Final Post of the Year

(ya I can't draw fireworks, you'll get over it.)

That's right, today is New Years Eve 2008. Urban Dictionary defines the event thusly: "The one night of the year when getting drunk and making a fool of yourself is not optional, but in fact mandatory." So with that in mind it's time to bust out the lamp shades and drink champagne to your hearts content and at the end of the night sing a song that hardly anyone knows the lyrics to. Something like old lang sign or something. You know what I am talking about.

I personally am going to an 80's themed party at the place where we play trivia. At 30 bucks for all you can drink you can rest assured I am going to get my monies worth. I'm sure the event will be full of girls wearing pony tails on the side of their head and guys with hairdos that even Vanilla Ice would be proud of.

And with that, we bid you, 2008, adieu. We hardly knew ye. I'm not sure why I'm typing like a french pirate, but it might have something to do with the fact that a bee just flew into my apartment and nearly killed me. See you folks next year! Be safe tonight and if you end up going to jail, don't call me.

2008: A Year in Review

Wow, another year gone by. 2008 was a year of soaring profits and significant one time losses. So much has happened and I will attempt to document and summarize it in a comprehensive and thorough manner. If you are asking "why the manatee picture?", I must advise you that asking of questions carries with it a fee of eleventy billion dollars.

Now, onto the film.

2008 was a year in which I traveled more than ever before. After doing some complicated math, I found that I had traveled some 13,500 miles this year which is just over half way around the world. Each place I visited was a unique experience and I nearly died on one occasion. Good times.

The majority of those miles were accumulated on the trip I took to England in September. Having never been off the continent prior to the trip, this was sort of a big deal. I also took two trips down to New Orleans. We had to evacuate from the first trip due to Hurricane Gustav and I got hit by a drunk driver on the second trip. One day I hope to have a less eventful and more normal trip down there. And lastly I went to Las Vegas and had a helluva time, you can read more about that trip here.

Aside from traveling, I was busy surviving two hurricanes. Luckily I was able to evade Gustav while in New Orleans. Hurricane Ike hit very hard and there were significant casualties in my refrigerator. Frozen hamburger patties and other assorted frozen dinners: You will never be forgotten.

I found out a few new things about myself in 2008. Mainly the fact that I am pretty good at trivia. I also discovered that I am generally unsportsmanlike when it comes to other teams who are better than ours who we naturally assume are cheating. The goal of finishing first has not yet happened, possibly due to alcohol consumption. $2.50 you-call-its + trivia != success.

Meeting new people is always great and in 2008 I did plenty of that. Going to Vegas with Andrew, Jonathan and Christine was especially memorable. Watching Rachel get wasted after 2 beers is also fun. I also, unfortunately, drifted away from one of my closest friends this year which is never something you want to happen, but that's life.

I purchased an Xbox 360 this year which I never actually intended to do. Lets just say there was a Sunday after GTA:IV came out and I was bored and impulse bought it. It has been reasonably entertaining, although I'm still waiting for a patch to come out for Fable II so I can, you know, finish the game.

I met a person this year who actually bought a ShamWOW. Not surprisingly, she was a waitress at a bar. Apparently, the thing really is a piece of crap. I also spent 0 dollars this year on paper towels. You get that camera guy?

Perhaps most importantly, this year I started this blog. Not only am I making monies by putting up ads on this thing, I also enjoy updating it. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog, hopefully you have found it to be an enormous source of information and humor. If not, well, I probably hate your blog as well.

And so this blog flames onwards. My 2009 blog: Limitless potential, boundless horizons, the unstoppable juggernaut of the internet universe.

"When I was frozen giant carrots ruled the Earth. But now they don't. It takes some getting used to."

I haz a Robot

I got an iRobot Roomba 400 for Christmas this year. The idea is that I would use this device to actually clean my apartment for me since I usually have such a hard time doing so due to pure laziness. So I was super excited to test thing thing out.

