Saturday, March 31, 2007

Defining "Bored"

So back when I was at Bezerkeley, I thought I never went out. I mean, what did I do? Go to BCR? Occasionally parties down at Chilton? Sometimes I was out with Candace's co-workers. But pretty low-key. I thought I never did anything.

When I moved home last May I thought: "Wow! So at Berkeley i went out a lot! This must be what doing nothing's like!" I mean, what did I do? Spend most weekends with Candace and sometimes get drunk with Eric? Not terribly exciting. Which isn't to say I wasn't happy! On the contrary, I can think of fewer times in my life that I was happier than last fall. I just thought I didn't do much.

But now, oh now, I realize just how much I used to go out. Now I find myself re-defining boredom on an almost daily basis. I do absolutely nothing these days. Just how bored am I? Well, I'm filling out MySpace surveys, so that should clue in anyone who knows me at all how bored. But there's something worse: I sit at home and I'm bored of reading comic books and playing video games!

I pretty much went to college just to sit in my apartment and read comic books and play video games! And now I don't want to! Ugh! Then I watch the Lakers get womped by every team out there and I think that everything that I used to enjoy is being taken from me!

I need to get out more; I need to do something...

Well, I have a plan, dammit! And let's just hope The Reva was right when I talked to her a month ago...

Friday, March 30, 2007

Lakers Update

So, I'm watching the Lakers play the Houston Rockets and I'm thinking:

Yao Ming is really, really ugly.

I feel bad thinking this, 'casue I'm not one to speak, but damn. I mean, he doesn't look bad in the picture, but on television, it's just... ugly.

Damn.

Traffic Sucks

It's really saying something when I choose to take the 91 Freeway over the I-15.

It's worse when the 91 has the best traffic my entire drive home.

Maybe God's trying to tell me I should move.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Many, Many Updates

Wow, that's a lot of updates today! Yikes! Yeah, I was pretty bored at work today, and had to fight the strong urges to do those evil MySpace surveys. God save me when this weekend comes... Anyway, make sure you scroll down and see all the cool things I posted!

How Embarrassing...

State Senator Abel Maldonado is proposing a toll-free number for people to call to report.....

CARPOOL LANE ABUSE!

Yes folks, because when I think of the most important things facing my great state of California, what do I think of? People abusing the carpool lane. Good God. Hey, it oculd be worse, he could try to tell me what kind of light bulbs to use.

By the way, no, that is definitely NOT me and Candace precinct walking for Abel. Must be some kind of conspiracy.

*Sigh* I'm so ashamed.

Strangest Story Ever

My favorite author Mark Steyn shows me the story that keeps getting better:

It starts:
A man charged with deliberately spreading HIV allegedly tricked his lover - who had registered himself with the local council as a dog - into having unsafe sex on the basis he could not transmit the disease.
Let's take this one phrase at a time: First, a man is charged with intentionally spreading HIV - a fairly disgusting charge to begin with -but he " tricked his lover - who had registered himself with the local council as a dog." Wow. This story is already bizarre. So HIV guy's lover registered himself as a dog??? Can I do that? I would love to be a freakin' dog! Second"with the council"? What council? I really don't know. And finally, some idiot believed that someone HIV positive couldn't transmit the disease? What kind of strange concoction of a story must that have been? But let's continue:
Melbourne Magistrates Court heard yesterday that Michael Neal, 48, accepted a dog tag from his lover as a "sign of commitment" in their master-slave relationship.
Kinky? Yes. But it's a sad day indeed when the above is the most normal sentence in the whole damn story.
[He] allegedly "deliberately contracted" HIV by having sex on the altar of a Catholic Church with two men he knew were HIV-positive.
First, read that statement a few more times, and let it sink in.

..
..

Ok. Now, this guy is seriously messed up in the head.

The witness yesterday told the court he was in love with Mr. Neal.

"I was pretty much besotted by him and under his spell, which made me very gullible and stupid," the man's statement said.

