Notes

Alright many out there have asked about this note taking process that I go through to get my entries done. Well as of this last weekend the whole process has been set up that I would take some notes on my little note cards (yes I have them in my wallet with me at all times, along with a pen in my pocket, you really never know when you are going to write something down, or give a lady your contact information, oh wait we are talking about me, so I only right down thoughts) and then go home and transfer those thought into text files that I have. This past weekend I have even gone out and created a file server on my external HD that allows me to access the same files from both computers so I don't need to connect both computers and drag and drop new files, I must say that this new file server thing is pretty slick. From the notes I would create an entry, simple as that. Well everything changed this weekend with my purchase of my Molskine journal. Not only is this thing mighty cool but it is also has a cult following (finally I have been excepted into some kind of clique). Now I have all my brainstorming sessions on paper and than I can go from there. This has been a long time coming, that is me resorting back to old fashion paper instead of digital files (though is still write all these down in text files and then archive them when they have posted) but it really was this blog that got me thinking about handwriting and how much I really enjoy doing it. It is something that is part of you and only you can appreciate your handwriting (maybe because most people (excluding Tom, who's handwriting I would give my right hand for) create this chicken scratch that only your own eyes can rip apart and decipher into words and sentences). The issue that arose for me when I did do this transfer was the first mark I made in my Molskine, because up to that point it was perfect. It wasn't until that first mark came across creating that first permanent flaw in the paper was I really feeling comfortable doing so. This really is an issue that plagues me during much of my life. I will buy candy that has many in a package (M & M's, Skittles, Starbursts) rather than a candy bar as I know it will last me longer. This also continues with notebooks that I buy for .10 during school shopping sales at Target. I just can't make that first mark in it. Right now I have 3 or 4 notebooks in my dresser that are brand new and I just can't make the move to make that first stroke. I guess I'm a little strange in this sense, but I am how I am. So what I did for the first stroke on this Molskine was picked a spot a little farther from the middle and just starting going. I feel it was a wise move and so far this thing has been a blessing to me in terms of clearing my head. "And this is how a bill becomes a law". I'm sorry this post isn't very funny but sometimes you need to write something a little more "real" and since I don't have a kid to write about, I write about me. -B.

Post 100

As I close in on 100 (at the point of writing this I'm only 3 away. EDIT: THIS IS 100) I feel that we should get together for something fun. So I think we should have a bowling party. I don't know if it is the instint fun you feel when you throw on the shoes or the fact that you can beat someone but bowling is an awesome group activity. Now of the 5 "W"s I only have three so work with me people and lets get this ball rolling on this. Who: Everyone What: Bowling and maybe Village Wok afterwards Where: ??? When: ??? Why: Do we need a reason? Just a little heads up, my awesome 96 average is killer out there. Beware! Okay after some thought I feel that everyone has at least one quality blog post in them so for the high score and the low score goes the reward of posting one work safe entry on the blog. -B.

Neighborhood Watch

This past Friday included a few significant events. The most prominent being the sighting of our new neighbor-to-be. It just happened to be that each member of the cul-de-sac was at home when he stopped by to check the progress on his house (this is a pretty rare occurrence for 3:30 on a Friday in January). Everyone was out, I was in my garage cleaning and making room for another suburbia element, another neighbor was standing outside their door, the one across the street was in the garage talking to a guy selling meat out of his truck, and the final member just was pulling in to the garage. We all stopped what we were doing simultaneously to check out the new addition to a group that has been together for about 10 months. All eyes were on him, sizing him up, trying to get any hint of who he was and his personality. Later on that night, the current members of the cul-de-sac convened to discuss our observations around a ritualistic burning of Christmas trees. -w

Cloudy Saturday

Today was an atypical Saturday for me as I actually went out and got some things done. First off we headed downtown to visit my favorite store (Marshall Fields/Daytons/Macy's) so Bisher could finish he shopping he starting last night (what can I say, they have some great deals). I bought nothing, an event that kind of throws in you this somber mood feeling like you failed at life. Our next stop was all for Bisher and I was just along for the ride as we went to the St. Paul Winter Carnival's Orchid Show (try saying that fast three times). Here my joy was watching the nerds and geeks that live for these plants come to orgasm over each and every one. Bisher isn't half as obsessed as some of these folks as they sported orchid shirts, strapped expensive D-SLRs with them and such. It wasn't until we left that it all came into full spectrum. The image above is from the car that parked right next to us. That their is pure hand painted geekyness all wrapped up into one super cool car. I feel the Saturn is just par for the course with this crowd. There were moments that I felt some of them were going to wipe out their Magic the Gathering cards and go to battle right then and there. Sword +3 totally beats a heat shield +14! This was my second experience with this "type" of people in the past two days. On Friday we went to Burnsville Mall and there inside of Air Traffic in the backroom was the true example of dweebs, as grown men and boys sit around a table of "pieces", roll dice, and do battle in a little thing they like to call WarHammer 3000/4000 (some number???). They had their big gulps full of caffeinated soda and were ready to do battle long into the night. This is what I suspect a Star Trek convention is like without people dressing up like Data and Klingons. Alright back today. After the orchid show we headed all away across the Cities and visited Borders books in an attempt to find another book to read (I finished Generation X yesterday). I picked up a copy of Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker and a Moleskine journal. I figure if great minds like Picasso and Hemingway both felt the need to use them, I feel my great mind should too. Tonight it is the Gopher Hockey game at Wade's.

