Miners

Now I know the above title will probably draw some search results from illiterate perverts, but I figure that even they should know about this too. The only surviving miner from the West Virginia coal mining accident from a couple of months ago is out of his coma and at home, relaxing with his wife a kids.

I think that saying that this man is very fortunate is kind of like saying France hasn't responded well to foreign invasions for the last hundred years: a drastic understatement. But let me just say that when something like this does happen in real life, that is, a person overcomes incredible odds and somehow makes it out all right, it kind of makes me think that somehow, no matter how well or how lousy my little life may be going, everything will work out, and that there are bigger forces at work in this world than my little pea brain can fathom anyways.

The news report speaks of it as a resurrection, which is timely considering the proximity to Easter. I'm sure that he realizes the value of his own life now much more than before. I pray that we all learn a lesson from these circumstances. Every day has value; every day is a new beginning. I hope we all can love to be alive again, even fleetingly, because life is a phenomal gift, and one that we should not take for granted as often as we do.

Merchant Account

The company that I work for sends out a newsletter periodically with updates for our business. Part of this newsletter is a classified page, where people from our company can sell stuff, look for someone to carpool with, or other things of that nature.

I was browsing this today, and I came across this ad:

Watercolor painting by Sample. Approximately 38 x 26 inches, frame approximately 45 x 32 inches. $50.00 Contact Silly Person-- sillyperson at yahoo.com.

Really? You really thought that the artist's name was sample? You believed this so much that you put it on the company website? Did you miss the day in grade school where they were teaching you to think in context?

While we are on the subject of online selling, and even though I know that it is asinine to talk about your other online experiences online, I recently signed up for a merchant account with ebay.

I think it's funny that they call them merchant accounts; the word feels so twelfth century. It seems that, with a merchant account, I should be selling racks of lamb, racks for holding alchemists potions, and the rack. Maybe I'll have my next item that I sell Olde Englishe themed. I'll make the title, "Who needs a rack!" Actually, I'd better not title it that; that will only leave the most likely viewers frustrated.

I currently have one item on there, and it's currently going for a little over eleven bucks, which isn't a whole lot, but I got it for free, so anything I make is like icing on a delicious cake of money.
Oh! I am also in the process of selling a dorm fridge on Craigslist. I am an online selling genius! Who needs the train full of money that I referenced in the last post? Soon I will be rich from selling second hand crap! It's beautiful, really, in a sad, pathetic, lonely little way.

Google and Adsense

Those bums on the floor above mine deal with more volatile issues than I do on a day to day basis, and so they have several televisions upstairs that always have the news on. As I walked by, they were saying that the stock price for Google would likely go up to $480 per share in a year's time.

Now for someone like me who has little investing acumen, this seems tremendous. For some reason, up until a couple months ago, I was under the impression that stocks got up to about ninety bucks or so, and then the company split the stocks to keep prices relatively low so that people could invest. I guess google doesn't want to do this. I suspect all of the people who are making money with Adsense are also the same people who have these stocks, and they are quite happy to light up their cigars with hundred dollar bills.

Good for them. Now if only there were some way for me to get stocks without actually buying them...I guess my only available option is some sort of train robbery, as they are making money by the train-full. Therefore, all I will need to do is find this train, and then get on board and take it. I wonder if it's the train that goes through down town...

Wife Swap

Does anybody else watch this show? I'm sure somebody else must, otherwise they wouldn't keep it on the air. I couldn't bring myself to watch it for a long time because I thought that they were swapping wives in the Biblical sense of the word, and I thought, as I was eating Goober Grape peanut butter and jelly with a Snickers bar, that that was too tasteless for me to watch. Fortunately, our culture still thinks that it's a bad idea to put adultery on as reality t.v, and so the actual version is a little more tame.

The premise is simple: a wife from one family lives for two weeks with another family, and the other family's wife goes to live with the first family. The first week, the new wife has to abide by the rules of the house she's living in, and the second week she gets to implement some new policies. This helps everyone to get a new perspective on life as well as feeling a little bit better about themselves.

But the catch is, in typical reality t.v. fashion, they choose the families that would be just about the worst fits for each other. In previous weeks, I have seen a family where the mother likes to flaunt her body move in with a very strictly conservative Christian home-schooling family, one where an environmental activist moves in with a family who loves hunting animals, and one where a mother whose family runs a freak show move in with a family that stresses looking good above all else.

