Friday, July 28, 2006

I CAN'T RESIST!

Grammar Nuance of the Day.

Joe's instructions were vague, but Sally's were more vague, right?! Nope, it's actually vaguer. I never would have guessed that. I haven't experienced such a personal grammar crisis since the "apparatuses" debacle of 2002!

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

I'm Wide Awake, But It's Not Morning.

Last night was one of those oh-so-annoying nights where I woke up in the middle of the night and felt wide awake - somewhere in the ballpark of 4 a.m. After a long time (An hour? But it always seems like longer), I figured "Hey, I should just get up and go to work; I have to be there early today anyway."

Then, of course, I realized I had fallen back asleep at some point, probably for only a few minutes, and my alarm was now going off. Time to get up...

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

How NOT to Merge with Traffic.

You’re on a two-lane-on-ramp about to merge with freeway traffic. You have been on this ramp numerous times before, though, and know that at the end of the ramp, only the left lane will actually merge with the freeway. Invariably, though, a swarm of social miscreants will break out of the long left lane of traffic, into the right lane, to weasel their way back into the left lane much further down the road.

Now, I see this all too often, and honestly, it’s not the end of the world. Some people are just massively impatient, and hey, we’re never going to see them again, right? We’re talking about public roads, and there you see a lot of things that are annoying that you can do nothing about, because you’re in public.

Then there’s work, which is not a public place. In fact, at my workplace, you have to show a sophisticated ID to get in, which indicates that the government has given you the “okay” to enter the facility. At the entrance to my workplace, there are 3 lanes of traffic inbound in the morning: the left lane only turns left to reach the west side of the plant, and the middle and right lanes which go into the main plant entrance.

So the middle and right lanes are backed up a quarter mile or so, and you’re impatient. You decide to break out of the middle lane, into the left lane, and actually have the audacity to drive up to the front of the line to merge with the middle lane. Predictably, now you’re sitting in the left lane, pissing me off since I have to turn left, and pissing off everyone in the middle lane because they know you WORK HERE, and you’re just an impatient snob who wasn’t willing to wait in line like everyone else; there’s no “oops, I didn’t know” card that you can play on a public road. Those in the middle lane don’t want to let you in, and I wouldn’t want to let you in, and now you’ve successfully broadcasted your improper and massively rude driving habits to hundreds of coworkers. Congratulations! Your coworkers just lost respect for you. But you’re going to beat them into the office, so you…um…win?

And that, my friends, is how NOT to merge with traffic.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

"Black Holes and Revelations."

If you're looking for some new music, I recommend the new Muse CD, Black Holes and Revelations. I first heard Muse at the cochlea Music Festival in 2004, and was blown away by their live show. So blown away, in fact, that the first stop I made after the Festival was a music store to buy Absolution. That album is good, but moderate amount of repetitiveness prevent it from being one of those albums that I listen to on endless loops in my car for weeks at a time.

That has changed with BH&R. The opening track maintains the typical Muse "bombastic opener" requirement, and sets the stage for a swooping, epic 40 minutes of rock n' roll. If you're feeling squirrel and want a sampler, my current top 3 are "Starlight," "Assassin," and "City of Delusion." The album is excellent as a cohesive whole, though, and is currently on spin number 10 or so since I bought it last week.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Two Quick Rants.

From CNN.com...

-President Bush used the "'s' word" yesterday! My God, it's like, the end of the world! This really merits front-page material, and should occupy two out of the four video spots! Grow up, people.

-"Barbaro's fight for survival"? Still? Look, this was initially a heart-warming blurb about the process of saving a famous horse, but enough already.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Almost Comical.

Seriously!

I'm Melting!!!

It’s so hot that I hop in the oven to cool off.

It’s so hot that the temperature gauge on my car says “HELP!”

It’s so hot that Satan called to see if we could hang out.

Any other good ones you guys can think of?

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Good News for the Clean-Car Obsessed!

We all know that Zaino produces the best car polish in the world (this is probably where you glaze over and hit that 'x' in the upper-right-hand corner if you have no clue what I'm talking about), but for those of us that wash our car at least once a week, it gets tiresome spending big bucks on Zaino's car wash soap, which is very expensive for a pretty small bottle. Over the last couple years, I have determined that the polish is irreplaceable, but figured there must be a worthy alternative for the soap; after all, it's just soap, albeit a formula that's not so harsh as to remove all polish and wax (like Dawn will, or most of the soap used in any public car wash, etc.). Today, I bit the bullet and tried Meguiar's Gold Class soap, purchased from Target in a massive jug, and gave it a whirl. The jug indicated that the soap would not remove car wash polish, but I was skeptical until now. I just finished washing my car, and I'm happy to report that the Meguiar's soap performed identically to my typical Zaino Z-7.

The moment of zen here, of course, is the cost savings. A 16 fluid ounce bottle of Z-7 is $9, and the Meguiar's I used tonight was $11 for 128 fluid ounces. That translates to getting 654% more Meguiar's for the money. Additionally, an unexpected (and a little strange) benefit of the Meguiar's is that is doesn't smell as good as the Zaino soap. Z-7 smells delicious, and bugs think so too, so those little bastards typically attack my car while I'm drying it. No such problem with the Meguiar's, which smells like "soap."

If you're wallet is growing ever-lighter due to your prolific consumption of car wash soap, but you want "good stuff," Scatterbrain recommends Meguiar's Gold Class. You'll be happy with the results.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Hot.

The past couple days, it's been hot. Swelteringly, blisteringly, brutally hot. This is how tennis looked tonight:



















It's a good thing that global warming isn't a problem. Oh, wait...

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

When You Think You've Seen Everything...

Oh. My. God.

Can anyone give me a word that means "ridiculous times 843 million"? In the meantime, I might have to declare that as the mostest ridiculousest lawsuit I've ever seen.

The Whirlwind Tour...

Before the ceremony (what fine young men):














Afterward, kissing my beautiful bride:




















The reception - beat this party!














The Honeymoon - tropical paradise.




















Life is good...

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Finally.

I almost forgot to mention -- I am now a member of the iPod army, thanks to a few of my groomsmen. Tonight is my first night using it (while cleaning the bathroom and other joyous chores - you've got to love it), but my first overall comment is that if I were strapped with cash, I'd buy one once a day just to have the pleasure of unwrapping it. Many friends and I have debated whether Apple is a "technology company" or "marketing company," but let me say regardless of which side you stand on, the iPod packaging is amazing. I almost didn't want to open it since it was so elegantly crammed into its small, sleek box.

I'm already feeling the urge to rip every one of my albums into mp3s. I think I have a new project coming up when I'm finished with school...

Tonight I listened to The Cure - The Cure, Alice in Chains - Live, and Tool - Undertow.

Happy Happy Happy.

The title is sufficient to describe my general sentiment right now. The wedding was awesome, the honeymoon was awesome, and now my wife and I are returning to planet Earth, which, frankly, sucks. I'd like to stay on vacation for a while longer.

We're still waiting on our wedding pictures (which will be awesome - I guarantee it); a few of them will make it here eventually. In the meantime, feel free to check out my friend Robby's hilarious third-person blog entry.

Otherwise, I'll get back to writing entries here is short order, hopefully.