Uck

Today I broke my Chipolte virginity and went with a bunch of people from work. I don't know why everyone is so freaking raves about this place but it didn't blow my pants off and I won't be craving this anytime soon. Maybe I made a rookie mistake and ordered a steak burrito but I just don't see what the big deal with it is. First bite was good but after I wore off the initial hunger it became tasteless and not very appetizing. When someone loses their virginity to something it better be good. I remember looking back now. It was a cold February night..... -B.

Metro Transit part 3

I understand that this is starting to become a recurring subject matter but when you spend a little more than an hour on the train a day you have a lot of time to find something interesting to write about. So now that the novelty has worn off the whole concept of riding a train to work I can actually get some things done instead of starring out the window. Back in the day I was so intrigued at traveling 60 miles an hour down a tunnel that I couldn't do anything but stare at the passing lights and worry about the train derailing ripping through the tiny tunnel leaving us all wrapped up in a mess of twisted metal. I guess when you read books about corpses you start getting some crazy ideas in your head. "Yeah, moving right a long we find Mr. Johnson, who's head we still can't find but we have identified him using he left foot. It was the only piece that gave us any sort of prints." Now I feel that you have some guarantees that are going to happen while riding on mass transit, be it the bus, train, or even an airplane. You will always have an interesting character that you can't help but watch to see his/her next move be it someone who consistently checking their cell phone like they missed a call, someone who rhythmically bangs their head against the window, or someone who needs to head-bang. These are the people that make the trips either very long or very short depending on the severity of their wackiness. The second guarantee is one person will drive you completely nuts with how annoying they are acting. These two variables could be the same person but most likely they are two different people. Today's interesting person was a man who ate an apple. Now this at first this doesn't sound very interesting but this man ate the whole apple right down to the little stem. This seriously is the first time ever that i have seen this (call me small towner if you will) and I found it completely fascinating. It still blows my mind, again call me small town.

"Wild" Night

PRENOTES: Not to shabby of a photo shot with a point and shoot camera, flash on and only being away from the subject 4 inches. I shot through a white piece of paper and by golly it diffused pretty darn well. Last night I had the opportunity to go with Wade to the Wild game vs the Phoenix Coyotes (who are coached by none less than my favorite player of all time, Wayne Gretzky). During the game one lucky/unlucky fan had to choose who from the Wild would score a point during the game for the chance/punishment of winning tacos for a year from Taco Bell/Toxic Hell. Well this kid picked the right player and won the prize. Now he is stuck eating tacos for a year and so we wonder how many tacos is that? Is that once a day, once a week? How exactly is it figured? Because I know when I trounce into Taco Bell I want more than one taco and a bottle of Tums. Oh yeah, Wade wanted me to let you know that Darren Pang was only three chairs down from us during the third period of the game. I shot a picture with my prize camera on my phone (HA!) and haven't even took it off the phone yet because I know how un-usable it really is. Link (1) Link (2) Links are for those who doesn't know who he is. Wade check the second link and look at the last line, this is why he was at the game! After the game on the way back to the car we get to the elevator at the parking lot when all of a sudden the pay phone starts ringing. Now I thought to myself how many times in one's life does the opportunity come up that you get to answer a phone call from a complete stranger and make as big of a fool you want. So I tried the old Matrix line and this is exactly how the phone conversation went. Me-"Neo?" Girl-"Someone called for me from this number." Me-"Neo?" (at this point I should make it perfectly clear that this girl has never seen or even heard of the Matrix so she doesn't know what is going on and is starting to get a little irritated as you can note in the next thing she said) Girl-"Does this sound like Neo, N*gger?" (this is an exact transcript) Me-(I start laughing uncontrollably because of her previous comment) "This is a pay phone" Girl-::click:: Now first off, this is one of the pet peeves I have with caller ID. Why would you call a number that you have never seen before? Isn't this what the voice mail system is for? If people want you to call them they can clearly state that in a very short message "Call me". But now it has come to me today that I should have wrote the number of the payphone down and called it myself some other time. I wonder how many people would play along with you in different situations? You know I had some pretty good notes for this post and it seems to me that it is turning into a flop (maybe because I don't have anything that is even remotely entertaining as finding your child eat cat food. Last attempt at saving face. Check out The Decemberists on iTunes. Awesome band, totally rare style.