What I don't get is how everybody on these shows gets so worked up during them. I mean, the only way you could not realize what was going to happen on this show is if you had never seen it, and if you are pig ignorant enough to believe that this show was just going to be a good time, you might be better suited for waiting in a sound proof room before coming onstage at the Jerry Springer show than for reality t.v. These people must be expecting this:

But what they more often get is this:

Oh well, at least it's fun to watch. Back to my candy bars and peanut butter.

Tom Jones

No, I'm not talking about the novel; I'm talking about the singer (who is apparently 65). Now, when I bring him up, you might say, "What's up, pussycat?", to which I would reply, "Whoa-oh-whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh."

At first I was surprised because of this, but then I realized that it's not unusual to be loved by anyone, even in this case the queen of England. After all, she's a lady; and apparently, the lady is Tom Jones's.

Hmm.

If anyone comes in the next few hours, I apologize; I seem to have broken my blog.

*Edit*: It looks like I fixed it. I tried to post something and it got caught halfway between being posted and not being posted. I posted the little jerk again, and then deleted it. I can do this because I am internet savvy.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Something That Scares the Excrement Out of Me

When I was in college, I was known to frequent a burrito establishment that provided me with delicious sustenance and was open 24 hours a day. I would go there late at night, get my California burrito with sour cream, and allow my mouth to water just long enough to stop at the 7-11 on the way back to the dorms. Why 7-11 you ask? I needed something to drink, and I got more drink for less money from 7-11. I tended to get a mixture of Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper in at least a Super Big Gulp if not a Double Gulp because it was just that delicious.

However, in order to imbibe the sweet, sweet nectar, I needed to pay for it first. The man who worked at 7-11 when I was in college had a shaved head, goatee, listened to heavy metal, and often wore sweatshirts that had the acronym "S. E. O. D.", which I came to find out meant "Speak English or Die."

Now, for part of the time that I was in college, I dated a young lady who was Mexican, and we would often go on these burrito runs together, and every time that we stopped to get a drink, I feared for her life (although apparently not enough to go to a different 7-11. What do you want? It was on the way.).

Flash forward to last night. I had been summoned by the gf who was working with a group of students at the college to provide refreshment in the form of burritos and soda. Naturally, this got me thinking about my college experience, and I was reminded of the man who worked at the 7-11. I wondered if he still worked there, and I hoped very much that he didn't.

Let me tell you something about myself; I weigh probably about two-fifty, have a goatee, a shaved head, and very blue eyes, so you would think that I, of all people, would have the least to worry about from this man. Nevertheless, when I pulled up to that 7-11, and saw him inside, I very nearly emptied the contents of my colon into my pants. I seriously considered just driving away, but as I pulled up, he made eye contact, and I thought that that would be weird for me to drive away after him seeing me. White supremacist or not, the man has feelings!

So I walk in, and the refrain of the song that he has playing on his stereo was something to the effect of, "Say hi to the final solution." All I can think is, "Did that song really say what I think it just said? Is everybody okay with that?"

However, fortunately, he was nice enough to me, though just gruff enough to make me wonder if he was upset that I hadn't been coming to the meetings. He even offered me a drink holder. I don't really care though; with any luck, I'll never go back to that place again, unless I am once again summoned for a food run, and then I guess I'll have to take one for the team, because apparently putting one's life on the line is what one does for the team. I would question how I got on this team, and what the team has ever done for me that I must take one for it, but I suspect that the team would not like me asking such questions.

An Open Letter to Politicians

Dear those running for public office,

Good for you! Congratulations! You have truly chosen a noble profession, and I hope that you find it fulfilling.

Now I need to get to the heart of the matter. Why is it that in your commercials, after the entire commercial has shown you speaking, you end it by saying, "This message is approved by [insert name of politician who has been speaking the whole time]"? Are you afraid that a you shaped automaton will say that your platform includes raising taxes and eating babies? Or are you disconcerted because you know that you like to hit the sauce a little too much, and you wouldn't put it past yourself to make a drunken campaign commercial about how your political ideal was embodied in the person of Randy "Duke" Cunningham? Or perhaps it's a little of both.

