:: cykopath :: ramblings :: » Random Rambling

25 random things about me

xian — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 02:24:20 +0000

I don’t laugh at a lot of things people find funny. I don’t know why. I really do have a sense of humor.
It has taken me way too long to fulfill my goal of getting completely out of debt.
In my life, I have broken three bones.
I am horrible at keeping in touch with people. Even people who live near me.
I am an only child.
I was born in Daytona Beach.
On the day the shuttle Challenger exploded, I was on a field trip to the very hospital where I was born.
My first car was 10 months older than me (1973 Volvo built in 11/72 according to the door plate)
I have travelled outside the U.S. once.
I have lived in 3 states. None below the Mason-Dixon line, and only one west of the Mississippi River.
When I was young, I thought alligators and dolphins were the coolest living animals. I still do.
I used to swim competitively. I have swam against 2 world record holders, 1 American record holder and a Spanish record holder. I mainly swam backstroke and breaststroke.
I make a mean chicken quesadilla and an equally mean omelet.
An ancestor of mine was on the Mayflower. I don’t know his name, but my mother has it somewhere.
I am naturally lazy. I have always had a hard time motivating myself.
Despite its grimy, run-down appearance. I love my car. It’s so fun to drive.
I’m not a very emotional person. I don’t lack emotion, and I don’t hide emotion. I just don’t emote as much as some, or even most people.
I don’t have a favorite color, food, book, actor/actress, movie or song.
I have lost two dogs in my life. One to an alligator and one to age. I still miss them both.
I don’t think I could love a job. Unless my job was sailing around the world.
I remember the weirdest things for the longest time. For example, I remember a disagreement I had w/ someone over the Geico gecko. She held that it was an Australian accent. I still maintain that it’s a Cockney accent. This discussion took place many many years ago. Despite this, I am horrible at remembering names.
Lots of times, I sound like I’m angry about something when I’m really just frustrated-with/laughing-at/complaining-about some perceived absurdity. Not Monty Python absurdity, more Jerry Seinfeld, “What’s the deal with…” absurdity.
I am quite obscene when in traffic. But any vitriol is forgotten very quickly.
I think I would have been a good actor or radio show host.
I maintain a fairly constant inner monologue. Sometimes, it’s not exactly “inner”.

It came! It came!

xian — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:44:24 +0000

Yeah, check that out. After calling myself lame, look at that – three posts in less than a week. Go me!

So after a long wait (super-saver shipping is slooooow!) my new CD finally arrived:

You’re jealous. I know it. We all love track 1, Britney Spears’ immortal (You Drive Me) Crazy. And of course this CD has the rare “The Stop!” remix. Wow, right?

Personally, I just had to buy it for this song:

Hawk story

xian — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:13:47 +0000

Got this email today:

… Hawk hit by truck on I-64 near Richmond, Va doing 65 mph and flew
away …

According to a friend of a co-worker, a friend of his, Walt Halsey (and I know Walt,
as well) hit this hawk with his Ford Explorer on I64. They stopped at
the next rest area (New Kent rest stop), and call VA State Police.
Responding Officer called a local game warden.

…the low-flying hawk got caught in the slipstream of an 18 wheeler
traveling along-side of the Explorer. The hawk then went into and
through an oval opening in the bumper along-side the license plate…
The driver saw it all happen…

…and the rest is evident…

Lame.

xian — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:01:38 +0000

That’s me. Lame. Totally. Not a peep since August. I guess I just haven’t had anything to say.

Nothing really to say right now except this if probably the coolest smiley (or emoticon as they say nowadays) I’ve ever seen:

Pointing… Looking awesome

xian — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:26:40 +0000

So, the guy from everydayshouldbesaturday also works for the Sporting News. For some reason, the Sporting News decided to send a college football blogger to the MLB All-Star game. The guy, Spencer Hall, also has a thing about pictures of people pointing at the camera: it makes them look awesome.