Indeed. The story goes on, and I swear it's not by The Onion; I mean, I know it's a messed up story, but I just can't read it and not freakin' laugh.

Bush Jokes

I quite enjoyed reading President Bush's remarks from the Radio and Television Correspondants' Annual Dinner. Agree or disagree with his politics, there were some funny lines there. Among my favorites:

  • A year ago, my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my Vice President had shot someone. (Laughter and applause.) Ahhh, those were the good old days."
  • "I have to admit we really blew the way we let those attorneys go. You know you botched it when people sympathize with lawyers."
  • "Considering what's next -- President Clinton, of course, wrote a very successful presidential memoir, with 10,000 pages or something. (Laughter.) I'm thinking of something really fun and creative for mine -- you know, maybe a pop-up book."
  • "[I]t's good to see Speaker Pelosi tonight. (Laughter.) Well, some have wondered how the two of us would get along. Some say she's bossy, she's opinionated, she's not to be crossed. Hey, I get along with my mother."
Most touching to me though were his comments of sympathy and good wishes not just for Tony Snow, but also for Elizabeth Edwards:

"Someone who is not here tonight is Tony Snow. (Applause.) When Tony called me and told me the outcome of his surgery, my heart just sank. But I know Tony is a fighter. And, Tony, we're all looking forward to the day when you come back to the White House. (Applause.) Last week we all heard the news about Elizabeth Edwards, and again, your heart just sinks for what she and her family faces."
A real class act I say.

And speaking of Mr. Snow and Mrs. Edwards, NRO points to some websites to send your good wishes.

South Park

Now, I haven't watched the infamous show in a long while, though I'm a huge fan, but I read a strange synopsis of their most recent episode and how to ask:

Has South Park jumped the Shark?

I hate to say this, because I love the show so much, but reading about last night's episode I couldn't help but wonder: WTF? It sounds wierder than a Family Guy episode, and less funny. I'm not sure what it is: Perhaps any show which focuses on Hillary Clinton's genitalia is... distressing to me; or maybe the odd way Cartman decides to pick on the Muslim kid, or perhaps I dislike the Queen killing herself. I dunno, but the whole things feels... wrong to me.

My caveat to all of this is that I think most South Park episodes sound ridiculously stupid - who would've thought my favorite episode would involve a talking towel that gets high all the time? - so maybe it's just one of those episodes you need to see to enjoy. I hope so. I would hate for South Park to start sucking.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

I Need a Life

I'm so bored recently I keep wanting to fill out those damnable MySpace surveys about "What's your favorite thing" and "When's the last time you did this" crap. I HATE those things. But I keep having desires to fill them out. I need to get out more.

*Sigh*

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Why I love Dogs, Part 2,394

Here.

Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, really is man's best friend — or in this case, woman's. Debbie Parkhurst, a 45-year-old jewelry artist who lives in Calvert, Md., says her dog Toby saved her life last week after she began to choke on a piece of apple by giving her the Heimlich maneuver, the Cecil Whig reported. Parkhurst was home alone Friday afternoon eating a snack of sliced apples when one became lodged in her windpipe. After smacking herself against a chair to dislodge it, she started beating herself on the chest, which she thinks alerted Toby to the problem. "The next think I know, Toby’s up on his hind feet and he’s got his front paws on my shoulders," she told the Cecil Whig. "He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest."

Even if cats were physically able to do that, they wouldn't. Of course, I don't think my dogs would save me either. One's too stpuid, one's too lazy, and the other is too easily distracted by pigeons outside. So I'm pretty screwed, but most people with normal dogs should be fine.

h/t NRO.

Movie Madness

So here are some movie notes for all you who care:

First, Transformers: Hugo Weaving appears to have been selected to voice Megatron. Weaving is best known for his roles in The Matrix movies (as Agent Smith) and in V for Vendetta. I personally was hoping for David Kaye, whose voiced Megatron on the Transformers cartoon shows since the mid-90s show Beast Wars, but hey, I won't be complaining about this.

