Musical Monday Test

one of my favorite shows is back on! yay Home Movies

If you're a nightowl - 1:30 AM Adult Swim (Cartoon Network) has Home Movies.

It's an animated show - originally in Squiggle Vision (a la Dr. Katz) but then less and less.

The backdrop is an 8 year old named Brendon with a passion for making movies. He's really, really bad at it, as are his best friends, Jason and Melissa. They often make cliche type movies, and it's just extremely well done how poor they do in their filmmaking.

Also humorous are his divorced mother, Paula and his soccer coach - coach McGurk.

Cameos by well known comedians occur from time to time - Emo Phillips, Mitch Hedberg, and Jonathon Katz all appeared several times on the show.

Check it out if you're a night owl, or if you have a DVR.

I don't like imacs but

after disconnecting and reconnecting the monitor, keyboard, mouse, power, speakers, and network cable from

4 computers 2 tuesday night
10 computers last night
8 computers tonight

i can really appreciate having less cables

my fingers hurt

i've never miessed an hour this much

i can't believe how exhausted i am thanks to daylight savings. this is ridiculous. it's been a week, i'm still getting a full night's sleep, and i STILL wake up as if i'm a zombie. sup wit dat?

phone system implementation - in haiku form

the phone system works
they now can say ring ring ring
i wish they'd shut up

new phone system in place

phew
that was fun
that's sarcasm
it wasn't fun
it was tiring

but it's in
and it's up
and it's running

and i'm ready
to rest

my kitten

sleeps on my shoulder.

her name is robin.

she is tiny.

she's 3+ years old but never got all that much bigger.

she likes to swat at the other cat or either of the dogs as they walk by.

she sleeps all cute with her paws covering her eyes like saying 'stupid world, leave me alone!'

sometimes she makes a sound like a bird. that's not why we call her robin but it's pretty fitting.

she loves being rubbed under her chin.

robin is my kitten.

she's a princess.

Wendy's Math

I'm a Wendy's Fan - was just thinking this.

At the Wendy's I have lunch at in Kennett, there are 9 combo meals:

1/4 lb
1/2 lb
3/4 lb
Baconator
Ultimate Chicken Grill
Spicy Chicken Sandwich
Homestyle Chicken Sandwich
Chicken Club Combo
10 Piece Nugget Combo

For the time being, we'll separate the Double Stack Combo, Triple Stack Combo, and Fish Sandwich Combo.

This leaves us with 8 normal sandwich combos, 1 promo Fish Combo, 1 Nuggets Combo, and 2 Promo Burger Combos.

Now, the first tangent - why are we writing as if there are more than one of us here. Are you involved at all? I suppose, slightly, if you're reading...but at the time I'm writing this, you're not. Are we Borg?

end Tangent #1

My Wendy's had 8 drinks selections I counted, not including water, but including iced tea. For simplicity's sake, I'm not including options such as no ice, light ice, heavy ice, or mixed drinks.

Tangent two - drinks at fast food restaurants. More and more of us are trying to get off of 'soft drinks' altogether.

Cotangent #1 - 'Soft Drinks?' I understand that something hard is a heavily alcoholic beverage, but 'soft drink' just doesn't sound right.

end Cotangent #1

At any rate, what I was going to get at was that if we're not having soda, that usually leaves us with iced tea, fruit punch, lemonade, or water.

I bet they could make a mint if they struck a deal with vitamin water or some other type of healthy yet flavorful drink. I suppose the logistics of having things like bottles, and not having the benefit of the syrup bags + soda water cuts into cost. Just a suggestion.

end Tangent #2

So now we have 8 combos and 8 drinks - 64 combinations. Throw in the Nugget Combo for 8 more. Throw in the Fish Combo for another 8. Add in the Double and Triple Stacks for 16. That brings us to 64 + 8 + 8 + 16 = 96 combinations.

Wendy's offers their combos in 3 different sizes - default is small, and upgrade to medium or large.

Tangent #3 - I miss when they called their sizes 'Biggie' and 'Great Biggie'

end Tangent #3

With our 8 basic combos and 8 drinks and 3 sizes of combos, that gives us 8 x 8 x 3 = 196 combinations. Throw in 24 more combinations when we include the Nugget Combo, 24 more for the Fish Combo, and 48 more when we include Stack Combos. That's 196 + 24 + 24 + 48 = 292 combinations as our running total.

Now, one thing that Wendy's started that other places are catching on with are alternate sides besides French Fries.

