Nails on a Chalkboard

After an extended absence following my world tour in…   Oh who the hell am I kidding, I’ve been sitting on my ass watching TV.  Anyway, I have returned to the blogging world to spew more useless ranting forth on the world.  For how long?  Who knows?  BUT, I’ll try to be interesting, because like always, I have alot to say.  As usual, the one thing that got me blogging again is a daily annoyance that I’ve noticed.  I have never been much of a coffee drinker.  I like it occassionally.  From time to time, I’ll stop in the local Shell, Chevron, or Valero gas station on my way to work and get one of those El Cheapo Cappucinos out of the machine that dispenses usually cappucino in 2 different flavors and hot chocolate.  During the summer and sometimes during the winter (which is usually still summer-like weather down here in Texas), I’ll treat myself and stop by Starbucks (or as I like to call it “Sheepbucks” as this is where the masses of sheeple get their daily fix) and I’ll get myself one of those Frappuccinos Mocha, in case you were wondering…   probably not.  If it is actually cold outside, I’ll get a White Mocha Coffee.  Yum!  But, since I hate conformism in any form, I usually try to steer clear.  The astronomical price they charge for their beverages is also quite a deterrent.  By the way, if you fancy a hilarious take on modern coffee trends, check out Dennis Leary’s “Lock n’ Load” CD or DVD.  He goes off on a hilarious rant about buying coffee in today’s society.  “I want coffee flavored coffee…  AND PULL UP YOUR PANTS!!”  Check it out and you’ll see or hear what I’m talking about.  Hysterical.  I have a REALLY nice single cup coffee maker at home that my Aunt got me and it makes really good coffee so I’ve been drinking it a bit more lately.  Oh God, the A.D.D. kid has gone off on another tangent!!  Forgive me.  Okay, back on topic.

Anyway, I stopped by the Shell this morning for a cappuccino (which for $1.15 is pretty damn good) and couldn’t figure out how to get the damn lid open so I had to wait till I got to work to hack it open with a box cutter, thus ruining the lid so I said “Hell with it” and took the lid off.  All was quiet in the office, only the sound of my co-worker on the phone with a user.  I began to drink said cappuccino, and about 1/4 of the way through it, I was horrified to discover that I was doing the one thing that I CAN’T STAND WHEN PEOPLE DO.  I was slurping on my beverage!  I HATE THAT!!  Short of someone eating their lunch or smacking on gum while they’re on the phone with you, this is the WORST sound ever!!  Now mind you, the drink was very hot, and had I just gulped it down, I would’ve probably wound up in a hospital or at the very least, sounding like Joe Cocker for a few days due to scorched vocal cords.  I realized however, that this whole “reverse blow” slurping thing is truly the only way to drink a really hot beverage without a need for medical attention.  Now be that as it may, it is still one of the most annoying sounds in the world despite what Harry and Lloyd told us in Dumb and Dumber.

Until next time…

A call from Willy?

Ya know, they always say that it’s great for your self-esteem if you love yourself (heh, I do plenty of that!! Er, uh, just kidding!! Sort of… ) and have a healthy sense of self-worth. Well I never realized how important I ACTUALLY AM until I got home and checked my answering machine. (Yes, I have an answering machine. I’m giving AT&T the finger by not being suckered into paying for Call Notes every month. Rat bastard crooks.) Much to my surprise, I had a message from none other than the Ex-Prez himself, Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton!!

So anyway, there’s Willy, leaving me a message asking me to vote for his old lady during the upcoming elections!! Wow, don’t I feel special?!? Maybe he’s hoping that I too use presidential interns as humidors and we have some sort of connection. Now, since we’re buds on that level, I guess he’s supposing that I’ll do him a solid by voting for Hell-ary (yes, I’m well aware of how I spelled that) and she can in turn run our country even further into the ground? Maybe launch us into another war somewhere else just to prove that she does have the balls to run the country. Better yet, maybe she’ll just put our guard down altogether so we can let some retarded band of jackass terrorists shove their foot even further up our collective asses! I don’t fuckin’ think so pal. Now, maybe if he had included a sax solo or a website to download unreleased footage of him “not having oral sex with that woman” in the oval office, I’d be willing to fall for the gimmick. But alas, I don’t smoke cigars, didn’t get a sax solo, and was sent no links to said unreleased footage, so he’ll just have to keep plugging away and dial up the next poor sucker who’s dumb enough to fall for an auto dialer and a smile.

