This sucks!

I'm back at work for two days. At least I return to work well rested. After Friday I have ten consecutive days off (including weekends).
While I was enjoying my first few days off, I did something I always do when I have time off. I went to Fry's. This may seem strange but it's the only time I get to wander the store and look at EVERYTHING without Niki hurrying me along. As I perused the seemingly endless magazine racks, I noticed the perfect magazine for Gary... Chess Life. I had no idea such a fascinating periodical existed! With a readiership of a quarter million, it must be good. I bet the center-folds are super hot.

How did I get Dan's schedule?

Through a strange convergence of vacation time, personal days, and a holiday, I have much of the next five weeks off. Unless something changes, between now and my last expected work day in California (Sept. 22) I only work 14 days. Only 2 of those are in the month of August.
I don't have any plans except to play a lot of Halo, take myself fishing, and sleep an average of 18 hrs a day. As much as I would like to avoid it, I know I will end up doing some work around the house. I also have to go to Vegas twice for walk-throughs, once with Niki and once by myself.

Up for your consideration....

So here I am sitting at work. I have nothing to do until September so I thought I would compile a list of words that I am striking from the English Language. From this day forward you will no longer hear me utter the following words or phrases, and you might have never heard me say them in the first place. But just in case I am removing them from my vocabulary. Please feel free to debate, agree, or argue to save a word if you feel I am unjustifiably giving it a bad rep.

In no particular order (well expect for the first word):

Hella
For Sure
Keen
Emo
You don't even know
My bad
Put that in your pipe and smoke it
Gravy Train with Biscut Wheels (This one is still up for consideration)
Drop it like it's hot
Psyche!
Latch Key Kid(Now only applies in reference to the Bad Religion song)
Street Cred
The surprise hit of the (insert season)
Raider Nation
Dish pan hands
Chug-a-lug
Hot diggity damn
Man Games (As in Man Games lost to injury)
Gnarly
Any word that has "izzle" incorporated into it
Preggers or Preggo
Tight
The Bomb
Naysay
Sticktoitiveness
Fruition
wOOt
It's all good
Dawg
Shazam!
Be that as it may
Behooves
Guffaw
Hunker Down
Git-Er-Done
Holla!
Table (when used as a verb, as in "Let's table that discussion")
Shoppe
Towne
Olde
Boo (as in I love my Boo, word still applies to Halloween)
Reek
Bootie
Axin'

Kentucky Fried Service

A funny thing just happened at work. Three mailroom employees came back from lunch with food they had order from KFC. They hadn't inspected the food before getting back to work obvious confident that the order was simple enough to avoid error. They had ordered 4 Chicken Stacker sandwiches and a bucket of Extra Crispy chicken. What they found was a bucket of Original Recipe chicken and one of the CHICKEN sandwiches had no CHICKEN in it, just lettuce and sauce.
When they called to complain and rectify the situation, they spoke to a very argumentative employee who swore that she had put chicken in all the sandwiches. A manager was not immediately available for comment.
I don't know what is funnier, a decidedly chicken-free chicken sandwich, or hearing a group of Mexicans complain about fast food workers whose English skills are lacking. Either way, it made my day.

Verizon (Irvine Meadows)

This is a follow-up post to a comment by Gary last week about this venue. I don't think anyone goes back to read old posts so I figured I had to start a new one.
The reason you are unable to get good seats is because Verizon offers "season seats" You hold the seat for the entire season. The premier seating is not made available to the public. The best you can usually do is the second lodge section. If you go onto ebay you will see all the season ticket holders trying to get rid of their Iron Maiden tickets. This is why I despise this venue, it's almost impossible to get good seats without paying a markup of 4 or 5 X the ticket price. Oh and someone is selling pit tickets at $319 each, good luck.

OMG!! Freak out of the day....

Ok, well, Aaron just told me that we could possibly get the keys for our new house on Sept. 20! That is all....just freaking out...

