Everything is Unfinished

Not wanting to sit around and wait for my oil to be changed today, I walked to Einstein Brothers Bagels to have lunch. I typically don’t like to eat by myself in restaurants, but every now and then it’s ok. I’ve found that you hear the most interesting things just by not being engrossed in your own conversation. Today there was a group of middle-aged business guys sitting behind me. One of them was explaining to another that his teenage son will put his headphones on and play a game on his “cd-rom”, and a whole bunch of his friends will be at their “cd-roms” too, and they’ll all be playing the same game and talking to each other just like they’re on the phone! I nearly laughed out loud at the incredulity in this guy’s voice until I realized that someday, probably not too far in the future, I’ll be just as incredulous that my kids are projecting their holograms into virtual reality games with their friends’ holograms, and talking to each other just like they’re on the phone. Which, if Xbox Live is any indication, consists mostly of calling each other gay.

As promised to Jeff, here are some pictures of Woody for his birthday. Certainly not the most embarrassing pics I have, but this is what I can do for now because my internet connection is acting up. Enjoy!

After a very long battle with cancer, my Aunt Sue passed away last night. I can’t remember how long ago she first got it, but it was at least 10 years. She had most of her tongue, jaw and pallet removed and/or reconstructed over those years when the cancer would come back, then it would go into remission for a while. This summer it came back and just didn’t go away, and for the last few weeks she was in considerable pain. She went to Hospice last Friday, and my mom called this morning to tell me that she had passed. I don’t know what happens when we die, but I hope I meet her again someday.

Aunt Sue was a smoker. She’s the third of my dad’s eight siblings to die from a smoking-related illness, and a fourth has had a lung removed because of it. Fortunately my dad quit when I was young, but my brothers for some reason just won’t give it up. Are you reading this Andy and Myke? I’ll buy you the gum or the patch or the faggy fake cigarrette or the electroshock therapy or whatever you need, just quit smoking. The sooner the better. You can even sign up on Quitnet.com to keep track of your progress. It will tell you how much money you’ve saved by not smoking, and how many more years of life you’ve saved. I don’t want to lose either of you this way.

Even though my house is filthy, we’re out of clean towels, and I need to organize my various holiday decorations in anticipation of putting the Christmas tree up, I have been so unbelievably lazy lately. I come home from work, almost immediately change into Chilling Clothes (consisting of an old t-shirt and MF pants), and spend the rest of the evening on the couch. That’s the nice thing about having a laptop with a wireless internet connection: I don’t have to move from the couch to check my email, eat dinner (which we’ve even ordered in for the past 2 nights) and watch Johnny play Halo 2, all while playing The Sims 2. I’m so hooked again, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the options the game gives you. And just last night one of my characters had a baby, which is so unbelievably cute that I had to tear myself away from the game at 1am just so I could make it to work today. I shouldn’t have bothered - the bosses are gone and I’ve spent the entire morning watching old commercials from the 80’s (including the one with the annoying Encyclopedia Brittanica kid who had a report due on space!) on X-Entertainment. This is a great site that I remember from time to time, and when I visit it never disappoints me. Check this out and you’ll see why.

Where to begin…

ESPN Classic has finally justified itself in my mind with the show Cheap Seats. It’s on at 10 & 10:30pm EST Thursdays and repeated at 1 & 1:30am EST Saturday nights (technically Sunday morning). If you have ESPN Classic, watch this show. It’s MST3K for old obscure sporting events, and if that doesn’t sound like the funniest thing ever then you can get the hell out of the country, COMMIE! But seriously, this week they’re showing the 1978 Superstars. Superstars of what, I’m not sure, but the clip on their website had me in tears I was laughing so hard. And if the hosts, Randy and Jason Sklar, look or sound familiar to you, they hosted Battlebots for 3 seasons and do the voices of Biff and Chip on The Oblongs, which is a great show with a fun theme song by TMBG.

So exactly how early does Christmas need to begin? I actually saw a few things out in stores before Halloween this year, and by now everyone’s in full swing. Why not just leave the stupid stuff up all year and save everyone the trouble of thinking about anything else but buying more gifts, decorations and candy? Yeesh. Although I must admit that having Hershey’s Mint Kisses back makes the whole debacle worth it somehow. But I’m still not putting my tree up until after Thanksgiving.