After charging the thing for a couple hours while I watched the Law and Order marathon on TNT, I took the roomba over to my place to see what it was capable of. I pressed the button to make it start and, low and behold, the thing started cleaning my floor. I was able to sit back and drink a beer while thing thing took care of the place for me. It ran for nearly 45 minutes before I got tired of its noise and turned it off. I was pleasantly surprised that it had picked up as much debris as it had, especially since I had vacuumed for real only about a month ago.

My only real complaints about it is the noise it makes, which can get a bit annoying. I would also recommend to someone getting one of these things to pick up all loose wires from the floor as it can get stuck on them.

All in all, I am very impressed. The roomba must have covered every inch of my apartment 3 or 4 times before he got tired. Apparently there is even a way to modify the software, if you are so inclined, to make it do more specific cleaning.

I will be storing my rooma with the battery out, however. I don't want it strangling me in the middle of the night while I sleep while it then proceeds to assume my identity. If you have seen Terminator, you know what I am talking about. The rise of the roombas will not occur on my watch.

Happy Festivus

Happy Festivus everyone! Today is the day where each person tells everyone else all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year. There are also feats of strength and a pole involved.

I am really only posting about this holiday to enable it to continue to upset the people who cant ever get a joke and for the most part hate all forms of humor. So please, get out there and spread the word and let the world know how it has let you down this year. And if anyone gives you any lip about how it's just "some stupid Seinfeld thing", be sure to give them a good punch right in the baby maker!

Please air all grievances in the comments section below.

Another disappointing season

Yesterday ended the possibility of the Texans ending the season with a winning record. Their loss to the Oakland Raiders, of all teams, also ended the 4 game winning streak that was the only bright point on this miserable season. And while a win next week against the Bears would once again give them an 8-8 season, serious decisions need to be made in the offseason if they want to be a playoff contender next year.

I think one of the main things that needs to be changed next year is the "stick to the game plan at all costs" mentality. It was more than obvious yesterday that nearly every play was going to be a running play. Even when it was apparent that this strategy would not work with Steve Slaton being stuffed play after play, they continued to not call any passing plays. I don't care how covered Andre Johnson is, you give the ball to your play makers.

The quarterback situation will also need to be addressed. I'm not sure how comfortable I am having Schaub as a starter anymore. I am even less impressed with Rosenfelds now that he has turned into an interception machine after his helicopter antics in the Indianapolis game. I haven't really looked to see who would be out there for us to pick up but I do know that the Rosenfelds + Schaub option simply isn't living up to how it was billed to us.

I suppose the greatest surprise this season was the effectiveness of Steve Slaton. Having been without a real every-down running back for the past few years, Slation has really filled a large void in the team. Hopefully the Texans lock him up to some sort of long term deal.

Oh well, so much for my prediction of a 10-6 year with possible playoff implications. The chances were there this season to achieve that goal but were squandered the way bad teams squander good chances. The fact remains that the Texans are still a mediocre football team. The loss yesterday cemented that reality. Heres hoping the team can build on the few successes they had this year and come out and actually contend next year. If freaking Miami can do it, so can we.

How to save the auto industry

I have a simple, yet eloquent, way of saving the auto industry. For years, the big 3 have given select models of their vehicles special names which they hope will cater to a particular crowd. A couple examples are the Ford Explore Eddie Bauer edition and the Nissan Texas Titan. You see, car manufactures believe we the public are so inept that we will make drastically important decisions that impact our financial well being solely on the premise on how cool a name sounds. This business model has worked well for several years.

The problem today is that people simply no longer swoon for a car with just any old name on it. I mean, come on, who is Eddie Bauer anyway? No body has any clue and therefore will be less likely to make an impulse buy of said vehicle. No, what the auto makers need to do is understand what is really hip these days. I am, of course, talking about Hannah Montana.

Imagine this scenario:

Family of four walks into an auto dealer ship. The salesman immediately recognizes this opportunity to push an overly expensive luxury sedan on the family which we will call the Ford Thunder Cougar Falcon Bird - Hannah Montana Edition. The father wants something a bit more economical like the Nissan Snoozemobile 19. Now the dad knows what he wants to get, and besides the Ford Thunder Cougar Falcon Bird is way out of his price range and gets horrible gas mileage. But what do you think his two daughters are going to have to say on the matter? Correct! They are going to scream and plea and bitch and moan until the dad simply cannot take it anymore and decides his life will be much happier without the constant reminder of how he ruined Christmas and so he will purchase the Ford Thunder Cougar Falcon Bird with the Hannah Montana upgrade package.

