Havasimy

One more thing:
Happy Birthday, Terri!!!

One story I forgot to tell. On the way back from Carnival, I stopped at a rest stop about an hour away from Philly. When I pulled back out of the parking space and started to drive forward, it felt like I had gotten a flat tire. I got out and checked and all the tires were fine. I started driving again. I could still feel it. I got out again and even checked under the car. Found nothing. I started driving again. I was past the pump at the gas station rest stop by this point. I realized I couldn't get on the turnpike until I figured out what it was. I pull over by the gas station building and I checked the front left tire again. That's when I noticed it. A piece of tire retread was stuck to my car. It was going about a third of the way around the tire. I must have either drove overtop of it getting off the highway or parked right on top of it. It came off with a little force. I've talked with a few people who have spent times around cars and they've never heard of that happening.

And now still catching up on saved up news stories:
- I hope these guys end up missing the show because they were at the wrong theatre.
- This column brings up some interesting points. First, the fact that heavy drinking seems to slow down after a person turns 21. Second, that it's not right that someone in their late teens can do stuff like buy cigarette, own guns and even kill (and die) for their country but can't drink. (I've personally always thought that, at least, if a person is on active duty in the military, they should be allowed to drink, no matter their age.) But the most important thing in the article is the need for education. Teens are often attracted to drinking because it's illegal to do and an adult activity. They are never taught to drink responsibly and often have their first drinks with no adult supervision. Growing up across the street from a beer distributor and hanging out there, I saw the good and bad sides of alcohol early in my life. Also, my parents are occasion let me have a sip of wine. If I had wanted to, I could also have had a beer on occasion, but it would only have been when they were around. I've seen a few people who hit college with the easier access to alcohol and were not prepared for it. And considering raising the age limit for drinking will likely never happen, there should be more alcohol education given to those in their early teens than simply telling them not to drink before 21. This should start at home and be reinforced in the school.
- No real comment on this, just that find this interesting. Also, I'm sure Bill will say that they got the headline half right.
- Maybe dressing as a pirate could be used to get an elected office in student goverment at Carnegie Mellon. Or maybe it just requires getting a couple friends to vote for you.
- This is an article about names. It's worth reading for the story about the guy who named two of his sons Winner and Loser. Here's a related article.
- I can just imagine kids playing war and having Jesus fighting G.I.Joe or reenacting the parting of the Red Sea with the Moses doll and the toilet.
- Who cares? The article came off to me as an advertisement for iPods and iTunes.
- I agree with this article. Food service on planes don't matter to me too much and seat comfort (except for late night, cross country flights where the seat in front of me has actually fused to my knees) is acceptable. But I'm sick of seeing flyers take full suitcases that I could fit in onto airplanes while I've taken care to make sure my carry-on actually fit within the airlines guidelines.

And now the news:
- This is what I want for my birthday. in case any of my friends happen to hit the lottery.

- I wish I would have went here more often. Too late now.

- I'm glad there's no Burger King near where I live. Otherwise, I'd be eating these alot.

- If I remember right, the Steelers wanted the guy in this article when he was up for the draft but the Rams traded up to get him. Good thing they didn't get him. He killed a woman while driving drunk. Got a slap on the wrist and went back to playing football. Since he's good, he's celebrated in a city where the family of the woman who died still lives. He got arrested again for drunk driving. Although he was found innocent, he admits to drinking two beers and he was originally pulled over for going 78 in a 55. Now two beers might not be legally drunk for him, but if I had been the cause of a accident due to driving drunk, especially a fatal accident, I would follow the rules I've heard pilots follows. There would be 24 hours between any alcohol and getting behind the wheel. I've heard of atleast one person who killed someone while driving who couldn't bear it to get behind the wheel of a car ever again. This guy, who makes enough money to hire a driver when he's out partying, has two beers and then goes speeding. I wouldn't want him on a team I was a fan of.

- Yeah, this governor is an idiot. Personally, when I think of the phrase "the natives are restless", I think of old jungle movies, not old westerns, but considering where he was, he was an idiot.

- Is there anything that someone hasn't attempted to sell on ebay?

- They did an autopsy on a lobster? Unless the doctor wore a bib and the results published in the Food section of the newspaper, that just seems like a waste to me.

- Just one word about the headline: Duh.

I had a busy week last week. I came back from carnival weekend midday monday and went straight to work. Monday night I went bowling. (It was the last day of the second half of the season and my team won two games to come in first place for the half. We play the winner of the first half tomorrow night for the championship.) Thursday I finally had the poker night I've been wanting to have for a few years. A couple guys from work came over to play. So Tuesday and Wednesday nights I did cleaning up and going out for beer.