Keeping it simple to start, we have French Fries, Side Salad, Caeser Side Salad, Chili, Sour Cream and Chives Potato, according to Wendy's site. I believe my local Wendy's offers the Yogurt with Granola and Mandarin Oranges as well, but I'll leave them out for now and leave the total at five side items.

That brings us to 8 x 8 x 3 x 5 = 980 basic combinations. Throw in 120 more if you're including nuggets, 120 more for the Fish, and 240 more for the stack combos. That brings us to 980 + 120 + 120 + 240 = 1,560 combinations.

For the sides, we'll leave out the dressing options for the salads, or croûtons, or hot sauce or crackers for the chili.

Tangent #4 - I typed croutons and Firefox's dictionary told me I spelled it wrong. I was pretty sure I didn't, so I right-clicked on the word and apparently crouton is only spelled correctly if there's a hat over the u. I've been spelling it wrong all these years!

End Tangent #4

What we won't leave out for now is the sandwich customization choices. Now, people have some very different tastes, so for simplicity's sake, we're going to take the 8 sandwiches and present the options of lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise.

Tangent #5 - there's two n's in mayonnaise. Thanks, Firefox.

End Tangent #5

I know the idea of some of the combinations sounds gross, but we're not going to leave any out. To keep on going with simplicity's sake, we're also leaving out 'light' or 'extra', so no 'extra pickles light mustard' or anything like that.

I'm also going to leave out one of the most common add-ons/removals - cheese, and it's relative 'extra', again for simplicity's sake.

Tangent #6 - This simplicity is getting frigging spoiled, we're doing everything for it's sake it appears.

Cotangent #2 - You could have some wicked awesome fun if you were the owner of an American Japanese Wine company and naming your product, like 'Sake of Argument', or 'Simplicity's Sake'

End Cotangent #2

End Tangent #6

So, with the options that were mentioned before the drifting, there are 7 more ways to go. I'm not including barbecue sauce or any other condiment that comes in a packet of any sort.

With those, we end up with 8 x 8 x 3 x 5 x 7 = 6,720 basic combos. I'll leave the nuggets and fish alone, but the Double and Triple Stack Combos can be modified in the same way. That's 240 * 7 = 1,680 more of those. This brings us to a grand total of 6,720 + 1,680 = 8,400 combinations.

This brings us to a grand total of 8,400 + 120 + 120 = 8,640 combinations.

Appendix A - Modifying your fish sandwich

If you'd like to change your fish sandwich up as if it were a normal sandwich, you can take the 120 option count and multiply it by 7 like we did with the other sandwiches to bring its total to 120 * 7 = 840, which brings our grand total to 8,400 + 120 + 840 = 9,360 combinations.

Appendix B - Nugget Sauces

Tangent #7 - I had my appendix out, I believe it was the year 2000 or 2001.

End Tangent #7

Wendy's provides for BBQ, Sweet & Sour, Honey Mustard, and Heartland Ranch dipping sauces for the nuggets. You can probably get a bunch of them in some combinations if you want for your nugget combo, those possibilities can go a long way. For now, even here in the appendix, we'll keep simplicity's sake at the heart of the matter and just give 4 nugget sauce options.

That gives nuggets 120 * 4 = 480 combinations.

If you don't believe in modifying the fish sandwich, that brings the total to 9,000 combinations even.

If you believe in modifying the fish sandwich, that brings us to 9,720 combinations.

Conclusion:

Wendy's has a lot of possible combo-combinations.

January Facebook Status Log

January 29

Michael is combublated.
11:50pm

Michael enjoyed observing Australlia day yesterday, and can't wait until next year.
4:07pm
January 28

Michael is observing Australlia Day.
10:53am
January 22

Michael asks - do you know John 10:10 and 1 Corinthians 10:13?
2:12pm
January 18

Michael countdown to po ka knows less than 24 hours.
9:17am
January 14

Michael is now a 'Poker Pro' with a runny nose and sore throat.
11:55am
January 8

Michael asks - do you know Romans 3:23 and Romans 6:23?
1:16pm
January 7

Michael is counting down days until the po-na-coes! (day count = 12).
10:43am

Run run as fast as you can

Well maybe not that fast

Check out Google's Pedometer.

Pretty cool app using Google Maps for you to check out how far you go. I'm using it for jogging. It even lets you save your routes and stuff.


Here's my usual route.

P.S.