I realize that my hypotheses requires more scientific data. But you have to admit, I'm on to something here.

This blog brought to you by Hannah Montana.

Lucky to be Alive

As you can see above, I had quite a unique Friday. We were on our way to New Orleans when we decided to make a stop in Orange, TX at a gas station to get some snacks for the remainder of the trip. We then proceeded to get back on the road. While waiting at the stop light, a Ford F150 being driven by a drunken idiot, slammed into us at nearly 60 mph.

I was knocked unconscious and do not remember the actual impact. I had been sitting in the passenger side back seat just seconds prior to impact when my friend who was driving asked me to get his stick of beef out of the bag that was behind him. Had I not been leaning over the driver side of the car I most probably who not be making this post at this time.

Aside from a knee and head injury, I was, for the most part, ok. In fact, all of us in the car escaped with relatively few injuries considering the carnage of the wreck. We are truly very lucky. I want to thank all of my friends and family who have been so great. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. I was truly lucky to have walked away from that in as good of shape as I did. Special thanks to Christine who drove up and picked us up from the hospital and refused to let the crash ruin our trip to New Orleans. And also special thanks to Andrew for asking me to grab his beef stick for him.

This was the drunk drivers SECOND dwi. Hopefully he goes to jail for a long time.

Off Night

So if you know me at all, you know that I generally play trivia on Tuesdays with a few chaps of mine. Now don't get me wrong, we are never generally the strongest team (mainly because we don't cheat). We usually finish around the middle of the pack and we have even placed second before. But last night we hit a new low. The bottom of the barrel kind of low. The kind of defeat that only the strongest can survive. I attribute this failure to many unique circumstances.

1. New waitress: The place last night was packed more than usual. Due to this, our normal waitress, Stephanie, had to work one side of the bar while this other chick worked our side. Now Stephanie knows us all quite well, ie. our names, what we like to drink, and the fact that we won't walk out on a tab which means we never have to put down plastic up front. I like to refer to this phenomenon as "walking around the metal detectors." So when we were asked what names to put tabs under and got "confused cat" looks when we ordered some of our drinks, it definitely put us off our game.

2. Pregamming: You should never, ever pregame before an event that requires you to think clearly. While it is fun to kill a few beers with friends before an event, trivia night might just be an exception. Or not. Who knows?

3. Missing team members: While I am generally the brains of the operation, there are some categories which I simply have no clue about. This is where the other people on the team usually step up and deliver. Two of of the people who play trivia with us decided to go to the Rockets game last night. This caused friction as large role gaps were present throughout the night.

These three unique events joined forces ala Captain Planet style to form a perfect storm which delivered what was our worst trivia performance ever. Well, that and an entire Meryll Streep category. I mean, come on, Meryll Streep herself couldn't have even gotten some of the questions correct.

Country Roads

Went on a mini-road trip to Austin this past weekend. I more or less took the scenic route since I was in no hurry to get where I was going. Getting out on the road again reminded me of how much I love driving. To think that I have driven some 130,000 miles in my life and yet have barely scratched the surface of the 5.7 million miles of paved roads that the United States has.

I think the main reason I enjoy road trips is seeing the diversity of landscape. Living in a huge urban environment, like Houston, you can often forget that there is so much else to see out there. On my trip to Los Angeles, I drove through dense cities, deserts, mountain forests, abandoned towns and miles and miles without even seeing another car. Singing my own renditions of Country Roads and On The Road again are also always a hit. For my money, there is simply no better way to see the country.

One of these days I hope to drive to Alaska and back. The epic trip of nearly 9,000 miles round trip would surely be the trip of all trips. I hope to find someone, someday who is crazy enough to attempt this journey with me. I'll bring tons of snacks if you're interested! A Bear Survival Kit will also be provided!