Then Iron Man: Many don't know that Marvel's armored avenger is set to be in his own live action movie coming out in 2008. Strangely enough, it looks good. Among its cast are Robert Downey Jr., Gweneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard and Jeff Bridges. Now, Marvel has had some poor choices in casting in the past (see: Daredevil), but these all seem like good moves! I'm actually pretty excited about this movie. It's the most promising sounding franchise since Spider-Man, IMHO. Now I can't wait for an Avengers movie.

Kobe Bryant is a Beast

I was concerned there for a while about the Lakers. Shame on me. I should have known Kobe Bryant wouldn't let me down. His recent streak has brought the Lakers out of the free fall they were in and solidly in sixth place, where they will almost certainly be taking on the San Antonio Spurs in the first round. Tough match up, but we'll see. Kobe can do it. Know why I think that? Because he's the best player in the league. Period. Though he'll never be accepted as that. As ESPN's Jemele Hill says:
"Kobe can't please anyone... Kobe will never be forgiven for Shaq's departure... The shame of it is that Kobe might finish his career without a MVP, even though his ability can be compared only to that of Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain. All this time we've been looking for a player who is better than Jordan, but most of us can't get beyond whether we like or dislike Kobe as a person to recognize his contributions to the game."
How will the Lakers fare in the playoffs? Who knows; all I can say is that it'll be damn fun to watch. I hope the Lakers stay healthy enough to keep competitive. April come sooner...

Sunday, March 25, 2007

A Hard Week

As predicted, the last week at work was brutal. I travelled out near Glamis, CA to do some seismic refraction and resistivity work there. I worked 18 hours on Thursday, about 15 on Friday and got paid for 8 each day. Some days...

As if that wasn't irritating enough, I forgot my work boots at the office, so I was left destroying a pair of tennis shoes instead, so now I have to go back out and buy some shoes. And it rained on us, not that that stopped us from working straight through it. So now my legs are sore from swinging a 20-lb. sledge hammer, my hands are sore from pounding in 112 stakes into the ground, and my neck is sore from carrying a crap load of equipment.

Not a pleasant week, but at least it's over. Times like this, I wish I had a desk job...

Here's Another Reference No One Will Get...

But right now, I feel like Archangel in X-Factor #86 (during the X-Cutioner's Song). I know, no one cares. But I do, so it's ok.

One day, someone will get my references and I'll be elated. "Until that day..."

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Phone Service

Here's an interesting story I meant to tell you all about from a few weeks ago:

So I had The Reva's phone number saved into my phone from when we were at Cal together. A few months back I tried to call it, but got a wrong number. I figured she must have changed it when she went to Duke. So when I was planning on being in North Carolina, I emailed her and asked for her number so we could get together. She emailed me her number, and once I was in Durham I typed it into my phone and gave her a call. But when I dialed the number it came up as the same number I had saved. The Reva answered the phone, so I thought maybe there had just been a mixup when I had called the first time.

The next day I called again, but this time calling from the number saved into my phone, and AGAIN got a wrong number! But when I later manually re-dialed the EXACT SAME NUMBER I got The Reva.

Weird Shit.

Monday, March 19, 2007

See, This is Why...

I didn't want to have a MySpace account and/or blog. Twice now, I've decided to write something interesting on MySpace but feel compelled to share it with those who read here, but not there.

"But John," my rational voice cries, "why not just keep MySpace and dump this blog?" "Because Krista, I hate MySpace with the same ardor which I hate hippies with, so to sacrifice this Blogger account, run by my masters Google, would be borderline blasphemous. And it would be like the fifth time I've moved my blog. I have a hard enough time keeping readers to begin with.

Although, I must admit, Blogger and MySpace seem to both conspire against letting me stay signed in no matter how many times I hit the damn "Keep my Signed in" button.

FYI: "Krista" is in fact NOT a strange name I call myself when I speak in the third person (I'm weird, but not that weird), but rather a good friend of mine who often acts as my conscience and reins me in when I start to act stupid. Or she tries to anyway, often with mixed sucsess.

