"My father was slaughtered by a six-fingered man."
What's up with those employee discount car deals? I know it was done because Ford and GM have been sucking balls, but it was initially set to expire on the 4th of July. Then it was extended to the beginning of August. Then Labor Day. Now October. Are American automotive companies in that big of a financial crisis? Have they not sold that many cars? Did they make way too many? I don't get it. I expect "limited time offers" to, you know, be for a limited time (so act fast!). If they keep this up any longer, people are going to expect such a deal each and every year. And it really messes with trading in a used car for a new car.

I also find it funny that foreign car manufacturers like Toyota have been raising their prices with little downside to their bottom line.

Links! Want some? It doesn't matter what you think; you're gettin' some anyway:

* Scientists explain the "Cheerio Effect": why floating things clump together. Doesn't explain why people piss in other people's Cheerios, however.

* The Office Bow of Death: how to make one using what you learned from watching reruns of MacGyver. Build and use at your own risk.

* Worked at Wal-Mart and somehow got fired? Exact revenge like this guy. It's a very long story, but funny as hell. Plus you learn a new German word!

* How to escape quicksand. You know, in case you find yourself crossing the Fire Swamp running away from Prince Humperdink's men. You're on your own when it comes to flame spurts and rodents of unusual size, however. (Best movie ever made.)

* George W's nicknames for people. Vladimir Putin should kick his ass.

* Condoms named after Clinton and Lewinsky. Not necessary if you do not have sexual relations with that woman. New job: mini tattoo artist
I have a spot on the side my right hand, just below where my pinky finger starts. It's no bigger than a freckle. It's been there since 5th grade. And it's graphite; a piece of a pencil tip that lodged into me when I attempted to smash a friend's bag lunch because his sandwich always looked like mush. I figured I'd try and make it look better. ;) But for some reason, he had a sharpened pencil in the bag, and it punctured my skin. It hurt a bit, and it bled for a short time. I remember rinsing my hands and trying to take the graphite out like it was a splinter or something. I also remember thinking I might die, because 5th graders aren't smart enough to know that pencils are made from loosely bonded carbon atoms instead of lead. And the worst part is that my fist never made it to the sandwich.

The above friend has a fingernail that splits after a certain length because of a bizarre fight he had with someone who would eventually become one of his better friends.

I kinda wish I had more little marks or imperfections like these to remind me of times gone by or people from my past. I have no interest in tattoos (what could I possibly want to embroider onto my skin forever?), and permanent scars aren't reminiscent of good times. Unless they exist because of some crazy plastic chair accident or a wonderful bout of drunken disorderly conduct. But small, barely visible markings? I could use more of those. Just a bunch of little ones, sort of like the stones on the ring my grandmother has that's encrusted with about 20 birthstones, each representing someone in the family tree after her. Yeah. That'd be cool.

So I think I'll hit the hardware store and pick up some crayons, a punching awl, and a plastic welding tool and see what I can do. May have to visit the liquor store first, though, and get something to numb the pain. :) Tuesday Funnies

TWO-MINUTE MANAGEMENT COURSE

Lesson One:

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit on my ass like you and do nothing?"

The eagle answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle, and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Management Lesson: To be sitting on your ass and doing nothing, you must be sitting very high up.

Lesson Two:

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy."

"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my manure droppings?" replied the bull. "They're packed with nutrients."

The turkey pecked at a lump of manure, found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. Finally after a fourth night, he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. Soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.

Management Lesson: Bull shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Lesson Three:

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was.

The dung was actually thawing him out. He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Management Lessons:
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

This ends your two-minute management course.

Hey, how's it going?
Not sure what I'll be doing this weekend. Nothing's planned. But since I already had my fill of nothing last weekend (which I thoroughly enjoyed despite the boredom), I'll have to come up with some things to do. Maybe a few tweaks on the site. Maybe make up some sleep I really need. Perhaps have a little better luck finding caches. I don't know. We'll see.

