Sweating To The Surreal

In lieu of actual content, I ran across this video and wanted to post it for your consideration:




Please feel free to leave your "WTF?!?" comments after viewing.
I'm still scratching my head about this one as well.

Welcome Spring

Not that this past Winter was as rough as the previous 2 or 3 years, but at last it's over with and Spring has arrived.

Let's see I think the poem goes likes this:
"Spring has sprung, the grass has rizz,
I wonder where da flowers is?"

Anyway, I thought we should send Winter off and welcome Spring with a nice, mellow song by Louis Armstrong as he performs "What A Wonderful World"..... the Death Metal version.

(Not) Bathroom Humor

Over the course of the past weekend, I got to visit a bunch of different public restrooms.
Mostly at hotels, but also at the airport and a couple of restaurants.
Although they were different places and each one had a different "atmosphere" to it, one thing was common among all of them:
People who didn't flush after they were finished.

It's not just this past weekend either.
I'm seeing it happen practically everywhere I go to.... well, er... "go".

What is the frickin' deal with this?!?
Are people so proud of their 'work' that they feel compelled to share it with others?
Or have people just grown so lazy that something as simple, and DECENT, as flushing a toilet has become too much work for them?

Technology has advanced at an alarming rate in recent years; phones that fit in our pockets, televisions that are almost as thin as a deck of cards, and whole libraries of music that can be carried with you on a stick about the size of a piece of chewing gum just to name a few.
Some of it has been great and a real boon to modern society, while others have only made bad things happen faster and easier for people.
One thing that technology has brought us is the self-flushing toilet.

If people are so proud of their "performance art" that they wish to share it with the world, I think they should take a picture (after all, it lasts longer) and start their own "Poop Blog" so they can share it with the world.
Or if people have become so lazy that the simple act of pushing a button has become hard work, well now they have an even better excuse to not put out the effort.

With the economy in the "crapper", so to speak, I believe it would be in our best interests if the government were to fund installing these self-flushing toilets across America.
It would provide local jobs for people, thereby generating revenue, and make things a much more pleasant experience for people just trying to relieve themselves.

I hate using public restrooms as it is, but when you have the added 'bonus' of witnessing someone else's lunch from the day before, it makes me want to just set the place on fire to cleanse it.

Anyway, that's my 2-cent rant for the day.
You can go back to doing what you were doing before.
I'll be in the bathroom. Reading.

"We're Experiencing Techincal Difficulties"

UPDATE:
Yes, Hotness and I are officially married now.
I've been trying to post about it, but our satellite internet connection at the house has gone out and we don't know when it's going to be repaired. We are scheduling a technician to come out soon, but until they get there we do not have access to the interwebs.

As a result, there is no "wedding update with pictures" to post.
I'm using a friend's computer right now, just so ya'll wouldn't think I'd forgotten about you.

I promise to post as soon as I can and give the rundown on everything, but until then this "mini-post" will have to suffice.

Sorry for the delay. I'll try to get back soon.

So Yeah.... 2010. Yippee.

2009 has gone out with a whimper it seems.
It had it's ups-and-downs (mostly downs) but I really can't think of last year as being anything spectacular. Just another milestone on the road of life.

Oh sure, we got a new President. That was new and a high-point for the year.
Everybody was all excited to see fresh, new blood move into the White House and take command. But where's that enthusiasm now?

Hotness and I got engaged last year. Another high-point.
But with money being tight, we really can't have the wedding we'd been planning to have.

Two good friends and myself lost their jobs last year.
Luckily the two of them were able to find work and I *might* have something lined up soon, but still... losing your job isn't exactly the most exciting thing to experience with an economy in the toilet like it is.

No, 2009 will not be a memorable year for me other than to say "Oh yeah, THAT happened".

Now with 2010 upon us, I get to look forward to hitting the 40 year mark.

I do have a lot to be thankful for, actually.
I have some very amazing, supportive friends. I'm no longer working at a place I didn't enjoy being at. I'm going to get married soon. I still have a roof over my head.
But overall, I just don't feel all that excited about this new year.
Maybe it's the grey weather outside. Maybe it's that I've been sort of cooped up in the house a lot lately. I don't know.

I realize I'm only three days into it so far, and I should really give it a chance to prove itself.
But today... I just don't feel the love for it.

Stress Symptoms

I gotta take Hotness to the doctor today for an appointment.
She's been feeling under the weather, much more so than I was when I had the cold I just got over. We're hoping it's nothing to serious (as in the flu, or particularly H1N1) so we'll see.

Anyway, it got me to thinking about some stuff in my life right now and I thought I'd talk about them briefly.