January

For me January is a time where my desire for hockey gets out of control and really peaks. This past Saturday I had one of my more unique experiences. I got up early to head out to the US Pond Hockey Championships at Lake Calhoun with my uncle. I got the opportunity to watch many former gophers, and ex-NHLers on the pond up close and personal. It was very interesting to see guys like Bonin and Dziedic out in the pond-style format. Maybe even more interesting was to be able to stand less than a foot away at eye level with this talent. After being on the lake for over 3 hours I had all I could handle. I headed over to my uncle's for some time in the hot tub before the Gophers game. Gophers swept CC while Wisconsin was swept by Denver later on in the day. -w

Redirect works

Just to let everyone know, the forwarding of Go-Daddy worked and now if you type in www.snotfist.com it leads you right back to this great page. Yippee for me. Gotta go to work now. -B.

PHP divided by Apache 1.4 + MYSQL = WTF

As we are closing in on 100 posts of this little blog I wanted to do something nice for everyone so I went out and bought a domain (damn you EE people who tried talking me into it on Friday, you know who you are). So I got www.snotfist.com and then I went to setup my free blog on it. Well if you load the page and take a look at it, it looks retarded. This bullshit company has their stupid banner on top of the page and they only allow one author to post. So in a different attempt to get this thing to work, I talked to Jordan for helpful hints on solving this problem and just setting up the webserver on my iMac G5 and running it from there. Well as you can see, I'm still using blogger and it seems like it will be that way for a long time. He was throwing works like namehosting, and MYSQL and I was blocking them with huhs and what is thats? I guess the internet has won this battle and the war but someday I will learn PHP and Apache and I will rule the world. ::insert evil laugh here:: Oh, and tell me if you like the one on my domain better or not. Just throwing it out there. -B.

Beer Label Update

This was dicussed last night and I feel this was the hands down winner. Who is going to explain this one to Leah?

Vegitales

Last night I was invited over to a friends house to catch the Gopher hockey game with the crew. I have never been to this guys house before so I asked him for directions and like in any typical 21st century response he gives me his address and points me to Google Earth (Maps) for easy driving directions. I know telling me to take a left on Connelly and a right on Dakota is tough work and laying down your address is easy but this Google Map system has lead me astray before. So I'm on the road enjoying some fresh Prodigy (it makes me drive faster for some reason) when I come up to a stop light with a mini van sitting at it. Upon closer examination it appears to have one of those fold down DVD players for the kids in the back. Now when these DVD players were first starting to be put into cars there was a huge issue of people driving around with porn on them giving the fellow people on the road a drive by snippet of two people banging the living hell out of each other only to leave the person next to them wondering if they really saw what they really saw. Well last night was not a porn that I witnessed but rather I was drive by educated with fun words like "Spot" and "Ball". These poor saps think that having your children watch educated videos starring inter-racial muppets and humans are really going to impact your child's future is almost as much rubbish as listening to classical music during pregnancy is going to create a little genius. The modern day parents will do anything to get their child to exceed farther in society and that means enduring countless hours of videos consisting of vegetables, explorers named Dora, and countless muppets that have A.D.D. Give my child a contemporary mobile and lets call it a day. Back to last night and sorry for that tangent. On my way over I knew I was entering dangerous waters when I take the first turn that Google Maps tell me and see that I'm entering the evil world of suburbia (now before people tell me that Eagan is suburbia you haven't met my neighbors). I continue down the road looking for Brunswick and all I see is state names. Louisiana, Maine, Georgia, and at this point I start to panic. I'm pretty good with directions and I feel like I never get lost so I call up Wade and ask him if I'm on the right road and reiterate to him that I'm worried that someone from the 'burbs is going to car jack me and take my Gap scarf. He told me "look for roads that are named after billiard tables". I'm stuck in states and he is speaking of billiard tables, oh crap. I pull off the main road and park my car in a cul-de-sac to find out where I was and where I should be going. As I'm sitting there I feel 30 eyes all staring out every window in the four house neighborhood. At one point I saw someone flicking lights on and off in a room either signaling the others to move in for the attack, call the cops, or it was just some rugrat having fun with a light switch. I get the hell out of there and find the house I'm looking for and walk into what appears to be a daddy day-care. Damn why couldn't it have been a drive by porning?