My mother runs several in-home businesses, including a spa-type place. Today, she got a hot tub supposedly for "business purposes." As if. Not sure if the whole thing is hooked up and running at this time, but maybe I'll spend my weekend in there and see how many times I can make my fingers look pruny. Woo.

My roommate-to-be has been sick all week, so I don't know what the status is on my apartment living situation. I'm pretty concerned that any places I have seen that might be good are now taken because she hasn't had the chance to look at them. And I need a place. Not having a place is not acceptable.

I'm thinking of calling Keene the Village of Mist, not to be confused with the Final Fantasy II (or IV if you're anal) version of the village with the same name, where the would-be hero Cecil is sent to deliver a package to said village only for the contents of the package to open and burn down the town, eradicating its citizens. (And the plot thickens! In my opinion, that game was the best SNES game ever created.) Keene is in a valley, and each time I go to work, there is an insane amount of fog. All the time. It's nuts. And while going through winding turns in foggy weather is one of my favorite pleasures on my way to work, there are a lot of things about my drive I do not enjoy:

-- There are very few passing opportunities, especially in the first 15 minutes of the drive.
-- On most days of the week, I find myself stuck behind a cement mixer or some other sort of construction vehicle that I can't go around.
-- Most typical passenger cars stick with the speed limit, not even going 5 mph over, even in clear dry weather.
-- When I get stuck behind a slow state trooper, I can't even pass it because he'll probably ticket me for going 5 MPH over the speed limit (although I drive 10 MPH the whole way in normal circumstances).
-- Slow drivers find a way to muster up speed when I get in a passing situation. Then they slow down again when I can no longer pass. That makes you an asshole, Sir.
-- The steep hills and winding turns are gonna really really suck once the snow and ice start coming into season. But for the time being, I do enjoy going 20 MPH over the speed limit on this small section of turns so I can get some g-force going. Rock.

On a somewhat related note, I noticed that I get four more MPG when I get an oil and filter change. I'm getting a fraction over 32 MPG at the moment. Yeah, you're jealous. That'll come in handy once Hurricane Rita is done breaking shit, sending gas prices through the roof again. New Orleans is drenched again because of it. I wonder if this Mother Nature's way of saying, "Move!" Either that or, "Oops, I meant to hit Texas last time."

I'm kinda upset that I'll probably never see a Hurricane Jerome. According to the National Hurricane Center, it would have to be the 35th tropical storm to threaten the Philippines region in 2005, 2009, and ever four years afterwards. Technically, it wouldn't be even called a hurricane, but a cyclone. Cyclone Jerome? Pfft. Maybe if we retire enough hurricane names -- a strong possibility since it seems God is angry with us and Mardi Gras celebrations -- I'd like to see "Jerome" make the North Atlantic list of names. You know that hurricane will be wearing gold chains and keeping its pimp hand strong along the Carolina coastline. There would even be a couple minor hurricanes following it -- its hoes, if you will -- trying to collect it some money. Yeah! You better recognize!

Want a new browser? You might as well because IE sucks and Firefox is flawed. Try Opera, since it's now free! Just don't expect everything to work properly and have all the plug-ins in the world available to you, because no one uses that browser except for me and two other people that I know of. Here comes a lot of nerd speak.
You may want to ignore this post and read the funnies below.

I don't seem to have any luck with nVidia-based stock cooling solutions on video cards. Each one I've had started giving me problems within six months. My latest and greatest prize is a Chaintech 6600GT, which is a great mainstream PCIe video card, and it's also one of the quietest brands of its species. However, there has been a lot of buzzing going on inside my computer case, and I was convinced it was my stock CPU HSF and I was ready to buy a Zalman fan to replace it. Once I actually opened the case to verify my uneducated hypothesis, it turns out that the fan on the video card was the thing that was preventing me from keeping my computer running throughout the night (it was keeping me awake!). I built my latest computer with the idea of making it not only as kick-ass as possible, but as quiet as possible: I don't want to be able to hear it when it's idle across the room on hardwood flooring. Not an easy task! And this latest development is completely unacceptable. Seriously, I could hear it over my oscillating fan that's five feet away, and my computer is more like 10-12 feet away.