Stress does a wicked number on your health in more ways than you can imagine.
When I was selling aquarium fish (many years ago) we always informed customers about the many factors that can cause stress in the fish tank environment and how to try and eliminate them for the overall health of the fish inside.

The same thing applies to us humans.
We have sources of stress on many, many different levels coming at us at all times.
Not all of it is bad, but constant repetitive stress can really wear you down after a while.

About 8 or 9 years ago I started having trouble with my sinuses. I wasn't having infections or anything like that, but I was having difficulty clearing my nose when I blew it into a tissue. It never seemed to work and only got worse as the years continued. I even went to the doctor to try and see what the problem was, but he couldn't determine a cause so it went on without any remedy.
Occasionally I'd take an over-the-counter allergy or sinus pill to help alleviate the symptoms, but they always returned.
At night, I'd have difficulty breathing and wouldn't get a full, restful night's sleep. In the morning I'd wake up barely able to breath through my nose and would spend a good portion of my morning trying to blow it out so I could breath a little.

I thought I may be allergic to the cat, but I never had been before and the symptoms never got drastically worse when I was around the cat.

Then, about 4 or 5 years ago I started having trouble with my stomach. At least once (and quite often twice) a week I'd have an upset stomach.
My tummy would cramp up and I'd have to go. It was not comfortable in the least.
The medical term for this would be called "irritable bowel syndrome". No real way to stop it, it just happens and people have to deal with it for the rest of their lives.

Well a funny thing has happened in the last couple of months.
I haven't had one instance of an 'irritable bowel' at all.
And around the middle of November my sinus started to clear up. I've been able to breath clearly at night, and when I blow my nose... it clears out the junk and I can breath.

What have I been doing in the last two months to make such an improvement to my health?
Nothing, quite literally.
I was laid off two months ago and in these past two months, my body has started to recover from stress I was subjecting it to at a job that I wasn't enjoying.

When my sinuses started acting up, I had just moved into "Will Call / shipping". I was there for about a year or two before moving into sales. Then in the last 4 or 5 years of being in sales and having to deal with customers, vendors, and even some co-workers my stomach started acting up.

When I was let go from my job, my tummy troubles ceased.... practically overnight.
My sinuses took a little while longer to start to clear, but they have been for the last 2 or 3 weeks and I can not only breath easier but I actually feel a lot better than I have in recent years.

You'd think that being unemployed would add more stress and make my body react even worse, but I've really been more relaxed than I ever have been in a long while.
I'm looking for work, but I'm only looking for things I seriously want to do. Not just the first thing that comes along.
I'm not about to subject myself anytime soon to the same stress levels I had been before.

Now, if I would just get my butt into the gym.........

Funniest Thing I've Seen All Week

This is pretty darn funny.
It's actually safe for work, although you might not want to watch it there.
Just thought I'd warn you first, but nothing to offend anyone really.

Are you ready?
Go here.




(Hint: You have to click the 'play' button more than once)

Beware Of No. 3

Sorry for the lack of posting.
I will try to rectify that soon, but in the meantime please enjoy this Public Service Announcement from BabyLove Diapers.





Heh heh heh... a "poo explosion"!

Breakdance Competition: Batman Vs. Joker

No real content today, just fluff.

Have fun with this bit of interactive YouTube fun:

Wall Of Sound

I mentioned earlier that I had acquired a 5.1 surround sound DVD player in trade for some work I did for a friend, so I thought I might talk a bit about that.

A buddy of mine recently upgraded from an older system to a newer, wireless surround sound with Blu-ray DVD system. (OoOoOo... fancy shmancy!)
He had recently gotten it and hooked it up, so his older system was still at the house.

He mentioned offhandedly that he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with the old system.
He didn't want to waste time trying to sell it, since it was older and probably couldn't get much for it, but he also didn't want to throw it away, as it still worked perfectly good.

I said, "Well if you want to get rid of it, I'd take it off your hands if that's okay."
He thought that'd be great, seeing as how I was already doing stuff for him and it would be a good trade.

So I packed it up and brought it home.
Along the way, I also picked up some new speaker wire. (The ones it came with were a bit damaged from his kittens playing with them)

I've never owned or set up a surround sound system before, and since I didn't have the directions that came with them I wanted to devote a whole day to work on getting it together.
My buddy Imperfect found the instruction manual online at the mfg'r's website, so I downloaded it in preparation of setting it up and read through it briefly to familiarize myself with it.

On Wednesday, Hotness worked from home and I had no other plans that day, so I picked that day to get working on taking apart my previous system and getting the new one hooked up.

