Woot!

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that I got a new job! Woot! I'll be working for a company called Endforce as a Señor Test Engineer. It'll be a challenge, but I'm sure that it'll be worth it.

Whee!!!

That is all. Over and out.

Sudoku

For some dumb reason, I started playing sudoku yesterday. I really didn't understand it but it didn't take long to figure out. I can only do the easy ones... well, actually, only the easy (1 star) ones on MSNBC. I seem to be having trouble with the easy ones on websudoku. Go figure. I also have to use the 'pencil marks'. I like hte ones on MSNBC because they have little 'lights' to tell you when you've "completed" a row, column or square. Not necessarily that you have the numbers right, but that you have all numbers (1-9) accounted for.

I think I can hear Tom and Amy laughing now.

Rebus Generator = neat-o

http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/rebus-generator.html

You figure it out! :)

Gamez

Maryann and I played some Scrabble tonight. We had lots of fun. I won both games, but to be fair, in the first game I was using the dictionary alot since I hadn't played in a while and neglected to read the 'dictionary should be used during a challenge only'. :) And Maryann was being nice and didn't say anything until the very end. So techincally I only won one game tonight. But, for the second game I played fair. I had a streak of good luck coming up with the following:

1) quartz on a double word and double letter on the Z.
2) The following in the bottom right of the board.
FEW
EYE
WED
The last letter played for that group was the Y which means I got two double words for a total of 24 points.

I have to say, it was all luck since I have trouble with any word that has more than 5 letters (including those that are plural).

Just noticed that the pic on the Wiki page has the word "preen". In the second game, Maryann played that word in, I swear, the same location. I found that amusing. But it's 11:30pm so things are much more amusing since I'm getting tired. And with that, I say, good night Dr. Watson.

Finished - War of the Worlds

Not bad. I first heard about War of the Worlds from a 2 volume cassette 'Old Time Radio' version of the original Orson Welles broadcast that freaked out the nation that I got from SuperX for 20 cents (10 cents per cassette) from a clearance bin. I was 9 or 10 I think when I got them. When I first listened to them, I realized that it was a radio show from a long time ago, but was still kinda freaked out a little bit because of the screaming and whatnot. Funnily enough, if you asked me right now what occurred in the radio broadcast, I wouldn't be able to tell you. If you want to know, go download War of the Worlds from archive.org.

Anyhow, just wanted to say I enjoyed the book quite a bit. There were some passages where I was going 'oh c'mon and move along already' but there were also sections that a steadily ripped through with a 'what in the hell is gonna happen next' anticipation. I'm easily amused, so other may read it and say 'feh!' but bollocks to you 'cause I enjoyed it.

This is just sad...

They are closing the original Wendy's in Downtown Columbus. Read an article about it here.

"I guarantee (Dave Thomas, Wendy's founder) would support this decision," says company spokesperson David Lynch "He recognized that a company needs to be profitable."

Whatever, dude.

The least you could do would be to keep it open as a museum or something. So you're not profitable on the weekends or in the late evening? Okay, fine, cut your hours on the weekends and late evening, dilhole. It's not fucking rocket science. I've seen that place on a weekday during the afternoon. It's a fucking madhouse. You can't tell me that this doesn't offset the evenings. I've seen the one just down the flipping street from the flipping company office in Dublin. That fucking place is NEVER crowded. You're telling me that this mediocre Wendy's (with the fancy copper roof) does better business than the downtown one? Puhleez.

All I have to say is "Sorry Dave. I'm sorry that the fuckin' incompetent morons you had underneath you couldn't manage to keep the boat afloat a mere one year after you died. I'm sure you had a business plan, and I'm sure those dumb ass focacia bread sandwiches weren't part of it.

Anyhoo... At least I can say I've eaten there. Maryann and I ate there a couple years ago when she was working downtown. They still had the tables with the old newprint on it. It reminded me of being 9 years old and going to 'that other burger place with the weird tables' but enjoying their burgers all the same. Then later on came the Super Salad Bar. Too bad that didn't work out for them.

I'm babbling now. All I have to say is that it is just sad how fast the Wendy's corp turned their back on the original store. As store that, at the very least, probably could have broken even.

Man, I am bitter, so I am gonna stop now. G'night.