Yesterday I switched my work browser to Firefox. I’m not sure why I waited so long - I had all ActiveX controls blocked on IE anyway, which only made it harder to deal with. So far it’s not bad. It works pretty much like every browser I’ve ever used. There are of course some pages that just don’t display the same (I lost some buttons on my blog entry page!), and my timesheet entry website will only load in IE. I’m trying to get used to the tabs rather than opening new windows. I never used tabbed browsing with Netscape. Anyone know what the shortcut keys are to switch between open tabs?

To clarify something, I don’t hate Christmas. In fact, I rather like Christmas. I just don’t think the Christmas Marketing Machine needs to begin until after Thanksgiving, if at all.

I like my job. I work in a small office with 6 computer engineers and 2 bosses. I am basically the administrative department. I answer the phones, I copy, I ship, I fax, I file, I have a few ongoing projects that I keep track of. I like doing all of that - despite my dislike of cleaning, I like organization. But I HATE doing proposals.

My Snapple lid just told me that bamboo makes up 99% of a panda’s diet. So I guess that Snickers commercial from a few years back was right. Hee hee, pandas are funny.

So there’s a new commercial for a cholesterol medication that says it will fight both kinds of cholesterol: the kind you get from food, and the kind you get hereditarily. I think it would be better if, instead of a pill, it was a big burly guy who smacked food out of your hands when you tried to eat it, and killed your family.

Did I mention I hate proposals? And now I have to open stupid IE to record the 6 hours of work I did today on the stupid proposal.

PvP made a Tenacious D reference:

Pandas are funny.

Last Song iPod Brought Me: Zero 7, In The Waiting Line (from the Garden State soundtrack

So I guess I’ve been lax in posting lately (again). Partly for the usual reasons of just being lazy or not really having anything to post about, but partly because I’ve been so damn irritated by this election crap. Johnny keeps posting new information that shows that Kerry had no right to concede so early, and it makes me madder and madder. But I’m not going to talk about that right now. My blood pressure is high enough as it is. Instead, I’m going to play this little game that I stole from another blog:

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.

2. Post a reasonably-sized picture on your blog, NOT under a cut tag or linked, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.

3. Include these instructions, and share the love.

So now everyone do the same, and we’ll get some good energy flowing again and start reforming the election process later.

Last song iPod brought me: Postal Service, Natural Anthem

I got this email today from my favorite local radio station, CD101:

Tomorrow’s the big day: the day where you have the power to decide the future leader of the country. Whom will you choose? It’s up to you, any candidate, any party, any write-in, it’s all your decision. With Ohio being romanced as much as it has been in the past couple of months, don’t you think it’s about time you, the Voter, put out?

Head to the polls tomorrow any time between 7am and 8pm, and place your vote for President, for Senator, for State Representative; it’s all up to you! Don’t forget to listen to CD101 all day on Election Day, ’cause we’ve got a special treat for you! In the spirit of your vote counting, we’re doing the popular So What’cha Want noon o’clock program all day long. Yeah! From 7am on Tuesday morning to 8pm Tuesday night, you’re going to program the music all day long. And just like with the General Election, there are no wrong decisions! So What’cha Want, all day long on Election Day!

Still can’t decide who to vote for? Head to Vote-Smart.org, where you can see each of Ohio’s candidates listed by their issues, names, and platforms. Now you have no
excuse! Don’t know where you should be voting? Head to the Franklin County Board of Elections website to help you out. Not in Franklin County? Click here.

Still can’t decide if it’s worth your fifteen minutes to vote? Check out Get Off the Internet and Vote. You can win tons of great merchandise from Toothpaste for Dinner and Natalie Dee’s websites! And then wear your “I Voted Today” sticker to the Ohio Massage Therapy Professionals, and get $15 off a massage until November 26th. And then head to It’s Yoga (on 5th Avenue in Grandview) with your sticker (Tuesday through Friday), and get one free Yoga class until November 5th!

I thought it was pretty cool of them to encourage people to go out and vote, and to provide links to pertinant websites to help people get out and vote. And I love the last sentence of that first paragraph! Unfortunately, they did include the wrong times in their email - the polls here are open from 6:30am to 7:30pm. They sent out another email with that correction. Good for them!