I used some compressed air on it to no avail.

I then started looking for a third party cooling system to replace the card's fan with, and a lot of them are frickin' huge and take up multiple slots inside the case. I don't really want to resort to this sort of solution (although I may anyway, for an even greater noise reduction). I did some searching and read in a forum thread about a little software program that can toggle the fan speed on one's video card. Although it's made by Gainward (a very popular maker of nVidia cards), you don't need a Gainward card to run it. It took my loud-as-hell fan and made it barely audible when I'm doing typical home office 2D stuff. I haven't tried it out in some extreme 3D gaming (I'm sure the fan really revs up for such tasks), but since I like to crank up the sound and bask in the carnage and explosions on-screen, there's no way I'd hear the fan anyway.

The program itself is called EXPERTool. It's very simple and has the best price tag of all: free! And it spares you the effort of having to take off the old fan without damaging the card, remove all of that nasty paste shit under the heatsinks, and then bolt on a new space-consuming $30+ HSF. You're welcome. Tuesday Funnies
Be grateful. You have two for the price of one! Or the price of none, since these didn't actually cost anything. Whatever.

THE BEST IRISH JOKE

John O'Reilly hoisted his beer and said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, between the legs of me wife!" That won him the top prize at the pub for the best toast of the night! He went home and told his wife, Mary, "I won the prize for the best toast of the night."

She said, "Aye, did ye now. And what was your toast?"
John said, "Here's to spending the rest of me life, sitting in church beside me wife."
"Oh, that is very nice indeed, John!" Mary said.

The next day, Mary ran into one of John's drinking buddies on the street corner. The man chuckled leeringly and said, "John won the prize the other night at the pub with a toast about you, Mary."

She said, "Aye, he told me, and I was a bit surprised meself. You know, he's only been there twice in the last four years. Once he fell sleep, and the other time I had to pull him by the ears to make him come."

The Monkey

A guy walked into a bar with his pet monkey ordered a drink. While he was drinking, the monkey jumped all around the place. It grabbed some olives off
the bar and ate them, then grabbed some sliced limes and ate them. It jumped onto the pool table, took one of the billiard balls, stuck it in his mouth, and, to everyone's amazement, somehow swallowed it whole.

The bartender screamed at the guy, "Did you see what your monkey just did?"

The guy said, "No, what?"

"He just ate a billiard ball off my pool table - whole!"

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me," replied the guy, "he eats everything in sight, the little bastard. Sorry. I'll pay for the cue ball and stuff."
He finished his drink, paid his bar bill along with the stuff the monkey ate and walked out.

Two weeks later he came into the bar again along with his monkey. He ordered a drink and the monkey started running around the bar as before. While the
man was finishing his drink, the monkey found a maraschino cherry on the bar. He grabbed it, stuck it up his butt, then pulled it out and ate it. Then it
found a peanut. This, too he stuck up his butt, pulled it out and ate it.

The bartender was disgusted. "Did you see what your monkey did now?" he asked.

"No, what?" replied the guy.

"Well, he stuck a maraschino cherry up his butt, pulled it out and ate it. The same with a peanut!"

"Yeah, that doesn't surprise me." said the guy. "He still eats everything in sight, but ever since he had to pass that cue ball, he measures it first."

Today was a very "special" day.
I did not like waking up in darkness, as it is an omen of the winter weather that will soon blanket my lands and my people.

On my way to work, I scored my first road kill ever. Actually, it might be my second, since a chipmunk tried to juke and jive me a few years ago. But anyway, a crow came at my car perpendicular to the direction I was driving and it got to taste my windshield at 65 mph. It then rolled over the top of my car. It scared the hell out of me when it hit, but I didn't care enough to turn around and perform a Mortal Kombat finishing move (although some of the ones in the Bloodrayne series are pretty graphic, too). I forgot to look for it on my back from work, so I'm not sure if it lay decrepit on the side of the road, or if just got knocked the hell out, woke up a few hours later, and flew away. I tagged it pretty good; I don't think it was getting back up.