Now therefore, as these are the only two ideas that have presented themselves to me and as I have to go make a burrito run, you politicians must then either be Scientologists or raving alcoholics. If you are scientologists, shouldn't your platform be more about getting Tom Cruise to stop being such a crazy man? And if you are alcoholics, haven't you fallen asleep by this portion of the post?

In conclusion, it just seems to me that your talents would be spent in other areas that obviously mean more to you. I realize that this may be harsh, but it's better that you hear it from me now, than that you sit dejected on election night hearing that a robot you has just won the election on the baby eating platform. Take it from your old pal, AC, just follow your heart, and you'll be okay.

Love, your friend,

Analyst Catalyst

P.s.: If you're interested in a political candidate that I could actually get behind, go here.

An Unnamed Utility in Chicago

The above utility has a funny call-waiting system. It has a pre-recorded message about bill balances and payment plans, and then, suddenly, the line goes dead silent, and you assume that you are being transferred to a real person, but no, it is simply cutting to another pre-recorded message that says that all lines are busy and thank you for waiting.

It's funny because it does this three or four times in the course of your call. So three or four times I think that I am going to get helped, but then, three or four times, I just get another pre-recorded message.

I suspect that if you added a little fire and brimstone, this would be a lot like the lake of fire.

One Thousand

I am pleased to announce that according to the counter on the bottom of the page, I have recently passed a thousand page impressions. I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who reads and comments on this thing, as well as a big thank you to myself, as I am sure that many of the page impressions were me going to my own website: yes, I'm that lame.

Good night, and I hope everyone's Monday goes very well.

Something I Think We All Can Agree On

Why is it that some people put toilet paper into the holder facing away from the user? Are there people who really prefer it that way? And once they have seen what they have done, why do they leave it that way? Is it that much more effort to correct it right then and there?

I guess that these people at least are trying, as opposed to those who will go in, see that the roll is empty, bring a new roll in, and set it on the cardboard of the old roll.

The Super Bowl

This man, instead of reporting to jail on time, opted to go to a Super Bowl party, and, because of this, got his prison sentence increased by four and a half years. He says that even knowing what he knows now (i.e. that he would be regarding by most of the western world as a moron), he would have made the same decision.

Four and a half years of your life gone so that you can see your brother in the Super Bowl? Now me, for example, I really like football, my brother's in the NFL, and I am also soon to be bunk-mates with a three hundred pound man named Mookie (well, at least the first one on the list), but I don't think that I could make the trade-off. The dumb thing is that he was sentenced to time because of driving with an expired license. It just doesn't make economic sense; if he was going to go away for six consecutive life sentences, fine, it doesn't matter if they add four and a half years. It's like when you need two hundred bucks in cash for an expense that you have to pay right away, but you only have thirty in your savings account. You know that your bank will cover your overdraft, but they're going to charge you twenty-five bucks for the privilege. That kind of makes sense if you are in some kind of emergency, but what he did was like being in the same situation, and the bank saying that they'll do it, but they're going to kick you in the junk repeatedly for your efforts. I'm just sayin', that's not a good trade-off.

Cadbury Cream Eggs

I have been enjoying the occasional one of these the last couple of weeks, but the more I eat them, the more I get to wondering who exactly decided it was a good idea to model a candy after an egg? I mean, obviously it's an Easter candy, and obviously the point of Easter is to celebrate one of the monumental occurrences in all of human history (a fictitious bunny who apparently lays eggs), but seriously, was it really a good idea to model this candy after an egg, with yolk and all? It was for this very reason that I couldn't stand this candy when I was a kid; the commercials on tv grossed me the freak out when they showed the inside looking just like an egg's insides. That's like modeling a candy after a cow fetus (Ooh! Or a reindeer fetus! I'm gonna make that candy and patent it in time for Christmas! I'll make a bundle!)

But now, I love them. Mmm...Delicious.

The Apprentice

I was just searching to see what happened on the last episode of The Apprentice, and I learned that Brent (aka "The fat guy that I wanted to punch in a previous post") got fired by the Donald. I unfortunately missed the episode because I thought for a little while that going out and doing things with actual people was more important than staying at home and watching tv. I now understand the error of my ways. Please forgive me, oh purveyor of things reasonably entertaining.

In learning what happened in the last episode, I went to Brent's little section on the NBC Website, and it listed some of Brent's favorite things. But before we take a look at his favorite things, let's take a look at his picture.