Oh, and this is my 50th post, can you believe it? Here's hoping for a bit more regular schedule for the next 50.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Tag

Over on my MySpace blog I answered a survey type thing. I usually don't do them, but I did, and if you are interested in the strange behaviors that I have check it out.

And I still hate MySpace.

Friday, March 16, 2007

The Week in Review

This has been a pretty good week for me:

  • Work was EASY! I've never worked in the field so much so easily. Two days in Aguanga, two in LA, and all four I was home by 3pm! It all evens out in the end, since I'll be working my ass off next week.
  • For whatever reason, I've woken up every day this week at 5:05am. No alarm, nothing. Just "Hey! I'm awake!" Kinda blows.
  • I caught up on my comic reading. Interesting stuff going down.
  • And the week will finish up with a D&D session and an official day to get drunk! Hoo-hah! Can't complain too much about that.
Well, have a Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

UPDATE: Bah! No D&D for me; it appears that the crapiness which next week is guaranteed to be begins early. Bah!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Pictures

So I've been searching through my pictures trying to find good ones of myself to put on MySpace, and have come to much difficulty (must... resist... urge to... make D&D reference...). It turns out that my whole life I thought i was photogenic, and I was wrong. I look like CRAP in pictures. And worse when I've been drinking! It's not like I just look drunk, which I wouldn't necessarily mind, it's that I often look like I'm faking a smile, when I know I'm not!

MySpace continues to frustrate me, even indirectly. (must... resist... urge to... scream... Khan...)

So I suppose if anyone has coolio pictures of me, let me know. Which is to say, pictures that I look decent in.

Or, you know, if anyone wants to hang out with me and take new pictures, that would be cool too.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Adorableness

I saw this commercial a few weeks ago. It is without question one of the most adorable commercails I have ever seen. If you don't say "Aww" when watching it, then you have no heart.

Seriously.

I think the last scene is what is really the clincher for me.

Nerd Sensory Overload

In my life I think I've met one person who would appreciate what I am about to say nearly as much as I do. Ironically, he wasn't even really my friend...

The Avengers and The Transformers are having a crossover.

And it's going to be in continuity - for both series.

To paraphrase Xykon: I think I just had a nerdgasm.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Mr. Barclay

No no, probably not the one you're thinking of.

While on my trek back east I also took the opportunity to read a book besides Mark Steyn's latest. This was a book by one William Barclay on the subject of The Lord's Prayer. Mr. Barclay has written a series of books which examine the New Testament, many common prayers and other religious-related items. I find the books to be very interesting as a lay person who doesn't know much beyond what basic Catechism teaches. Barclay takes each verse or story and delves into what the words are truly trying to say, often coming up with multiple answers. He looks at the Greek or Latin origins of different words, how different translations present words, and the impact that the differences makes. He also looks at the historical and cultural perspectives, showing why certain phrases, which we often take for granted, would have had a much more profound impact on the audiences of Jesus' time.

While the books certainly won't impress a true theologian, for those like me, who are just looking for a little deeper understanding of the faith, they can be extremely helpful, allowing us to ask questions about our lives that we may not have thought of. I highly reccomend the books to everyone. I've thus far read three: The Gospel of John; the Gospel of Luke and the aforementioned book on The Lord's Prayer. His books can be purchased here.



A Bookeeping Note: I (finally) fixed the link to Candace's Blog. So for those of you who kept wondering why the link was broken, no, I wasn't smiting Candace, I was just being lazy. Typical, I know. Anywhoo, it's fixed now.

America Alone

Ah, Mark Steyn, how I do love thee. For those who don't know, Steyn is a conservative columnist that specializes in humor. Think Jonah Goldberg, but smarter (not that Jonah isn't smart!). Anyway, he has a (kinda) new book out titled America Alone that looks at the changing demographics of Europe (and Japan) and discusses the implications of those changes in regard to the War on Terror, and western civilization more generally.