Bored night at home

This is what happens when I'm uninspired and bored.

Clean, clean as can be

Sometimes I really don't understand people. I feel that I am a very clean guy (I know this is questionable with my obsession of hand sanitizer, but let's just take my word for it) but it seems to me that a lot of people aren't as keen on personal and environmental hygiene as I am. There are some people who feel the need to wash their lunch (or breakfast) dishes out in the sink of the men's bathroom at work. Now I understand that you need to clean your dishes but come on, this is the place where you are suppose to wash your hands after use. I don't know what is more unsanitary, the person's dishes or the sinks after this is done. I even have experienced some "pre-soaking" while the owner took care of some other business. This to me is pushing the barriers. This has been going on since I arrived at my job and I thought not much of it as I feel that most jobs have this issue as well. And then came today. A toothbrush has found its way into the bathroom counter and there was no owner to be found. If that wasn't enough when I went to fill my water bottle up at the drinking fountain I found plant potting soil in it. Seriously how much farther can we push this? -B.

Stamp Collector

When I moved in to my suburbia residence back in March, one of the first items of business was to join Sam's Club (I think this was a clause on my mortgage). As many of you know, Sam's Club has various items that can be bought in bulk. So, on one of the first trips to The Club it seemed like a wise idea to buy a bunch of stamps (do not get ahead of me), actually it was an even 100. Since I am a person who likes to make things easier for myself, it seemed like a no-brainer, I will never run out of stamps, I will never be in that position where I have something to send but have no postage..... When I heard the price of postage was going up I realized the predicament I had put myself in. You see, in an effort to make things easier for myself, all my bills are paid online. I really only need a stamp maybe once every few weeks or so for the occasional b-day card, etc.... I now have over 70 stamps that are at the 37 cent rate. Meaning I had to go buy an equal amount of 2 cent stamps. My wife went online and ordered 80 stamps from the USPS website for a whopping $2.60 charge on the credit card ($1 for shipping). She ordered the stamps last Wednesday. Now, how long would you expect it to take the post office to deliver stamps? Maybe our expectations our too high, and granted there was a holiday on Monday, but we were expecting them to arrive no later than Saturday. I guess I do not understand why this should take so long. Part of my impatience may be due to the fact that I now have something to send out in the mail, but no postage to do it with (too stubborn to put 74 cents of postage on it). Bigger Picture - based on my current supply of stamps, I estimate that I will be using the 37 cent stamps from Sam's for about the next 4 years (2010). I wonder how much additional postage I will need to buy between now and then. -w

Bisher takes the plunge

Today I convinced Bisher that needs to take the plunge and start his own blog (this is after he gave me a hard time for having one all this time). I will include the linkage on the Blogs that I Digg area and such but right now it will have no posts. He needs to "think about what I want to write". So check it out and watch it develop. Clock on the Mantel -B.

Possible new idea for the blog

Okay since Apple hyped up the new iLife 06 package so much in the last couple of weeks I found it necessary to try it out and see how much easier and nicer it will work. So the first thing that I was interested in was the use of iWeb to create a blog (this is the reason you are here). So after just a couple of minutes I threw up today hockey post using the new iWeb software and the link is below. I would like people to weigh in and tell me what version is better and why if they could. Right now I'm more into blogger not only because it is free but because of the comment section which Apple has none of. This should be an interactive thing and not just a one sided battle. New Linkage Thanks, -B.

Dilbert speaks for me

Adam gave me some linkage to this and this is exactly how I am starting to feel in the cube farm. I know my post today is lazy but look at all the writing I have done already today. -B.

Totally blogable weekend

This is just a warning that this weekend is a great weekend for blogable events. At this point I think I have at least three if not four posts in the works and are going to get posted on Sunday evening when I get back from the rents house. Tom's blog post about Taboo (Linkage for those who qualify) will have the remaining parts that he so nicely left out put in. ::hint:: I have drank with this man...::hint:: Everything will be back dated to cover the weekend starting on Friday so check it out when it comes in. Come on people, brainstorm and throw something up about Ryan's beer label so I have something more to go off of. I have a nice looking behind on a lady in vector form that a few of you have said would work great. I could talk to Leah (wait, I could have Leah talk to me, and I could throw it out). Only kidding.....ha hahahahahaha. Later all... -B. EDIT: 8:25 Sunday night, I'm really really lazy tonight and I have tomorrow off (Martin Luther King day) and will do my update then. I hope not to many people are upset. lol