Now, as far as a few of his favorite things, they include rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens, etc. Oh, and nuns. Don't forget the nuns.

In honesty, though, he lists dance music as his favorite type of music. Hmm...now I am not what you might call aerodynamically inclined, despite the fact that I am what you would call awesome at DDR for PS2, and by awesome I mean I do pretty well if it's not too fast or too hard. I, as most of us would have, would think that Brent would be facing similar dancing circumstances, but, with his favorite type of music being dance music, I would have to think that he must enjoy going out and dancing, but I would have to imagine that other people would not like his dancing as much as he likes to dance.

In his defense, at least it looks like he's having a good time in this fictional scenario.

But you know what? That's fine. Good for him. I'm glad that he likes dancing. I'm sure it provides him with happiness.

Let's see, what else does he like? It says that his favorite book is Green Eggs and Ham, which is kind of cute. My own personal favorite book is The Giving Tree, so I guess that I can't hold his choice in reading materials against him.

But what I think is the most interesting about his favorites are his movie choices. He likes a long string of comedies (Vacation, European Vacation, Christmas Vacation, Vegas Vacation, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, Parenthood, Fletch), which kind of makes sense as he seems like the kind of guy that would appreciate some classic funny films, but he concludes his list with Cape Fear. Now, for those of you who don't know what this movie is about, a brief synopsis is that a family sends a man to jail, the family goes into the witness protection program, the man gets out of jail and comes after said family on a house boat because a house boat is obviously the safest place for a family to live if they have sent a convict to prison. Other popular places for people in the program to live are houses with only one entrance and exit and knife stores.

But anyways, are you serious, Brent? You're going to list a whole bunch of funny movies, and then end it with a fairly psychotic movie? I could understand if your list was full of movies like Se7en and Memento and Silence of the Lambs and Miss Congeniality 2 (Ooh, Zinger!), but to end your list in this manner makes it seem like a game of "Which One of These Is Not Like the Others?" Are you a crazy, crazy man behind the facade of frivolity? I hope not, although based on how you acted on NATIONAL FREAKING TV, perhaps the above psychoanalysis is an apt one.

Ah well, Brent, as you're dancing your nights away, you can take solace in the fact that for some reason, you weren't the first one to get fired this season. Good for you. Now get a haircut. Oh, and congrats on semi-recently getting married, by the way.

One of My Latest Addictions

I love Jeopardy for PS2. It had me at hello from Costco when I saw that it was in a three pack with Wheel of Fortune and Myst III (Not that I really care about Myst III; if I want to play a game where I randomly press buttons to win, I'll tease the gf a bit! Oh! Zinger!).

Now I know that there are those of you out there who will say that Jeopardy on PS2 is a grave waste for a system that has the capacity to do so much more, and I will agree with this assessment. What's funny about this game is that there are video clips of Alex Trebeck every once in a while, and they just come out of nowhere. What's also funny is that he is, apparently terrible at learning lines. It'll be something like, "You chose the square with the daily double...(pause that makes you sit forward in your chair in anticipation of something, anything, but nothing comes, until finally) How much would you like to wager?" You just want to slap him and say, "Hey Frenchie, spit it out!"

What I will say about it in its favor is that I have played it fairly consistently for a couple of weeks now, and I haven't seen any of the same answers twice. In that much, at least, the disc does pretty well.

In looking at the case just now, I noticed that the company that programmed the game was Atari. Oh Atari how far have you fallen? You were one of the first in game-playing technology; why do you know produce awkward games for very niche audiences? I wonder if they are still trying to recoup losses from their failed game system, Jaguar. Based on the prices in that last link, it was either more popular than I thought, or else it has become something of a collectable.

To continue this post in the disjointed fashion it has become accustomed, did anybody else play Kaboom! for the old Atari system? Man, I love that game.

In any case, I rule at the Jeopardy home game, and if anybody would like to challenge me, I say bring it on! I recently played a game where my final score was just shy of $70,000, which is pretty awesome until you realize that it's actually pretty lame that I'm posting about the nerd video games that I play. Oh well. I already have the gf; who else do I have to impress? I can just hear her now, "Oh baby, you're the smartest; I can't imagine anyone else being as smart as you are. Come give me kisses!" All right.

