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Below are the 21 most recent journal entries recorded in
Sometimes, you've gotta stop and smell the miasma's LiveJournal:
| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | |
| 3:02 pm | Holy glut of toothpaste! I just bought some toothpaste. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a journal-worthy event, but this is the first time I've bought toothpaste in the U.S. in at least 8 years. Toothpaste is a toiletry that I habitually buy overseas. Back when I was with SpoonCup Inc., the person checking my travel receipts didn't know Spanish. So when I was in Argentina, I took that as an opportunity to purchase toothpaste, razor blades, dental floss, tennis bracelets, etc. and pass them off as food expenses. When I got back home, I found that I liked having a tube of crema dental next to the sink; it made me feel a bit more like an international man of grooviness when I faced it each the morning. So I stocked up on subsequent trips to Portugal, Spain, Germany, and Mexico. The Mexican crema ran out over the weekend, so I broke out my toothpaste from Thailand. It seemed fine, until I noticed the English list of ingredients on the back. Flouride was not one of the listed ingredients. Now, I don't want chemicals in my food. I don't want perfumes in my soaps. But fluoride is one chemical that I happen to have crazy love for, and I'm not going to deprive my genetically crappy teeth from getting as much of it as possible. So off I went to the Target Oral Care aisle for a replacement. And holy mother Mary riding on a Listermint! I was in Colgate land! Not just one shelf of Colgate, not two, but two full sections of shelves filled from the high traffic top to the low traffic bottom with nothing but Colgate toothpastes facing out. At first, I thought that Colgate-Palmolive had staged a silent marketing coup d'etat and had unseated all other dental products, but no - a few steps away were two full floor-to-eye level shelf sections of nothing but Crest products, forming their own isolated Toothopolis. Good god. I know Americans love their freedom of choice, (especially on things that don't really matter, such as choice of colas, detergents, and corrupt elected officials) but isn't this way past the excessive point? In Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, there's a passage where an African is boggled by the number of deodorants offered in an American supermarket. This passage immediately came to my mind in the toothpaste aisle. How can you have that many different types of toothpaste? Why would you? I mean, at a certain point, wouldn't it hurt the retailer? Mrs. Jones is only going to purchase one tube every few months, whether there is one shelf or one aisle of product available. Setting up a mini Colgate toothpaste shop, I would imagine, would needlessly waste selling floor space. Also, while I'm sure that the Colgate-Palmolive executives get their happy tubes on from seeing so much of their product on display, wouldn't producing, marketing, and distributing 20-30 variations of the same product be a logistical nightmare? Is there any logic to this that I'm missing? In the end, I grabbed a small $2 tube of something after I made sure that it contained the standard 0.044% of sweet, sweet sodium fluoride. I did not notice if my varietal would whiten my tartar or freshen my crystal mints. I also wrote my friend in Germany and asked her to bring me back a tube of zahnpasta. |
| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 | |
| 7:42 pm | In the future, all banks will be Taco Bell What's this in the mail? A letter from my little bank. They're telling me how excited they are at the new opportunities they have, now that they have been purchased by a very large bank. Too big to fail... It was a one-page letter that I compulsively threw into the shredder before reading it fully. Not like the glossy brochure that Bank of America sent me last month to announce that they had purchased my home loan. Too big to fail... Not that the brochure said anything important. It only said, "Don't panic - nothing has changed about your loan. You keep your old account number, but please be sure to put our name on your checks." Nothing to worry about. Too big to fail... All over America, smaller banks are being bought up by the larger, more stable ones. Thanks, in large part, to the bail out money. So everything will be more stable, right? Too big to fail... Wait, what? Too big to fail... Hey! What the hell? Wasn't the big Wall Street panic spearheadded by concerns that banks that were so big, they'd take the whole economy down with them if they tanked, were about to tank? And our government has been giving money to banks and allowing them to get even bigger. At what point do we slap these bastards with anti-monopolistic regulations? I thought the bail out was a poor solution from day one. As time has gone by, I have become more bitter about it as I've watched how poorly it was executed. But learning that my small bank was gobbled up by a big, fat, uberbank has opened these wounds anew. Pitchforks, anyone? |
| Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | |
| 12:01 pm | The Visa Rebate Card - Mankind's newest form of evil. Remember when rebates came in the form of checks? Such idyllic times those were. Now Verizon is sending out debit cards instead. They're just like checks, except they are made of plastic, used as credit cards, and YOU NEED TO KEEP TRACK OF THE BALANCE IF YOU WISH TO GET THE FULL AMOUNT OFF OF THE CARD. As you use the card, the balance dwindles. At some point, your purchase will cost more than the remaining balance. This will cause your card to be refused without further explanation. A $5 purchase will be refused if you only have $4.80 remaining. But how can you tell how much is left? There are three ways: The first way is to try incrementally smaller purchases until something goes through. This is perhaps the most popular method. Second, you can go to the Verizon website, create a new account for your rebate card (it will be separate from any existing Verizon account you may have) and check the balance. This is almost too annoying to consider, and it certainly isn't convenient when the cashier is waiting for you to pay for those socks. Third, you can call #VZWR, listen to the message about which number you should call to report a lost or stolen card, then listen to them slowly repeat the lost/stolen number, then type in the 16-digit card number, followed by the pound sign, then try punching in the 16-digit number again, because it mysteriously never accepts that number on the first try, then punch in your zip code, then the zip again, as this too is mysteriously rejected. Then it will tell you your remaining balance. I just checked mine - I have 43 cents left. Needless to say, the system is designed to be just difficult enough to make most users not bother to clear out any nominal balances left on the card. The slow, inefficient phone menu is a big hint. But as there is too much annoyance in the world, I'm not going to sweat this one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to Safeway to see what they have on sale for 43 cents. |
| Thursday, June 25th, 2009 | |
| 1:07 pm | Transformers 2: Revenge of the Lemmings 1: It was bad. Really bad. I think I enjoyed watching "The Notebook" with my wife more. RH: I'm glad I didn't go. 2: You'd think that a movie about giant fighting robots would be impossible to mess up. 1: Yeah, like making spaghetti. 2: I heard it got dismal reviews. They really messed it up. 1: There was only scene that I kinda liked. The CGI made Optimus Prime kinda look like a ballerina. 3: Don't spoil anything. I'm going to see it tonight. RH: Why are you going to see it? Everyone who's seen it so far has hated it. 2: Actually, I'm probably going to go see it too. RH: Why? 2: Well... it's a summer movie. It'll probably be better than GI Joe. 1: I'm going to see that. 2: Me too. RH: I don't understand this world. (1 word | fish for words) |
| Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 | |
| 11:27 pm | Clutch Got the MINI back today. I'm about $1550 lighter, but the clutch should be good for another 85K miles or so. The new clutch is incredibly soft - it's like stepping on a cream puff every time I shift. Maybe that's why the drive home made me hungry... |
| 3:31 pm | Metro crash "I didn't hear any braking. Everything was just going normally. Then there was a very loud impact. We all fell out of our seats." I will be bumming if it turns out that this was a brake failure. 10 years ago, I designed and built the train brake inspection system for Washington Metro. I know that there was an advisory to replace the cars, but I'm kinda hoping that the cause will turn out to be driver error. |
| Sunday, June 21st, 2009 | |
| 9:34 pm | Weekend Update First the good news: I paid off my credit card debt. (yay!) ...just in time to have the clutch go on my car. (boo) Oh, well. At least I'm not carrying debt. And the rent I'm collecting from the summer intern staying with me will cover the cost of my new clutch fork. In fact, I think I'll refer to my new roommate as 'Clutch Fork'.*(1) Anyway, as is the way with MINI Coopers, it took the specialist 2 days to take it apart, then another 2 days to get the parts from the MINI dealership. Which means I've been carless since Monday. Biking to work has gone fairly well. Despite various threats from an angry God, I have yet to be seriously rained upon. I've also discovered that my regular trips to the gym have put me in better shape for biking to work than regularly biking to work does. Go figure. I did have to drop a few bucks on the bike, though. Exposure to UV had turned my old handlebar grips into a substance that mimicked booger-snots. (That angry God will get you one way or another) Oh, but God is also merciful and just. My mission Saturday was to revisit all of the bars we went to on Thursday's pub crawl, and see which one had my backpack in their lost & found. None of the three did, despite my only memory of moving it was from my friend's car to the first bar. I knew it was a patently bad idea to bring it, but the plan was to meet up with Clutch Fork and catch a ride home with him. (He never showed) After a fruitless search, I came home to find my backpack sitting in my living room. I am still mystified. ---------------------------------------- *(1) Fortunately, the cause of the problem wasn't the dual mass flywheel as originally was expected. They cost about as much as a clutch to replace. However, I think that calling my roommate 'Dual Mass Flywheel' would be vaguely insulting. |
| Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | |
| 9:36 pm | Date "Another martini for you, sir?" That would have been one of the most horrifying questions anyone had ever asked me, if I had cared about this date. Fortunately, I didn't. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had a date this evening with someone who had noticed me on Match.com. Hopes were not high for this date; it was mainly to confirm that the person who was so bland online was just as bland in person. Despite my best efforts to inspire, provoke, or instigate conversation, her e-mails back to me were always some variation of, "That's nice. How was your weekend?" Despite this, I pushed for a date. I couldn't think of a graceful way to end it before giving her a chance to say something. (What could I have said? "Sorry, there's no chemistry between us. I hate weekends.") So the plan was to meet at a French restaurant in Bethesda.*(1) I selected it because the the decor was European-esque enough to dull some of the sting of the yuppiness of the area. But it was packed when we got there, so we set off to a place that she mentioned; a place that I had written off because it looked insanely yuppie. But it too was packed. The local realtor's association was at the bar, drinking away their pain. (Which required a lot of drinkin'. It's a bad year for them.) From there, we went to a posh, yet small, Italian place that I had discovered while waiting for the date to start. I had killed 90 minutes there with an appetizer and two drinks, and had tipped pretty decently, so the bartender remembered me and my drink. His question of whether I'd like another must've made me look like some secret alcoholic. That might be why she didn't seem that into me, either. For exactly one hour, we sat and made small talk, then she announced that she hadn't put enough money in the meter, and left. Maybe she was using this date for the same thing I was - nothing sparked over e-mail, but she didn't want to tell me to go blow without getting to at least meeting me in person. It's for the best. I had more chemistry with the cab driver that took me home than I did with her. ---------------------------------------- *(1) That's the first sign of my low expectations. If I had been really into this girl, I would have never set a first date in Bethesda. Besides, I don't know of any funky-cool date places in Montgomery County, Maryland. Feel free to suggest some. |
| 9:26 am | |
| Monday, June 15th, 2009 | |
| 3:10 pm | It just goes to show - you should never trust robots NPR did a short feature on a perennial news favorite - the battlefield triage robot. They've been working on these things for years. Every couple of months, a new reporter rolls in to check on the progress of the cool military toy of the future. If I were in the infantry, I'd hate the DoctorBot. Because every time I saw it, I'd be reminded that the Army was willing to spend millions (billions?) to keep the medic safe, but my ass is still out in the open and getting shot at. Making a SoldierBot would be an arguably easier task, since soldiers don't have to do the fine manipulations that a medic does. And even though there are tasks that could best be achieved with a live soldier on site, I'd still feel miffed about the infantry being willing to risk me, but not willing to risk the medic. |
| 9:44 am | What I wish for Last week, I was grousing about how I haven't been able to bike into work, since every day since March has has had a 70% chance of torrential downpour. This week, I get my wish. The clutch on my car burned up. The MINI must've heard me grousing. I took the bus in this morning, since my bike is locked up at the office rack. It wasn't such a bad way to start the morning. For $1.35, I got to read on the way in. I might have to start doing this regularly... |
| Friday, June 12th, 2009 | |
| 11:14 am | This is worth a trip to England http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainmen Oh, man - I want to go to this so bad. |
| Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | |
| 11:39 am | |
| Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 | |
| 9:50 pm | Korean Gourmet I heard this guy on NPR that said that foods with very simple, unprocessed ingredients were probably the healthiest things we could eat. That makes sense, so I've been trying to incorporate that rule in with all of my other half-hearted dietary rules. When I was at the Korean Megamarket the other night, I spotted a jar of salty shrimp sauce. The ingredients were shrimp, water, & salt. Perfect! I figured that by delicately dumping this stuff over a couple of cups of rice, I could make a simple and delicious meal. So I tried it. Two cups of rice, and one 14 ounce jar of salty shrimp. Then I tasted it. Ow! My aorta! S-S-S-S-SALTY! Salty like a bite taken out of Utah. I called my sister, who knows a thing or two thousand about cooking, and asked her if there was anything I could add to save the dish. She recommended more shrimp. Or some other food to spread the salt out over. There really isn't an anti-salt, it seems. So I bought a dozen eggs and added a couple to the rice, then fried it all up in a pan. S-S-S-S-SALTY! Still! So I threw the other ten eggs in and tried again. S-S-S-S-SALTY! Jeebus, how do the Koreans eat this stuff? Seriously, I've eaten salt that wasn't this salty. There must be a trick to this... I know! Google! Googling 'Salty Shrimp Sauce' brought up tons of kimchi recipies. Apparently, this sauce is the pickling agent for cabbage that gets stored away for a few months. I was making something akin to vinegar stew. Still not ready to throw away the 3-4 pounds of foodstuffs I had by the stove, I gave it one last shot. In my refrigerator door, I had a half of a large jar of kimchi. (Kimchi is a great bachelor food, in that it never goes bad. Er, worse) I dumped it in. I fried it again. It was still as salty as the tears of Lot's wife. And now my kitchen smells like salty, rotten garbage. Urgh. Everything got dumped down the disposal. So...I heard this guy on NPR that said that Chef Boyardee products were probably the healthiest things we could eat... |