The poker night went well. As usual, I didn't win much, but I did come out ahead. I'm thinking of having it a semi-regular event. About once a month or so.

My trip back for carnival went well. The drive was nice and I left work early so I wasn't stuck in Philadelphia rush hour that thursday night. There wasn't that many alumni back for carnival but it seems all of those who did had kids with them. My nephew, who I hadn't seen in a month, is now tall. He is only three years old but looks atleast like he's six. I went to a Pirates game and actually saw them won. And I played in my first trivia competition in a long time and did respectable. Also, my digital camera worked great in my first chance to really try it. I got good pictures at the buggy races and of my family. I have them on my computer. I'll try posting a couple some time this week.

I saw the movie Sin City again this weekend. Great movie. I've read the first Sin City book now. The first, third and fourth were the basis of the movie, as long with parts of others. I'm going through the second now. The part of the movie based on the first one follows the book amazingly close. And the parts that have been cut were apparently filmed and will be included on the dvd. One place it didn't follow the book was that the character of Nancy is nude in the book and Jessica Alba doesn't do nudity. I, surprisingly, do not mind. It didn't take away from the movie. And Jessica does a great job. I'd rather have her in the part barely clothed than a lesser actress in it totally naked. It makes sense in the role too, since they only seem to show her on stage when she's at the beginning of her performance. It's not like Elisha Cuthbert in The Girl Next Door who lobbied to get the part of a porn actress but didn't want to do the nudity. The camera cuts in that movie reminded me of a bad body double insert. The cuts were done such that they were obviously done to avoid nudity. As far as I'm concerned, anytime you start thinking about why something was done by the director, editor, etc., something was done wrong. This never happened in Sin City. There's talk about doing all the Sin City books. This looks very possible since it did good business, got good reviews and was cheap to make, considering the number of stars in it.

I removed the new arrivals section from the right bar on this site. It was too much of a pain to keep up to date. I'm hoping to keep posting every day or two, but I don't think I want to try to keep up the new arrivals section. I'm thinking of a different section or two to replace it.

Just wanted a quick post because I'm leaving tomorrow for Spring Carnival at Carnegie Mellon University. The plan is to get out of work early, beat Philadelphia rush hour, make it to my parents early enough to get some sleep so I can wake up Friday morning to drop my car off at the transmission place for a checkup before I go into campus for the buggy race. I'll be back in Jersey either Sunday night or Monday mid-day.

I went to the mall today. I found that they have Sin City action figures. So Bruce Willis finally has his own action figures. All three places that I looked at that sold the figures had the Jessica Alba action figure sold out. Oh well, just as well. I'll probably end up getting both figures eventually. I did get the movie poster of both characters.

Now for the (not-so) news:
- This could be the best art since Dogs Playing Poker.

- This is good news. Hopefully, this will turn out more Bryan Singer with X-Men and less Ang Lee in The Hulk. Joss has a great track record, especially at beginning of projects, so things look good. I have my favorite choices to star. I'll post them at a later date because if I posted them now, I'd would have to find the IMDB link and don't have time to do it now.

- Ashley Judd wrote a column during the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately, they didn't include a photo with the column.

- I think that if Satan has been reduced to marking turtles, the world is in better shape than I thought.

More catching up on old news items:

- First, a belated congrats to the CMU basketball team. They made the postseason for the first time in almost 30 years.

- This is cool. Joe Grushecky made a national article. He's a Pittsburgh music legend who probably best known nationally for his friendship with Bruce Springsteen. In fact, Springsteen produced his "American Babylon" album.

- This column is about a boxer from Pittsburgh who shot his girlfriend and only got boot camp. I saved this because the CMU professor mentioned was one of my favorite professor in college. The column points out that in the two cases, both shot someone when they were under the influence of alcohol and the only difference is that the boxer is famous and his victim, his then-and-still girlfriend refused to take the stand against him.

- Here's another Pittsburgh musician making national attention. I've seen him play live a few times. Definitely worth giving a listen.

- Just saw some current news. Now, I'm not one to say that certain people shouldn't breed. Everyone has a right to breed. Some people, though, should be banned from breeding with certain people. She should only be allowed to breed with someone with some level of intelligence and class. And he, well, he already has two. I say he already reached his limit. Let's hope that all three kids taking after the mother of his first two.

