong it needs a solid foundation. This is very understandable, but let’s not forget what that foundation actually is. And it is NOT how the universe was created. As an enthusiast of such theories as Big Bang and String, and as a strong Christian I find the church’s sign highly offensive and rather insulting. Its implications that my belief in science undermines my religious sanctions are completely unorthodox and demeaning. Whether these theories are in fact truth or mere “creative writing” is beside the point. The church needs to wake up from its closed minded sanctuary and embrace her people in a matter that invites us to pursue what Truth really is, and how to acknowledge what is the Will of God.