as lonely as it gets, originally uploaded by notsogoodphotography.

test

Thinking about the cost of purchasing water yesterday got my mind heading into directions it hasn’t gone before. Like a cartoon lightbulb blinking alight above my head, an idea suddenly illuminated the dark empty parts of my brain as things suddenly became clear. (There are lots of those empty places, and they require lots of light, so this doesn’t happen very frequently.)

Here was what my idea sounded like:

“I bet if there were some way to remove shipping costs from the equation—like, for instance, with a network of pressurized tubes running to each home—it would be possible to get the cost of water much, much lower than $0.89 for 20 ounces, while completely eliminating the need to lug heavy cases of water from the grocery store.

In addition to a lower cost, the ‘cool factor’ of having a receptacle that dispenses 20oz bottles of water from your sink would be a real benefit. I mean, it’s not like the sink is doing anything for me now. How come nobody has thought of this before?”

At first I was thinking that using air to move the bottles along the pipes would be the way to go (you’ve seen this system in action at your bank’s drive-thru), but the more I thought about it, I decided that water might be a more efficient medium to move the bottles from place to place.

I’m not sure who to talk to to get this to happen, but I think a network of pressurized, water-filled tubes to whoosh bottles of water from place to place really needs to become reality, if only to help those of us with bad backs drink more while suffering less pain.

Hey! Now that I think about it, I think there are currently pressurized water-filled tubes running to my house that are sitting there unused! That seems like a good place to start, so I’m going to call around to see who is in charge of them and what would be involved in modifying them.

On the way to work the other day I stopped at a convenience store to pick up a couple bottles each of Vault and water. Inexplicably, the 20oz bottles of Vault were $0.59, while same-sized bottles of water were a whopping $0.89, which is at least $0.10 more each. This seemed really strange to me, considering that Vault is like 95% water, meaning that at the very least, it should be 95% of the cost of the pure water, plus the cost of the remaining 5% ingredients.

The only explanation I can come up with is that somehow, the remaining 5% of Vault’s ingredients actually incur a negative cost, making it cheaper in the long run.

As strange as this seems, it does actually explain all the unpronounceable mystery ingredients present in everything you buy; my guess is someone^* is paying companies to include them. Imagine how much money an enterprising individual could make marketing a beverage that contains only those negative cost ingredients. They’d be rich for sure.

Keep your eyes peeled for new Alistair Hoel^®’s brand Sodium Benzoate and Erythorbic Acid Coolers^™, in both Potassium Citrate and Carob Bean Gum flavored varieties.

A couple days ago I was listening to Australia’s fine science show (which is aptly entitled “The Science Show”) when a snake expert dropped a bombshell. He casually mentioned that snakes have two penises (penii?). He also mentioned that in regard to the usage of penises (penii?), some snakes are apparently “left-handed”, others are “right-handed”, and still others just use whichever of the two is most convenient at any given time. He didn’t specify whether or not they can use both simultaneously. (Note to self: check the Internet for snake threesomes.)

That was the coolest thing I’ve ever heard, but within minutes I was blown away yet again. The snake expert mentioned that the male snake’s kidneys exude some sort of chemical at the end of the ejaculatory process which finds its way into the female snake’s vagina before hardening into an impenetrable plug. This prevents any other snakes from having sex with this particular female until the male’s semen has had time to fully fertilize all her eggs.

Now that’s what I call “cock blocking.”

I’ve owned a PSP for a little over a year now, having decided at purchase time that it was the portable gaming system for me. I decided that for the following reasons:

1) Homebrew capability without the need for any ‘modchip’ or third-party add-on hardware.

2) Awesome games like “SOCOM” and “Grand Theft Auto”—none of the crap Nintendo has been putting out for years.

3) The ability to play movies without some kind of add-on.

4) The dead sexiness of that shiny black device.

