Not Necessarily Interesting News

Had a guy ring my doorbell just a few minutes ago. He said he was from the Sierra Club. He went on about how they’re out trying to get folks to vote ‘because, as you know, Bush and company are trying to destroy the earth by allowing logging and drilling of our precious natural resources’.

I asked if this was the same Sierra Club that works to make sure 4x4s don’t ruin our land. He said yes. I said ‘then you’re talking to the wrong guy. I’ve got a big ass 4×4 in the garage and I’m not afraid to use it. I can’t enjoy some parts of the country because you’ve gotten all access closed off. Good bye.’ And I shut the door.

I wonder if he realizes what a ‘natural resource’ is. I mean trees are natural and are good for building homes. That’s a natural resource. Same with oil, it’s natural.

<cartman>Hippies.They’re everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad. </cartman>

: Sometimes It Be That Way by Jewel

No, not for those losers Bush and Kerry.

Go vote for me!

I’ve submitted another label to Jones Soda. I had a label approved and used two years ago and I’d like to do it again. Seeing your work on the shelves every time you go to the grocery store is really kinda cool.

: 99 Red Balloons by Goldfinger

I got notice from my current contract company that my contract ends tomorrow. I knew this of course and have already taken measures and have a new job starting on the 1st. They didn’t know that I knew. What was uncool was that they told me through email.

A fucking email to let me know that as of Wednesday I’m going to be unemployed. ‘Thanks for all your hard work. There’s the door.’

: Black Night from the album “Muddy, Brass and the Blues” by Muddy Waters

The Good:
I got a new digital camera on Sunday. A sparkly new 5.1 Megapixel Sony Cyber-shot P-93. I had been looking at this camera for a while as it had all the features I wanted. It was the only 5 Megapixel camera I could find on the market that could use regular old AA batteries. I have been burned too many times on vacations and trips on supposedly fully charged batteries dying after 5 photos. It take sweet pictures too and is loaded with features. 5 MP is great until you realize that that means photos at its highest resolution take up just over 2MB each. I can only get about 50-55 pics on my 128 Memory Stick where with my 2MP I could get about 150 in that same size. Life’s rough. 🙂

The Bad:
I found out my contract at IBM is not going to be renewed after the end of this month. I managed to find a position in a different department through a friend and start in that role on the 1st. The down side is the 15% or so cut in pay rate. It better than unemployment I guess. It looks like fun and I’ll be working with cutting edge stuff so it should be interesting.

The Ugly:
Today I went to the doc and got ‘The Cut’. I am currently hopped up on painkillers and Valium. I am feeling no pain(ok, maybe a bit of pain). The worst part was the needle. Imagine the most sensitive part of your body. Now imagine a big ass needle piercing it. Ow, ow, fucking ow…

All in all a very interesting last 3 days.

P.S. I originally wrote this entry while very high on Valium and it was quite illegible but funny as hell. Maybe I’ll post it someday for the world to see.

: Some Postman from the album “Love Everybody” by The Presidents Of The United States Of America

Walking out of Chuy’s a couple days ago we overheard a guy in the lobby talking loudly into his cellphone.

And I quote: “…unoffically this’ll be my 8th drunk driving conviction…<unintelligble>…and they don’t even know about the other illegal things…”

WTF? Eight drunk driving convictions? And what the hell is “unofficially”? At what point does one acknowledge that they might have a small drinking problem? Killing someone? There is never an excuse for drunk driving in my opinion. If you want to kill yourself, great. The world doesn’t need or want you in the gene pool. Unfortunately, more often than not, you end up killing innocent bystanders.

: Authority Song from the album “The Best That I Could Do 1978-1988” by John Cougar Mellencamp

Dropped by Walgreens this morning to pick up my allergy prescription and passing down an aisle I noticed this. Right above the health bars(soy bars, energy bars, granola, etc) they had a display of pork rinds. Well, Marge, screw the diet. I’m getting some pork rinds instead.

: Run Off To La from the album “Kid Rock” by Kid Rock

Well, I did report for jury duty last week as I was supposed to. I haven’t had time to write about it until now.

I showed up at the courthouse and got assigned to a jury pool and was told to report to the courtroom at 1:30PM. Great, there I was 30+ miles from home with nearly 3 hours to waste. Not really enough time to bother with going home so I bummed around Georgetown for a while and got lunch with my massive $6 of pay I received for showing up. I did find some mud to play with the Defender in so it wasn’t a total loss.

I showed up at 1:30 and was assigned juror number 52. A good thing. They’d have to strike 40 people ahead of me before I could make the jury. By the questions the lawyers were asking it looked to be a nasty case. The defendant was charged with aggravated sexual assault on a child. The defendant was a woman and the victim her own son. Not fun. Jury selection went 2 days for which I received $12. Luckily I was not picked as I couldn’t afford the time off work.