Mmmmmm... crab legs

I've been craving the unlimited crab legs from Red Lobster for a LOOOONG time now. Turns out I might be waiting even longer. In wondering how much it cost the first time I went to the AYCECLs at Red Lobster, I found the following article which basically said they lost so much money from that promo that they fired their el presidente.

But luckily for me, relief may be in the horizon. Turns out that I got a little email from bd's since I joined their email spam farm. Sez here that you can add unlimited crab legs to your dinner for $6.99. Not sure if you can do that for lunch or not. If you could, then I'm there. I love BDs, but I know how much veggies cost and how much rice costs and how much tortillas cost, and it ain't much. But I also understand one has to run a profitable business. So, tacking on 7 bucks to the .. what is it now, 14 bucks, is still only 21 dollars. I'm pretty sure I paid at least 20 bucks back in 2003 at Red Lobster. So could go up, have a small bowl of stir fry made up and then order the crab legs. When I run out of legs, I can nibble at my stir fry. Mmmm.... unlimited crab legs.

*drOoL*

Daily Lit is cool.

Daily Lit was something suggested to me by a good ol' codger named Tom. Basically you pick a book and dailylit.com will send you pieces of the book everyday to your email address (or M-F, or M W F) . Small little snippets that take about 5 minutes (if that) to read. If you want to read further, there is a link in the email so you can have the next piece sent to you immediately. And if you're gonna be out of town, you can also temporarily suspend the emails until you get back. It's quite nice. You don't even have to register to use it, which is cool. But, if you do register, you can add a nice little thingy to your blog like I have in my sidebar.

I just finished reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I saw the movie with Christina Ricci (or as my wife likes to call her, Pumpkinhead). So I guess I was expecting a little bit more or something. It was only 13 parts. I'm a slow reader so I figured I'd better start out with a smaller book. I managed to rip through it in practically two sittings. I was on part 10 before anything I thought of any significance ever happened. I'll give Washington Irving this; the imagery was good. I like that. I could imagine what was going on and what things looked like and maybe even sounded like. But it was more of a tale to tell around a campfire with a really long personal history before it. I'm not saying that's good or bad. It's just my view on it. I enjoyed it, so it's more good than bad. But I'm just saying that it resembles little to the movie. This only proves that I am not very literate in the book reading sense. Other than this, and the Gift of the Magi (which is a mere two parts and is more short story than book), I have not read any of the classics as they are called.

In fact, it wasn't until after I had graduated college that I could say I had ever read more than a handful of books (and by handful, I mean, like no more than 10). Through college I can practically name the books I had read and hence I shall, approximately in the order of which they were read, since I am in a babbling mood:

• The Shining by Stephen King


• The Andromeda Strain by Michael Criton


• Looked it up at home.. .it was called Worlds Of Maybe with 7 stories by Robert Silverberg, Issac Asimov and others.


• The Fall of Colossus by D. F. Jones


• Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi


• Growing Up Brady: I Was A Teenage Greg by Barry Williams


• Bootleg: The Other Recording Industry by Clinton Heylin

Yeah... that's it. How is that possible? I have no idea. Since then I've read some books, but not that many in comparison to others. Most of them have been books about music or things of the sci-fi / horror genre.

But anyways, I think that DailyLit is a nice format. It doesn't overwhelm me since I am am a slow reader. I like that. Thank you DailyLit (and Tom).

2400 45 RPM Records --- SOLD!

The guy stopped by on Friday evening and picked 'em up. Woot! Now, one would think that I would have a ton of space from the vacated 45s, but alas, I have so much crap that... um... yeah, there's not that much more space then when I started. *sigh* Oh well.

Lot of 400 78s ... SOLD!!!

That was a much quicker turnaround that I had ever anticipated. Tonight, I sold my 78s. Woot! Sold them to a young fella who basically is in the mode that I was in 4 or 5 years ago. Young. Probably a new job. And lots of liquid cash just burning a hole in the pocket. How I miss those days. ;) He's buying a jukebox in the next couple of days and is contemplating buying my collection of 45s as well. Double woot! We'll see. But I'm very happy. Now we have some money and can go out to buy some much needed print cartridges for our computers, seeing as they are all out (or warning that they will go out).

Yay me!

I have alot of records

Here is approximately what 2300 45 RPM records looks like.