Where there’s smoke…

Well, so much for quitting smoking!! I sort of picked the wrong day to quit. I picked a day when I had a test at school and had planned to go out to a bar that night. It wouldn’t have taken a Rhodes Scholar to figure out that I was setting myself up for failure before I had even begun. I quit on Wednesday morning, but I still had like 3 cigarettes left in my pack so I figured I’d keep them around “just incase”. Yeah, well so much for just incase. I’ve said this to friends whom I’ve discussed quitting smoking with before, but if it’s this hard to quit smoking, I can’t even fathom how difficult it must be to kick something really heavy, like heroin or cocaine. Smoking is more of a mental addiction than anything else. I can’t imagine adding the heavy physical addiction of hard drugs on top of it. I hate the fact that I’m still smoking, but sometimes I do thank God that smoking is the only thing I’m addicted to.

Nonetheless, I still plan on quitting sometime in the not too distant future. I’ll keep ya posted.

A Fowl Problem

I have realized that of all the apartment complexes in all of South Texas I could have moved into, I had to choose the one populated by birds with insomnia. The last couple of nights, I have had the most impossible time getting to sleep because there are 2 or 3 pain-in-the-ass birds, that obviously don’t know that they’re not supposed to start chirping/singing until after the sun comes up. It’s 1:45 in the morning and these birds are outside my window hollering at each other across the apartment complex. I go outside to smoke, might as well, I’m not sleeping anyway, and I can hear them “having a conversation” across the complex. It’s really ridiculous. The thought of getting a rifle and going outside and picking them off has crossed my mind a couple of times, but only a couple of things stop me:

1) I don’t wish to go to prison because a stray bullet goes into someone’s apartment and takes an eye out or worse.

2) I’m an animal lover which pretty much keeps me from harming any animal… except for fish. Just kidding.

3) I don’t own any firearms of any kind. Wierd, huh?

Anyhoo, I’m praying that their internal clocks are just a bit off and they’ll get synced back up soon. Or maybe (through no fault of my own) they’re blind, explaining why they can’t tell it’s night and not day and they’ll accidentally kamakaze into a building somewhere, thus solving the problem all together. Might be a great spot for a bird lover with a sleep disorder, but I just wish they’d go away.

Ax + By = EVIL

I hate math. Math to me is like country music. No matter how much I’ve tried to like it and be friends with it, we just don’t get along. There are certiain aspects of it that I can understand to an extent, much like there are a couple of country music artists that I can tolerate and maybe even like a little. But for the most part, they’re both just confusing, aggravating, annoying crap that I find myself having to deal with. Now at least with country music, I can:

1) Avoid country music bars
2) Avoid country music radio stations
3) Bury my head in the sand for 2 weeks in February while the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo is in town

Unfortunately, when you’re trying to get a college degree, avoiding math isn’t so easy. I was talking to Loony the other day and I told her, “ya know, I kick myself for not sticking with college right out of high school, but I was no better at math back then so it really wouldn’t have made a difference!” I just lack the ability to wrap my brain around the concepts of Algebra and it’s usefulness in the everyday world. I mean, I guess I can see some aspects of it that could be useful, but for the most part, I don’t think I’ll be graphing any lines or parabolas in my everyday life. The worst part is, I’m in this “Intermediate Algebra” class (Apparently they can’t call it “Remedial Algebra” anymore, and I think “Algebra for Dummies” is out of the question), and I’m still struggling. My instructor is wonderful. She’s really patient and explains everything in a way that is easy to understand, yet I’m still clinging onto the bottom rung for dear life. The class is just moving so fast that I’m having a hard time grasping most of these concepts in the time frame allowed. I know, bitching about it isn’t going to help but I just had to vent my frustrations before I go nuts. Oh yeah, I know, too late for that!!

I guess I’ll just have to find a tutor and see if that helps me any.

Smoking, God, and Absence…

Hello all, I’m back. Once again, I apologize for my extended absence but I’ve been too lazy, ahem!! I mean BUSY, to post. However, since I plan on quitting smoking for Lent, I figured I’ll need something else to do to help pass the time that I’m not smoking and blogging sounds like a good one. I don’t think anyone has died from blogging… yet.

