Monday, November 30, 2009

Happy Birthday to Me

Dear Self,

For far too long you have long for this day. That's right, it's November 30, 2009.
1 year ago Today, not much happened. It’s actually kind of weird. I don’t remember a thing about a year ago Today. I’m sure you probably got some cards or something, but your mind was probably more focused on being only a year away from Today than anything.

3 years ago Today, you probably went out and bought a big stogie and lit that muh'fucka up. Actually, it probably wasn't big at all, since you didn't enter your stogie-smoking prime until more recently. It was probably a modestly sized cigar that was as mild as you could find. Which, by "could find" you mean the mildest the nice worker at Tinder Box showed you.

5 years ago Today you realized you could officially get your driver's license. However, not aware/caring enough of the amazing adventures that having a car could bring, you decided to wait until February to actually go through with the test. Oh by the way, nice job, Self, for passing on the first time. You'll always have that goin' for ya.

11 years ago Today you got your most kick-ass birthday present ever. That's right, Transformers. Wrapped up in the most recent Sunday comics, you opened them surrounded by your family and now-deceased dog (RIP Ladie).

I'm sure you get the drift by now Self, but 21 years ago Today, you were born. To be more precise, in about an hour and a half from this post you were born. This probably wouldn't mean much if you were born in Europe, Asia, or... pretty much anywhere but the U.S. of A. However Self, you are an American which makes Today a momentous day.

Cheers, Self. This one’s for you.


gimmie da hooch bitches

Thursday, November 26, 2009

I got to thinking tonight

And I honestly believe that the last time the whole family sat down at the SAME table occurred exactly one year ago.

The times this happens just get more and more rare as the years go on. It definitely makes me appreciate this fact a little more than when I was 5 and this happened daily (if Mom had her way at least).

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Waiting for 4:15 tomorrow

Not that I have any plans in particular once I get back to the 'Nati, but what I'm currently doing (sitting in McGinnis doing laundry and finishing up work that stupid professors assigned for over break) sure as hell has to be worse than what lies ahead.

While I wait for the dryer to buzz:

- Charlie is gone; Saturday sealed it for him, and he knows it. It's sad to see him go, he definitely cared a lot more than the last coach (as shown by his relative recruiting rankings, and embracing the "intangibles" that come with being the Notre Dame coach) and - linked article notwithstanding - whined and complained a lot less than the guy before Ty. In the end though, the thought of having essentially the only sports team I even more than half a shit about anymore not being a laughingstock for the first time in my life outweighs any sympathy I have for the guy. Sorry Charlie, head coach at ND is a tough gig, you know it more than anyone.

In the mean time, my Christmas wishlist is as follows (in order):

1.) Urban Meyer (scumbag aside, the guy can coach. This one isn't happening though)
2.) Bob Stoops (With OU's lackluster season and a large number of upperclassman leaving in Norman, if there was ever a year I could see Stoops trying to get another gig, this would be it. The stars may have aligned here. I'm not holding my breath though).
3.) Brian Kelly (Personality of a wet rock, but has been doing alright at UC. I'm worried about his ability to recruit and questionable defenses, but he is today what Urban Meyer was in '04. We all know how that's turned out.
4.) Gruden (Loves Notre Dame and has the personality to bring in nearly any player he wants. I would not be sad about him coming.)
5.) Anyone else out there? Shanahan? Cowher? Didn't think so....

Anyone outside of that top 4 (barring a lottery ticket like Saban or Tressel) will probably at best be on the same level as what Weis has been able to do. I feel like Meyer, Stoops, Kelly, Gruden could get Notre Dame to consistent BCS/top-10 talk, which is right about where the program should be next year, regardless of who is on the sidelines.



- In my extreme state of boredom and procrastination the past few days, I've taken my annual venture off into poetry land. It's the one time of year that I try to act like a hipster coffee shop kid and snap my fingers (no Lil Jon, not like that) to some ole' Billy S. and such. This year, I've taken very fondly to Charles Bukowski. The guy is raw, direct, and just about exactly what I'm looking for at this point in my life (whatever the hell that means...).

A few favorites:

beer

I don't know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
"what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!"