* Programming note: Be on the lookout for a "2008: A Year In Review", coming to a blog post near you in early 2009.

A/S/L?

No, I'm not trying to cyb0r with you. Today is "Cyber Monday", a term the media has coined as the day that people do tons of holiday related shopping online a la black friday style. I have a few issues with this whole idea mainly due to the fact the advertisers have shoved yet another meaningless word into my already robust vocabulary.

I just feel that there are enough BUY MORE SHIT RIGHT NOW days. We, as Americans, do not need to be told to get out and shop. We are going to do it, we promise! There is no need to create another day specifically to remind people to get out and buy more crap they don't really need. I mean, what am I going to do with another $24 egg beater or a new dinette set?

I sort of lost my train of thought. I got side tracked while wikipediaing the origins of this "holiday." I started at Black Friday and finished up at the war of 1812 before realizing that I was supposed to be blogging. My point was this, it's a dumb name for a stupid day.

T-Day 2008

Seeing as tomorrow is Thanksgiving, I figured I should write up a little how I celebrate the day. We all know Thanksgiving is the day that Christopher Columbus was thanked by the native Americans for the skanky European women be brought over on his voyage to the new world. The feast they prepared for him and his men was second to none, which was why he told George Washington to make it a national holiday.

But enough with the history, there are a few ways I celebrate thanksgiving that make it unique. First, we always fry the turkey. If you have never had fried turkey then, quite frankly, you are not American. You have to be careful when using this cooking method as it can lead to serious injuries. Here are just a few tips to remember:

- Always wear closed toe shoes. Failure to do this can, and will, lead to serious burns on your toesies. I have experienced this first hand and let me tell you a happy Thanksgiving does it not make.

- Try to avoid sticking your head in the boiling oil whilst frying. This can be very tempting due to the insanely delicious aroma it emits. I have illustrated the consequences of this action below:



As you can see, there is clearly some inherent danger involved when frying a turkey. However, the risk is well worth the reward. Add some mashed potatoes, green been casserole with bacon with some stuffing and red wine and baby you got yourself a Thanksgiving going. So try to stay safe out there tomorrow. Be sure to get super fatty! And have a happy Thanksgiving!

Options

Today is Pay Day. The happy time of the month where dollars are deposited into my account and I am free to waste them on whatever I see fit. It is at this point I must decide what to spend my monies on after paying rent, bills, etc. There are usually 3 options: booze, stock market and fancy food.

Now under the category of booze, i usually include entertainment as well since I am generally boozing whilst being entertained. I find that bar food is generally 95% fried and therefore unhealthy. The chicken basket seems to be a common theme amongst many bars, most likely due to it's ease of procurement and delicious presentation on top of french fries. I sort of went off on a tangent, didn't I....? Oh well.

Spending money in the stock market can be extremely exhilarating and suicidally frustrating at the same time. This median is what most people call "normal life" and it is encouraged. I do not recommend dumping money into individual stocks unless you can stay mentally in the swing of things when it hits the fan, much like it is now. I guess the point of this section is to tell you to stay away from stocks...because they will turn you into me. And nobody wants that.

Now the real bread and butter of where I like to spend my monies is on food. Fine food especially. I recently went on a lobster binge. Broiling and grilling and baking it. Add some broccoli with some potato salad? Man you got yourself a stew going. But I digress. I am always into trying new foods. When I was in London I had a mussel and squid pasta. Super tasty!

I really have no idea what I was trying to get at today with this post. But I'm sure if you look hard enough, you will find a deep message hidden in there. And if you figure out what that message is, please let me know. I am way too lazy to figure it out myself.

Fable 2: A Review

At the behest of my brother, I decided to pick up a copy of Fable 2 this past weekend. Having really heard nothing about it before and my brother's usual taste in games, I was skeptical of finding anything of value in this thing. Boy was I wrong. So here is my halfway through the game review.