It's another Nascar race weekend in New Hampshire, and feeling a bit cheapened by finding locationless caches last week, I tried to complete the first part of the multi-cache I attempted last week but really couldn't because there was way too many people present. I was left alone in the woods this time, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. That's kinda sad. I couldn't find two of my last three traditional caches. Apparently, I have passed my geocaching prime and should retire from this hobby. It's unfortunate, too, because I had high hopes for me next year: to double my already doubled cache finds. Shouldn't be too much work given the exponential growth in hidden caches in the Keene area this summer. I'd like to hit some in other states, too.

I learned at work about a site that had... uh... blow-up farm animals for debauchery. They didn't know the site off-hand, but with my great searching skills, I found a couple for those who are interested... check out this cow with built-in mooing and this inflatable pig currently out-of-stock. I've heard there's also a sheep that bleats as well. So hot. Check out the reviews for those animals, too. I only bothered linking them because the reviews are so great. Yeah. That's it. Moving on...

Getting my ass handed to me in my money-based fantasy football league. Lost with the second highest score to the highest scoring team the first week, and I may end up with the lowest score this week. Woe is Jerome.

This is a neat little growing cube game that Jon sent me. You gotta place the objects in a certain sequence in order to... uh... I'm not sure what happens when you "win," but I'm told that you'll know if you have it right. Still trying to figure out the order. It could be a while.

In case you seek the opposite of growth -- say death by terrorism, for example -- you might want a bit of "insurance" from these guys. Like a stone
Lots of little personality quizzes on Blogthings.com. Most of them are shit, but some give me decent results.

My sexy Brazilian name is "Frangao Souza." I'm gonna start calling myself that. The chicks will be all over me. And they'll wonder why I'm pasty white instead of Latino.

And for those of you having trouble winning me over:

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to obedience and warmth.
In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored.
You'd like to your lover to think you are loyal and faithful... that you'll never change.
You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.
Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.
Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.
You think of marriage something you've always wanted... though you haven't really thought about it.
In this moment, you think of love as something you can get or discard anytime. You're feeling self centered.

Eh... it's not batting 1.000 with this result, but I'd say it's pretty close. I'm too distrustful of others for love to come and go as it pleases, for example.

There's a "What Does Your Birth Date Mean?" quiz that is completely incorrect about me. Strangely, I remember a birthday book roughly ten years ago that a friend of mine had that had me and her almost to a tee. It was pretty freaky.

There's also a "Who's Your Daddy" quiz where my end result came up to be Dick Cheney. Does that make me the antichrist? Two jobs and no rent has its advantages
Upon graduating Rensselaer, I found myself in serious debt. That's to be expected, though, since the place costs about $30,000 a year, but being one of the lucky few that didn't have a job waiting for me after getting my degree, it was a pretty scary situation. Hopping from side project to side project wasn't paying the bills, and neither was any sort of retail job I managed to get. I had to declare a forbearance on my loans for six months. Things took an even worse turn when my Honda Civic blew up on the highway. Oh yes, my financial failure in this game called life was overwhelming.

Despite owing so much money, I just noticed that I somehow managed to pay off 60% of the total amount I owed in the last 12 months! That's a lot of fucking money, and a very impressive amount given the shit I've had to go through and put up with since getting my diploma in the mail. To pay off one loan, I had to close a savings account and leave myself with a mere 10% of my net worth. With my supreme penny-pinching skills, it didn't suck too badly, though; and I'm sure I saved thousands of dollars in interest in the long run.

Give me another 30-60 days and I should have more money saved up than the amount I owe left in loans. You know how liberating that is? I don't think I can afford to bring my net worth down to almost zero again, though, but the idea that I could have all of it paid off after the holidays hit is just fantastic. Whee!