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there's beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.


bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Top 5 Artists of 1st Semester of Junior Year




It's weird how it works when you think about it. Certain songs take me right back to an exact moment in time. Most ironic in my lifetime thus far has been the Three's Company theme song during a "first kiss" moment. May have ruined the gushy romance of all of it at the time, but given how I have rarely taken much of the gushy romance seriously anyways, I wouldn't have it any other way.

A few other songs that have exact moments tied to them for me:

"What Hurts the Most"

"Crush" - Specifically the Live at Radio City version

"Elanor Rigby" - actually, this one is a dual memory: freshman year sitting in my dorm with nothing but the UD lights on above me, and driving up to the stop sign at Creek and Eljay - and I have no idea why the second one exists)


"Shipping up to Boston
" - St. Patricks Day, Junior year in high school; aka green vomit)

"Kashmir" - The song that was on when I got in my car wreck, that song will never be the same

"You Got It Bad" - I think I heard this on the bus ride to high school every morning in junior high. Therefore, I smell the dust/pre-pubescent B.O./overloaded Ax every time it comes on. Still, great song.

The list goes on, but onto the top 5 artists for here and now:

5.) Paramore - Hayley is hot, and has a hell of a voice to go with it. If things don't work out with Chad, I'm here baby girl.
4.) Mike Posner - This one is more because this semester was the first, and will probably be the only time, I listen to him.
3.) Drake - Called this one
2.) Third Eye Blind - Gonna have to thank Saturday's at the stoop for this one.
1.) Miley - For better or for worse, this song will always be attached to the past four months.


If anyone out there has any big flashback songs, lemme hear em.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Engineering is




Taken from a fellow blogger. I like the list and think it does a very good job of describing the field. Especially 3, 4, and 7. 7 being the most frustrating/important one

1.) The science of making the most of the resources available.
2.) The science of making the most of the resources available, with time being the scarcest resource. For the more sincere and "start as soon as you're told to" people, this line means slacking off till the deadline is staring you in the face.
3.) Looking like a nerd (if you're lucky, a genius) to the 'non-engineers', when you try to explain in layman's terms, what your work is.
4.) Failing to find layman's terms for your work. I've had this problem quite a few times.
5.) Failing to make people understand that engineering is actually fun.
6.) Working for people who don't ever seem to understand technical aspects of the job, but absolutely believe that their suggestions (is that commands?) be obeyed. This one is a conclusion I've drawn from Dilbert , so you gotta trust Scott Adams on this one. Fortunately, I have worked under an engineer,and his suggestions sure are worth following.
7.) Constantly thinking up better and/or more economical and/or easier and/or faster ways to do everything. And in the process ending up doing more work than the straight forward approach (but it's a one-time investment if you get it right at first shot).
8.) Coming up with a list of laws/ rules/ conclusions about anything and everything. Does this list come under that category?...I wonder.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

PRPS has a pretty cool website

It gets cluttered fairly fast, but I like the flair.

Now being criminal with your prices, and I may grab a few.

Fact:

About 5% of my blog posts are written, in their entirety, while pooping.

This post is one of those 5%

Damn it's nice to finally have a laptop again

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Call me cliche

But Levi's has a great thing going for them right now.

"Go Forth" just may be the best ad campaign of all time.



Thursday, November 12, 2009

New Webcomic

And this one doesn't even involve stick figures!!


Click the picture for a bigger image

Subnormality... very solid choice.

Just one of those days

when you don't wanna wake up
everything is fucked
everybody sucks


^^ From Mr. Durst's pen to my blog. Not that it's been a terrible day or anything, just one of those days. The good news is that I can definitively pinpoint quite a few things I learned today. Let's go chronologically:

8:37 AM - University of Dayton will come into your apartment when they damn well please. I was awoken at this hour by a middle aged bald guy unlocking and busting through our back door (which, incidentally, opens to my bedroom) to make sure the furnace wasn't going to burn the place down once it went on. I think he was probably the more shocked of the two of us, since three times already this year I have been awoken by the cable/AC/repair guys in the same fashion. Good thing I haven't been sleeping naked any of these times. This time I just said "Cool" and went back to sleep. He can figure out where the fuck the furnace is himself, then he can look at the thermostat and realize we've had the heat on already this year. Pwn'd.