Wild hockey game Saturday

Saturday night I had the pleasure of attending a Minnesota Wild game against my favorite team, the Calgary Flames, with my dad. The man is decked out head to toe in Minnesota gear while I sport my one piece of Flames apparel (a kick butt hat) and we head out the door to head to the "big city". Now we had it planned that were going to stop and eat somewhere but due to time issues we just decided that we would stop by Cosetta's (a St. Paul tradition) and have a slice of pizza before the game. This would what you call mistake number 1. The line was out the door and there was no way in hell I was going to wait for some food just to find that there was no place to sit. Well what is the second greatest place to eat on 7th street. If you guessed Subway you were dead wrong but still that is was the only place that was slow enough inside that we could get eat and sit down before getting inside the Xcel. As always in the American tradition we are honored by the singing of the national anthem. But before we hear that we are graced with pleasure of hearing one the most beautiful anthems ever, "O' Canada". While our national anthem is about war the Canadian's is nothing more than bliss for there country. How fitting. Back to the game now. The atypical fans were in attendance at the game including Mr. HaveanotherdrinkbecauseIcanstillmakeout14%ofyourwords. This is the guy you see with his beer glasses stacked up inside of each other and him drinking from the top most one. He is the also the one who is yelling at the ref about things that don't need to be expressed. "He did something to one of our guys", this would be a typical quote from this type of figure. By the midway point of the third period all I could translate out of him was "ba, baa, bo, bom". Another one in attendance was Mr. IknoweverysongontheoverheadradioandamgoingtosingthemasIwalkupanddownthestairs. This is another one of the typical male figures (though it doesn't always have to be male) that feels it the need to sing the crappy 80's love ballets as him and his good looking wife walk up and down the stairs. I guess we will never know how lucky that woman really is. I feel that as I was dressed up in the opposing teams colors that I should support the team by standing up and cheering for them when they scored. The Wild came out and scored early in the first but that was the last time that would happen. The next five goals of the game was with me and 50 other people in the whole arena cheering for the Flames. By the third goal the fans had enough of me and were already yelling "sit down". Why is there such hatred in a spectator sport? It wasn't more than 10 minutes earlier these same fans were booing their own team on because of a poor powerplay. Make up your minds people.

Bowling Friday

In my last few posts into the blog I have noticed that I have really pulled the theme away from myself and more toward culture and what I feel are some issues with culture but todays post is bringing it back to me (damn, that really makes me look selfish). This weekend was a busy one with us driving home on Friday just to find me driving back up on Saturday for a Wild game (next entry), driving back down after the game, and driving back to the apartment on Sunday evening. I have had enough car time for a little while. When we arrived home on Friday night we find out that the rents need to make up the a game in their bowling league so being the good kids that we are decided to join them at the local bowling ally. Now this past week at work had been a version of hell on earth so when I found out that I didn't have to drive I took my chance to enjoy myself a few beers (more on that in a second). Instead of just sitting there and watching them throw the balls down the lanes we decided to bowl a few games as well. Beers were coming and we were throwing and after 2 games we were split with one game a piece. Now anyone who has any sort of competitive spirit what-so-ever knows that you can't just finish with a split so a third game is a must. At this point it has been 7+ hours since I have ate anything and the beer was going down the pipe very smooth like (I must have finally figured out that proper head throat angle thing that helps it travel down at an accelerated rate) because by the first frame in the third game I couldn't see crap. The pins were moving and I was holding a 16 lb. ball trying to hit the moving targets. SIDE NOTE: When I'm sober I manage a pretty impressive 96 pin average so I knew that this game was going to be a wash. Continuing with the story, about this time a young couple (I'm guessing freshman year of college) was placed on the lane right next to us and still to this day I don't know what I said or what I did, but I have some sort of guilty feeling that I was hitting on the girl. But wait most of you out there are thinking, Ben hitting a girl, thats not like him at all (he couldn't even ask hockey girl for her number). Granted this is all true, I was hitting on this girl. I don't think anything came of it because I don't have a shiner from her boyfriend but still I'm sorry girl at bowling ally. By the third frame of the third game things are getting out of hand, everything is funny and somehow I managed to fall flat on my butt while trying to throw the ball down the lane (which looked more like someone sliding a curling stone down the ice than someone attempting to bowl). All in all, I did not come away with the championship but I'm willing to take any of you suckers out there on! Final game 78 to 122......::sigh:: Wow, this could be a really boring read for some of you....suckers!

The Big Dig

My residence is in a new develpment and with that comes some interesting experiences. An example is that the lot next door is one of the few lots left in the development that still has not had a house put on it. I had been hoping that this lot would forever stay empty for a few selfish reasons. 1. It gives a more open feeling to my yard. 2. I am lucky enough to not hate my current neighbors. A new addition to the cul-de-sac may change that luck. 3. I am not excited about having construction right next door. So yesterday it had begun, the hole was dug and today they are laying in the footings. More to come as the project progresses...... -w

Beer Label help

Okay folks, I'm in need of some help again. I'm working on a beer label for Ryan's home brew and need some ideas on what to put on it. If anyone says mountains their IP will be blocked, okay only kidding but mountains just don't work. So throw them out. I have a few ideas done and will post them on Sunday when I get back from down south (unless I get time this weekend at home). Thanks for the help. -B. EDIT: Gray one is the Battleship. Will post more from the rents.