I think my head is going to explode

I just found out that our new house will be ready a few weeks earlier than expected. We can probably get the keys on Sept 20th or very close to it. The possibility of the house being ready AHEAD of schedule never really crossed my mind (you always hear about the opposite). My co-worker's daughter moved to Vegas a month ago and her house was massively behind schedule. Many people told me about delays due to supply shortages in the area. This was the last thing I expected.
I'm excited but my stress level just got cranked up to 11. Most of our ducks are in a row but this gives us less time to assure my transfer, less time for Niki to find a job, more time making huge mortgage payments while we wait for our current house to sell (doable but far from ideal), etc.
At least we don't have to wait as long for the house warming party catered by fat Tuesday. Woohoo!

Inbred Invasion

For those who don't regularly listen to KROQ, you might be surprised to hear the lineup of the KROQ Inland Invasion festival type concert thing. It is being headlined by two of the unlikeliest of bands... Guns 'n' Roses and Alice In Chains. For GNR it will kick off a North American tour.
Can this event revive two dead careers? I have heard that Alice In Chains sounds great with their new front man. Will Layne Staley return from the dead for the concert and then eat Axl Rose's braid covered brain? Are people ready to forgive Axl for his childish behavior? If he storms off stage in a tantrum, will people finally give up on him for good? All these questions will be answered in due time.
Avenged Sevenfold is the best band on the lineup in my opinion. I'd like to see them play but I hate giant festival type concerts and refuse to go to the 909.

My take on Cold as the Clay

It kicks ass. Greg's original songs are great and the classic folk songs are very well done. I've never liked the sound of a banjo but I guess it's kinda required for the songs. I like the way folk music often tells a story (often involving forbidden love and murder)unlike most modern music. It is one of our last surviving forms of oral tradition and it is good to see that a few artists are trying to preserve it's legacy.
I can understand that Cold as the Clay is not for everyone but I enjoyed it quite a bit during my first listening and even more upon subsequent listenings. Anybody expecting to hear shades of Bad Religion would be sorely disappointed but those who appreciate art, history/Americana, and a good tale will like it.

You make the call.

In a 9- and 10-year-old PONY league championship game in Bountiful, Utah, the Yankees lead the Red Sox by one run. At the plate is the Sox' best hitter, a kid named Jordan. On deck is the Sox' worst hitter, a kid named Romney. He's a scrawny cancer survivor who has to take human growth hormone and has a shunt in his brain.
So...Do you intentionally walk the star hitter so you can face the kid who can barely swing?
Yanks coach Bob Farley decided to walk the star.
The kid with cancer struck out and the Yanks won the game, celebrating on the field while Romney cried at home plate.
This brings up an interesting moral dilemma.
When asked about his decision the coach of the Yankees said "Isn't that strategy? Isn't that trying to win? Do we let the kid feel like he's a winner by having the whole league play easy on him? This isn't the Special Olympics. He's not retarded."
I disagree. Strategy is fine against major leaguers, but not against a little kid with a tube in his head. Just good baseball strategy? This isn't the pros. This is: Everybody bats, one-hour games. That means it's about fun. Period.
This reminds me of those parent's who get into fights with ref's about calls and coaches about game decisions. Shut-up, keep the orange slices chilled and let your kid play. Stop trying to live your fantasy through them. Does this particular coach feel better about himself because his group of 9 years old beat another group of 9 year olds. I hope not, because it's not about him.

Today has been a very boring day at work, so you get me rambling trying to kill an hour before I go home.

Maybe everyone should be more concerned about why they named their kid Romney?

And away they go...

Tomorrow Dan and I will be heading down to Del Mar to watch the ponies. This will be the one and only race we'll be able to attend this summer, so I'm really looking forward to it! BUT before we head on down to old Del Mar we're stopping by Tower Record to pick up our MAIDEN tickets :)

The Onion has done it again

This is more comedy than politics so I feel comfortable posting it here. Freaking hilarious!