I still owe a lot of my money on my Civic's replacement, but with 0% APR, I have no reason to rush it. :) Know your enemy

Jon: whoa, I just saw a commercial for windows that have shades built inside
Me: yeah, those are neat
Jon: i wanted to buy some, and I don't have a need for windows
Me: "As we move into '92, still in a room without a view"
Jon: yes sir
Jon: you got to know you got to know you got to know
Me: rock
Jon: freedom .... yeah right
Me: yes i know my enemy
Me: they're the teachers that taught me to fight me
Jon: the elite
Me: compromise, conformity, assimiliation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
Me: i think
Jon: nice
Jon: good job
Me: all of which are american dreams
Me: i gotta play that now
Jon: I got no patience now
Me: so sick of complacance now
Me: complacence*
Jon: I got no patience now
Me: fight the war
Me: fuck the norm
Jon: uhm, bulls on pawade
Me: drop the hits like de la o
Me: or get the fuck off the commode
Jon: I'm watching Se7en... back when gwyneth paltrow was hot
Me: i need to break shit now
Jon: heh
Me: maybe throw a chair down a hallway
Jon: nice
Me: and plaster it up at the end of the year
Jon: you should smash your display
Jon: kick in a locked door
Me: we don't need the keys we'll break in
Me: i got a microwave i can toss
Jon: nice
Me: i wanna throw a tv threw the glass window of a cinderblock store
Jon: nothing like tossing a microwave
Me: better that than a salad
Jon: that might be the most beautiful sentence you've ever written
Me: salad?
Me: or cinderblocks?
Jon: cinderblocks
Me: hehe
Me: was wondering if you'd notice the awesomeness
Jon: of course
Me: weblog worthy?
Jon: of course
Jon: this whole conversation
Me: so it is written, so it shall be done

References include lyrics from such wonderful Rage Against the Machine songs as Know Your Enemy, Bulls on Parade, and Township Rebellion. References to throwing chairs... well, I guess you should have went to college with me. :) Woohoo!
I think I found a place to live, which is pretty cool, especially the whole "available now" feature. I found a couple places with waiting lists, but I figure the sooner I can move out, the better off I am. Or something. I'll have to show my roommate-to-be the place and see what she thinks and go from there. It's not a dump, but it's not like spending a night at the Ritz. It's good enough for me, though. It's only two or three minutes from work in a quiet outskirt of town.

Not much else to report this week, nor do I expect to have anything to say in the coming days. I might as well load you up with some links, right? I think most of these came from ilovebacon.com, while some were found by my own accord:

Talking smack in Halo. 12 MB embedded video. Pretty funny stuff. I'm taking "Drink your Ovaltine, Bitch" as my new taunt, since everyone else steals my lines.

Octopus eats sharks. A smaller video. Ranks up there with praying mantises that eat hummingbirds. Isn't nature cool?

This headline is in bad taste.

This picture is in bad taste, but it's work-safe.

I think we need to declare a state of emergency for this disaster.

You can't eat tigers in China, which must strangely taste like donkeys marinated in urine.

Seventeen recently ran an article for young girls to learn about their goods. I always wondered what the anus did... the more you know, huh?

All of this talk about feces and urine is making me hungry. Let's see what presents the fridge holds... Tuesday Funnies

WHY YOU NEVER QUESTION A DRUNK...

A woman was shopping at her local supermarket where she selected:

A half-gallon of 2% milk, a carton of eggs, a quart of orange juice, a head of romaine lettuce, a 2 lb. can of coffee and a 1 lb. package of bacon.

As she was unloading her items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind her watched as she placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up her purchases, the drunk calmly stated, "You must be single."

The woman was a bit startled by this proclamation, but she was intrigued by the man's intuition, since she was indeed single. She looked at her six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about her selections that could have tipped off the drunk to her marital status.

Curiosity getting the better of her, she said "Well, you know what, you're absolutely correct. But how on earth did you know that?"

