Ok, so my sister bought me a gift online and had it shipped to me. It arrived today! I eagerly opened the box and peered inside only to find….maternity shirts!! I check the packing slip and find that I was SUPPOSED to get a coat and two shirts—a V-neck, and a regular long sleeved. Instead I got two collared rugby shirts—one in blue and one in white, and a sleeveless floral shirt in peach and blue. Needless to say I can’t wear the stuff, so I called Old Navy Customer Service and they promised to rush me my actual stuff, which should reach me in a few business days. I can either mail or return in-store the wrong items. I also called my mom and sister and they were both pretty amused. Of course, they think it sucks that there was a mistake, but that what they sent me is pretty ridiculous. In a way I can appreciate how funny the situation is—I’ve never received a mistake in shipping before, and then to receive maternity stuff! But on the other hand, the hooded coat looks really cute and I want it NOW! Hopefully I’ll get the correct items before I go home this weekend.

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So last night I come home and start chatting online as usual. Around 11-something I hear the squeal of brakes and the crunch of metal. I look outside my window to see some white Honda perpendicular to my car and the one across the street. The front of the Honda is touching the car across the street. I immediately start wondering if my car was damaged. As I keep looking, I see the car restart its engine, quickly back up—NARROWLY missing my car, and drive away. A hit and run. What a bastard. Luckily my car was not hit—now that I think about it, the alarm probably would’ve gone off it it had, and it was silent. Also, the car across the street was an old 1970s Mercury Cougar—a steel boat, if you will—and was undamaged. I bet the Honda has some extensive front end damage, which serves them right. I hope we see them again so that they can get caught. I am not sure if the guy whose car was hit is going to the police, but since he also witnessed it, I will leave that to his discretion. One good thing out of this is that I finally met the new guy who moved in my house. It seems we are both rarely at home, and have never gotten the opportunity to formally meet. After standing around chatting with him, two of his friends, and a guy across the street who also witnessed the event, we called it a night. That was quite enough excitement for one evening!

It’s just a rumor! It appears that Steve the Dell Guy may be around a little bit longer. Of course, I suppose this could turn out to be false as well, but I like this news better than the other. I only wish I could get my hands on copies of all the ads, that would kick ass. Unfortunately all commercial previewing sites either charge or have only streaming video, making it much more difficult to obtain copies. Ahh, the good old days when Adcritic was free.

I just watched a pretty campy film tonight. 20 years ago this “all-star” cast would’ve cost a pretty penny. In today’s market, however, these stars are a bit washed up. One major redeeming factor was the presence of Scott Baio and all the Charles in Charge references. I swear I’ve heard the TV series referenced several times recently, but I don’t mind because that show kicked ass. Oh yea, some of the other “big” names in this movie included Dolly Parton, Randy Quaid, Joanie “Chynna” Laurer, Tracy Morgan from SNL, Andy Richter, Adam Carolla, the Hanson Brothers, Emmanuel “Webster” Lewis, and a few others you might recognize. Normally I don’t name drop in my movie mentions, but this cast is too good not to list! The movie….avoid at all costs.

With all the chaos of the strike and my other ramblings, I totally forgot to mention the saddest news I heard all week: Steve the Dell Guy may be no more! This is truly the saddest news I’ve heard! From what I can tell, it may be true—the latest commercials feature some “interns” learning the ropes at Dell, and Steve is only featured at the end with his little brother, receiving another Dell. Yet, he is supposed to be away at college, so is he merely on Break, home for the weekend, or appearing to slowly ease his way out of the Dell commercials??? These questions remain unanswered for the time being—we will have to wait and see what happens with the next batch of commercials. I do find it a bit unfair, however—cute Steve gets canned, but the annoying Verizon “Can you hear me now?” guy still gets to stay. Where’s the justice?!

I’m thinking about finally redesigning my site. I want it to be simple, clean, but not look too amateurish. If anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them. This brings me to my other announcement—I added a guestbook to the bottom of this page, so feel free to sign in and introduce yourself!

So for the past two days my stupid Clerical Union, CUE has been on strike. They are demanding better pay and striking due to unfair labor practices. I am pretty anti-union, and having to deal with this strike has only made me more so. I am sick of everyone asking me if I’m striking—even the head of our local chapter called me at work to ask if I would strike. I told everyone I didn’t know, so that I could avoid the hassle. I’m tired of being guilted into something I don’t care about—-they won’t get the money because of the state budget, and it’ll only delay things further. I could go off on a long tirade about this, but I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

I’m know I’m a little slow to jump on the proverbial band-wagon, but I recently got John Mayer’s “Room for Squares” and Jack Johnson’s “Brushfire Fairytales”. In a way these two artists are similar, in that they are pretty mellow—much more mellow than what I usually listen to. Jack Johnson, for those who don’t know, is an alumni from UCSB who recently gained some popularity with the release of his first album. John Mayer is someone I have heard of for months now, but had not yet taken the time to check him out. Just from my preliminary listen to both CDs, I think that I like both artists.

