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[19 May 2009|06:36pm] |
is moving.
The appeal of Facebook is pretty obvious. I mean, you can play Oregon Trail! And there's other stuff too. Status updates are handy and quick ways to let the world know how you're doing. Twitter, on the other hand, is still absolutely retarded. There's no reason to give two dozen one liners during the course of you're day. Really, you're not that exciting. Don't feel bad, neither am I. The people who update their status message 6 jillion times a day? They wind up on my ignore list. I'd shoot myself if I had to follow my friends. But used sparingly status messages are great! But onto my original point....
is moving.
After 2 years in Cranston and all 28.917 years of my life in Rhode Island, I'm off to the far, far away land of Massachusetts. Erin and I found a townhouse to rent in Attleboro, right over the border. It has everything we were looking for in a place. It's a 2 floor, 2 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom with a big kitchen, full basement, private fenced in yard, washer/dryer/dishwasher, and there's no problem with pets. We'll be there before the start of July.
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[13 May 2009|01:34pm] |
Help the Boston Bruins, the Bruins Foundation, and my beard by donating to the Beard-a-thon. Playoff beards are a long standing tradition amongst hockey players and this year the Boston Bruins are encouraging the fans to get in on the action. All proceeds go to benefit the Bruins Foundation, a charity that focusses on improving the quality of life for New England children in a lot of different ways and the Beard-a-thon has already raised over $80,000. Not to mention our combined playoff beards have already propelled the Bruins to game 7 in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Take a look and donate a buck or two if you can. With paypal it's incredibly easy and without paypal it's still very easy. I haven't donated under my name yet, but I have donated $25 for a friend. I will individually match any of your donations up to $5 though. So if you donate $1, I donate $1. If you donate $5, I donate $5. If 100 of you each donate $5 then I'll be donating $500. Luckly I don't know 100 people! Feel free to donate as much as you'd like and at the very least give my beard a 5 puck rating!
Bruins Foundation
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[30 Apr 2009|11:31am] |
I've decided that, as of today, I'm no longer going to go to work. Fedex's fiscal year ends and begins on June 1st. So we need to get all our vacation days out of the way before then. Every year I'm left with 2 or 3 stray days that never found their way into my schecule during the year so at random points in April and May, I get the day off. Today is one of those days.
I dropped my car off this morning for some minor maintenance type things and walked the dog back to my place. Everyone I met waved, said hi, and some even stopped to talk. Everyone wanted to pet the dog and everyone seemed so happy. People who aren't at work at 9am on a perfect spring day have to be in a good mood. It's in the rule book. So I've decided to retire and become one of those people.
This is where you, my LJ friends and anyone else who happens across this comes in. I need donations. I'm not independantly wealthy. So in order to make this work I'm going to need at least $50,000 a year, preferably more, in donations. Every little bit helps, but a lotta bits would help even more.
Also I decided to do one of those 100-facts-that-you-don't-know-about-me memes, but I only actually have one thing. When I realized that one thing the other day my first thought was that it'd go great in one of those memes. But I'm not really interested in sitting down to come up with 99 more of those things. So here is 1/100th of my list of 100 facts that you don't know about me; when I buy the paper, I never take the top one. I always reach under for the second paper in the stack. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because the top paper always seems a bit wrinkled. Maybe it's because I think the second paper in the stack will have better news in it. If I were ever presented with the last paper in a stack, I'm not sure what I'd do. I never noticed this about myself until the other day.
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[16 Apr 2009|04:46pm] |
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Are there any official rules when it comes to black cats? Is it a case by case basis here? Does it count if a black cat with white feet crosses your path? What if a black cat crosses in front of you, but you turn around and go the other way? What if you don't see the cat when he crosses in front of you? Is there a time limit on how long the cat crossing lasts if you don't cross it? Are there all sorts of cat crossing bad luck booby traps all over the ground from cats who crossed years ago? What if the cat crosses behind you on a path that you've already? Is thre a record for most consecutive questions asked in an LJ entry?