It should be noted that after I read that last paragraph to the gf, she responded with, "Oh whatever; I can see that your blog has come to telling unsubstantiated stories now." That's funny that she thinks it's just the blog.

Job Listing

There is an ad on the San Diego Craigslist for a job that offers $350-$500 a week as well as free room in a house in recompence for working out of that house for the employer between the hours of, like, six p.m. and seven a.m. Sunday through Thursday.

What can they possibly be doing between those hours that they would pay you so well for it? It seems like it has to be shady.

The Artist

In case anyone wanted to get in touch with the man who created that show in South Korea, NPR put up some contact information.

South Korea

I heard on NPR the other day that a theatre company in South Korea is doing a musical that is based on fictionalized actual events in a North Korean prison camp. Now, while my immediate reaction is "Couldn't they have come up with a medium that would effectively communicate the genre more readily than a musical? Maybe a horror movie? An episode of Law and Order perhaps?", I developed a sort of fascination with the idea.

The show is, apparently, being met with favorable reviews, although the South Korean government doesn't like it because it is their stance as a government to try to ruffle as few feathers as possible, especially when those feathers have nuclear capabilities like their neighbors to the north.

The biggest part of the story that hit me, however, was the fact that the writer/producer had put up one of his kidneys for collateral for a loan in order to put on the show. He has until April to pay it off, otherwise he loses his kidney. Now as, perhaps, short-sighted or genius (Where can I sign up to give body parts as insurance that I'll pay people back?) as this may seem to us in the west, I can hardly imagine believing in my own creation enough to essentially give up everything, even my life. This is very counter-intuitive to the popular notion of making money and having a good safe life.

This idea of giving everything up for one's dreams appears to be re-occuring for me lately. I recently watched Million Dollar Baby for the first time over the weekend, and it made me want to box, both literally (because who doesn't like being the best and strongest?) and figuratively. The main character wanted to be a boxer despite the fact that the odds were stacked against her in that she was too old and she hadn't ever been trained. I valued seeing anyone do this, even a fictional character, because it made me believe that I could do it. It is little wonder that Hillary Swank won best actress for that movie; if everyone else left that movie feeling like they could do anything that they set their minds to, than I think that her character is one of the great characters in all of fiction.

Superlatives aside, my dad always (oops, that's kind of another superlative) told me that I could do whatever I set my mind to. I always believed him, but I'm starting to believe him. We'll see what becomes of this.

In lighter news, I recently signed up for a stat-tracking service so that I could see where my visitors were coming from, and one of my visitors got here by googling "strawberry surfrider recipe".

I don't blame them for looking that up; it's a delicious beverage. I only hope my meager offerings of talk about my Jamba Juice diet was helpful.

Oh, and if anybody wants to read about that musical that I mentioned above, the link is here.

Kay's Hot Cocoa

The folks who run our office are nice enough to offer us certain edible things from time to time. We can have bottled water, a few types of soft drinks, several types of coffee, and cocoa whenever we feel the need for any of the above items. We also, once a week or so, get a platter of donuts that everyone can grab one in order to give us a bit of a sugar high so that we are happy about working.

But there's something funny about the cocoa, as the gf pointed out. We normally have regular cocoa, but every once in a while, somebody will throw some diet cocoa in there for those of us who are watching their weight. Now this, of course, seems very kind until you examine the packages further. The regular cocoa offers one ounce of rich chocolatey goodness for a hundred and ten calories, while the diet cocoa offers a half an ounce of rich chocolatey goodness for fifty-five calories.

Uh, Kay? IT DOESN'T COUNT AS DIET IF YOU JUST GIVE US HALF AS MUCH! Call it kid-size, called it small-sized, but for the love of all that is good and holy, don't call it diet!

Unless...I don't know how many packets are put into each box of cocoa mixes, but if you are putting the same number of packets into the diet cocoa box as you are into the regular cocoa box and charging approximately the same amount for them, that, ma'am, is a work of genius. You are getting people to pay the same for half as much.

It's all right, though, Kay. I won't tell anyone as long as I can have your word (read: profit-sharing) that you won't do it anymore.

The desert

I want to go to the desert. I want to go out there, go on a hike, play some guitar, read, and be entirely by myself just long enough to realize how good I've got it. Then, I want to come back, and light the world on fire with a passion.

Cheesy, I know, but that is me in a nutshell right now.

That is all.