The drunk replied, "Cause you're ugly."

Yay, another goal reached! Kinda.
Reach another goal today: I found three caches. Well, I found one cache, and the other two were locationless. I had three normal caches I wanted to find, but failed to find the first one at the NHTI campus in Concord because the GPS was telling me it was in the pond, and I didn't have my hip waders with me (nor do I own any, despite popular belief). I assume I punched the waypoint in wrong. The second cache was a micro-cache (my first! It was a film canister), which was pretty easy. The third was a multi-cache, where I had to go to a set of coordinates that had something that would tell me the coordinates of the cache itself. Unfortunately, it was along the side of the road and there was way way WAY too much traffic -- vehicles and joggers and cyclists -- for me to do any covert searching. So I couldn't really attempt this one.

I needed to find three caches to meet my goal for the summer, and only being able to find one of three really put a damper on my plans. So, I went and found a couple locationless caches in my town and called it a day. Locationless caches are very weird and I never heard of them until like last week. Essentially, you're given a place to find (like a water tower, a one-room schoolhouse, a tank statue, etc) and get a pic of your GPS at the site. The catch, though, is that you have to find such a place that no one else has logged. It makes it pretty challenging for some (people already tagged the obvious Franklin Pierce homesteads for the "where presidents grew up" cache), but some others are so friggin' easy that it's laughable. One such easy one is "find an American flag." There's a bunch in my town, and I pass at least eight going down Loudon Road on my way to work in Concord. The crazy thing about these locationless caches is that you can visit more than one flag pole and get credited with a find multiple times. As long as no one else has logged it, it's fair game.

I feel kinda cheap having to resort to flag hunting (and water tower hunting) to reach my goal, but given that today marks the four-year anniversary of the World Trade Center bombings, it feels appropriate. So enjoy the pic.

Ironically, it's the biggest and nicest flag in my town, yet it is at my least favorite place: in the Ford dealership's lot. TV is for the weak.
A lot of people at my new job are fascinated with my "I don't watch TV" stance. Makes for discussions around the water cooler a little awkward for them, I guess, because it negates all possibilities of small talk. Assuming we had a water cooler. Well, we did at one point, but a business copier took its place. Not that I'd talk around a water cooler anyway. Yelling at people a few cubes down is more fun anyway. But I digress.

I'm not sure why they try to diagnose me as if I have an illness, or treat me as if I'm deprived. I have a TV. I turn it on when I have breakfast and dinner and watch SportsCenter or The Weather Channel most times. But that's about the only time I watch it. I watch more TV when I visit people for a day then I do at my own house over the course of a week.

It all boils down to TV sucking. Shows have gotten so mindless and corporately sponsored that I'd get more mental activity if I jab a stick into my eye. The news is never good. "Reality TV" isn't real and pollutes the airwaves. Any sitcoms or dramas that might be worth watching often air too late or when I'm getting ready for bed. A lot of shows are taking a page from soap operas, where if you miss one episode, you're pretty much screwed for the rest of the season. And I've got better things to do with my very few hours between working and sleeping than to watch recorded dreck or play "catch up" with some mundane series.

I'm sure there's some sort of shadow issue involving dependency or addiction, too. I don't depend on anything; I can live without something, and I like it that way. I feel bad for those people that have to have their Dunkin' Donuts coffee or whatever, but that's another issue for another time.

Anyway, I like engaging stuff, and I find myself more thoroughly enjoying a Final Fantasy-like video game then I do sitting there on the couch for an hour. But I don't really have time for video games, either.

I do watch certain shows when they are in season and certain sports playoffs, so I'm not completely Amish. New Family Guy episode tomorrow. Woo. Wow, I completed something.
I made it through my archiving mess. Everything is up, more or less intact. There are a few broken images I'll have to go back and fix, probably a few coding fuck-ups, as well as some entries I have to (*gasp*) censor for the good of humanity. I also did some tweaking to the search function, though I'm not sure the changes are gonna stay. But I'm pretty much done with this. I don't really think many people will even go through my archives, so this might have all been for nothing, but whatever. It's there and it's done.