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[07 Apr 2009|06:56pm] |
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The weekend consisted of booze and naketivity. There was a hike, an old people party (drinks, board games, and movies without having to buy a single $6 beer at the bar), and free pizza and donuts while helping my mom move. Of course, there was also the moment we've all been waiting for for months; opening day of the baseball season. But the biggest highlight of the weekend came at the begining of our hike. We took the dogs to a hiking trail that we had never been to. Not 100 yards into the woods we saw a dog peaking out behind a big rock. He gave us the look. Ya know, the "OMG! Other dogs for me to play with!" look. Yeah, OMG...dogs aren't very smart. But anyways, he wanted to play. The fact that he had a small child holding his leash didn't matter. He charged us. The girl gave a very valiant effort trying to keep up with the bolting dog, but that didn't last long. The face plant was epic. Professional stunt men couldn't have pulled it off as well. She was dragged for a little bit before finally being able to let go. She started wailing as the dog came to greet us. It was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Erin thinks I'm a horrible person for laughing so much. Personally I feel like I'm a helluva guy for at least waiting until we were out of sight of the girl before laughing at her. Highlight number two of the weekend came during the move. My mom just bought her first house and the families were there to help with the move. The old oven was sitting in the front yard waiting to be thrown away. I noticed that in the bottom oven tray there was a french fry. No one had lived in the house for a while so who knows how long that fry was there. I called my brother, who was working in the basement, to let him know about what was found. I offered him a ten to eat it. Someone else chimed in with "hell, for $10, I'll eat it!". So my brother said he'd do it for $5. Sure enough, I brought the fry down to him, he inspected it for a second, and started chewing. It was pretty crunchy. In case you're wondering, my brother is 26. Ladies, as I said in my last post, as unbelievable as this sounds, my brother is single. So act now before someone else snaps him up! Like I've been telling people, my brother just isn't very picky about what he puts in his mouth...
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[03 Apr 2009|05:42pm] |
The following will contain some gender stereotypes and some stereotypes in general. There aren't many folks on my friends list that are easily offended (the easily offended have already defriended me), but if you are offended by stereotypes, you can bite me and move on to the next LJ entry about the Watchmen movie or whatever else LJ entries are about (on a side note, I saw Watchmen, I liked it. On another sidenote, what exactly are LJ entries about these days? I have so few active friends that I don't even know anymore).
Guys are more into hobbies than girls. Guys also typically have more hobbies than girls and there are far more stereotypical guy hobbies than there are stereotypical girl hobbies. What made me think of this? Today was a drizzly, ugly, low visibility day. I was rushing to make a few deliveries by one of our many deadlines and I drove past a golf course. I looked over and, through the fog, there was a group of golfers playing. It wasn't raining hard out, but it was foggy. How foggy was it? It was so foggy, I saw a polar bear climbing into a refridgerator trying to keep warm! Wait...that didn't make sense, I think I mixed my metaphors. Either way, it was foggy, ugly, and raw. Yet there was a group of guys happily swinging away at little white balls that they, in all likelyhood, would never see again.
My friend Mike counts down the minutes to opening day of hunting season. He'll wake up at 4am to make sure he's out in the field before dawn and sit there. He's been doing this for nearly 20 years and he has nabbed exactly 1 deer. When he's not waking up at 4 for hunting season, he's waking up at 3 to drive up to take the boat out and catch some fish. Kellen will wake up early on a Sunday and start his breakfast by making football picks. He'll start with the pregame shows, he'll watch the 1:00 game, he'll switch back and forth between 4:00 games, he'll watch the night game, he'll watch the post game shows, he'll watch the analysis shows, he'll watch the Monday morning quarterback shows, he'll watch the celebrations, he'll watch the Monday night game, and he'll start to prepare his picks for next week. You want to know who the third string quarterback for Tampa Bay is? Not only does he know, but he knows what college this guy went to, his time in the 40 at the combine, his shoe size, and how he takes his coffee. My brother has cleared out his spare bedroom and filled it with rocks. Real rocks, found in dunes, quarries, woods, and paths. One of these days his floor is going to collapse and his landlord will be crushed in his sleep by a pile of rubble. My brother does all this so that he and his friend can make tracks for their remote control off road trucks. Ladies, believe it or not, he's single. Act now, before someone else does. Luke has an entire shelf set aside in his tiny Boston apartment shared with 3 others that is dedicated to making his own beers. There are tubes, kegs, bottles, ingredients, and beers everywhere in a place that isn't even big enough to stretch your arms because the 10,000 breweries already out there don't make enough beer. What about me? I've read most of the 1000 pages of this year's Baseball Prospectus. I've read about the top 5 prospects in every organization from Baseball America. I've read the Hardball Times Annual, the Baseball Forecaster, the Bill James Abstract, and every magazine I can get my hands on. I have a harddrive full of spreadsheets and lists. I have dollar values, draft orders, news, and notes. Last year my 5 fantasy baseball teams came in 1st, 1st, 1st, tied for 1st, and 2nd. This year I'm going very light with only 3, but it's very likely I'll be in the top 3 in each league. I might even sign up for a couple last minute leagues. I've had as many as 12 in a year.