I haven’t considered myself a “practicing Catholic” in quite some time so I’m not sure why I still honor traditional rituals such as Lent but, nonetheless, I do. I guess it’s that good Catholic guilt that all you other Catholics and recovering Catholics know all too well. However, at the risk of sounding like a religious zealot (like any of you who know me are buying that one for one second anyway!), I will say that God has definitely saved my ass on many occassions and I figure I at least owe it to him to make some sacrifices to show my appreciation. I’ve done so many dumb things in my life and have come out of it relatively unscathed and most times, I’ve managed to walked away with a really good life lesson learned. I don’t believe in good luck, so I have to believe that some omnipotent being is up there somewhere looking out for me.

That brings me to another point that I think I’ll ramble on a bit about. When I say “some omnipotent being up there”, I do so only because I just happen to believe in God. You know, the “holy trinity”, “wrath of God”, “turning water into wine”, “talking to Charleton Heston from behind the burning bush” God. Yeah, that guy. However, I’m not foolish enough to argue that the God I believe in is the right God or the same God everyone should believe in. I’ve come to the conclusion, or some may even call it a theory, that there truly is only one God, BUT, different people worship Him/Her in different ways and call Him/Her by different names. Yeah, I’m not so obteuse as to not consider the possibility that He might just be a She but for the purposes of not having to type “Him/Her” over and over again, I’ll just refer to Him as Him or He. Thanks for sticking with me on that one. Anyway, in the grand scheme of things, it’s all the same being that’s watching over all of us. Call Him Buddah, God, Allah, Shiva, or whatever YOU believe His name is, He’s still the same being.

Well, wish me luck with the quitting smoking thing. With work, school, and just the normal pressures of everyday life, I’m sure it’s going to be hell, but no one said it would be easy.

Where the hell did you go?

Hello all!! I apologize that I have not posted in quite a while. I’ve been really busy with work and other stuff and really haven’t had the time. Sometimes I wish there was a way to add more hours to the day, but then our jobs would just make us work longer hours so it wouldn’t make much difference now would it?

I definitely still plan on posting part 2 of “Not Your Father’s Television Set” and adding many new posts so stay tuned ladies and germs!!

Yeeowch!! My toe!!!

Well, last Friday, I finally took the medical leap of faith I’ve been dreading for quite a while. I suffer from a couple of pesky ingrown toenails and after trying to treat them unsuccessfully myself over the last few years, I decided to get them taken care of by a doctor. I was really nervous but I figured, it’s better than having to deal with it day in and day out forever and it really hurt most of the time.

Well, I went in to the office and was called back and put up on this chair/table type thing. I can honestly say at that point it felt more like I had made a wrong turn somewhere and wound up in the OB/GYN’s office. (I definitely have the wrong plubming for that office!!) I was in the right place though and the nurse came in and did the whole medical history thing. I was still very uneasy, but the doc came in and was ready to go right to work. After a couple of questions, he sprayed this super cold liquid on my toe which numbed the top layer of skin and then he gave me two injections in the top of the toe to numb the toe completely. The spray only numbed the top layer of skin so I didn’t feel the needle stick, but I could feel the needle a little bit. That was the worst part of the entire procedure. I could see him picking up instruments and feel him tugging on and manipulating my foot, but no pain. Yay!! He put a couple of bloody instruments and the hacked off piece of toenail up on the table where I could see them which was a little gross, but I was just happy it didn’t hurt.

Afterwards, when the anesthetic wore off, it was REALLY sore. Not unbearably so, but pretty damn uncomfortable. Advil Liqui-Gels or the generic equivalent did the trick as far as eliminating most of the soreness and it really only lasted until about 3:00 PM on Saturday. Other than that, it’s been fine and I haven’t had any problems. Aftercare is a little unpleasant, not because it hurts, but mainly because you’ll have a bit of oozing and bleeding for a couple of days. It’s a little stomach churning for those weak-of-stomach, but for the Average Joe, (heh, sorry I couldn’t resist the pun) it’s not a big deal.

I’m happy to report my toe hasn’t felt better in years and I don’t fear the pain of getting up in the morning and putting on shoes. I only did it on the outside edge of the big toe on my left foot. Those who have seen me dance may ask which of my two left feet I’m referring to but it’s my true left foot. I have a bit of ingrown problems on the inner edge and on both edges of my big toe on my right foot, but after discussing it with the doc, I decided I’d handle it in baby steps since the others don’t bother me nearly as much and it was my first time going through this procedure. I hope the others won’t become a severe problem for a long while, but if they do I now know that I can live through the experience and come through it with minimal hassle. So fear not if you’re chicken-hearted about outpatient surgeries, it’s a relatively painless procedure and you’ll be glad you did it!!