Punk Update

Tonight after work Wade and I went to the MOA (aka The Worst Mall in America) to do a little shopping. After walking around level one and two we get to level three and walk around the corner only to see the same green/blue haired punk that I saw on the train just on Tuesday. Now it doesn't take a genius to figure it out, the kid must live every single night at the MOA. He and his punk gang must spend countless hours talking about mundane things and trying to avoid the rent a cops that patrol the stankfest that we call the holy grail of malls. I guess getting emancipated from your parents is really paying off. On a side note, those who may have moved out of the state of Minnesota in the last couple of years (::wink::) will not know that the Mall of America and Knotts Berry Farms are on now separated. Now they have put a European touch on it by calling it "The Park of the Mall of America". As we passed one of the openings to look into the park I noticed only 2 people on one of the rides. With declining sales they might as well close the beast down and create a real "park". Anyone else thinking "The Disc Golf course of America"?

Metro Transit part 2

Today on my trip home from work I encountered another fun and exciting element of mass transit; punks. Now these are not the punks from the eighties dressed up in leather jackets, black jeans, and a red bandana hanging out of the rear pocket, but rather these are the modern day version of the typical male punk figure. The modern day punk can be put into two categories, skinny white kid with bad acne or big fat kid that tries to hide fact that he is overweight with baggy pants, band t-shirts, a lip ring, and long unconditioned hair. NOTE: I feel the average goth person could be put into these same two categories too. So in the spirit of this post I will explain what these "kids" looked like and were talking about. Now remember i have my iPod going with sound canceling headphones in and i could still make out their conversation, so in other words they were loud. Figure a: Skinny white boy with some god awful green/blue hair mixture. He has a ton of acne, and is wearing something to the equivalent to all the nuts and bolts from Hardware Hank on his pants. For those who aren't following, he is an example of type "A". Figure b: Big kid that is wearing some big old tan pants that make him look like he could be pushing 350 when in reality he probably wasn't even 280, paired up with some kind of band t-shirt, an ugly as lip ring, glasses (very typical), and a set of headphones (though this should be added to all the boys since they are "punk" and all). After looking at him a bit it occurred to me that he looked a lot like the fat version of Al Roker. Figure c: Big kid that I didn't get a real good look at as he didn't sit with the other two until right before I got off the train. He had some big "pipe style" pants on and had some sort of fro with a lip ring. He was busy headbanging (yes the train was packed and yet he felt the need to do it every so often). I'm guessing the boys just got out of alternative school for the day and were on their big trip to the MOA for a fun filled night of having people stare at them as they walked by (punks die for attention). So this is how the conversation went up until the point where I had enough and blasted the sweet sounds of Something Corporate in my ears. A: I'm going to emancipate my relationship to him (I'm guessing he is speaking of his father) B: You can't do that without the courts (or something to this nature) A: (sounding like he thinks he is a lawyer) Well yeah all I have to do is.....and then just prove to them that I'm mature enough to live on my own. B: Yeah totally. This whole time they are doing some kind of faces to each other that they think that no one can see but any idiot knows about glass reflection and how others can see you. A few headbang later we reached our station and left the train. Until tomorrow... -B. Oh yeah, it was Macworld today and MacBookPro and new iMacs both featuring the Intel dual core chips were announced. Pretty cool!

Remember When.....

Do you remember when TVs had built-in VCRs? I got this one a couple years prior to DVD players becoming mainstream. It seemed like a great idea at the time, I had limited space and needed both a TV and a VCR, why not get them both in one unit for all of those VHS tapes I was going to watch from Blockbuster (yeah, remember when Blockbuster had tapes?!). I estimate that I might have used this VCR maybe 5 times, who wants to watch a movie on a 13" TV? Besides, I now have something that puts to use one of my other great Christmas presents from the in-laws of all time, a gift I received in 2003, blank VHS tapes! A total of 30 hours of EP in Premium Grade, whatever that means anymore. VHS, you had a good run. -w

Better Than a Christmas Sweater

A Christmas gift I received from my aunt-in-law. I am sure the intentions were good and the amusement factor alone is worth it to me. Although, this present was not meant to be funny I don't believe. Anyways, what I am wondering after putting this in the closet was what goes through your head when you buy a shirt like this for someone else? Where do you find this, or more importantly, why are you looking for this? I have determined that there are only 2 scenarios where I can wear this shirt, the first is to parties with my other engineering friends for a good laugh, the other is for Halloween. -w

Found Pr0n

Someone dropped these thundersticks off at my cube a week ago and one day when I was so frustrated with my work I took a closer look at them. Ummm.............