Gameplay:
I was a bit surprised by the ease of playability of this game right out of the box. Unlike games such as Mass Effect, it assumed you had no idea how any of the controls worked and had a guiding voice to help you along the way in the early parts of the game. The use of lock-on aiming as well as free aim shooting removes unneeded frustration from those of us who are used to the point and click FPS games on the PC, one thing Mass Effect significantly lacked. I found the controls to be easily understandable within minutes. I realize this section may have turned into a Mass Effect bashing, but to be fair I was really disappointed in that game which seemed to be hyped up a lot more than Fable II.

Graphics:
Simply amazing. If you have the means to play this game in 1080p you will not be disappointed. This is virtually no static background scenery at all. The dynamic world constantly changes around you. Almost all buildings are able to be entered either peacefully or otherwise. I am really not sure how else I can put how awesome the graphics are for this game.

Story:
The story line is relatively simple, in a good way. Basically if you enjoyed how Zelda: Ocarina of Time unfolded for the Nintendo 64, you will enjoy this game. There are many side quests for you to go on along the way. And, from what I'm told, the game doesn't end when the story line does enabling you to continue to explore the world.

Other:
This game is unique (for me at least) in the sense that every action you take has either a positive or negative effect on not only you, but the people you interact with. Kill a store owner and you will become more evil and the town will suffer. Bring a bunch of warrants for criminals back to the sheriff and you will get a discount at local stores while the city prospers. Another thing to keep in mind is that this game is rated M for mature, and for good reason. It allows you to not only marry someone, it allows you to marry ANYONE, if you get my drift. Multiple partners of both genders. You can also have either protected or unprotected intercourse with them. With that in mind, this is definitely a game that should be played by adults only.

Although I have not yet completed the game, I can safely say it is one of the better titles for the Xbox 360, again, unlike Mass Effect. A must have for a person who enjoys the RPG model of gaming will surely not be disappointed.

Giant Universe

You probably already know that the universe is a big place. Simply look up at night you are are able to see hundreds of thousands of stars gracing the sky. It is also easy to forget that most of the specs of light visible to us here on earth with the naked eye are stars from our own galaxy which is one of several galaxies that inhabit our tiny region of space.

The picture above was taken from the Chanda X-Ray Observatory. The image is a picture of the universe as it existed when it was just 2 billion years old, or nearly 11 billions years ago. This is one of the deepest, and therefore oldest, images of the universe ever imaged.

Lets now try to put this image in some sort of perspective. The stars you see at night are mostly part of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The Milky Way consists of some 200 billion stars and is roughly 100,000 light years in diameter. Our nearest, large galaxy is the Andromeda Galaxy which is about 2.5 million light years away from ours. It contains about 1 trillion stars and is also about 100,000 light years in diameter. Ok so now look at the picture above again and realize that each spec of light you see is an entire galaxy, the light of which has traveled 11 billion years to reach us.

If that doesn't blow you off your ass I'm not sure what will. For more information about this image, click here. Click the image for the super large version.

Sorry for the nerdy post. I will be back to shenanigans in the future.

Veterans Day

I was going to make a post today about something else until I noticed it was Veterans' Day. So whatever pointless thing I was going to blabber on about mindlessly will have to wait until tomorrow.

I'd like to take the time now to thank all off the past and present men and women of this country's armed forces for their service. Thank you for doing what needs to be done in order to keep this country safe. Your patriotism will never be forgotten. I pray that all that who are currently on active duty around the world will stay safe and be able to see their loved ones soon. Thank you again so much for your service!

Future m1ke

Lately, I have been putting off a wide variety of tasks and assigning them to Future m1ke. Normally this works out well with Future m1ke generally taking care of business which little to no repercussions for me. He has long been one of my absolute BFF's by unselfishly lightening the very heavy load that is my life.

However, I am starting to get the feeling that Future m1ke has been sleeping around on me. Case in point: I purchased a few bar stool one day while at the Home Depot, which was lovely. Not wanting to burden Future m1ke too heavily, I put one of the stools together myself leaving the other for him. It has now been over 4 months and yet the box containing the stool remains unopened.

My only theory is that Future m1ke has been hanging out with Future Future m1ke. If this is true, steps will need to be taken to ensure that the two of them never end up together. This plan will probably include drinking less...

Stay Classy, Philadelphia.