11:30 AM - Fluid Mechanics is probably something that I should learn. Something about, oh I don't know, every field of engineering I'm interested in using it as the basis for pretty much everything. The good news is that I think this is possible.

4:20 PM - Phone interviews are pretty awkward. Given the choice between the two, I would definitely take face-to-face interviews from here on out if possible. I'm glad I got to experience one though, and even more glad that I think it went well. Not that I'm particularly antsy with my current situation, but options are always great to have. Especially if it means going out and seeing something new while I'm basically the most un-tied-down I'll ever be (.....I hope).

8:00 PM - I love decorating for Christmas. Early you say? It's never too early I respond. I'm still in the planning stages this year but I'm thinking a wrapping-paper wallpaper job would be classy. I also need to go get my mini-tree (aptly dubbed by my dad the Charlie Brown Tree) because that's all the apartment will hold. I kicked it off today though with a packet of those scented pine cones; it serves the dual purpose of being festive and getting the bacon smell out of our living room.

1:14 AM - I procrastinate like it's my job, but it's cool because IB English prepped me for this. Also, the keys on my new laptop (the old one died a couple weeks ago) squeak if not pressed perfectly straight down. This could be massively annoying in the coming years. Hopefully it's just a little bit of new car smell.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Wow, I'm not even mad

I actually didn't mean to post that last, well, post with nothing but a title; however, I like the artiness of it all, so I'll keep it.

But the point stands.

I don't really have anything to say. But it's been a few days since I've posted and I did have that whole "be the change you want to see in the world" shpiel less than a fortnight ago, so I feel kind of shitty not following up.

So what's going on in my life, you ask? How about a top 5 I respond. In reverse order, because I love the suspense.

5.) I bought my first ever full length video game digitally recently. Yes, I know the previous sentence will probably exclude me from any contact with the opposite sex for +/- a month, but how would that be different from the past +/- 20 years of my life, so screw it. It feels really really weird buying essentially nothing physically (meaning something that has mass) with nothing physically (meaning my credit card, the whole concept of which still blows my mind, but that's a post for another night). All in all though I'm liking the concept. Rumors have it the PS4 will have primarily a digital download means of distribution so I should probably get used to it either way.

4.) I had a little too much of the jungle joose last night and may or may not have yacked a little on the porch of the stoop. Actually, yea, I did. I tried to clean up my mess this morning, but given the ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL WEATHER today, it had caked very nicely on the already concrete-esque front dirt. So, any water splashing was in vein. I say all of that to say this: I don't know how bulemics do it (my throat kills), and I never want to drink again.

3.) Charlie needs to go. I understand the '07 team had the least talent of any ND team ever possibly, but seriously Charlie, again? This isn't the U.S. Delta Force Academy, it's the fucking Naval Academy. Start talking to your NFL connects about some openings for next year, because if there is a God, you won't be at ND.


2.) If you ain't first you're last.

1.) Nothing in life is big enough for me to give it a "#1" type of status right now, so I'm going to take the easy way out on this one, too. I mean that in the least emo way possible, I'm far from being a manic depressive about things, there just really isn't one thing I can point out as being major.

I did have a pretty prescient fortune cookie in my Chinese carry out this week though, so I guess I'll leave that both of you readers who actually got this far through my ramblings to read it:

"Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you."

Peace up, a town down.

I have nothing to say

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Fairly Substantial Layout Changes

I've opted out of the "stretch to your resolution" look - which I will miss - for the rotating headers. A few reasons:

- I really did not like my header I've had for all this time. It was meant to be a placeholder more than anything, but just got forgotten about.
- I like messing in photoshop, but don't really have much of a medium (besides the occasional dedicated post) for sharing. This gives me a little space in the world for that.
- The randomness of it all keeps it looking fresh.

Now I just have to stay committed to adding new ones every now and then.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Just watched Primer for the first time

....wtf...

Pretty solid, very original sci-fi movie. It's like Back to the Future, minus Hollywood + a former engineer as director. In other words, more scientific... but still wildly conjecture since we are talking about __________[at the sake of preventing any spoilers, mild though they may be, i'll leave the sentence at this].

Go watch it. If you have Netflix, it's one of their watch instantly options. If not, good luck.

If you've seen it, please enlighten me. Or just join me in the wtf-ness of it all.