Monday, June 30, 2003

Hitched

It has been awhile since my latest post but I have a good excuse and a note from my mother. Over the past week I got married and had my honeymoon. The ceremony was nice. It was outdoors, great weather. It was short and simple - another plus. The honeymoon was the fun part. We spent it at Camp Jeep 2003 in the hills just outside of Charlottesville Virginia. Great Jeeping terrain. I came back with layers of mud caked on my Jeep and I'm going to keep it on there as a badge of honor.

I'm trying to get settled into things at work. I had a lot of work to catch up on while I was gone. Once I get things calmed down and organized, I'll be able to post more.

CD in the car stereo: Pink Floyd's Echoes
Last movie I saw at theater: The Hulk
Last movie I saw at home: Children of Dune Miniseries

Thursday, June 19, 2003

Vader Plays Baldwin, Miami DJs Play Communist Dictator

Glengarry Glen Darth. It's exactly what you think it is. If you don't recognize the parody of the title, you probably won't appreciate it as much.

Also, Miami DJs play a prank phone call on Cuba President Fidel Castro. Read the translated script.

CD in the car stereo: INXS' Live Baby Live
Last movie I saw at theater: Matrix Reloaded (3rd viewing)
Last movie I saw at home: Kiki's Delivery Service (anime)

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Scary Signs

Photoshop geeks had fun with our highway signs. Take a look.
Kung Pow: Enter Jack Daniels

I invented a new drinking game that kicked my can. I'm not a big drinker. I can count the number of times I've been drunk on one hand; I didn't even drink when I went to a strip club last week, but one of those rare moments happened this past weekend.

If you've ever seen the very dumb-but-very-funny movie Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, you know the female lead in the movie tend to trail her lines with a "WEEEOOOOOWEEEEEOOOOWEEEE" (sp?) to fill out the lip sync since the English dubbed voice ended way before her lips did. My drinking game, we all had to take a shot of Jack Daniels whiskey every time she did that. The problem was that before I came up with the game, I only remembered the actress doing that four or five times in the movie. It turns out that it's closer to a dozen. I'm not even counting the moments where it was questionable what she was saying but since we were getting blitzed fast, we kinda looked the other way and did not drink, to, you know, stay alive. It got to the point that when she appeared in a scene, we started complaining and yelling (some of us cursing) about her presence and every time she opened her mouth and finished up a sentence, we held our breath to see if we had to make our own situation worse.

I felt the hangover for two days.

CD in the car stereo: Toadies' Rubberneck
Last movie I saw at theater: Matrix Reloaded (3rd viewing)
Last movie I saw at home: Druids with Christopher Lambert

Friday, June 13, 2003

Chain Reactions

This excerpt is taken from the July 2003 issue of Wired in an article titled We're All Gonna Die!.

"Before the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Trinity Site in 1945, Robert Oppenheimer worried that the unprecedented heat might spark a fusion chain reaction in the atmosphere. Physicist Hans Bethe performed calculations proving the planet wouldn't ignite, and the test went ahead."

Well good for them.

This issue also has a fascinating piece titled Slammed! on the inner workings of a virus. Check out how a 376 byte program (not 376 kbyte) took down the Internet for a day.

You can always tell when I get my new Wired. I start talking about its articles here.


CD in the car stereo: Nothing
Last movie I saw at theater: The Italian Job
Last movie I saw at home: Crazy/Beautiful

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Bachelor Party - Oh yeah!

Did I mention that I was getting married on the 21st? Oh yeah, well I am. So now that that's out of the way I can talk about my activities over this past weekend.

My friends threw me an unofficial bachelor party. I actually told everyone I did not want to have one but I am never opposed to going out with the guys. So it was guys night out using my bachelor celebration as the excuse.

First stop was a Hooters Family Fun Filled Restaurant. Great time. A friend in the group is recovering from a breakup so I spent most of the night nudging (he would say bruising) his arm to check out the waitresses. Yes a family restaurant, bring the kids, ogle the employees in their skimpy uniforms, have some chicken wings. The guys picked up my bill after I argued for about 3/10 of a second. Thank you.

From there we went and caught a flick. There was much debate about what we wanted to see, which we had down to Matrix Reloaded, Italian Job, A Mighty Wind and Finding Nemo. Yes a bunch of 30 something guys on a bachelor outing considered Finding Nemo as flick of choice for the night. We decided on Italian Job because no one had seen it, it was on everyone's list and not on anyone's wife's list (which is why Finding Nemo was struck down). It was an entertaining film. I didn't see the original with Michael Caine but I think they did a good job so it was a good pick for us. Sorry no review.