Onto my promised potato rant….who here likes crispy french fries? I, for one, will not eat them if they are brown or too crispy. Some places that usually have good fries are In ‘n Out, McDonald’s (if fresh), Woody’s, Jack in the Box Curly Fries, Applebee’s, and a few others I could name if I had the chance to think. Oddly enough though, some of the best fries I ever had were while I was dining in Germany. I was surprised to find that you could get them in almost every restaurant and that they surpassed the quality of ones I had here. They were just consistently better—even cooking and flavor throughout. I like my fries to be golden—erring on the side of mushy is always better, as in my Woody’s example. I will NOT eat them if they are brown, because then they taste over cooked. If they are too crispy, they are lacking in inner potato. Sure the outside is technically potato, but it is so fried that I’m not sure you can really classify it as such, and there is little to no inner potato remaining to make it taste like a normal french fry. People think I’m overly picky at the very least, and insane at the worst—I just like to think I have standards! I bet one could make a religion out of this great debate (ie. “What IS the inner potato?”). Wanna try?

Fred and Mike were in town again (with Ritchie in tow this time, whom I’ve only met once or twice), and this time I was finally able to hang out with them again last night. I think the last time I saw them was like 2 years ago. We played Risk—I won the first game in a record 2 rounds, wiping out Mike’s gray army, yay! The second game took so long we decided to go to Denny’s for food, and so called a winner based on who was closest to completing their mission. Amusingly, when we were at the grocery store buying alcohol, we managed to find the only French cashier or something. Fred had some small talk in French with her, while Kevin and I paid for the alcohol. Pretty random.

On a totally different note, I’ve noticed our culture is evolving. Where once we had the phone numbers of important people memorized, we now store them in our cell phones for instant access—eliminating the need to expend any mental energy on recalling the numbers later. Case in point is that it is becoming so bad, some people can’t even recall their OWN number without help. A guy in my office has his cell phone as his sole phone. The other day his phone discharged to the point where he couldn’t even turn it on to retrieve a number. Some time during the day, it became necessary to retrieve a number, so he went around asking everyone if we had a charger with us. We all said no, so he had to resort to other means. Know what he did? Since he couldn’t remember the numbers of ANYONE, he called 411 for the number of a friend, and then had that friend give him the number he needed. Know what number the guy needed? His own cell phone number!!!! That’s pretty bad I think. Admittedly I don’t have as many numbers memorized as I used to now that they are all stored in my cell phone, but I at least know my own number without relying on my phone to tell me. :)

Tune in next time when I discuss french fries and the inner potato correlation….

This last weekend the weather was sooooo nice. It was great! It must have been at least 80. :) On Friday Vince had another “special” showing of a movie at his house. Normally this is reserved for just Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Brad was able to make it for the first time since his move to Lompoc, so a special viewing was in order. We watched a bad Hong Kong film called Conman in Tokyo. It was actually fairly entertaining because this guy could kill someone by throwing playing cards at people!

I can’t remember what I did on Saturday, but on Sunday I washed my car in the early afternoon and went to the Riviera again to see another foreign film—this time a French one. 8 Women is a murder mystery that parodies Hollywood’s depiction of women in the 1950s—complete with the outfits and spontaneous musical numbers. I liked it and found it entertaining—I am sure one could find plausibility issues with this film, but I never take such things into account unless I really don’t like the film. I like to suspend belief and just be entertained for a few hours.

At least another Monday workday has come and gone. In other news, I had decided to get my eyes checked, since I’ve noticed for a few years now that my vision in my right eye is pretty bad. Any sort of lettering or numbering at a distance is pretty hard to make out. Apparently my left eye didn’t really require correction, but I have a moderately bad astigmatism in my right eye—like 1.25 or something. So anyway, my glasses came in today. I’m not sure how often I’ll wear them. I tried them on and it’s all weird looking at stuff. I picked frames that are kinda dark and stand out, which is another reason I’m not sure how much I’ll use them. Now that I have them, I’m not sure I can pull it off. Too late now though I guess—unless I want to pay a lot more money, I guess I’ll have to keep them for awhile. :)