Case in point, Auburn’s head football coach, Tommy Tubberville (from Sporting News):

More examples of awesome if you click on the picture (look for the ‘here’ links).

This post began as an email to a Yankees fan I know. The All-Star game was held at Yankee Stadium this year as a send off to the old place before it’s put out to pasture via demolition. It’s interesting that a guy who wrote this also wrote this after getting to do this (also from Sporting News):

Stuck in my head…

xian — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 11:46:47 +0000

Like just about everybody in the world, I am unique in that I often get a song stuck in my head. See what I did there? Everybody’s unique, baby! Anyway, I thought I would share the songs that are stuck in my head with folks. This serves two purposes:

Rather than posting actual content that people might find interesting/thought-provoking/funny/comment-inducing, I can just do this and call it content! SCORE!
There’s the more-likely-than-not chance that it will get stuck the head of anyone reading. Not exactly evil, but not exactly nice depending on the song. Sometimes Chumbawumba gets stuck in there and I just have to roll with it.

I may eventually put this over on one of the side bars, but for now:

Anyone remember Green Jellÿ?

xian — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:08:04 +0000

They’re coming to Vigrinia Beach on July 15th! I It wouldn’t surprise me at all if nobody remembers them. Perhaps their 1 hit will jog some memories:

I actually have the CD that song was on. I heard another song off it on my iPod just yesterday.

John Mc(Nasty)Cain

xian — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:36:12 +0000

I’ve heard all the news about how most Republicans don’t like McCain despite the fact that they all love him now because he’s going to be the nominee unless Cheney & Rove can figure out a way to stop that from happening. I’m kind of hot and cold on the guy. I like the fact that he’s not beholden to party politics. I like that he’s a moderate conservative because, in some respects, I am one as well. Every now and then, he says something that just kills it for me. Like the ‘hundred years in Iraq’ comment. I know what he meant, and I still don’t like it.

One thing I’ve noticed about McCain’s public speaking is that he always seems so calm. Not real calmness; when he’s debating someone he disagrees with it’s like every sentence is preceded by an imperceptible deep breath. I get the feeling there’s anger under there, intense anger. I don’t know if it’s the look on his face, tone of his voice or what. It’s something in his overall demeanor that makes me think he would just assume throw something large and heavy and massive-head-wound-inducing, but instead he swallows it and talks in much the same voice teacher or parent might use with a mid-tantrum child who won’t listen to anything rather than throwing something large and heavy and massive-head-wound-, long-prison-sentence- as well as cocktail-party-punchline-inducing. As I found on Wonkette today, I may not be alone:

McCain “often insults people and flies off the handle,” the New York Times reported.
The Arizona Republic was writing about his “volcanic temper” the last time he ran for president, in 1896 1999.
His former colleague in the Senate, Republican Bob Smith, says McCain is a nutter: “I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues … He would disagree about something and then explode. It was incidents of irrational behavior. We’ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I’ve never seen anyone act like that.”
Former Congressman John LeBoutillier, another Republican, says this: “I think he is mentally unstable and not fit to be president.”
Basically everyone on Capitol Hill has been the victim of McCain’s sociopathic tirades, and many have the apology letters from McCain to prove it.
“Nowhere is that sentiment stronger than in the Senate, where McCain has few friends or supporters. In fact, when McCain ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2000, only four Republican senators endorsed him,” writes the conservative website NewsMax.
When two Arizona medical doctors met with McCain to discuss a local endangered squirrel, “He slammed his fists on his desk, scattering papers across the room …. He jumped up and down, screaming obscenities at us for at least 10 minutes. He shook his fists as if he was going to slug us.”
Says another GOP colleague in the Senate, “I Didn’t Want This Guy Anywhere Near A Trigger.”
A furious McCain regularly throws F-bombs at his colleagues for no apparent reason.
In 1995, at the Capitol, McCain had a “scuffle” with 92-year-old Republican Senator Strom Thurmond. That’s right, McCain tried to beat up the one person who was even older than McCain himself.
“It was election night 1986, and John McCain had just been elected to the U.S. Senate for the first time. Even so, he was not in a good mood. McCain was yelling at the top of his lungs and poking the chest of a young Republican volunteer who had set up a lectern that was too tall for the 5-foot-9 politician to be seen to advantage, according to a witness to the outburst.”
“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Republican Senator Thad Cochran said about McCain. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”