I'm not going to go into details about the process ('cause it's pretty boring actually).
But I wanted to tell you what I had been using compared to what I have now.

I bought a Panasonic DVD player about 10 years ago. It was my first and only DVD player I purchased (for myself, at least).
I hooked it up to my home stereo and when Hotness and I would watch movies we had the "luxury" of listening to movies play in quadraphonic stereo (two stereo speakers + two TV speakers). This was the height of my sound system and has worked for us all this time.

I'd watched movies at friend's houses with better systems, but was still quite happy with my mediocre system.

I got done fixing the wires on the newer machine and hooked everything up. I turned it on and balanced the speakers.
Then I put in a DVD that I new had a lot of "sounds" so that I could see if I noticed much of a difference.

HOLY COW!!! What a difference indeed!
This new sound system is amazing compared to what we were using before.
There are so many little things we weren't hearing before when we watched movies.
I think we were only getting about 2/3 of the actual soundtrack at any given time.

I'm not an audiophile so I don't go around looking for the latest and greatest to try and get perfection for my ears.
But having used the set-up I had been for the last 10 or so years, I am very excited and happy to have this newer system to use.


In case you're interested, this is what I have now: SONY DAV-C770
It's gotten mediocre reviews, but I can honestly say that I have no complaints about it.
Now I'm going to have to re-watch all my DVDs so I can hear what I'd been missing all this time!

Pictures To Follow Soon

Hey there!
I haven't forgotten about you all.
I just didn't think anybody would be interested in hearing my daily unemployment status.
("Woke up. Applied for some jobs. Didn't get called. Went back to bed. Etc.... Repeat daily")

I've actually been keeping quite busy, so this break from work has been kind of pleasant to get caught up on a few things.

I've got some pictures to post, but I don't have them loaded on the computer yet. I'll try to do it tomorrow and get 'em up on here for you to see.

In the meantime, I thought I'd chime in to let you all know I'm still very much alive and kicking. Just not very "blog" active lately.
Actual content coming soon though.

Unemployed

Not a very "catchy" blog post title, but it does get right to the point don't it?

Anyway, like it says, I am now currently unemployed.

After 15 years of working for the same company, I was let go today due to economic conditions.

Basically, they couldn't afford to keep 5 salespeople on the payroll when there was really only enough work for 2-1/2. So, somebody had to go.

I've kind of seen it coming and was expecting it to happen right about now.

September was the last month of our fiscal year, and October was the beginning.

If layoffs were going to happen, it was going to be around this time.

I'm not looking forward to my unemployment status (who does, really?), but I'm not all that shaken up about it.

I expected it to happen for a while and if I'd been thinking "Well, it won't be me" I'd have just been thinking like an idiot.

Now it's like a weight has been taken off. I don't have to get up in the morning and wonder if it's going to be my last day or not. I just had my last day.

I promised when I started this blog that I wouldn't gripe about my work, and I think I've honored that.

I'm not going to start now, but I would like to get a few things out of my system.

I'd been there for 15 years. That's along time.

I could've gotten married, had a kid and have that kid in High School this year during the length of time I've been there.

One thing I've been asked alot is "What do I want to do?"

Honestly... I do not know.

What I do know, is that I don't want to work in the same industry anymore.

I'm tired of it. In fact, I never really liked it. But the pay was good and it let me afford my hobbies. I may not have been enjoying it, but I'm not going to rock the boat . That'd be foolish.

On the other hand, I haven't had that many different jobs. The ones I've had have been V-E-R-Y diverse, but I haven't had that many of them. And for the last 15 years, I've been doing the same thing.

Now I've got to go look for another job, and I'm pushing 40 while there are a whole slew of younger bucks out there fresh on the market. That doesn't seem too favorable for me.

I may have to suck it up and do what I know how to do, instead of something different.

We'll see. I'll be sure to keep you posted one way or the other.

One of the downsides is that while I may have had a 'customer / provider' relationship with people I dealt with on the phone, there were quite a few whom I was friends with.

I'm going to miss talking with them.

Luckily some of them have my personal email and I'll be able to keep contact with a few of them.

But not all of them.

On the plus side, I won't have to deal with the same old office beauracracy I've been dealing with these past years.

I get to look forward to a whole new one.

Also, I really didn't want to be there when I turned 40. Now I guess I got my wish.

Now that that's out of my system, I get to start all over.

Tomorrow I'm going into Redmond and Elwood is going to help me with my unemployment paperwork.

It sucks that I've had friends lose their jobs recently as well, but thankfully they can help me navigate this uncharted territory. I'm very appreciative for their help.