Guys get into their hobbies. You wouldn't see a girl swinging a club in the rain or setting aside an entire room for remote control cars. Give me a friend, a case of beer, and a PS3 and the only time I'll be getting out of my chair for the next 14 hours, with the exception of pee breaks will be to open the door for the Dominos guy. But female gamers are few and far in between.
Now, you might be thinking that the guys golfing in the fog are idiots and so are all of the guys, including myself, that I described. And your assessment might be spot on. But there's something else those things have in common and I realized it after thinking about it for a little bit. Beer. A guy will do anything if there's a beer present. And I think that might be the difference between guys and the fairer, less drunk sex. Women will keep themselves occupied with things a bit more productive than swinging a stick, hauling some rocks, or growing attached to the couch. Guys will intently go about their project until the supply of beer runs out.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you're bored, take up drinking. You never know what kinds of useless things you'll find to occupy your time.
Anyways, the quarter of foggy golfers are my new heroes of the day. I imagine that, not only were they going to finish that round of golf, but they were going to brag about it on Monday to their golfin buddies and coworkers. But first, I'm sure they planned on spending some time at the 19th hole.
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[23 Feb 2009|10:05am] |
You know what kind of sucks? Licking the sugar off the side of your Dunkin Donuts cup only to realize that it wasn't sugar, but dirt.
I think I set an unofficial Fed Ex record last week. On Wednesday I broke down on the side of the highway. My truck was incapable of going over 15 and stalled every 10 seconds or so. I limped off the highway because I didn't want to be broken down on the side of 70mph traffic. They fixed the truck and it was back on the road the next day. Apparently a fan belt shredded which caused the engine to overheat. On Friday when I was approaching the same point on the same highway, I had the same problem. Once again I limped off the highway and parked in the very same parking lot from Wednesday with the very same fan belt issue. They brought me a new truck (the tow truck company stops by our station first, hooks up to a spare, and then comes up to meet me to give me the new truck and take away the broken one) and I was on my way a bit over an hour later. An hour later....the engine on the new truck dies on me. I'm not sure what was wrong with that one, but the engine would just die on me every few minutes and wouldn't start for about a minute after that. I did a couple more stops and then parked somewhere for lunch. They had to bring me a third truck that day. So I broke 3 trucks last week, 2 in one day. And that's on top of getting a flat tire the week before. That was all on the same route too. I have pretty bad luck covering that route.
On a completely unrelated topic a couple of weeks ago Erin and I went to a Providence Bruins game with her little brother and cousin. On the way there we were walking through the mall behind a guy who had his kid on his shoulders. They walked through a door and THUNK. The father was tall enough that the kid smacked his forehead on the top of the door. It was one of the funniest things I've seen in a while but the kid's mom didn't feel the same way I did.
I'm currently on vacation....I leave for Florida in 2 days.
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[02 Feb 2009|01:34pm] |
So what's happened since my last post? Christmas has come and gone. New Year's has come and gone. MLK Day has come and gone. There's even a new president in office. There's a new Superbowl champion. The Jason Varitek era nearly came to an end...and then it didn't. New England has been hit with one of the coldest, snowiest winters in recent memory. But you probably knew all that since it happened to you too. What about me?
I had the worst Christmas, workwise, ever. On Christmas Eve I worked until 9 pm delivering packages for all the assholes who waited until late December to ship something. I worked so late that, for the first time in my life, I missed my family gathering on Christmas Eve. The only good thing was that my last stop that night was to James Woods's mom. And James Woods gave me a $10 tip. As a whole, Fed Ex didn't get all the Christmas presents delivered in time. They even had some volunteers come in on Christmas day to deliver some stuff. Christmas itself was good. I did the usual family stuff and some of Erin's family stuff. I got gifts, I gave gifts, I spent some time plotting ways to eliminate Santa.