To give you an idea of how big the boxes are, the 'tiny' one at the top is a 7 inch by 7 inch by 7inch box. That box holds exactly 100 records.

How does one amass such a large and useless collection? The answer is simple. I am a collector by nature. I have stories that I wrote when I was in third grade about the collections I had then: stamps, rocks, bottle caps, and I forget what else. I am a collector by VOLUME. Not quality, VOLUME. Lots and lots of things is what I like. To a fault. So back in my bachelor days (in fact, in the months before I met Maryann), I went on an eBay rampage. One Saturday night around 3am I was on eBay and decided that I would put in bids on around 10 different lots of 45 RPMS, each of them numbering in the hundreds. My lucky before them was not so soon, so I figured that if I won 1 or 2 of them, then that would be cool. I ended up winning about 8 of them. So, there you go. At least I can say that I listened to the majority of them. I think there was probably only about 500 of them that I never listened to. The rest all saw the needle all the way through (unless is was so scratched that I had to pick up the needle to save it).

But, 2700 7 inch 45 records is TOO MANY when you live in a 1200 sq ft ranch with a wife and a kid and three cats.

So, today I spent nearly 8 hours going through the majority of my collection of 45s which I am eventually going to sell on eBay. It wasn't too painful of a process. I saved probably somewhere between 100 and 200 for me, mostly hits from the 80s that I can relate to (c'mon, who doesn't want to hear Hall and Oates since 'You Make My Dreams' a few more times.) So the picture above shows 2300 that are boxed up and ready to go. Not pictured are the 100-200 that I set aside while going through them today, another 100 that I already owned, another 50 or so that are 'special' that i will sell separately on eBay and another stack of 100 to 200 that are still in limbo, but will probably be used to pad out the boxes that people (hopefully) buy from me.

So... that's the tale for the 45s.

Yesterday I went through my collection of 78 RPM records. As an experiment, I put them up on craigslist. Up for grabs is 325+ 78 RPM records. I actually came across another 40 or so that I'll probably throw in as well. Hopefully someone wants them. There is no way I can shop them anywhere since they are so fragile. I'm (probably) asking too much, but hopefully there is someone out there like me who is looking to increase the size of their collection in one swoop.

As for LPs or CDs or cassettes. I have not guess at all as to how many I have. Again, the quick answer it too many. I sold off around 100 to 200 LPs (or 33s as you might know them by) at a garage sale last year. That was a big step for me. Against, as with the 45s except a little bit better, I have listened to each of them at least once. So, my collection is not for naught. I DO listen to the things I buy. But to attempt to sell it all off is a bit of a daunting task, but it's one I'm going to attempt. Wish me luck.

Everyone, Meet Dwight

This is our new cat, Dwight. We adopted him from my wife's mom who got him from my wife's niece who got it from my wife's sister. He looks pretty darn close to Stinky. However, instead of being 10 years old, he is 6 months old... and still has his claws and other parts. For now. :) We named him after our favorite character on The Office, Dwight Shrute. Other names that I was planning on calling the cat, but were quickly vetoed were: SFC, DFC and SOB. Stinky II and Junior were also at least considered, but since we named him on the run (ie... on the way to the vet, seeing how we arrived in Cinci to find him with an infected eye), we managed to agree on Dwight. He's already a fairly large kitten for his age. He's probably going to be another freakin' huge cat.

Norah's First 'words'

My 6 month old daughter Norah had her first 'typing lesson' today. I'm so proud of her! Here is what she had to say:

   B G U F DSL
   9PIMM,  JUI,.L089 PM  OP CCCC



--                            p
[[- b vgg'

Grubby Paws

I don't know what it is in people that think that just because you have 4 boxes of Hot Pockets in the freezer that it is okay for them to eat them. What the hell? I'm the one who paid $2.00 for that box and I can get 2 lunches out of it. It's bad enough that you put your grubby paws on my food to begin with, but you even bettered yourself by eating not one but BOTH hot pockets. WTF? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

DOH!

Just wanted to say "Oops" to the people who left comments that went 'unmoderated' for months. I figured y'all just thought I sucked. I've mod'ed my config so that y'all will see you comments right away. D'oh! indeed.