I got a pretty generous severance, so as long we tighten our belts and don't do anything stupid, we should be okay for a while.

I'm actually not too worked up about this.

..... and by the way, that stapler in the picture above is mine.

I bought it.

Nobody's keeping my red Swingline stapler!

NUDGE Music Maker

I've playing around with this for a few days.
It's kind of addictive.




You can pick and choose the particular notes you want to have play, or just drag your mouse over random spots and see what happens.
You can also change the tempo and volume for each "instrument", and you can speed up or slow the beats per minute. (or 'BPM' for you Ravers out there)

I wish there was a way to save your music.
If there is I haven't found out how to do it yet.

Oh Snap!

I've been "Kanye-fied!

The New Currency

Man, things still suck economically and there's no improvement on the foreseeable horizon.

In fact, check out this market report on the cost of cigarettes in prison:

Prison Economy Spirals As Price Of Pack Of Cigarettes Exceeds Two Hand Jobs


When will this insanity end?

Old Skool

You may not know it to look at me, but I actually do have a sense of style and can coordinate an outfit pretty well.
On a day-to-day basis, I tend to just wear whatever's at hand, though.

I've mentioned before that I buy Hotness's clothes for her.
I have a good idea of what looks good on her (colors and prints that she wouldn't normally pick out herself) and she doesn't like to go clothes shopping.
Since I know her sizes, I just do it for her so she can try them on at home.
I've had about a 97% success rate with the clothes I've gotten her. Not too bad.

Anyway, all that aside.
I also get clothes for my niece and my nephew.
Afterall, you can never be too young to be a fashionista.
I'm looking forward to school starting for both of them, so that maybe I can take them 'back-to-school' clothes shopping.

In the meantime, I picked up a nifty new T-shirt for my nephew.
I gotta point him in the right direction of geekology, and nothing says it better than some Old Skool sci-fi.


He's going to be a hit with ladies, I just know it.

(A special thanks goes out to the Maimed Man for his help. That coupon saved me a bundle on my order, dude!)

Instructions

For lunch today I had a half-sandwich and a Cup Noodles.

Making Cup Noodles is about as easy as it gets when it comes to making something to eat.

Just add hot water. That's it.

Even Ramen requires a *little* more effort, in that you not only have to add hot water but also open and distribute the seasoning packet.

So as I open my Cup Noodles, I notice there are microwave directions on the lid:

Well, okay. Not really directions but rather 'guidelines'.

But I was thinking, if all you have to do is add hot water, doesn't it stand to reason that the water could be heated up in a microwave or on a stove? Do they have to spell it out?

And if you were such a total cooking-retard that you nuked the container of noodles in the microwave anyway, then I'll guess you'd learn a valuable lesson... not to do it again.

Some people would call that "experience" and it helps us to make better choices later in life.

For instance: Today, 'Johnny the kitchen-retard' cooks his Cup Noodles in the microwave and now has a pile of melted styrofoam and wet noodles. Awwww.... poor Johnny!

Tomorrow however, he decides to heat up the water and pour it in the cup instead and voila!..... it's soup!

Johnny is now well on his way to being a productive member of society and is capable of cooking a romantic dinner of Cup Noodles for his sweety.

.... Or maybe I'm just thinking too much into this.

Migrant Worker Fantasy Camp

Those are cherries from one of the trees in my yard.

I planted them the year we moved in and every year I look forward to making a couple of pies (or whatever dessert crosses my fancy) out of the cherries that have ripened in the sun in front of my place.

This year I put up a bunch of 'bird deterrents' to keep the little buggers from eating all of them once they were ripe.

My neighbor commented that my yard sort looked like a landing strip with all the stuff I'd put out to flash in the sun and scare the birds.

So far, I've picked enough for at least two pies and there are still plenty more of them on the tree.

I was reminded of a comedian who had talked about his friend who went to an orchard and picked his own fruit. It made him want to start his own "migrant worker fantasy camp" and charge people for the experience of gathering their own food.

Okay... it was actually funnier when he talked about it. But that's what it reminded me of.

It's Okay.....

Wrong on so many levels, but still made me laugh this morning.

Interwebs

Last night Hotness got our satellite internet working again.
I un-installed the old modem and re-connected the new one, but that's as far as I was able to get it.
There were tests and serial numbers and all manner of information that was required to get the new modem working. None of which I had available to me.

So last night, after not having it for the past month, Hotness called the satellite internet people and they walked her through getting everything all up and running again.
YAY!!!

Now I can get back to downloading porn & music looking up recipes.