| Monday, June 1st, 2009 | |
| 9:49 pm | The news. Or the lack thereof. It's official. The Huffington Post has just become a goofier news source than The Onion. Observe how they work a graphic of the Death Star into their rehash article on GM. |
| Saturday, May 30th, 2009 | |
| 8:50 pm | Art-o-Matic Art-o-matic opened Friday, and thanks to my perseverance, I actually got someone to confirm that I would have a volunteer job there, and that I would actually have a shift to fulfil on Friday. I was to work in the Art-o-Matic store. It took four months of meetings, e-mails, and posting to groups to get this shift. I didn't work in the store. When I got there at about 3:30, (Art-o-Matic opened at noon) the door to the store was locked. I knocked. Nobody answered. So I went down to the 5th floor office to see what's what. The manager on duty there asked if I checked to see if the door was unlocked. In fact I hadn't. The logic circuit in my brain told me that no retail establishment would be left unlocked during open hours if it was unattended. But I conceded to a different logic, and went back upstairs to try the door. It was locked. I knocked again - no one answered. Noticing that the store's temporary exterior wall didn't butt up completely to the building's exterior wall of windows, I went to the edge to see if I could look at a reflection of the store's innards on the glass. Turns out, there was room for me to stick my torso behind the wall. And to reach the medium T-shirts on the display rack. So I took about 10 of them. Back at the office, I waved the shirts and announced that there was a problem with the store. The problem is that I can't wear a men's medium, and if I could, then I would easily be small enough to go completely between the wall and glass and take whatever I wanted. Clearly, Art-o-matic was size-discriminating me for my XL stature. There was a mixed opinion of whether or not this problem needed fixing. But the decision was unanimous that the store was not yet open. So they gave me elevator duty. One of the AoM chairs was fairly excited about putting me in the elevator. No, he's not weird like that, (at least not that I'm aware of) he was just happy to have a hands-on, toolsy volunteer that could build some wall pads for him to protect the freight elevator's walls. The building owners are very persnickety about scrapes and scratches, and the contractor that originally made the wall pads for the elevator did such an outstandingly crappy job, so AoM agreed to make supplemental pads for the show. Since the material AoM purchased for the pads got accidentally wedged behind the trash dumpster, I was obliged to make temporary supplemental pads, using scrap cardboard, painter's tape, and a shitty pair of scissors that was pilfered from a first aid cabinet. After a few hours of slicing cardboard sheets with them, they are no longer sharp enough to cut Jell-o. And, oy, my blistered fingers... It took about 3 hours to make the pads. The extra time was due to my having duty to operate the elevator as well. 'Freight mode' for the elevator isn't completely intuitive, and if the doors jam, an elevator mechanic will charge $500 to unstick them. So the staff decided that it was better to have a volunteer work as operator at all times. I'm going back after the dumpster is moved to make the final pads. I'm fairly excited about this. Artists have to pay $100 to get a space to decorate and display. I'm getting mine for free. |
| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 | |
| 4:13 pm | Satan is stocking snowballs. Holy crap. SCOTSOC upheld Prop 8. I was certain that there'd be no way they could call that constitutional. I don't even know what to say... (1 word | fish for words) |
| 10:48 am | Way to go, Dick Cheney So Dick Cheney, one of the least popular Republicans, has publicly called out Colin Powell, one of the most popular Republicans, and accused him of no longer being a member of the party. That's like Judas announcing that Peter really isn't a Christian. There's a strategy to this move, and you've probably seen it before. Have you ever been in a bar and seen a small guy try to pick a fight with the biggest guy in the room? The challenge builds the small guy's reputation - he can go back to his friends and say, "He ain't so tough." afterwards. Assuming, of course, that the big guy doesn't completely mop the floor with him. There's a good chance the big guy won't kick the crap out of the challenger. The big guy's reputation as an upstanding person would go down if he was viewed as picking on someone smaller than him, and if things got too out of hand, both parties might get banned from the bar. This is what Colin Powell faces. If he cuts Cheney off at the knees, he'll lose popularity with parts of his party. He's also conscious that infighting will hurt the party as a whole. Cheney also must be aware of it. He's obviously willing to let his party take the hit in an attempt to pull his opinion ratings out of the 20s. |
| Friday, May 22nd, 2009 | |
| 6:03 pm | A great technical challenge As many of you know, I repair high-tech equipment in a genomics lab. I'm celebrating one of my most triumphant repairs with a new robotic fish LJ icon. This one was a beast to repair:  ( It got worse the deeper I dug into it ) |
| Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 | |
| 11:02 pm | |
| Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 | |
| 12:51 pm | Star Trek: The Reset Button It seems that I am alone in the world in not liking the new Star Trek movie. ( Cut to hide massive spoilers ) |
