The 9th

I wanted to talk a little bit about something that was bothering me on the way home from work tonight. Allow me to be serious for a moment or two and then I promise it’ll be right back to t-shirts and video games.

What was bugging me were the things that a certain Houston area radio DJ was saying. Today the hot-button topic in the news is the immigration package being passed through congress. While my personal opinion on the matter is that if people want to come here, it should be legally, end of story, I’m always open to hearing diverging opinions from other people.

So, since I’ve practically disabled the FM button on my car stereo, I occasionally listen to the news AM station, mostly for the traffic report for my commute home. While I’m waiting to hear about what massive traffic jam I’m headed towards, this moronic talk show host is going on and on about “immigration reform”. He was debating with a caller about what will happen if people are allowed to stay here under that guest worker program. His caller was concerned about criminals and terrorists being here, being allowed to stay and not being monitored. The host said something to the effect of “well, that’s while we’ll just have to monitor their every move.” To which the caller responded, “if they become American citizens, what about their right to privacy?” “Americans don’t have a right to privacy, reread you constitution” says the host.

I had to turn the radio off.

(more…)

Geek Wear

I have a vast collection of geek apparel which I enjoy and wear proudly whenever possible. Some of my older t-shirts have seen better days and, quite frankly, I could use the wardrobe update. I’ve been given the ok to get myself stocked up on awesome t-shirts for the impending summer and I’ve decided to scour the internet for unique designs. There are the usual places to find geek-wear, but I’d really like to find the best of the best. So, I’m going to need your help. Here’s what I’m thinking so far…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, so that last one isn’t a t-shirt, but it’s still friggin sweet. I need some more suggestions on cool shirts, or at the very least, so cool sites to find shirts. I know all the obvious ones: thinkgeek, jinx, threadless, splitreason, etc. Any suggestions guys? Nagle, I know you’ve probably got some…

6 Years and Running

That’s right kids. 6 whole years of listening to me talk about every topic humanly imaginable. I made my first post to a beta Blogger account on April 29th, 2001. I’ve been through 5 different content managment systems, 2 additional web-only services and a whole host of other crap. There’s been nearly 1400 posts and probably even more that where lost to the ravages of time (and Moveable Types crappy import/export system!)

I love this journal. It’s been a great run so far. I’m proud of what I’ve written, I’m proud of keeping something like this going for this long, and I’ll be proud as hell when I hit all the milestones to come.

I was talking to my friend Matt last weekend and I had shown him this blog as an example of what a CMS was, and what WordPress does. He took the time to go back and poke around and he said to me the next day “Wow, you’ve had that journal forever, you must be one of the original people to have a blog”. I don’t know if I’d be considered in the “original” crowd, but I have certainly had this going for a while. I know there were some people experimenting with this type of thing before I was. I think it’s safe to say that I was an “early adopter”. Actually, most of you were right along with me. Chip and Jason still have their livejournal accounts, Chris had something funky (was it Manilla?) around the same time too.

It feels kinda good to actually be considered at the front of something. I know where not breaking any barriers here, but when teeny-bopper highschool kids are starting their blogs, write a dozen posts, then abandon it forever, it gives me a happy feeling of longevity. That we’re doing something that hasn’t been a waste of time. That, because it’s now becoming mainstream, we can honestly say “Yeah, we were doing that years before anyone else” and it’ll be 100% true.

Guys, we kick ass. Celebrating six years of posting should also be a celebration for you as well. You guys have been at this as long as I have. So, pick up your glasses, here’s a toast:

“To the wonderful ride it’s been. To all the post we’ve made. And to all the posts that are yet to come. Cheers!”

New Phrase

With my vast wedding experience, I’ve decided to coin a new term. I’m hoping it gets absorbed into the daily English lexicon. Are you prepared?

Wedding Lesbians

The definition of a wedding lesbian is any girl who, after any number of alcoholic beverages, “dirty dances” with another girl, typically at a wedding reception. These girls are not lesbians in their daily sexual orientation. No, these are girls are only interested in other girls after a half dozen martinis and while listening to “Brick House”. Normally the effects of “wedding lesbianism” wear off after an hour or two or whenever the DJ plays something slow, whichever comes first.

See, you learn something new every day. Now, the next time you’re at a wedding and you see this phenominon, don’t hesitate to point out these people to other guests. When they ask you what on earth your problem is, just tell’em I said it was ok.

I always have fun being someone else…

Routinely, I give out fake information to people and businesses. I don’t do it out of spite… well… actually, yeah I probably do. I see zero need for the people at Best Buy, Circuit City, Radioshack, Home Depot or any of the other million buisnesses that claim they need that information, to actually have that information. I bought a DVD from them, that’s all they should care about. They don’t need to know my life story. Isn’t the fact that I’m buying Tombstone on DVD for the 4th time telling enough?

So, not seeing the need to treat these information whoring stores with any respect, I make up stuff. I do it daily. For the longest time I would make up someone completely. Biff Hardrock or Jonny Hammer, something like that. Unfortunatly, those sound like wrestling names. Come to find out that your average BestBuy employee goes home and watches nothing but WWE when their shift is done, and this started to raise a few eyebrows. So, I decided to find out exactly what level of education these folks have. If they can recognise my fake names, they’ll often smile knowingly and put the data into the computer anyway. I feel that in some small way I just made their day a little brighter.

I started off pretty hardcore, throwing around names like Kofi Annan, Dashiell Hammett and Dean Moriarty. Quickly realizing no one had any idea who those people were, I aimed a little lower. Currently I have three that I use interchangeably…

Arthur Dent, Art Bell and John McClane. You’d be surprised how many people just put stuff like this into the computer and don’t even think about it…

Arthur Dent
42 Beebblebrox Lane
Insert Town, State
whatissixtimesnine@gmail.com

I enjoy doing this way to much.