What I will miss most about SoCal

It breaks my heart to think about morning commutes without Kevin and Bean. You would think that a show as popular and long running (I have been listening to them for at least 15 years) would be syndicated in more markets than just Fresno! Where else can I get such quality broadcasting? Where else can I hear Wing and Sam the Armenian Comedian performing a mind blowing rendition of Highway to Hell?!?!
Sure, I can listen to them on the KROQ website but that's not very practical and doesn't ease my commute. Who knows if I will be able to access it from whatever job I take. If only they were on satellite radio. K&B is the only reason I would ever pay a monthly fee for radio. Even a podcast would work. Sadly, K&B are stuck in the dark ages of radio. Hopefully they will catch up with technology soon. Until then, I don't know how I will survive.

Cold as the Clay

Yesterday I picked up Greg Graffin's new CD (and I say new however it was released 7/11/06) The CD is called Cold as the Clay. While American Lesion was a sorrowfull piano and acoustic-based album, this new one is clearly different. It's more of an old time folk album where the banjo is well represented. There is a side of me that has always liked folk and bluegrass music, so it goes without saying that I like this album. Also I'm pretty sure that Greg Graffin can put out any type of album and I am going to buy it. When you have an artist that is this talented you no longer pick up their CD and hope you like it, it's already a given that you do.
There are a few songs that are more modern, incorporating electric guitar, however it still has that old time feel to it. 6 songs are covers and 5 are original, you will be able to
distinguish between the two.
I would imagine that Aaron already has this CD and will be weighing in with his opinions

Why I like monkeys

If you, like I, get your new headlines ripped straight from Kevin and Bean, this is probably old news to you. The subway system in New Delhi India is being overrun by monkeys. They ride the trains like you and I might. If you offer them food, everything is cool. If not, they take it by force. Metro authorities have employed Langur monkeys, a larger and more aggressive species, to scare off the mischievous monkey hordes.
This is not the first time India has had a problem with marauding monkeys. Whole towns have been taken over by the pernicious primates. It's gonna be just like Planet of the Apes.
So, you see, this is why I like monkeys. Because, when they fulfill their manifest destiny of world domination, you better be on their side... or else!

I officially hate French!

Ok, maybe just really, really, really dislike French.

This tax project I'm working on is all in French! Not only is this one in French, all of them are. All of our foreign projects are mostly in France. I thought the lingua franca (business language) was english all over the world? I don't know, I just needed to cool off. This project is frustrating, just because nothing ever translates exactly.

Iron what?

I bet you thought I was going to say Iron F*cking Maiden. But you would be wrong. I was cleaning out the garage this weekend and I found an Iron Hooker among my grandma's stuff. For those who don't know, the Iron Hooker is contraption Dan's uncle invented for organizing golf clubs. Dan and I spent a weekend at the L.A. County Fair trying to sell Iron Hookers in a booth. I don't think we even sold one. We barely even got any looky-loos. We just spent the entire weekend sitting in a booth thinking of ways to take over the world. Maybe that was just me.
It was a rather strange coincidence because we had just discussed the Iron Hooker last weekend. Before that, I hadn't thought about it in years. I hope to never think about it again.

Bitching

I was listening to 98.7 this morning on the way to work and they were talking about bitching to your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/etc. What on earth is wrong with asking your spouse to do something? Why do guys interpret a request as a bitchfest or a nag? I know I can be a nag sometimes, but when you ask and ask and nothing gets done, yeah, I'm gonna be a bitch! Fortunately, I don't have to deal with that much. Relationships are give and take. Why don't these people on the radio understand that? They are stupid.

Bobo bites the big one

Sadly, a chimp at the L.A. Zoo died after being bitten by a rattle snake that had wandered into to enclosure. More details here.
I have to wonder if it is one of the ones in this picture that I took at the zoo.

He hate me

There is a new song on KROQ by the "Plain White T's" (really stupid band name) that has one of the best choruses ever. It says "Hate is a strong word but I really, really, really don't like you". I think I'll make that my new motto because it's generally true. It would also make a very fine blog title.