I'm taking an awfully big risk putting those streets out on the net. Please don't come kill me?

oops i did it again

ah well.

i re affirmed tonight that i just don't like meatloaf. sorry, just don't.

i don't get the desire and or need to one up people in stories. which makes it even more confusing to me when i do it.

the last few times, i've just come right out and said when i had a one-up type story, in a very sarcastic and overdramatic voice, that i was oneupping the person who just concluded their story.

i'm going to try to start one-downing people's stories. something new. although usually those just sound pathetic.

saright

it's not yesterday but it's still today!

trying to not miss a day. i don't count the 13th as a missed day cuz its 1am on the 14th but ive been up all day, the new day doesnt start until i sleep and then get up.

My idea on days:

option one:

Make the calendar metric. Find a way. I don't like this option. Although I do think seconds minutes hours should be metric, somehow.

option two:

Insert a day between Saturday and Sunday. Call it Funday.

The problem with Friday is that you worked that day. Even if you're gona relax at night, you are still getting over the day.

The problem with Saturday is that if you stay up late, then you don't want to get up on Sunday. If you get up on Sunday early after late night Saturday, then you want to either nap in the afternoon Sunday, in which case you will not be able to fall asleep until way too late Sunday night and then be groggy Monday, or you can try to be up all day Sunday and be tired, in which case you will go to bed early. I suppose that one's not bad.

But having a day in the middle is better.

The day should be named Funday.

the word people - a different view

So a lot of times we say 'they' do this and 'they' do that and just leave it as some general thing, as if there's this body or group of people out somewhere making all these decisions about really insignificant stuff.

What I want to know is, does France have their own group, or are they a sub group of this group, or does this group make the French decisions.

Specifically, word gender.

Anyone who's taken any French (and I think Spanish and Italian) knows that the nouns have genders. Don't ask me why. But for some reason, the word 'the' can be 'le' for male nouns, and 'la' for female nouns (and 'les' for plural nouns).

What I want to know is - how is it decided when new words come out if they're going to be masculine or feminine.

I'm fairly certain, without looking it up which would take like 45 seconds, that the word blog is relatively new.

Is it 'le blog' or 'la blog' ?

And who picked it.

I wish I had power like that.

16 ounces makes one happy

So I stepped on the scale last night.

I have mentioned before about my health I think,
and I've actually managed to jog for 6 out of 7 days now I believe.

I'm actually at the point where I'm not passing out when I finish my lap.

So despite all that, I've still been hovering around 205 pounds. People have told me it has to do with a muscle buildup, which made me feel a little better. I felt healthy, and that's among the most important things. I'm not vain, I don't hate my big tummy or whatnot, just wish it was a mite littler.

So the last few days I've seen 203. I was glad I was down there but was a bit upset it wouldn't get any lower.

Last night:

202!

This is the lowest I've been since I was sick over the summer. And before that - probably some point in college.

So I started at 210, the goal is 185. 8 down, 17 to go.

And of course, to stay there.
And feel good.
And be dead sexy, of course.

what's a meme ? this is!

new to this. bear with me. is musical monday!

i post a song.
i post words.
i put in pandora.
i write what the 5 songs that come out are.
i put link on the originator's thingy.
that's it?
that's it.
i hope i don't break it.

ere we go!

-

Circles
by Soul Coughing



When you were languishing in rooms I built to foul you in
And when the wind set down in funnel form and pulled you in

I don't need to walk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in

dont need to walk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in

When the ghostly dust of violence traces everything
And when the gas runs out just wreck it, you insured the thing

I don't need to walk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in
dont need to walk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in circleswalk around in

doomp dah doomp dah doompdoda doiada doi

But I can't sigh now that you made the move
It has gone and gone to dogs, lay down on the floor

For the right price I can get everything
Slip into the car, go driving to the farthest star

I don't need to walk around in circles
walk a..
walk around in circleswalk around in
dont need to walk around in circleswalk around in circles(chorus)


1. Haven't Got a Clue
-The Flaming Lips

2. Jungle Tea Parties
-Ponce De Leon

3. Kids
-MGMT

4. Zero Zero
-April March

5. Blame
-Soul Coughing

You win at Monopoly by knowing the rules and being a jerk

Played some Monopoly last night. Actually it was 'Transformers Monopoly' - but that's alright. It's Monopoly.

I lucked out early on - picked up the dark purple color-group - Mediterranean and Baltic. I quickly placed four houses on each - more on this in a bit.