The basic thesis is this: The Secularized West is having fewer and fewer kids and a greater number of deeply religious Muslim immigrants. Within a few decades many western European countries will have a majority of Muslims living in them; this will have disastrous effects upon the West as a whole.

The sheer demographics are frightening and impossible to deny. Fertility rates have dropped massively in Europe (and to a lesser degree in the US) and the only reason population hasn't dropped in those countries yet is because of large immigration. Imagine: France without the French! While that might sound nice in theory, when the French are being replaced with poor, uneducated, pre-Enlightenment Muslims, problems can arise. In this scenario, the Danish Cartoon controversy and the French riots two years ago were just the opening shots in a cultural war which dwarfs anything we've seen thus far.

Why is it that Muslim immigrants can cause such problems? Primarily because the West has embraced the philosophy of multiculturalism, where no ideology is too radical to condemn. Thus, imams are free to preach hatred to their worshippers, radicalizing a large segment of the population. This, combines with the lack of a strong economy encourages fanaticism.

It is a very interesting book, and I highly recommend it to anyone (like me) interested in this sort of thing. Steyn argues that the West is voluntarily killing itself, and wonders whether we have the will to correct this. He's skeptical. Me too, though I guess one shouldn't give up hope.

As Rattrap always says: "We're all gonna die."

Friday, March 09, 2007

MySpace, Revisited

You know what I hate? I mean, what really irritates the crap out of me? When I email or ask someone(s) for their opinions, and they ignore me. Come on people, when I ask a question, ANSWER ME!

So, by the excessively high vote count of 2-1, I've chosen to keep my MySpace account. What I am going to do with it (once I figure out how the damn thing works; some people make it look easy, and I really don't know if I care enough to reall learn) is to use the blog to post what I update. What will I update? Mostly random shit, a few pictures and differing music. I like a bit of a wierd mix, so I'm going to be changing the song posted on my MySpace page fairly regularly, and talking about the songs I post.

Of course, naturally, as I decide to do this I find out that loading songs on your MySpace page is a pain in the ass...

*Sigh* Nothing's ever simple these days.

Oh, and for you astute viewers: Yes, I did read "America Alone" by Mark Steyn. Yes, it kicks all kinds of ass, and everyone should be rightly horrified about the implications discussed in the book, and yes, I'm going to discuss it at greater lengths right on this blog, but no, not now. Now, I have to go Google damn HTML language so I can get pictures of my Heroes onto god-awful MySpace.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Return from Far, Far Away

Soooo....

I made it back from the East Coast in one piece. But just barely. The woman I sat next to on my final plane flight was so annoying I tried to decide if I could bust open the window just to escape her G0d-awful annoying laugh. Two nights later it still haunts me...

But Durham was great fun. I forget how much I enjoy spending time with The Reva. I was also going to say I relived my college days of drinking games, but then remembered that I didn't play drinking games in college. Ah well. So let me instead say that I played Beer Pong and Flip Cup. Though I greatly enjoyed the former, I was much better suited for the latter. I also got to see a UNC basketball star get his nose broken on TV. Heh. Blood spattering can be so cool sometimes.

I watched a lot of TV while I was away, as I always do on these trips, and this time got to enjoy watching Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Well, I almost enjoyed Jedi, until it got to the end, and they showed that stupid-ass Anakin kid from the prequels standing next to Obi-Wan and Yoda. I spent the next half hour cursing George Lucas all over again. I also watched quite a bit of CSI, including a two-parter directed by Quentin Tarantino. It had some typical Tarantino scenes, but was damn good. I would go into more detail, but that would involve talking about ants, and the last thing I want Candace to do is freak out about ants and go into a berzerker frenzy trying to eliminate all the ants that she thinks she sees. I've probably already said too much. Anyway, good episode.

Though I have more to say, about a book I bought, news and events, MySpace and Civil War (Candace, you'll be sad), my body is still on Eastern Time so I will instead finish my Perroni (Birra Superiore) and sign off.

Excelsior!