New Year's Eve was taken out by a snowstorm. A bus ride down to Foxwoods turned into a quiet night at home. I can't say I really mind. I was up at 4 that morning for work and barely made it til midnight. Being out until 3 with a bus load of people that I didn't know out on one of the most crowded nights of the year sounded about as fun as repeated stabbing myself in the eye with a spoon.
I decided to go with the same New Year's resolution as last year. Last year I wanted to try 100 beers and I had it done with plenty of time to go. So this year I'm going for another 100 different from last year. It's a resolution that I know I'll do and I'll have fun with. In general I'm against New Year's resolutions. If you were that serious about changing something about yourself you'd just do it. You wouldn't wait until some arbitrary date to make some kind of half assed effort. Most resolutions fail because it's nothing you want to do and it's not something you're serious about.
The weeekends have been pretty full. There have been a few trips up to Boston. We saw Blue Man Group which was really fun. We also saw a Northeastern hockey game. Northeastern has a very good hockey team this year so Erin has been wanting to see her school play. Then there was the Saturday night at the world's busiest bowling alley. We waited 4 hours for an open lane, the whole time being jostled about by the packed house, listening to bad and loud music, and paying for expensive beers. I was going to bring up that we could've gone to the bowling alley in Woonsocket, got a lane right away, and bought a pitcher of beer for the price of a glass in Boston, but they seemed to be having fun. Bostonians have really weird ideas of fun. We did see a Celtics player which I guess was exciting, but basketball isn't exactly a high ranking sport in my book. This past weekend we saw They Might Be Giants. It was a really good show. One thing I don't like about that band is that they're un-sellouts, not counting the Dunkin' Donuts commercials. Most bands will play their good stuff in concert to try to sell records. TMBG will play their weird stuff and their new stuff. Damn artistic integrity getting in the way. I've been to a couple of shows where their playlist just plain sucked because while they do have a lot of really good songs, they also have a lot of really bad ones. This time though they played all the good stuff.
The weekends coming up will be even busier. Between hockey games, old people birthdays, and a couple of trips we don't have a free weekend until March. We'll be spending the weekend in Cape Cod soon to get a VD. Or celebrate a VD. Or something like that. And then at the end of the month we're heading down to Florida for a long weekend to escape the 3 feet of snow and see the Red Sox in Fort Myers.
And, to top off the month, I have a new car. My '95 Lumina was supposed to just be a stopgap because I really needed a car, but I didn't like it too much so I planned on getting a new one when I could. But one thing lead to another and I somehow managed to keep the Lumina in one piece for 5 years. Recently though it finally died. I now own a car that I can actually rely on and it's a nice feeling.
And that was pretty much my month in review. I'm sure I forgot a few things, but whatareyagonnado. I went the entire month of January without posting. I dunno if I've ever done that before.
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[18 Dec 2008|08:14pm] |
Overheard in the punchin room at work - "When I see Santa, I'm gonna punch him in the fucking face". So, see...I'm not the only one that says that.
What's worse than today, the second busiest delivery day of the year? Tomorrow, the busiest delivery day of the year. What's worse than tomorrow, the busiest delivery day of the year? Tomorrow, the busiest delivery day of the year with 6-12 inches of snow in the forecast. What's worse than tomorrow, the busiest delivery day of the year with 6-12 inches of snow in the forecast? Tomorrow, the busiest delivery day of the year with 6-12 inches of snow in the forecast and no time to recover since we have to clean up the mess on Saturday, a 6th straight very busy day of work. What's worse than tomorrow, the busiest delivery day of the year with 6-12 inches of snow in the forecast and no time to recover since we have to clean up the mess on Saturday, a 6th straight very busy day of work? Not much. Well, maybe super AIDS...but that's about it
Oh, and any of you jackasses wishing for a white Christmas or hoping for any amount of snow is gonna get punched just as hard as Santa.
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[22 Nov 2008|12:41pm] |
I don't feel like writing a real entry. I never do anymore. So here's a quick list of some of the things I've done in the month of November, in no particular order
Bruins game - Best hockey game I've ever seen. Fights all over the place and the good guys won. The Bruins are doing that a lot this year.