It would have been nice to fill in that three-year gap I have in my archives, but what can you do, you know? Big pimpin'
My teller totally wants me. I say "my" teller because she's the one that processes my transactions 90% of the time, if not more than that. There was a time maybe a year ago where she was always the one taking care of my business -- always! -- even though when going to the bank, she's one of three or four available tellers. It's pretty funny. I wonder what my odds would be in Vegas. She calls me by name when I'm next in line. Is this all coincidence? Nothing is coincidence when Silver Tongue J. Dogg strolls in looking to drop his Benjamins into his off-shore account! Or something.

Still, it's quite amusing. Quite the looker, too, so I'm not disappointed when my direct deposit doesn't ever kick in. ;) Now I wonder if she's always this cheery, or just to me? Or perhaps she doesn't actually have a central nervous system? Hmm... My sister used to work at that bank, I'll have to hit her up for information.

Football tonight! Woo! I could go so far back...
... with archiving posts, it's insane. While technically, this weblog originally started on January 31, 2001, I do have written entries as early as February of 1999! That's because I still have most of my old website projects. Looking back at some of the horrible HTML coding and reminiscing on my early college years is pretty neat.

In theory, I could have gone as far back as the Fall of 1996, which was my senior year of high school, back when I didn't have a computer, let alone know how to use Windows. I had an English class back then where we were required to keep a journal of our daily adventures and write whatever we wanted. We never had to read the entries out loud nor did the teacher read them, which was a very very good thing. My writing sucked and... well... reading what a 17- or 18-year old outcast has to think about can be pretty disturbing.

I credit that class for me starting a weblog in the first place, for I kept writing in a journal well into the summer after my freshman year of college (bet my roommies never knew!), even though that English class was one semester long. Then I became fascinated with this whole "World Wide Web" thing, taught myself HTML, and before you know it, I become a internet celebrity! Ok, maybe I haven't reached that point yet (unless you want to count some deceased Garbage internet circles).

Unfortunately, though, I threw out my seven or eight notebooks that consisted of written journal entries spanning a few years away. There was some pretty deep shit in there, and as much as I'd like to look back at them and read them (actually, I didn't enjoy it), I'd rather forget some of the moments than have someone learn about them. Not that I have any deep dark secrets, mind you (except for this one time where I killed a man in Reno ;)), but some things are better left private, you know? With maybe the exception of some trips and a few transition moments, it would have made for boring reading anyway. So you're not missing much.

It's getting "late," and since I gotta work tomorrow... see ya. Dreams are funny.
Someone at work had a dream with me in it. Well, not me per se, but supposedly she picked up a book titled Right-Wing Christianity for Dummies and in the inside cover, I autographed it to her. I didn't sign with my name, though, but with my very stylish "JG" signature that she seems quite partial to. Haha! She's glad it was just a dream, and that I haven't fallen to the "conservative dark side." Anti-Republicans unite!

I had a weird dream, too. It was essentially a better version of the movie Dude, Where's My Car?, which isn't saying much because that movie sucked ass. But anyway, the lost car was this white two-door hatchback car that kinda looked like those older Saabs, but it wasn't a Saab. I'm not sure what kind of car it was. About ten years ago, I had many adventures in such a car which belonged to someone who I was quite fond of and credit for a lot of my growing-up as a person. And I don't remember seeing the car since college, either. Hmmph. I emailed the person who owned the car that was in my dreams, so hopefully I'll learn what type of car it is. But if you have a vague idea as to what car I'm talking about, feel free to beat her to the punch and leave a comment below.

The dream didn't really end, since my alarm woke me up. It would have been funny if it kept going and it turned out that Doogie Houser stole my fucking car.