I’ve seen trash, I’m from Florida

xian — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:16:04 +0000

When I was a kid, I loved one part about my hometown: the St. John’s River. My family owned a marina on the river, and my great grandparents lived on the river. I spent many a summer in cut-off jeans and nothing else. My days were spent swimming in the river, swimming in the pool at the marina, making the most awesome box forts from outboard motor boxes (larger than refrigerator boxes) and doing small chores in the marina store in return for candy and Cokes. Also, because the marina was a fish camp with a hotel, I got to meet and play with kids from all over the place. One of the first girls I kissed was from somewhere in Pennsylvania. I still do love it on the river. Imagine, as a kid, having this as a pool (the post is what’s left of the old dock):

I don’t know when this started, but I have grown to really dislike larger parts of my home state. There are still a bunch of great places worth seeing in Florida in general, and DeLand in particular. Maybe I just notice the stuff I don’t like more as I’ve grown older, I don’t know. That’s a good enough excuse, right? Maybe I’m just more attuned to the negative things in my environment. Who knows? Oh well, why the nostalgia and harshing on the hometown? I read something today about Florida that makes me simultaneously proud & embarrassed to hail from there. The quote below is 100% true.

From EDSBS:

But you do know that in a name-calling war based on redneck cred, Georgia loses in a smoking heap to Florida, right? We’ve got so much more than just the Duck Head-wearing nouveau-riche Panic crowd and the oceans of starchy white trash that Georgia has to offer: switchblade wielding gel-freaks from Miami, bland transplanted midwesterners from Orlando, stoner surfer rednecks from Melbourne, Jacksonville tattoo guys still rocking the Durst fat pants, shot-guzzling Fiero drivers from Tampa, displaced Jerseyites who leave fake tanner residue on white couches…we’ve really got it all. The army of trash Florida can assemble is simply unparalleled.

[UPDATE:]: Sometimes, it’s just crazy what I see in the random Flickr feed over there on the right. After publishing this, I noticed this in thumbnail form. The funny thing is, iin Florida, I would expect to see this. Only difference is the people would be adults… of all ages 20’s right on through the 50’s. And they wouldn’t necessarily be drunk or high or anything. This could be celebration of a NASCAR win (rarely sober, I know, but still). Lastly, the guy would be wearing a beaten cap of some sort riding high on a greasy, thin mullet. I can actually picture it in my head. I need a drink.

(PRODUCT) RED iPod Shuffles…

xian — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:56:47 +0000

Boy, I hope I got that trademarked name correct. I’m sure Bono and crew spent long late hours making sure the correct word was parentheticized. Not a real word, I know. I know.

Anyway, iPod shuffles just got cheaper. Apple’s fun little way of saying something better is coming soon. As I mentioned earlier, Steve Jobs will personally engrave your iPod for free! Free, I tell you! Since the pastel colors of the new shuffles threaten my heterosexuality, I was looking at the only somewhat manly color on offer: red. Or, more appropriately, (PRODUCT) RED(tm). Having read some articles about the advertising costs and actual benefits reaped by (PRODUCT) RED, I was feeling somewhat cynical in choosing my engraving:

Red:Trendy Cure 4 Middle-Class Guilt
(From, Mira. A huge U2 fan) Red: Lick Bono’s Taint
Red: Damn, advertising is expensive
Red: What are we doing this for again?
Red: Pride, In The Name Of Guilt
Red: Achtung, bitches! Achtung!

That’s all I could come up with at work. I’m not really sure what that last one meant. I just like saying, “Achtung, bitches!” Hell, I just like saying, “Achtung!”