Hockey Fight! Hockey Fight?

The NHL has become a contradiction of its own terms. The sport that has come up through the years, being known for it’s aggressive play, fights, brawls and all around nastiness has become split right down the middle by it’s own rule changes and overbearing officiating. It seems that with the current trend of officials coming down hard on hooking penalties and other infractions that they perceive to be slowing down the game, they have left today’s young players and some veterans desperate to find other methods to slow down game play just a bit in order to generate defensive posture in the defensive zone. Unfortunately these desperate measures seem to be causing much frustration throughout the league with players, owners and officials alike, and leaving more severely injured players in their wake.

The game of ice hockey has always been synonomous with bone-jarring body checks, fighting, and all around bloody entertainment. Let’s face it, it’s why people have always watched sports like, hockey, auto racing and boxing, they’re waiting for the fights, the wrecks, the knock-outs, and the blood. However, ice hockey is not a barbarian sport solely based on violence and bloodshed. It’s combination of football’s fierceness, the grace of ice skating, and the speed of basketball make it a truly amazing sport to watch or play. There is a certain level of combativeness that has always been a part of the game and without it, the sport would certainly lose much of it’s appeal. Frustration with an unrecoverable loss on the horizon, retaliation for going after a veteran or team captain, or old fashioned low-down dirty play can all result in scuffles and fights in a hockey game.

Today’s NHL has become a shell of it’s former self. The numbers of “Old Time Hockey” players whose style and play is like that of Eddie Shore, Toe Blake, and Gordie Howe, which Slap Shot’s famous Hanson Brothers spoke of are dwindling exponentially. Even in recent years, the role of the enforcer has been reduced to little more than a road block attempting to prevent break away opportunities and basically intimidate the other team’s instigators and do little else. The days of dropping the gloves and giving it a go on the ice with the likes of Tie Domi, Martin Lapointe, and John Ferguson is a fast fading part of the game. Yes, there still is the occasional fight in some games, but most times the officials break players up before there is really a chance to get anything started. While their interest lies strictly in the continuity of the game, it robs the game and more importantly, the fans of a part of the game that has always made it great. At the risk of creating another contradiction of terms, fighting in hockey is becoming a lost art.

Can hockey survive without fighting? Of course it can, especially with recent rule changes such as the revocation of the two-line pass rule, the addition of the rule forbidding line changes during stoppage of play, and stronger enforcement of interference penalties. These rules were changed, revoked, or implemented to speed up the game and make it a higher scoring sport and more entertaining for the fans. Bringing the shoot-out back into the game has also made tie games a nail biting bonus rather than a disappointment.

As mentioned before, many players are still looking for ways to slow down offensive attacks in the zone and with the increase in the speed of the game in combination with the rule changes, this is becoming increasingly difficult. Many of todays young stars have speed that was only dreamt of in the early days of ice hockey and with this speed comes and increasing need to keep one’s eye on the stick and the puck in order to control it into the zone and take the most accurate shot possible. One of hockey’s golden rules has always been to keep one’s head up at all times and be vigilant of what’s going on around one’s self, but this has become increasingly difficult with the speed and pace of today’s game. When a player makes a speedy breakaway, head down keeping his eyes focused on the puck and the net, this leaves him wide open to serious injuries resulting from head down checks from defensemen as we’ve seen countless times in recent seasons. The debate about shoulder checks to the head has become a heated topic with NHL officials, but we’ll see if any rule changes are made to reduce the amount of occurences. Some say this type of regulation would further hamper the original spirit of the game and to a certain extent, it will. Nevertheless, severely injuring or crippling other players with dangerous hits that could cause severe head injuries and in the worst of circumstances, paralysis is not in the spirit of the game and never has been. Although the sport has had a violent edge to it, there has always been an unwritten gentlemen’s code that governs the behavior of most players. As with any sport, there will always be the rouge players that injure or maim without consideration, but they are few and far between.

This comes full circle to the original question: “Is today’s NHL overregulated?” The game has definitely become more fast-paced and exciting with its new found speed and high scoring, but at the cost of removing some of the elements, such as fighting that have become synonymous with hockey and have identified the sport for years. Do the fans want an all out Slap Shot style, goon riddled, bench clearing brawl to break out in every game? Certainly not the overwhelming majority of the sport’s true fans. With the NHL lacking in sheer numbers in regards to viewership and fan base throughout the United States, Canada, and abroad in comparison to other professional sports, the league can definitely use every single element it can find as a marketing tool to keep existing fans loyal and bring in new fans on a consistent basis. As the old saying goes, “If the boys want to fight it out, let ‘em fight it out” and keep the true spirit of the game’s roots alive.