I rarely have dreams, and I find it funny that it would involve something I haven't seen in nearly a decade. Wouldn't be the first time, though. Tuesday Funnies
I get a lot of forwards at work, and I think each Tuesday, I will share one joke with you. Yay, a consistant theme! And something for you to look forward to each Tuesday! Aren't you excited? Anyway:

Dave Letterman's Top Ten Drawbacks To Working In A Cubicle

#10. Being told to 'Think outside the Box' when you're in a @#$%?*! box all day long.

#9. Not being able to check e-mail attachments without turning around to see who's behind you.

#8. Fabric cubicle walls do not offer much protection from any kind of gunfire.

#7. That nagging feeling that if you press the right button, you'll get a piece of cheese!

#6. Lack of roof rafters for the noose.

#5. The walls are too close together for the hammock to work right.

#4. 23 power cords, 1 outlet.

#3. Prison cells are not only bigger, they also have beds.

#2. When tours come through, you get lots of peanuts thrown at you...

And the Number 1 Drawback to Working in a Cubicle:

#1. You can't slam the door when you quit and walk out.

Feel free to copy and paste this and forward it to all of your buddies. Or better yet, direct them here and increase my readership! :D

I was gonna share another one today, but it didn't make it from my work inbox to my home inbox. Ho hum. Maybe next week. <insert crickets chirping sound here>
Labor Day weekend didn't turn out to be spectacular. I'd declare a do-over if I could, because it pretty much sucked.

There were a few things I wanted to accomplish, and I succeeded in none of them. And despite being in the company of others almost the whole weekend, I found myself to be very much alone. I'm not sure how that happened, but I was left to my own musings for way too long, way too many times. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the alone time, but it does have the side effect of giving me too much time to ponder my deep thoughts and come up with some hard realities. Pessimistic as I am, those conclusions are rarely happy ones. Once in a great while, someone may join me in my quest to see how long I can zone out, but I didn't expect most of those times to be with a 10-year-old boy who I've only had a handful of conversations with and who isn't related to me. I was somewhat similar to him at his age, though: silent and self-sustaining.

At least I wasn't alone and bored, which would have made this weekend not worth having at all.

It also didn't help that I managed to acquire a cold, I think from someone at work Friday. I was hoping to drink plenty of alcohol this weekend, but not in the form of NyQuil. Red NyQuil. That's good stuff. Put me to sleep for 11 hours last night.

There's another Jerome that works at my part-time job. I think there's a rule against having two Jerome's work at the same place in NH. Especially if they're both white. It was very weird for me to call someone else "Jerome." At least he doesn't work in my department, and he's part-time too, so I don't think I'll see him too often.

I spent a lot of time today putting up some old entries from the summer and fall of 2001 into the archives. It's a real bitch because it takes me about an hour or so publish each month. Assuming I have no plans this coming weekend (which is currently the case), I hope to have the whole archive thing completed in a week. Woo. Labor Day linkage.
I'm hoping I won't be around much for this Labor Day weekend, so here are some links to keep you occupied for a while:

In my quest to be a ninja, I learned of Hoffman III, which has a pretty funny "urban ninja" video on (go figure) his "videos" page. Awesome stuff.

How did this crash happen? Don't think about it too long or blood might shoot out of your nose.

Hopefully the above accident is less coincidental than this accident.

Missed Church? Download It to Your IPod. Because the power of Christ compels you. If you download it for free from a Napster-like site, will God smite you?

Rapex, the anti-rape condom. It's a bear trap for men and their evil penises of death! If you're gonna tap it, you better... uh... have health insurance.

Mantis is greater than hummingbird. That's what I have learned after reading that article. Serves them right for being able to fly with their wings going in either direction.

Whales can learn from each other. Personally, I'd rather see more bird-catching praying mantises. But then again, if it can shit on my car, I don't really need it being near it and alive at the same time.

How this kid got a D in science, I don't know.

I want this keyboard. Lighted changeable keys is so cool! A little pricier than your typical generic $10 keyboard, though.


I got these links from pretty much everywhere, because I'm thrifty like that. Don't want to put all of your eggs in basket, you know?