Last January I had a 25% off coupon for Toys ‘R’ Us that applied to hardware, so I picked up a Nintendo Gameboy DS thinking that I would hate it but be able to sell it for a profit if I did. I think it was about 2 days later that Nintendo started talking about the new ‘Lite’ version that would be coming out, thus killing any chance of profit. In any case, I spent all my time with the new PSP games that I picked up with said coupon and didn’t even look at the DS until a week or so ago, thinking it was stupid and not as cool as the PSP.

I was wrong.

The following are the reasons why the DS is better than the PSP and is therefore the portable gaming system for me:

1) “The crap Nintendo has been putting out for years” turns out to be exactly the type of game I am interested in playing. Other than many hours spent playing “SOCOM” over the Internet and the occasional bit of “Virtua Tennis”, none of the PSP games I have hold much interest for me anymore when I’m out and about—which is the time I’m most interested in gaming. There aren’t any new games out that I’m interested in for the PSP, but 5 minutes at the store turned up tons of DS games that interest me. (Puzzley games and games to make my brain work, mainly.)

2) I’ve played movies on my PSP a total of zero times due to the fact that it only plays special discs you have to buy or specially crafted MPEG-4 files. Crafting said MPEG-4 files takes way too long and is way too much effort.

3) Sexy isn’t as important as fun to be with.

4) The third-party add-on to enable homebrew is very reasonably priced. In fact, owning a DS is still pretty much half the cost of a PSP even after adding that cost, not to mention that games for the DS are cheaper.

I’m now looking forward to picking up the DS Lite, because it is both fun to be with and sexy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Adobe/PDF since the recent flap between them and Microsoft. Particularly about how Adobe’s efforts to make PDF into a ubiquitous format have been largely defeated by the awfulness of every version of their Acrobat PDF viewing software. Seriously, Acrobat sucks.

This line of thinking got me thinking about the name “Adobe” as well. I seriously can’t think of a more appropriate name for them to have taken than that of a building material composed primarily of shit.

Now that’s what I call forethought.

I spend a lot of time sitting on stools. Whether it be reading the ingredients on the Cheerios box in my breakfast nook, suckin’ down cold ones at the bar or kissin’ Flo’s grits at the diner, nearly every free minute I have is spent sitting on stools.

That said, lately I’ve been finding that my posterior is, more often than not, rather tender. I’m not sure whether it has something to do with the extra elevation afforded by my choice of seating or what, but it is clear these stools aren’t agreeing with me.

A few minutes ago I was at the pharmacy looking for something to relieve the tenderness in my buttocks when I spied the perfect thing: Maximum Strength Stool Softener. Here I was trying to find a remedy to treat the symptom of a problem, when those great public servants in the pharmaceutical industry have gone and solved the problem altogether.

I have no idea how taking a little pill could actually affect the physical attributes of furniture, but I’m pleased as punch that this is now an option. What a lifesaver. The recommended dose is 1 pill, but due to the severity of my problem, I just went ahead and took 5.

Thanks, pharmaceutical industry!

I recently installed the new fancy-schmancy Apple Quartz inspired XGL rendering system that you may have been hearing about on my Ubuntu laptop. Even more recently, I captured a little video showing off what all XGL is capable of, and I now share it with you.

Please ignore my cat’s incessant meowing, and my close-to-the-camera thumb that keeps appearing in the bottom of the screen, looking very much like a penis. I swear it is just my thumb :)

You might have noticed the duplicate entries problem I had posting from my Sidekick while in the hospital… Apparently the 3G cellular band interferes with some sort of defibrillator machine or something, because when I tried to submit my post, the geezer next door crashed. (That’s ‘hospital’ for “beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep”.) After a few minutes of “code blue!” and running orderlies and and “clear!” and that cool capacitor charging sound, the guy finally stabilized and all was well.

During the time the guy was flatlined though, my Sidekick was busy reconnecting to the 3G network and automatically tried submitting my post again. The attempt at submission coincided with all the orderlies leaving the geezer’s room, causing them to rush back in again amidst more yellings of “code blue!” “clear!” and capacitor charging sounds. Once again my phone attempted to resend the data while the guy was out, once again succeeding right as the orderlies were leaving.