Halloween party - Lots of beer, moved on to boxed wine. I was a convict.
Celtics game - Fun to see one in person, but I was getting bored at various points in the game. I really don't like basketball. I was also a bit sick, so that probably didn't help.
AC/DC concert - Really good show. Dunno if it was the best I've ever seen, but it did involve the best guitarwork I've seen and the most 50-foot-tall-inflatable-women-fingering-herselfs that I've ever seen. There was only one, but that's one more than I've ever seen before
Waters work dinner - Ordered a giant prime rib. It was one of the best steaks I've ever had. The place was really nice
Skanksgiving - Saw some pretty good bands (Flatfoot 56, Pietasters, Mustard Plug) and had a pretty good time. Showcase Live at Gillette Stadium is a really nice venue
There were other things...those were just the highlites.
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[04 Nov 2008|04:09pm] |
I was in Boston over the weekend. I finished off my vacation with a Halloween party on Friday night and a Bruins game on Saturday. The party was a bit blurry, but I do remember they didn't have any food other than a half eaten platter of crackers. I'm just used to the food being the star of any party I go to, because that's how my friends roll. The Bruins game was probably the best hockey game I've ever seen. A few dirty hits from the other team and the Bruins went nuts. There were brawls, scuffles, pushes, and all-out boxing matches. There was even a point where the goalies tried to get involved before the refs stopped them. Add to that the fact that the Bruins won 5-1 and it was a good night, despite how hungover we felt.
Anyways, my original point was that I was in Boston for the weekend. So the dog stayed a couple of night's at Erin's parents house. When we picked him up on Sunday her father looked a little worried and told us that Brady had hurt his foot. Apparently he woke up on Sunday morning with a yelp and was limping pretty bad. We took him back to Erin's and he spent the rest of the day not moving and eating very little. I was hoping he'd be better on Monday, but when I woke up I had to carry him down the stairs so that he could pee. I headed to work and by the time I went home for lunch it had mysteriously spread to another leg. So I called a vet to make an appointment for today. The good news is he'll be fine. I kinda knew what was wrong before I brought him in and the vet confirmed it. The bad news is that it's Lyme disease. That's what was causing his joint pain. It's something that he'll have the rest of his life now, but the meds will put it in remission. I just have to watch and if it flares up, he needs some more meds. He's already feeling a lot better than he was over the weekend at least. He's hobbling a bit, but he's moving around more. He'll be fine in a couple of days and it was caught in time before it did anything serious. So it kinda sucks, but he'll be ok
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[04 Nov 2008|08:45am] |
I haven't been annoyed with this election as I was with the last one. That probably has a lot to do with the company I keep these days and the lack of the "vote or die" ads this time around. Either way I am thrilled that today is finally hear. The campaigning, the ads, the idiots touting their candidate...it's all over today.
I don't vote. Never have and likely never will. I've told people that if they can give me one good reason to vote, I would. No one has ever presented me with one and they've tried them all, each reason lamer than the last.
First of all, one vote doesn't count. It doesn't matter. If our votes actually counted, Al Gore would be president. Hell, if our votes mattered Obama wouldn't even be an option right now since Clinton won the popular vote. No matter who I voted for today, Rhode Island will be using all its puny little might to back Obama. I once had a friend tell me that she voted because she wanted to send a message. She was all pround of herself and loved to look down at me for not voting. She couldn't understand why I looked at her like she was braindead. Seriosly, what message was heard by her going out to vote that wouldn't have been heard had she stayed home? One person going out to vote has no effect on anything whatsoever. Most go out to vote because they like to feel they can make a difference and it makes them feel good about themselves. If you can trick yourself into thinking that, good for you, but my vote doesn't make a difference. Neither does yours.
Second of all, we don't know who we're voting for. Every word they've said has been an attempt to get them to vote for you. Every speech they've given has been written by someone else. Every attack ad they've put out has lashed at some stupid defect in the other candidate that shouldn't actually matter, but our country is sometimes dumb enough to fall for. We know the public image they've shown us, we know the words their campaign managers have told them to say, and we know that if Obama weren't a politician, he'd likely be a used car salesman. You know nothing about who you're voting for other than what they want you to know. You could always go back to look at their time in office as a senator, but very few people actually think that far to do that. And these two guys have been on the campaign trail for so long that they haven't even been doing their jobs anyways.