24 hours in the life of Beener

Since my coauthor makes it feel like he is never going to throw another entry up here (I constantly hear, "I'm working on something big"), I feel it is my duty to keep things rolling with a timeline of my last 24 hours. 10:30 am - Raise in shine. I feel I need to lay around in bed for a good twenty minutes to three hours before I fully feel that I have enough energy to make it through the weekend day 12:43 pm - Receive a call from Eileen about going shopping. I need to slim down my dressing style and I figure a hip lady like Eileen would be the perfect person to help me do this. 2:00 pm - Arrive at Marshall Fields to meet a friend of Eileen's that picks out some amazing clothes and I got all that shit taken care of. This had to be the greatest clothes shopping trip of my life! Dead serious. 3:00 pm - Enjoy a carmel latte from the 'Bucks. I needed to gain the energy I lost from only laying in bed for only 2 hours and 13 minutes 5:00 pm - Drop of Eileen and go home to play video games. I lose myself in my world of Gun a while and.... 8:36 pm - Get a text from Wade (no, he didn't just come up with a great blog idea) saying "hockey girl" was joining the gang at the bar after the game. I poop my pants and state I will be there. 9:17 pm - Sitting in my car outside of Village Wok (yummy) waiting for contact information about when to meet the gang 9:30 pm - Enjoy first beer and.......... 12:30 am - Drive home Now between the 9:30 and 12:30 there was a ton going on. I had a wing-man that had a broken communication system (ABORT, ABORT) and was running the mission, I had people switching seats with me moving me closer to my target, and I got some nice person bring me a free drink because I "was doing well and they were proud of me" (whatever that means, oh and thanks). Now there are images of what happened between the two time periods but I just don't have them. I'm waiting on contact information from "hockey girl" to see if I can get a copy of the images. Reference Linkage for those who qualify

Need a title

There are so many love hate relationships that I have right now and the biggest one has to be reading. Today I just finished one of my many books that I received for Christmas and I'm very disappointed that it is over with. I'm not so much disappointed in the ending but the fact that I just spent 250 pages with these people, grew to love them and then they just go away. Sure I have 10 other books that can be picked up and read right at this moment but I want the one I just finished to come back. Oh well.

Wedding Crashers

I just (EDIT:) finished watching Wedding Crashers and the part that sticks out to me is the soundtrack. 1) First song during end credits - THE WEAKERTHANS ::bowdown:: (this has to be one of my top three bands right now) 2) Death Cab for Cutie 3) Guster Movie is okay, ending is lame. -B.

Mass Transit - Part one

Now that the new year has arrived on us, corporate america is giving us discounted tickets for metro transit. Me, growing tired of driving back and forth to work (or should I say waiting in traffic on my way to work and back) began taking full advantage of this offer and have been taking the light rail as my form of transportation. Now that I have been riding mass transit for almost a week I feel that I can belittle and berate it. This is part one of at least three. On the train this afternoon was a couple who thought that making out in a public space is something to be proud of. They were sitting in the middle section of the car (the axis of the train car if you will) and found it necessary to be all over each other for the whole trip out of downtown. I knew right from the beginning that these two were going to make me puke a little in my mouth and I had a pretty good hunch on their destination (which I correctly guessed as the Mall of America). I don't know how many of you remember that cartoon with the gnomes that rubbed noses to show affection but this is what they did. Every two seconds they would get all gooey eyed at each other rub noses and kiss almost like thought it was Venice enjoying the sounds, smells, and sights of the Italian city from a romantic gondola. In reality: a) that is no gondolier singing you sweet love songs but rather the gangster's iPod turned up so load you can hear every bass hit and treble tink b) the smell isn't of fresh water or flowers but rather of poop from the old guy who can't hold his bowels anymore c) that view isn't of the city but rather the man who can't keep his finger out of his nose -B.