Luckily the guy died for good this last time, allowing my Sidekick and me to go about what we were both trying to accomplish. What a relief.

I’m at the hospital visiting D after her knee surgery where I just learned something valuable.

If after being told “no food or drink after 12am,” you show up to your 10am surgery appointment carrying a grande latte, they will send you home and make fun of you in front of semi-conscious patients.

We have a couple new additions to our household, upping us to a grand total of 6 pets. Last week we went to the humane society to look at kittens, but ended up coming home with a nice older cat instead.

Here’s Lady Isabella Meowsalot McFluffington:

She is extremely needy and forcibly encourages you to pet her.

Then yesterday we went and picked up Salty, whose previous owner had the misfortune of buying a pair of rats that weren’t hetero life mates. If you have a boy and a girl rat together, you’ll very quickly end up like this guy. (Don’t you hate it when you can’t find a news story you were looking at days ago? The first one I found about the story presented the story from the point of view of the guy and how things got out of hand after having mercy on his pet snake’s dinner. He spared the rats life, but then it got lonely so he bought it 2 friends. Unfortunately one of the friends was female and soon he had more rats than he could handle. All the stories I can find now talk about how evil the guy was and how he probably has psychological problems.)

Anyway, here’s Salty:

Salty is currently rat #5, so we’ve got a ways to go before we catch up to that crazy rat guy.

Last week as I was mowing my lawn, my nose kept stumbling upon the smell of decay. I’d be mowing along when all of a sudden I’d get a really overpowering whiff, which would cause me to stop mowing and start sniffing vigorously around the yard trying to find whatever it was that had died back there. Ultimately I gave up and continued mowing, but kept smelling it off and on.

The next day D told me that she thought something must have died under the porch, since it smelled bad and there were lots of flies. One of the first places I had sniffed around the day prior had been the porch, so I was doubtful, but sure enough, there was a small area in the middle of the deck that was swarming with flies. By watching the flight and landing patterns of the flies, I could see a clear outline on top of the deck showing me pretty clearly what was underneath the deck—or at least where under the deck it was.

A few minutes later I was removing boards from the deck with my trusty electric screwdriver, exposing the corpse of a young dead possum. I’m not sure why it died, it seemed to be in pretty good shape—if you put aside the fact that it wasn’t alive any more. Because of the extreme smell, and the long amount of time until garbage day, I decided that the best way to rid myself of this poor dead possum would be to dig a hole and let Mother Earth take care of the smell-removal duties.

(Oh yeah: In case it isn’t clear, this particular incident inspired my little story extolling the virtues of Icy Hot. It really does work quite well, even in hundred degree weather with a rapidly decomposing possum.)

The possum is long sealed away beneath a protective layer of dirt for over a week now, but the smell lingers on, if only inside my nose. I’ll just all of a sudden catch a whiff of something dead in the most unlikely of places, not the least disturbing of which is the bakery section of my local grocery store. “Mmm, muffins, donuts, cakes, death, scones..”

I really hope that the smell is somehow just trapped in my nose, rather than being indicative of a newly awakened psychic ability. Seeing dead people is bad enough without having to smell them too.

Here’s a nifty little .htaccess file trick for all you who are taking advantage of web hosting:

So you use Gravatar and want to include yours in things that you make later on, but either hate having to look up the big long encrypted gibberish string associated with your image, or didn’t even know you could do that?

First off, take a look at your gravatar image in your browser. Rightclick on it and select ‘view image’. Then copy the entire contents of the url bar (mine is ‘http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=bb2e88bec80c451b7300b0bff1b7ba1b’, yours should be the same but with different gibberish at the end) so you can paste it later.