Even if you knew who you were voting for, you don't know if the policies they're going to impliment will work. You're not smart enough to understand the big issues involved here. Don't feel bad, neither am I. There are some issues we get. One of my coworkers will never vote democrat because he's a good little religious guy and can't support abortion. A couple of friends will never vote republican because they're in favor of gay marriage. But the biggest issues in this election are the economy and foreign policy. And people go to school for years to be able to understand the basics of either of those. Very few people out there know if Obama's tax plans or McCain's maverickisms will help our economy. And we don't know the ramifications of Obama trying to back out of the war or McCain just throwing missiles at everyone. We're really taking a stab in the dark with either one of these guys.
I like our country. It's a good place to live. And while we don't have the hockey skills or maple syrup of our neighbors to the north, at least we're a little warmer. I won't be voting because I have faith in our system. Anybody who has made it this far is fit to run a country. And that is something that I think is weird about other people. Now I'll joke about how dumb Bush is and we all have a good laugh about how unfit he is to run a country. But do you really feel that Bush is an idiot? Seriously, if you believe that our system is so fucked that it allowed a man who you believe to be incapable of his job to run our country for 8 years and you're still here....well, then you have some serious mental issues. If you have such little faith in the system, why are you still here? Canada is calling. I, personally, believe we'll be fine no matter who are president is. Our current problems can't be laid at the feet of George Bush like some like to claim...we all contributed to the group effort that's flushing our country down the toilet. Bush is just the guy we like to blame.
Ya know...that's a lot of words to say I'm not voting. And I'm already bored with the topic. So I'm gonna go watch tv.
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[31 Oct 2008|12:15pm] |
If I were some medieval guy who got zapped into the future by a wizard's spell (Hey...I saw it in a movie once...it can happen), there would be a lot of amazing things in our modern world. We have devices that can fit in your hand that play games, flash images, hold thousands of songs, and connect you to anyone in the world with a touch of a button. We have flat screens that can be hung on a wall and act like a window, showing you up to the minute happenings in the world or show you a movie that someone made years ago and they look as clear as if you were actually there. Not to mention the shock of seeing how weird people dress. Actually...I've lived in modern times for most of my life and I still can't get over how some people dress. But anyways...
I think the thing that would amaze me most though, would be airplanes. You have these 75 ton metal machines that just point themselves up and in no time they're flying at 500 mph over a mile above the ground. I work at the airport sometimes and I love watching the planes take off and land. I know there's science behind it, but it still seems like it takes some kind of magic to get those things going. I should be an airplane pilot. They get paid really well and there are all sorts of cool buttons that I'd get to press.
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[30 Oct 2008|03:12pm] |
I'm going to be a convict for Halloween. Why? Because it cost $23, there are no masks or annoying bits, and it took absolutely no work to put it together. I don't like dressing up for Halloween. I like the candy part, but the rest isn't all that much fun. So this costume is perfect. It doesn't get in the way and didn't require any work or thought. I'm gonna save it so I can be a convict every year.
This is my second entry today, the first time I've posted twice since April 24th. Maybe I'll even post a third time. I had to go all the way back to April of 2004 to find the last time I posted more than twice in a day. That was the day I posted 25 times. Maybe I'll go for the record!
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[30 Oct 2008|11:15am] |
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About a month ago I started to roll my coins. I knew I had at least $100 in my coin bucket so with that much free money I figured I could buy something decent. I rolled...and rolled...and rolled. And the change just wouldn't stop. $452 later my coin bin was finally empty. That's a lot of free money to play with! I'm about to do some Amazon shopping. A camera and a GPS are on the list. Who knows what else! Next time I'm just gonna use a coinstar. Sure, it would've cost me $40. But it took me hours and hours and hours to roll those damn things. And when I was done the bag weighed about 50 pounds and the bank lady was really annoyed with me. Then again, the teller I went to is never in a good mood, so it was probably just that.
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[14 Oct 2008|06:46pm] |
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I've thought of a bunch of post ideas over the last few weeks. I had a Columbus Day one, two political ones, some sports thoughts, one about my great girlfriend, one about money, and even one about airplanes. But every time I come to LJ, I got nothin'.