Congratulations are in order for the Phillies, winners of the 2008 Rainfall Classic. I was actually surprised to see that both teams were able to have the intensity of being in the 6th inning of a clinching game despite it starting nearly 48 hours earlier. The series, however, was still a complete and udder blunder.

Phillies fans of course did the next logical thing, burning their city to the ground. I'm not sure what it is with places like Philadelphia or Chicago, but for some reason winning a championship turns on a part of their brain collectively that says "Hey, lets throw a bottle full of gasoline at that car!" Now, granted, I have never been part of a riot so I do not entirely know what I am missing. The one thing I do know is that I enjoy my car being on it's four tires instead of on it's roof, burning.

I admit I was fully expecting Brad Lidge to show up in the 9th with his gas can like he used to here in Houston and burn the stadium down. But he was on top of his game last night. Solid performance.

Last night concluded another year of baseball. The way the Rays went from losing 100 games just a year ago to winning the American League this year was simply epic. All in all, a good season. Hopefully the Astros will pick up a few pitchers and attempt to be competitive this year. Only 6 months to opening day.

Twitter

I was sitting at home, drinking a beer, when i came to a stunning realization. People need to know what I am doing, at every possible moment. In that regard, I decided to set up a twitter account. Now, whenever you are like "hey, i wonder what Mike is up to?", you will be able to check out this site (provided I update it) and find out what is going on in the world of me. And if you are actually thinking that, you probably have some issues.

My Twitter Account

Now, back to watch game 4 of the world series.

Riva Ras Regas

Vegas was simply amazing. And yes, I have been there before. However, this was my first time going there with the intent to do hardcore gambling with fellow degenerates. The week was filled with nearly 24/7 debauchery and shenanigans. It ranks up there in the top 5 best weeks of my life.

While many of the best moments will surely be lost forever due to drunken stupor, here are a list of the highlights:

- Hitting blackjack while playing at the $100 table.
- Ruining a hotel comforter due to a violent nosebleed.
- Being asked if I wanted any hookers or blow from folks on the street at 4:30 am.
- Friend of mine unable to remember if he had really lost 600 at the tables the previous night.
- $22 all you can drink champagne brunch at Planet Hollywood.
- Stereotyping all Canadians as liking Canadian Bacon, Moose, and Molson.
- Winning at video Keno.
- Saying "Oooohh Hewrow Prease" at every possible opportunity. (come on, its funny).
- Stealing a butter knife from a restaurant at Paris.
- Some European guy asking if he could "play on top of you" at the blackjack table.
- GTFO'ing out of Wynn once we had completed our free slot play.
- Eating nothing but M&M's at the buffet due to an insane hangover.

The list goes on. Only regret we had on the trip was that we never got to have any lobster. The losses were relatively small for me. Lets just say I would have gladly paid the same for the amount of entertainment I had as I had in gambling losses. We were ready to go by the last day. 4 nights in Vegas might be just a bit much. I am ready to sleep for like 2 days.

TGIT

I am really glad that it is Thursday. Not just because in less than 48 hours I will be in Las Vegas. Not just because tomorrow is Friday. No, I am happy that it is Thursday for TV! And not just any TV, I am talking about the premiere of CSI tonight. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't even watch CSI nor have I ever been a big fan of the show. Tonight's premiere marks then end of the of the 2 month long advertising campaign with that awful ooooooooooooo-ooooooooooooo-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo song. I am absolutely thrilled that I wont be hearing that song every time I turn on the radio or watch sports on TV. And if you watch any kind of tv, you know what I am talking about.

Looking forward to Vegas in the meantime!

I have been too lazy to write in this thing.

When I landed back in Houston I was sick. Seriously sick. I spent most of the weekend and the better part of this week trying to get better. My body apparently is not well adapted to 10,000 miles plus of travel in a given 2 week period.

Nevertheless, or should I say Irregardless, (no, I shouldn't) I am back in the swing of things. Had a bunch of stuff to do like replenish the refrigerator since the hurricane and subsequent loss of power meant all of my frozen delights and tasty condiments were destroyed. I also got around to getting my electricity off the variable month to month plan which should enable me to spend more of my hard earned money at the bar.