Simply add the following to your .htaccess file and things will be much simpler:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule gravatar.png http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=bb2e88bec80c451b7300b0bff1b7ba1b

replacing my gravatar url with yours, and you’ll be able to use it by simply referring to ‘yourdomainname.com/gravatar.png’.

As you change your gravatar image, any page that includes ‘yourdomainname.com/gravatar.png’ will be automagically updated with the new image. This could be helpful for including in forum posts, blog comments, etc—really anyplace that doesn’t currently take advantage of gravatar, but you wish it did.

Since my last experience at Blockbuster Video, we’ve been doing all of our Netflix overflow renting from Hollywood Video. Having exhausted our allotment of Netflix videos quickly due to illness and laziness, we decided to hit our local Hollywood yesterday. While wandering around the New Release section, we started to get a bit weirded out, due in large part to the fact that there were way more non-New Release movies in there than normal. Also, they all had ‘Buy this DVD for $14.99’ stickers on them, instead of 3/4s of them like usual.

Getting worried, I finally approached an employee and asked—in my best ‘what I’m about to imply couldn’t possibly be true, right?’—inflected speech whether or not they do actually rent movies or not.

“Oh, no. We do not. Everything’s for sale in this store,” was the ‘you gotta be kidding me’ inflected answer I was given.

Apparently Hollywood Video has decided to make this particular location into a Hollywood Video Outlet in the week since I’ve rented there, to better serve their customers.

I just don’t get it. Both Hollywood and Blockbuster wanted to rule the home video rental marketplace for years, ruthlessly forcing all the mom and pop video rental stores out of business. So now they’ve got what they want, but they’re both doing their damnedest to keep from having to actually rent videos to people.

Finally! I’ve got jury duty!

I’m pretty stoked about this. I for one have seen enough 1 hour dramas—not to mention the Pauly Shore documentary on the subject—to know how things typically go during juror deliberation. See, the prosecution does a pretty good job of smearing the character of the wrong-side-of-the-tracks youngster who is on trial, completely covering up the fact that they basically have no evidence to prove that this youngster is in fact the guilty party. Eleven out of the twelve jurors inevitably fall into one of the following categories:

a) they have expensive tickets to a sold out sporting event / and or concert which takes place this evening
b) they are racially disposed to the young man in question
c) they have been victims of the same type of crime this young man is supposed to have committed, and thus, have clouded judgement

causing all eleven of them to vote ‘guilty’ from the get-go.

It is now up to the twelfth juror to one-by-one convince each of the eleven others that there is in-fact no evidence, and that they are voting ‘guilty’ for personal reasons. Each time a vote is taken, one more juror learns the error of his or her ways, angering the remaining ‘guilty’ voters to higher and higher levels. Chairs will be thrown, fists will be pounded on tables, crusty chinese food containers will be knocked over.

The role of juror #12 is not one to be taken lightly, as peer pressue and ridicule go a long ways towards influencing the outcome of a modern jury decision. Being immune to peer pressure and ridicule, I feel that I am up to the task, and await the opportunity to yell at some bigots, knock over some chinese food containers and help preserve the future of a young man who probably actually committed the crime in question, just managed to not leave any evidence proving the fact.

Go American legal system!

Click for larger

This article inspired my creative juices a bit. The above is the net result.

Know what drives me nuts?

Television advertisements. Er sorry, I wasn’t done. Specifically I mean television advertisements for chains that don’t have a presence in my area.

If I have to see one more ad showing me how awesome the food at Sonic looks, or the sweet succulent meals available at Boston Market, I think I’m going to up and move.

On the other hand, maybe the Travel Channel ought to start doing this. I just might go on vacation if I can get some Sonic or Boston Market out of it.

|add/view comments

I’ve got to either jot myself more descriptive notes in my little moleskine notebook, or stop doing it altogether.

I have absolutely no idea what “Einstein / Zombies” means, and trying to come up with a scenario that would be worthy of the taking of such a note is driving me nuts.

There sure a lot of zombie things in this notebook though…

|add/view comments