As play progressed, I went ahead and gave up some properties in trade to allow others to get color-group matches - I had one other one, the orange - New York, St. James, and Tennessee.

As house purchases took off, I bought as many as I could for my oranges. Someone had the magenta, and another person had the green. Magenta had three houses on most, green had 1 each.

This is where the rules come in.

There are only 32 houses in a Monopoly set. This is intentional and part of the game.

Someone picked up Boardwalk and Park Place, erm, 'Earth' and 'Cybertron', but there were no houses left.

The owner wanted to buy houses. I told them they couldn't. They said why. I said because there are none. They said let's use something else. I said nope it's in the rules.

That player eventually ran out of money.

I built up a nice little stash of about $2000, the other two remaining players each had about $1200 or so, give or take a few hundred.

This is where the rules come into play.

I sold a house off of my purple back to the bank - $25 bucks to me.
I announced that there is a house available to buy.
Someone quickly offerred to buy it. So did the other person.

Auction time!!

Rules say if more than one person wants to buy a house, it goes to auction.

The house was purchased for Pennsylvania Avenue for $600.00.

I sold another house off of my purple back to the bank - $25 bucks to me.
I announced there was a house available to buy.
Someone quickly offerred to buy it. So did the other person.

The house was purchased for Virginia Avenue for $450.00.

So the other players have more houses now - but are low in cash.

The magenta color-group player put up hotels - and would you look at that, houses are availble for sale on the cheap.

As with all Monopoly games, this one ended with a player throwing their money at me and saying 'forget it, I quit, you win.'

Fire is hot and not fire is cold

Last night was a bonfire. It's a really neat metaphor or whatnot how a single match, when placed in an appropriately planned and arranged environment, can grow to such a magnitude and be so influential. In the case of last night, it granted several hours of fun and friendship.

The only deal was when the fire began dying down, and I got 'puppy nose' - a chilly wet nose. So uncomfortable!

There's something about staring into a fire though. Watching it dance is just very beautiful, to me. Watching it react different in different places of the fire, such as rolling around hard inpenetrable flat surfaces, discolor from impurities burning off, or the ashes floating and dancing after they leave it....all really cool.

Also, the difference between something that can be helpful and useful - warmth and cooking and whatnot - and dangerous - killing and destroying - is part of the metaphor as well.

Fire is hot
Not fire is cold

I went to bed WHEN?

So I get home 6:30, have some yummy Italian dinner, head out with a friend to a store, get home about 7:45, jog my block-lap, take a bath, and then get into bed.

I read about 5 pages of a book and I find I can hardly keep my eyes open.

I glance at the clock: 9:30.

Wait, what?

9:30?

I close my eyes and look at it again. 11:30?

Wait, what?

I get up once more and get milk. I could have swore when I got up that it said 5:30, but when I looked again it said 1:30. GOAL. More sleep.

All in all, I had 10-11 hours of sleep last night.

I better be frigging rested for the weekend now.

Condition

Yesterday one of my co-workers, a female mother of three, said to me, "is someone starving you at home?"

I said, "no, why?"

They said, "you look like you've lost a bunch of weight!"

I told them, "you just made my day!"

-

I have actually begun jogging around my block. It may not be a big deal to some people but it's a big deal to me, so as Billy Madison would say: "BACK OFF!"

Right now my path is around my block - Weir to Lamp Post to Anvil to Blackthorn to Williams. Sometimes I do it backwards, too. Not like running backwards, because then I might hit my head.

My pedometer told me it's 3/4 of a mile. I really should find out for sure, and also start timing myself. I feel like I'm going faster now. I also do not feel ready to die for 20 minutes after I complete my lap.

One of the ironies is that the stupid scale in the kitchen says I'm the same weight. I haven't totally fixed my diet yet - I still splurge for no-good foods a bit too much, but I am working on it and am conscientious of the fact that somehow I need to find fruits and vegetables I actually enjoy. I just don't like squishy food all that much.

Someone made me feel better about that though too, they said: "You're probably just putting on muscle."

I always wanted to be strong. I was kind of undersized growing up and so even now as I'm 5'10, I still feel small and relatively weak.

My goal is 5'10, 185 lbs, and be able to touch my toes. Is this too much to ask, body?

New Weblog Entry

This was originally posted sometime in 2006 on Xanga. I find it extremely appropriate for my first blog here.

-

This is a new weblog entry.  The title is 'New Weblog
Entry'.