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[24 Sep 2008|01:53pm] |
Rhode Island, like the rest of the country, is in a heap of trouble financially. We have a huge deficit and the new budget calls for cuts everywhere. There's not enough public funding going into our public transportation. Our public transportation also gets their money from gas sales. They get a certain amount based on the amount of gas sold in the state. With gas prices so high, there's less gas being bought, so they're getting less money from that as well. Gas prices are getting them on both ends as it's costing a fortunes to run the buses. So, in a time when we should be relying on public transportation the most, the state is going to be forced to cut out about 20% of the bus routes starting next year. Personally I think Americans should spend less time bitching about the price of gas and spend more time thinking about how much gas you use. We shouldn't be focused on lowering the cost of a gallon, we should be focused on how to not be so reliant on it. Cutting back on public transportation isn't the way to go.
On Monday there was a meeting about it, open to the public. A large group of college kids showed up to protest cutting back on bus routes. That was a group that I agree with, but they made me realize why I hate protesters so much (besides the fact that hippies smell bad, spend their lives in a daze, and contribute nothing to society). The group went there and accomplished absolutely nothing other than disrupting the meeting. Most of them just shouted while their ring leader sat down at the head table and made a nuisance of herself. Eventually the meeting was canceled and the cops were called. Something has to be done about the budget and RIPTA can't opperate under the current conditions. The protesters had no solution to the problem and brought absolutely nothing to the table. All they did was get in the way of the board members trying to work things out. Instead of spending their time and effort getting into the papers and coming off looking like a bunch of retarded monkeys, why not put some effort into doing something useful? Cutting back on public transportation is a route that no one really wants to take, but unless someone has a better idea, it's something that needs to be done. I don't like protesters because, in general, they don't offer any solutions and they don't have any grasp on reality.
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[07 Sep 2008|01:10pm] |
You know how the previews for Fight Club didn't look very good? It looked like a movie worth skipping at the theatre and maybe you wind up catching it on video. But you heard lots of good things about it and it turned out to be really good. Well, Tropic Thunder was like that. It looked pretty lame by the previews. But some friends and the paper said it was really good. Since the other options were movies like Hamlet 2 or Disaster Movie, we went with Tropic Thunder. And it was a really good movie. The story was weird, but it was hillarious.
We saw it at the fanciest movie theatre ever made. The Patriots wanted to make Gillette Stadium a year round destination with something always going on. So they integrated a shopping center around it. The entire thing is unfinished, but reeeally nice. The stores and the Patriots Hall of Fame just fit right in with the stadium towering in the background. And their movie theatre is the nicest one I've ever seen. They actually have a lounge section with reclining leather chairs and tables attached to each seat. And the seats have call buttons so that you can order food or a drink (alcoholic or non) without leaving your seat.
This morning she said "It's Sunday, of course we can eat a whole package of bacon". She's a keeper.
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[18 Aug 2008|04:32pm] |
When I was looking for a new apartment, I was really hoping to get a two bedroom. Sure, there's only one of me, but the more space the better. I can keep some extra crap in there and it'd come in handy if my brother ever wound up homeless. I was lucky enough to find a great two bedroom place at a really good price. I put my computer and turtle in the second bedroom and I had all these big plans on what I was going to do with the room. Over a year later the room now contains the computer, the turtle, and a golf ball display case. There is still an unpacked box in the corner, and you can actually hear your echo. I bought a laptop a couple of weeks ago and now I have no reason to go into the other room. I keep the door closed all day and only go in to feed the turtle. I guess I didn't need as much room as I thought.
I've also decided that I want to get rid of the turtle. I've had her for about 5 or so years now, but I never really bother with her. She's more of a decoration than a pet. I feed her and that's it. I'm not sure if I know anyone who'd want her, but if none of my friends want her I'll probably put her on craigslist. I'd be giving away the tank too, so that should get a little bit of interest at least. It's too bad it's not really as easy as just tossing her into the pond down the street. From what I've read that's bad for the pond and for the turtle.
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[11 Aug 2008|05:51pm] |
Twitter is really annoying. I can't even bring myself to read those posts.
But anyways, I'm back to work today. I feel like I got hit by a truck and I'm exhausted. I need another vacation. Also, I need dinner. Luckily I have a steak waiting for me in the fridge.
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steaksammich's journal