The movie let out about quarter after midnight so it was back to my house to decide what was next. Strip club was suggested. Everybody was game, but a couple bailed due to the late hour. So off some of us go to the strip club to wallow in depravity.

Did I mention it was my first visit to a strip club? Well yeah it was. So now that that's out of the way, I can talk about what it's like for a new guy to be at a strip club.

I must say, for the most part it was what I expected. I mean I've seen Sopranos and the Bada Bing so that qualifies me as a strip club expert. But it didn't really sink in until I was actually sitting in one that, and excuse me for talking like a kid who just saw Porky's for the first time, there were naked women walking around the joint, doing their job like you would see at any establishment, only sans clothes. I have to say that it was quite entertaining to see waitresses walking around with nothing on but a G-string taking your drink order. Where else can you get that?

Then it got interesting.

We had picked up a couple of our wives to go with us, including mine or in my case my soon-to-be-wife. One of the other guy's wife ordered a lap dance. Is ordered the right word? Would you like to super size that? Anyway she ordered the lap dance to be performed on her. That's right - girl on girl. Now remember this is my first experience at a strip club. I was just there for the show. I didn't even have any alcohol since I was the DD so I'm flying straight. Anyway, back to the girl on girl. Now I know that this couple has a history of doing the lap dance this way, so the idea that it was happening didn't phase me. It was seeing the nude woman on my friend's wife that got me. I mean I knew it was going to happen, but to actually witness it, you have no idea. Well maybe you do. But I didn't. I'd love to go into detail about the techniques used in this performance, I was particularly impressed by her talents, but I'm sure there are some laws on Blogger that may prevent me from going any further. Sorry no review on this either.

We tried to give them their privacy during the gropefest, but when it's three feet from you and you've never seen anything like that that wasn't on a TV screen, you have to realize that you will turn into Ken Starr standing outside the Oval office at the White House, nose plastered against the glass watching the President press a Cuban (and I mean the cigar) into an intern's anatomy usually reserved for feminine hygiene products. Should I have taken notes? Oh the husband had the widest grin on his face that I have ever seen on a person and I think they got their money's worth. I felt like I should've chipped in.

Good times. So I had a good weekend. How about you?

CD in the car stereo: Tool's Lateralus
Last movie I saw at theater: The Italian Job
Last movie I saw at home: Animatrix

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

Mile Stone

I turned 60k miles over on my 2000 Jeep Wrangler today. It happened on my way in to work and I watched it roll over doing 65 in rush hour traffic - it was that important to me. There is a sense of something, watching your vehicle flip over a major denomination of miles. I'm not sure what the feeling is. It could be the human need to keep things simple. 60,000 is an easier number to remember than 58,436 so we're relieved to have a possession of ours in a state that we can best remember it.

But I can't say I'm happy to see my car have that many miles. I imagine the feeling is similiar to a parent watching their kid grow up, realizing they're just going to get older and someday they'll break down, rust out and before you know it you have to sell it to a junkyard for $100 so they can dismantle it for parts, crushing the rest into a tiny steel box, ready for disposal.

I can feel the empty nest syndrome kicking in already.

CD in the car stereo: Live's Birds of Pray
Last movie I saw at theater: Bruce Almighty
Last movie I saw at home: Blow

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Capitalism and Gardening: My Kind Of Game

I was busy for most of the week last week at work. A few of the people from the company I'm contracted to flew out to train some of the FAA personnel on a new analysis tool that was developed and is currently running out here at the air traffic control center where I work. It's pretty nifty actually. And I'm sure if I was an air traffic controller it'd be even niftier. So that kept me busy last week and my posts suffered.

At home, the woman and I have been spending most of our free time with a Gamecube title I picked up called Animal Crossing. This is a very cutesy looking game - the kind most adults would turn off quickly in shame and fear of eternal persecution should their adult friends happen to walk into the room and spy them playing, which at first glance appears to be way below what their palate of entertainment should require for grownups into video gaming. No matter. We play what we like.

In Animal Crossing, you create this town (more like a village) and exist in it. That's it. There's no fighting, no killing, no blood. But it does support capitalism and gardening a lot. You micromanage your town, keeping it up to specs and try to earn currency in the process. It's fun for players who don't like games where you die and have to start over. You just build and build and build. My favorite pastime is probably fishing because it is a bit fun and can be very lucrative if you know when/where to fish. Sega Bass Fishing 4 it ain't but it's a nice little game within a game.

I'm sure I can go on for hours talking about the detail of the game, but I won't bore anyone with it. If interested, check it out for yourself.

CD in the Jeep stereo: No Doubt's Rock Steady.
Last movie I saw at theater: Bruce Almighty
Last movie I saw at home: The Seventh Sign