In more unrelated news, I will be doing more travel next Friday when I go to Las Vegas. Be aware that if I hit some sort of progressive jackpot worth a few million dollars, this site might not ever be updated again. If I ever decide to take the pictures I took in London off of my camera, I will post them up here. Don't hold your breath though....

Still in England

My return home from the UK has been delayed a day due to an extra meeting. This is not such bad news as now I will be able to take Friday off and relax while catching up on all the tv show premieres I have missed. I will be posting the pictures of trip when I get back. Also pictured will be my 1200+ GBP hotel bill. You do the math on that one.

Camelot really is a silly place.

Sorry for the lack of updates the past week. Not that anyone reads this thing anyway! But yes, due to Ike and me having to scramble to get my travel plans secured, I had very little time to internet.

So after 3 canceled flights, I managed to get on the 4:00 non stop to London out of Houston. 9 very boring hours later, I arrived super exhausted. Now since this was my first time making international travel, I really did not know what to expect. The process did, however, go very smoothly and before long I was being asked by a stranger if I was "queuing" at the rental car place.

I have noticed quite a few oddities about this place that I didn't expect. For starters, when you ask for a beverage, they ask you if you would like ice with it. Apparently, you do not get it by default. Also, they REALLY do drive on the wrong side of the road. It is quite horrifying before you get used to it. Sadly, they do not have a "Royale with Cheese" at McDonalds. In my hotel room, there is a tea maker under the tv set. Everything is also pretty ridiculously expensive. That goodness this is an all expenses paid business trip or I would be out of a lot of cash.

The plan is to do some touristy type things this weekend during which I hope to get a few myspace style pictures of myself standing in front of random places. Oh well, off to bed now. My body still has yet to get over the 6 hours of time I have lost.

LHC

I am sure most of you have not heard of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that has been built by CERN. If that is true, then I highly suggest you check out it's wiki page. But basically it is a device that enables scientists to slam particles into each other at enormous velocities. The theory is that they will be able to re-create some of the conditions that existed shortly after the big bang and thereby providing a wealth of previously unknown science. Really interesting stuff if you care to read about it further.

Ok well so thats all wonderful and all but there seem to be a few folks out there who are certain that turning this thing on will in short, create a black hole that will destroy the earth in a matter of micro seconds. There is a website available here where you will be able to track whether or not the earth has been destroyed by the LHC. Be sure to hit refresh constantly.

I was also reminded recently of another possible alternative to the black hole destroying the earth theory, which I personally think is far more plausible. If you have never played the game Half Life, this might be a little bit hard to grasp for you. But in said game, some scientist perform a very similar experiment which opens up a portal to an alien world full of headcrabs and various other human feeding horriblesness. Now the game's protagonist, Gordon Freeman, begins his quest for survival with only a crowbar. This is why I am urging everyone to go to their local hardware store and pick up a crowbar, just to be on the safe side, before they start colliding these particles into each other at nearly the speed of light.

There is also one group of "scientists" who believe that once this thing does get turned on, we will begin to see the first time travelers from the future coming to visit us. This is based on the idea that one can only travel back in time to the time the time machine was created. So if you see anybody telling you they are from the future, don't just brush them off as a crazy person because they might have valuable information. Not that crazy people don't have valuable information... I'm just saying you might be more interested in, say, lottery numbers than why an ant farm is a perfect way to set up a home business.

Thoughts about relationships

Heard this from someone recently and thought it was interesting.

"Relationships are a lot like Tetris. You bide your time, and you wait and you wait for that straight line piece to come along to make your Tetris. You sometimes substitute other pieces just to make a line here and there, but you are really waiting for that one piece that will make it all come together. Finally, you end up saying "fuck it", and you drop an L shaped piece in the hole and try to start whittling away at the stack. Shortly after you've given up on it, the straight piece shows up and there's not a damn thing you can do with."

Epic.