Marketing Genius

It seems that in my attempt not to waste any of my three day weekend I feel the need to stay up late and sleep in late as well. I think it was finally 3:00pm (that would be 15:00 military time) before I finally popped out of bed on Sunday (not that I slept that late but more I was laying around). Now after laying around acting completely like a beached whale one would think that the self esteem and ambitions would just double the next day and I would accomplish something spectacular. Monday came and went in the same fashion. One thing that I did find very interesting in my late night insomnia cycle is a new informercial for a brand new product that is bound to change the way culture deals with its issues. Ladies and Gentlemen.....Urine Gone! Now wait, before you start laughing about the ridiculousness of this product you need to think like the marketing team behind the promotion of this product. 1) Man I wish my house didn't smell like pee! 2) Those darn "cats" 3) I hope my weak bladder doesn't make me leak on the carpet again so I have to pull the included "stain detector" blacklight out and sweep the floors for possible areas to shoot. So secondly I thought of the channel in which I found this ad, MSNBC. Sure this channel has to have a ton of cat lovers but I'm really thinking they are looking at the retired community and their never ending quest to consume as much of the same news as possible. I'm just waiting for this to hit the mass market where you will see a bottle on every bus, subway, and lightrail. God do I love mass transit. -B.

Now I should probably introduce the newest part of the blog

As you read or are just about to read, I picked up a co-author this last weekend. As you can see from the "I'm calling you out" entry I wanted to know what life in suburbia was really like. Well instead of starting his own blog, Wade has joined the team and will be posting some great entries about Life in the Sac. I'm very happy to have him join and look forward to reading this stuff. Seriously, you can't make this up! Goodnight all, -B

Going in unannounced

Life in the sac... A snapshot of daily burbia life. A short listing of things I did today, 1. went to work out at the local gym 2. tore down all of our x-mas decor, this was a must since we had to get it down before anyone else in the cul-de-sac did. Pretty sure we won since I still am seeing outdoor lights up at all of our neighbors. ---Sidenote: have you ever tried to fit your fake x-mas tree back into the original box? Pretty sure the tree is like a sponge after you add water to it and it expands. Anyways, the tree is now fully set up in our basement with the small empty box next to it. I have no hope for the tree ever getting back into the box and now have an empty, useless box so big that my garbage man prly won't pick it up. 3. completed all the reamining x-mas returns and exchanges, we now have hundreds of dollars in gift cards and store credit to various stores. 4. went to one of those "make-all-your-meals-here-we-have-the-recipe-and-all-the-ingredients" places. We now have enough meals to last us until sometime in February. I don't really know how it all fits in our freezer. Maybe some kind of reverse x-mas tree out-of-the box thing happened...... -w

Merry Christmas Minnesota

Dear Mr. Wilf, I would just like to thank you for taking the honors of firing Coach Tice today. This even should have happened many moons ago but hopefully you know best by keeping him here for the rest of the season. Can you believe it that people were calling him the coach of the year? We played one team with a winning record in our six game win streak (but I'm sure you knew that already). Thank you for not allowing Mike to enjoy the final win of his career in Minnesota. This is totally how we like to see things get taken care of. Why beat around the the bush when the truth is you want him gone? Is Daunte on the list of people to go yet? We clearly have proven to you that we don't need that sack rider on the team anymore either. Let him and his love boat crew join some other team. Heck maybe you and the rest of the owners can all get together and form one team of misfits consisting of TO, Daunte, Moss, and others. I bet the apparel sales would be huge as you know most Americans root for the bad guys. Well thank you again and take care Zygi, One concerned Minnesotan

Hand Sanitizer is my weakness

Friday night I had the opportunity to attend the Golden Gophers hockey game vs. U Mass Lowell (I know, I know we sure do draw big names for the Dodge Classic). Well right from the beginning there were a couple of ladies ahead of me and I started chatting with them, yada yada, being the regular little Hugh Hefner that I am. I swear I had it all wrapped up until I asked the one that I had been flirting with very heavily for some hand sanitiizer. Long story short, she is a microbiologist and doesn't believe in the goodness that this stuff will bring you. So you could say I cock blocked myself on that one. I hope my boys from the game will make a comment at the next game and maybe I can still get the hookup. After the game with hit a bar and I worked my magic on a couple more ladies (one with an weird looking forehead, eek). But remember kids, never bring a girl home from the bar. Bar flies have STDs! That is all. Second thing to know is never use a digital zoom on a 640 x 320 digital camera. The images are unviewable. Images from the bar are posted...enjoy.

I'm calling you out

Here is my new idea. Last night at the hockey game (don't worry it will have its own entry) and at the bar I discussed with one of the readers of this blog to come up with his own blog so we all can enjoy his gentle sarcasm. Hell look I even made a logo for you! I don't even have a logo! Come on, we all want to know how suburbia really work! -Beener

Just cleaning off the desktop

I had this picture all picked out for my Fleet Farm entry but I must have wrote it on the iMac and totally forgot to go get it from the Powerbook. What would make your day more than walking into the house after gutting your deer to find you wife in something as sexy as these? Hoooooooooooowwwwwwl! Plus it isn't that bad of a price!