- Now back to the older news. The link I saved to the article about Spamalot expired, so I'd just like to say that if anyone is interested in seeing Monty Python's Spamalot on broadway, let me know. I live only an hour or so away from NYC, so I can provide room and board if anyone is interested in going to see it with me.

- Here's a story I love. I would have loved to be here when this happened.

- If I wasn't from the Pittsburgh area, this might have surprised me. Instead, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often.

- I heard about this phenomenom before. I even saw examples of this before I ever read about it anywhere.

- And this article is all about how some single-use restrooms violate civil rights law. I think it's an unspoken compromise. Men don't want to deal with women's lines and women don't want to deal with men's mess. I've noticed that BP gas stations, where I've only ever seen single-use restrooms, seem to sometime designate genders and sometimes not.

- And since I don't want to end on a restroom item, any fan of sports movie should read this. It's the top 100 sports movie quotes of all time. I think #1 should be lower. But, overall, it's a good list.

One thing I wanted to bring up was that one day last week I opened up my mailbox to find three magazine and they all had a Boston Red Sox on the cover. Give me a break. Okay, so they broke they old curse and beat the Yankees. So what? When your player salary budget go over $100 million, you are not an underdog.

Repeats of the first two episodes of Grey's Anatomy are on tonight. Good show that's worth watching, although I am kinda annoyed that the scene that was in commercials where Katherine Heigl walks around in her underwear and makes a scene when a guy complains hasn't been an episode yet. Maybe it got cut out for being too unrealistic. I mean, what guy would complain.

I finally got a digital camera last weekend. I also have space to put pictures on the internet. So once I find something to take pictures of, I might start posting pictures here.

Okay. I'm going to get some of the news topics I have saved up out of the way.

- This could have easily been my chemistry teacher. Or my physics teacher for that matter. Oh, how times have changed.

- Yep, some of the stories I have saved up go back to Valentine's day.

- And here and here are some stories about my favorite pieces of art.

- Besides the absolute absence of hills, the one thing that is the most different between living here in Jersey and back in Pittsburgh is how much more common it is to hear Spanish being spoken here. So I found it interesting to see this article about Spanish back in Pittsburgh

- This would have definitely been us back in our college days. Make a late night Wal-Mart run and simply wreck havoc.

- Crap. CNN.com expires their articles after a month or so. So I can't post an article I found about animal activists protesting "road kill" candy.

-If they would just now start flying from Pittsburgh to Philly, I'd visit my parents alot more often.

- One last one for now. This is an interesting article. Good read. It is scary though that there are people enforcing laws but they won't tell you what these laws are. I think he's taking it to the extreme, but I think it's good that someone is.

Okay, work has calmed down a little so I think I'll be able to start blogging regularly. I do read the news every day and I use the "email this" link found on most sites nowadays to email the page to myself and then stick it in a folder to blog about later. My blog folder now has over forty items in it. I'm sure alot of them are outdated, but I'm going to go through them and post the ones that are still viable blog topics.

But first, a story Bill left out about his trip out to visit me. It's about one of the most unusual food delivery guys ever. A week or so before their trip out, I ordered chinese food from a place nearby. The lady I gave the order to over the phone sounded like you'd expect. She had a chinese accent but was easily understood. I was told the order would be coming in about 45 minutes. Thirty minutes later, the phone rang and there was a voice with a thick chinese accent on the other head. Actually, it was less a chinese accent and more simply chinese. I said that I have no idea what he was saying but I'll assume that you're the delivery guy and you're at the front door of my building. I go down to the lobby of my building and a minute or two later a beat-up car pulls up in front of the building and the delivery guy gets out. I get my food and give him the money. I try to give him a tip and he refuses at first. I don't know why he was refusing since I didn't recognize a word he said as a english word. The food was good though. And, for some reason, there was a can of some off-off-brand of grape pop included.

So Bill, Terri, and Gage comes to visit. After the hockey game, we came back to the apartment and decided that we'd order out for food to allow them to pack up for the drive home the next day. We ordered from the same Chinese place. Same delivery guy. This time he totally refused the tip. Who ever heard of a delivery guy (or anybody for that matter) refusing a tip? They did forget the fried rice, but from the bill, it looked like they didn't charge us for it either. And, I guess since we ordered twice as much food, instead of a can of grape pop, there was a two liter bottle of off-off-brand strawberry pop. We were kinda afraid to even drink some of it. Then again, there was more preferable flavors of drinks availabe in the apartment, so we didn't even have to make that decision.