I had a whole bunch of settings that were all goofy. I was looking at Tom and Todd's blogs going 'Why do they have a header for their posts and I don't?' Well, dummy (me), there is a setting called 'Show Title'. Great googily moogily!

So I think I have everything set up better now. I also moved to the 'Google' platform. We'll see if that move comes back to bite me in the ass. *sigh*

Stinky (1996 - 2006)

Last night Maryann and I lost a good friend, our cat Stinky. Maryann got him when he was just a kitten. Someone had found him in the engine compartment of their car having driven to the movie theater where Maryann was working. At frist she thought he was a grey cat, until she took him home and realized he was black and white. He earned his name manily from the fact that when he farted, you knew it. He could stink it up with the best of the dogs.

Stinky, at least initially, was not much of a people cat. But in the past few years we would let you pet him and when people came over he would come out of a corner somewhere and greet the visitors with his infamous broken-squeeky-toy meow and a rattle-snake-like shake of his tail.

Last night we had to say goodbye to Stinky. He will be sorely missed by both Maryann and I, as well as his brother and sister Little Cat and Lisa.

Not felling well...

I woke up yesterday around 5am with my stomach not feeling quite right. For the next 7 hours, I was up every 1/2 to hour with dry heaves. Then the other fun stuff kicked in. I progressively got worse until every muscle in my body ached. Blech. This sucks. I'm a helluva lot better today, thank goodness, but I'm still a little sore and woozy. But I'll be fine. Here's to hoping a feel better tomorrow.

Foxtrot

FoxTrot, one of the comics I read everyday as part of my morning ritual, is going to a Sunday-only format. Makes me very sad. But I wish Bill Amend all the success and fun in the world. His comic has brought me happiness for quite a few years and I guess they all deserve a break after a while.

Mmmmm.... Turducken!

Today, I had a very delectable dish called Turducken. To be more exact, we had Tony Chachere's Cajun Stuffed Tur-Duc-Hen.

For those of you who don't feel like clicking on links, turducken is a de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. Get it? Turkey + Duck + Chicken = Turducken.

Maryann's sister and husband picked us up a turducken after we all saw a Food Network special that featured it. We got it as a baby gift and since it needed to be made before it went bad, today was the day. So her sister, husband, their kid and Maryann's mom and dad came up to cook the feast.

The version we had was stuffed with rice based stuffing with shrimp and crawfish and it was.... TASTY! I mean TAAAAAASSSSSTTTTTY. Add to that some mashed potatoes, corn and a dessert of pumpkin layered cake with pumpkin/cool whip concoction with caramel drizzled on top that my wife made and ... mmmm mmm... it was a great meal. Man! Awesome!

The only misfire we had today was some exploding Achorware. Its glass bakeware and is freezer safe, oven safe, dishwasher safe, etc etc etc. The dish was a room temperature. We were making green bean casserole. The beans and cream of mushroom soup and crunchy onions... all room temp. We stuck it in the oven and though everything was fine. Then there was this clatter. We all though that Bart (the teenager) had run into the oven or something. He was all 'I didn't do anything'. Maryann's mom opened up the oven to find a glass all over the place and green bean casserole dripping all over the place. It had cracked and shattered into a quite a few pieces. So.... after getting all the glass cleaned up, it was corn, not green bean casserole for lunch. Needless to say, Anchorware will be getting a call from the wife tomorrow asking for an RMA so they can ship us some new, non-exploding stuff.

It was a wedding gift and we had already used one of the other dishes in the oven without a problem. I suspect that it was a manufacturing problem of some sort. As they say, glass is very strong... until it gives and then it just goes kablooey.

And again... turducken rules!

:09

Here's something that bugs me:

People who use the company microwave, but then leave the door open and the clock still sitting at :09.

If you're gonna use it, please, close the freakin' door and reset the timer. And if cheese from your sub sandwich spills inside the microwave (or butter from the microwave popcorn or soup that boiled over), please clean that up as well. Your mom doesn't work here (and if she does, she probably has better things to do than to go around to all the microwaves and clean them and close their doors and reset their timers for you.. and this shouldn't be the case even if she is part of the cleaning crew).

This also goes for you Mr. or Mrs. Missed Putting The Paper Towel Into The Garbage Can But I'll Just Leave It On The Floor For The Maintenance People To Pick Up.