Meet the new Texans

Same as the old Texans. Yesterday's season opener against Pittsburgh erased nearly all the gains that had been made last year. And it was all over by the end of their first drive which, to their credit, was probably robbed from them by the referees. But one blown call does not a game make. Either the Steelers are going to be absolutely outstanding this year or we simply didn't show up. It now looks that my prediction of the Texans going 10-6 this year and making the playoffs might have been a little off.

Matt Schaub reminded us of the glory days of David Carr by making ill-advised sideways passes. The offensive line giving him just enough time to tuck the ball away before being stuffed into the ground. I personally have always wanted the Texans to give Sage Rosenfelds a real chance to be the starting quarterback. Perhaps we are not that far away from that.

The defense looked absolutely anemic. I am pretty sure that even I could have ripped off 100+ rushing yards against them. The pass defense also left alot to be desired. It really is a shame that Daunte Robinson will still miss 4-5 more weeks, especially since the games he is missing will most likely be our most difficult.

The only glimmer of production came out of Mario Williams who, for all things considered, had an outstanding game. 2 sacks and a forced fumble while constantly putting pressure on Roethlisberger. He looked to be the only one on the team who realized that it was opening day in the NFL.

I suppose it would have been nice to open the season up against a stat-padding team like Cleveland or Oakland. But then again, maybe WE are that team.

Next Game: Baltimore (3:15 here in Houston).

House Hunting

So I have decided to start thinking about potentially becoming a homeowner once my apartment lease is up. My current place is getting filled up with so much useless garbage that I need a bigger place to store it. I also have craptastic satellite reception due to the lovely tree in front of my balcony which prevents me from getting HD service.

So as you all know, buying a house is a big step and should not be taken lightly. There are several things one must take into account.

For starters, the house should be at the top of a hill. This will prevent flooding and will make it easier to defend yourself from robots who will want your medicine when you are retired.

The house should be two stories so that if you are ever overrun by zombies you can simply cut down the stairs and live in the upper half of the house. But be advised, this tactic will not prevent attacks by zombies flying on top of dragons. Trust me on that one.

At the bottom of your hill, there should be a moat to keep the black knight at bay.

Try to get a house with walls. This is prevent all of your stuff from getting wet and or stolen.

Taking all of those things into account, I am going to be looking for a place in the 1500-2000sq foot range. I'm not really sure of any particular location where I want to live yet, but hopefully that minor detail will work its self out once I find a really slick deal. Can you tell it's a pretty boring Wednesday?

I am officially a refugee.

Well that was quite a trip indeed. We left Houston for New Orleans around 3:00pm on Friday. We got there around 9:30. The hotel was very swanky. We hit the bars on Bourbon street around 10:30 and found that it was quite crowded despite the impending doom of the hurricane. We did our fair share of drinking and listening to Bon Jovi cover bands. If the person who took pictures emails them to me I will post them up here.

Anyway, on Saturday, the town was really starting to get deserted. All tourists were "encouraged" to evacuate as soon as possible. So we hit the casino. The place was completely dead. No one playing slots, table games or anything. It was pretty disappointing, but we did get to eat at the buffet. We were literally walking around the casino with hundred dollar bills in our hands asking them to open up tables. We were told that not only will they not open up tables, the casino would close at noon. So we went out drinking again. Most of the bars were closed and boarded up. We were still able to hit up Pat O'Briens and get a hurricane, which was delicious.

The hotel left a note on our door that they would be closing at 10am on Sunday. We decided that it would be best to leave around 11pm-midnight to hopefully avoid other refugees. The plan worked well. It only took us roughly 9.5 hours to get back to Houston. By this time, I had been awake for nearly 36 hours. All I need to know now is where I have to go to pick up my FEMA credit card.....

Going to give this blogging thing a try.

So yes, Blogging. You probably found this website by mistake and are now wondering what you are doing here. It's a valid question. The truth is, there will not be much value here other than my current musings and other random thoughts. At no point in my rambling, incoherent posts will you find anything that could come close to being considered a rational thought and you will all be dumber for having read it. With that in mind, I am off to New Orleans for the weekend. If I remember that I even set this thing up, I will possibly tell you how it went. And if I don't update, it's pretty safe to assume that I was stabbed to death or killed by the impending Hurricane.