I saw in the paper today the trial lasted until yesterday, nearly two weeks. She was sentenced to 25 years plus 10 years plus 10 years probation to run concurrently. Ouch. I’d post a link to the story online but it requires registration. Click ‘more’ to see the full story.

: Welsh Air from the album “Voice Of An Angel” by Charlotte Church

(Read on …)

The Alamo Drafthouse hosted the World Premier of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle last night. I managed to get tickets to the opening for us and a couple friends. In standard Alamo style this wasn’t any old movie premier. They had a Road Rally to find the location of the premier. At that undisclosed location there was going to be the premier and they had also brought down 3 genuine White Castle grills and 10,000 White Castle burgers. When I heard that I just had to go. White Castle burgers are like heaven to me and I hadn’t had any in about 5 years when I got some on a trip to a funeral in Ohio. Also, my wife, Shannon, had never had a White Castle burger.

We showed up at the Alamo at 2pm ready to roll. We were given a CD and told to listen to track 1. That gave us clues to a location in Austin. Once there we called in and were told to listen to another track which told us to look for something at that location. We then called back with the answer and were given another track to listen to for directions to our next stop. We drove all over town following the clues. We went to such exotic locales as The Gas Pipe, Sugar’s, Exposé, Zilker Botanical Garden, and more. I got to ask a stripper at Sugar’s how much for a Cleveland Steamer(five bucks). I got to squeeze a white man to get an answer. We made about 15 stops in all. We were in the first 10 teams across the line out of nearly 100 teams. The finish line was at an Elk’s Lodge in South Austin.

When we arrived they were just starting to hand out White Castle Burgers from the temporary restaurant. It was all you could eat. Dear Lord, did I eat a lot of burgers. I lost count around 15. The smell of them cooking wafted over us continually as we waited for it to get dark to watch the movie. My wife actually liked them and I think she understands the obsession some folks, like me, have with them. The frozen versions you can get in the store don’t even compare to one fresh off the grill. I even took a couple bags home and am eating one as I type this. I had to take them. I know it’ll be many years before I get them again.

Now for the movie review. I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting much from the movie and came mostly for the burgers. The movie itself was actually pretty good. It is a typical road trip type movie and has a lot of gags but there were quite a few original things happening in the movie that made it fun to watch. You wanted to see what else could possibly go wrong on a trip across town to a burger stand. Neil Patrick Harris, a.k.a. Doogie Howser, was hilarious playing a debased version of himself. I don’t want to give away anything so I’ll stop here. I recommend you see it for yourself.

After the movie the actors and writers came onstage for a Q and A session which was really a lot of fun. sorry for the crappy pic but it was night and they were about 40 feet away and just out of flash range. My wife and I swear we saw Neil Patrick Harris at the back of the crowd before the movie but he didn’t get on stage. Maybe he heard there was a strip club just down the street. Some of the behind the scenes insights were interesting and got the crowd laughing.

I look forward to the next Road Rally hosted by Alamo Drafthouse even if they won’t have White Castles there.

Man, that was our busiest 4th ever.

My folks offered to watch the kid so we could take the boat out on Lake Travis and party with some friends. We met my friends around noon in Devil’s Cove. We tied off to their houseboat and hung out for many hours. We did some shots of some really good tequila, did some jello shooters, swam, people watched, saw some boobies, etc. We had to leave the cove around 5 just as things started to get rowdy because we were having a bunch of folks over to our place.

We ended up having 14 people, family and friends, over for dinner and fireworks. My wife and mom made homemade wontons from scratch. They did about 300 for the crew. My grandparents brought over homemade ice cream which was delicious too. After dark we broke out the fireworks. We had enough to keep all the guys busy for over and hour and 1/2. Lots of fun and no injuries this year.

: We’re All Gonna Die Someday from the album “The Captain” by Kasey Chambers

I got home today and found a letter from Williamson County. It was a summons for jury duty. See it there to the right, resting on my glorious Select-Ease keyboard. This is my third summons in two years. Of all my friends and family I’m the only one I know of that’s ever been summoned in Texas and this makes three times.

I believe in doing your civic duty and all and didn’t have a problem with my first Texas summons two years ago. Heck, I looked forward to it as I was unemployed at the time and thought it’d be fun. I even got on a jury. But, c’mon, when is enough enough? I get to lose at least a day’s pay to go do this and earn my 6 bucks. I make over 50 times that for a day’s pay. Six bucks doesn’t even cover gas to Georgetown from here.

*sigh*

: Quare Bungle Rye from the album “Irish Drinking Songs” by The Blarney Lads