They've combined the words 'web' and 'blog'.  They now
share a B.  Unless one stole the B from the other one,
in which case it's either 'we blog' or 'web log'.
Both make sense in their own little way, but 'web log'
is much more accurate.  Here's why.

While 'we blog' is a conditional accurate statement,
based on who 'we' refers to (and in this case, with
the nature of Xanga, where it is primarily other Xanga
authors who read journal entries/blogs, I would say
that 'we' could refer to them).  In that sense,
everyone who sees an entry besides Greg could say 'we
blog' is accurate.  Greg would have to say 'welurk' or
something like that.

However, the simple fact that the reader of this
weblog entry blogs does not define the weblog entry
accuarately.  That's like saying 'weat' (we+eat) is
what a cheeseburger could be called.  Not very
descriptive at all.

Web Log is a bit more accurate.  This is of course you
are assuming the correct meaning of the term 'log',
and taking the meaning of a log as a descriptor of
events, i.e. journal, and not log as in a piece of cut
wood, and definitely not as a cylindrical shaped piece
of meat or cheese (beeflog or cheeselog).  Speaking of
which, quick tangent.

Beeflog beeflog what a treat
A hefty chunk of processed meat
Dipped in mustard oh what joy
I'm a jolly beeflog boy
Hot and spicy, mild or plain
I even eat the cellophane
I might share some with my dog
Cuz we both love beeflogs, oh boy!
Brak I beg to disagree
Cheeselog is the log for me
As a meal or as a snack
It's my favorite saturated fat
Cheeselog cheeselog
Cylindrical and yellow
Cut the cheeselog
And I'm a happy fellow

As I was saying, the term log is more accurate of a
descriptor, especially 'web log', since we are on the
web, you and I. 

However, the term blog is even MORE accurate.  It's
like those multiple choice questions where there's
more than one right answer, BUT you have to choose the
BEST answer.  Let's put the question to you - do you
consider Xanga a place to LOG or a place to BLOG.

Blog is a new term, and I think it is created FOR
places like Xanga.  Well, perhaps reverse, that Xanga
is created FOR places like to blog.  Or perhaps both,
and it is a symbiotic relationship, sort of like the
birds on the back of hippos. 

However, that is not the debate.  The debate is
whether blog or log is a more accurate term for this.
I would say that, when I think of 'log', I think of
captain's logs, on star dates, or ship's logs, on
ships in the ocean in the  1700's.  While Xanga does
include a timestamp when you post an entry (log or
blog...still to be determined, but I think we know
where we're leaning at this point), I would say that
the nature of entries on Xanga are not of that nature.
Some people DO 'log' and just say what they do day
after day.

But others do not.  I am others.  So this is not a
log, but a blog.  It is obvious that it is on the web.
So weblog is accurate.  We blog is not.  Web log is
better than we blog, but not as good as web blog. 

So, in order:
1 Web blog
2 Web log
3 We blog

or, in another form

Web blog > web log > we blog

The following were not even considered, for obvious
reasons of extreme ridiculousness:

W eblog - what's an eblog?  I suppose you could say
eblog is an electronic blog, sort of like email is
electronic mail, ecommerce is electronic commerce, and
so forth.  But first of all, are there non-e blogs?
Aren't they diaries/journals?  How do you share them?
How do people leave comments to acknowledge what
you've said is
funny/happy/sad/accurate/incorrect/boring?  I suppose
you could pass your book around, but it would be very
difficult to read others comments, as only one or
perhaps two-three people could read/comment at once,
unless you maybe printed it out real big or used some
sort of magnification device like an overhead
projector, but wouldn't that make it technically
electronic again, and thus an eblog again?  Unless you
somehow used a candle and magnifying glass of some
sort for your makeshift projecter, but that would just
be archaic.

The whole point is moot anyway, because what on earth
would the W stand for?

Webl og - this just sounds like the name of an orc

Weblo g - Weblo is a rank in cub scouts, if I recall
correctly, after bears.  G is often a gangster type
term.  So a gangster boyscout is way off in describing
the web blog entry.

I would rank them like this:

1 Web blog
2 Web log
3 We blog
4 W eblog
5 (tie) Webl og
5 (tie) Weblo g

I realize that web blog combines letters, so in
theory, there are other options of combined words:  w
eblog, we eblog, webl log, weblo og, and weblog g.
However, a quick glance leaves only we eblog as one
that could possibly pertain to anything, and eblog was
dismissed earlier.