Not Your Father’s Television Set, Part Two

Okay, so unfortunately, it didn’t end with simply buying the damn TV. Since I didn’t research any of this stuff, I hadn’t discovered how much of an investment (see also: money pit) I was really getting myself into. The TV has a built in High Definition tuner so I figured, “cool, I’ll be able to go home and plug in my DirecTV box and start getting High Def programming”. Not so fast Bucko!! I had to buy the DirecTV High Def box and since I’m addicted to my DVR, it had to be the High Def DVR. Props to the sales guy at Best Buy though, because he gave me an even better deal than DirecTV would have given me on that thing. So he proceeds to tell me that I’m going to have to call DirecTV and have them come out and install a new dish in order to pick up the High Def signal they transmit. Fine. So I get home, I call DirecTV and due to the high demand on their High Def programming, they’re not going to be able to come out and install the dish until March. That’s right, MARCH!!! (Keep in mind I bought this TV the day before the SuperBowl and they didn’t come out and install it until last week) WTF?!?! The reason they gave me is that they had no more High Def dishes in stock so they’re waiting for new ones. I figure, “Okay, it’s out of their hands. They can’t conjure them out of thin air. I’ll just wait patiently.” I later found out the story about the dishes was bullshit and the true story is that since the installs take longer becuase it requires extra work to install a high def dish so they have to schedule longer blocks of time for each customer resulting in fewer customer installs per day, fewer per week, you get the idea. I still can’t figure out why the install takes longer because it seemed like any other DirecTV install I’ve had except for the fact that the installer was a complete idiot. MUCH dumber than any of the other technicians that have ever done installs for me in the past. All in all, I would have preferred the truth. Strike one against DirecTV.

Well after paying that much for a High Def TV, I was disappointed that my picture wasn’t as clear as what I saw at the store. I asked one of my co-workers and he said, “Just go to Radio Shack and pick up a High Def antenna and you’ll at least be able to pick up the local over-the-air channels in High Def.” So off I go to Radio Shack and $35 later, I come home with an antenna, plug it in, run the channel scan and Voila!! I have local High Def programming!! Now what they don’t tell you is, if the program is broadcast in High Def, you’ll see it in full screen High Def, but if it’s not, it’ll be cut off and the picture won’t fill the whole screen. UGH!! Well, I can live with it for a few more weeks because supposedly DirecTV’s High Def service isn’t like that, but we’ll see.

After more discussions with Eric and other friends who HAVE done their homework on all this stuff, I’m discovering there’s ALOT more left to buy. Apparently, cabling to connect all these kick-ass doo-dads together costs a TON of cash!! There’s a cable that must be the mother of all cables (ooh, I might just use that for the name of my next band!! Catchy, eh?) called the HDMI cable. It’s some sort of super crisp, ultra-mega, supercalafragalistic High Def cable that carries audio and video to your TV without having to have 2 or 3 cables to do each thing individually. That frickin’ cable is $100 at most audio/video retailers and not much less anywhere online. Then comes something I hadn’t really given much thought to until I was at the store and had it shoved in my face, Surround Sound.

I have an old Pioneer stereo that my folks gave me a while back and it’s a really nice system. It’s over 10 years old and supposedly has some sort of surround sound processor in it. It has 2 large speakers that are your typical old-school stereo speakers with a 15″ woofer, midrange speaker and a tweeter. Then there are 3 satellite speakers, one center channel and two rear channel speakers. Now I’ve had this thing hooked up with all the speakers in the right place and yeah, it does give one a sense of surround sound, but I don’t think it’s true, honest-to-goodness surround sound. (Mom and Dad, if you’re reading this, I still love the stereo and it still runs like a champ. I’m not doggin’ it at all, it’s just time to update my gear. Promise!!) So now, I have to go out and look for a decent surround sound system that won’t break me financially but won’t be a total piece of crap either. First I have to get all this other stuff taken care of and paid off and THEN I can worry about the sound system. I’ll definitely post again when I decide to make the audio plunge. Also check back for my DirecTV bashing post that’s soon to come. Until then, take care kids and I hope to see ya around again soon!!