what is 0.5 of a hottie?

I got a couple comments on a recent post (wherein I mentioned that I had spotted 2.5 hotties while running) questioning the 0.5 hottie. In order to understand 0.5 of a hottie, one must understand the measurement unit hottie in the first place. Tough thing to define and certainly a very subjective assessment unique to each person. Even for the same person, the criteria vary from situation to situation (and I am not just talking about beer-goggling). For example, a "hottie" sighting on the running trail has to be based primarily on physical appearance. In other situations, intelligence and attitude come into play. So a semi-hottie could score decent in all categories or really well in a couple and poorly in others. Someone could have hottie looks, but be dumb as a rock and vice versa: smart with a sexy attitude, but not perfect looks.

Anyway, I just really appreciate hot women and am always on the look out for them. Unexpectedly seeing a hottie can make one's whole day.

productive weekend

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were garage sale days for us. We got a few hundred bucks and more importantly got a bunch of stuff out of our house. Much of what we did not sell we donated to the Junior League's Julep's Closet sale. Today we cleaned up the garage and it is the best is has looked since we moved in.

Today I watched the rain soaked Japanese Grand Prix. Maybe there was a good reason the race hasn't been run at the Fuji circuit in 30 years.

Now that everyone else is in bed I am watching the Journal Editorial Report.

friday night at home

Nothing special going on tonight. Went running after work (2.5 hotties sighted), had dinner, J has gotten the kids in bed and soon we will settle in for NUMB3RS. No big plans this weekend, though I hope to tick off a couple more beers in the WBT I started. Formula One is in Japan this weekend so I will have the race to watch, otherwise it will be the standard things like lawn mowing and running errands. Exciting I know, aren't you glad I am writing about this?

Perhaps a rant to spice things up: Senior Citizen "reserved" parking spaces! As far as I know there are no legal ramifications for non-senior citizens parking in them so what's stopping us? Because we think it is being nice to old people. "They're old they shouldn't have to walk so far." "You're young, you shouldn't mind walking a little further" "Wait until you get old, you'll appreciate it then"

The truth is that I rarely park close to a store even when there are open spots, but what if I am in a real hurry? Like maybe on my lunch break, from my job, you know, the one paying for these elderly people to dodder around. Don't I have as much right to that spot as they do? Don't they have more time on their hands than do I? Maybe the nicest thing we can do for the aged is treat them like everybody else. If they are so infirm that they really can't walk the extra 50 meters that a "normal" parking space might entail, they can get a handicapped sticker. From what I have seen the criteria for obtaining one are not very stringent. Besides, if they went to the store at 10am on Tuesday when people like me are working, they'd get a pretty close spot anyway.

And what if you are senior but not a citizen???

it is going to be a long year

I am a pretty avid follower of the political scene (nationally at least) and I cannot believe how long the major party candidates have already been at it and we still have over a year to go. States are continually moving their primaries to earlier and earlier dates. Will it go the way of car model years? Used to be that the next year's car model would become available a couple months before the new year (like October), nowadays we are seeing next model year cars being made available in the spring of the preceding year. How stupid is it going to seem when they start selling the 2010 model cars in mid-2008? Likewise we have had the 2008 presidential campaign ongoing since 2006 (some would say even earlier). I am just glad I don't live IA or NH where their airwaves are no doubt saturated with political ads.

premiere night

The Office and Earl both premiere tonight. Last season's ending to Office was awesome: Ryan saying "you and I are done" was perfect. Of course I might not actually watch it tonight due to the magic of DVR and potentially conflicting activities.

nice dream

I had the opportunity to "get acquainted" with Eliza Dushku in a dream last night. Too bad I had to wake up. I didn't like her in True Lies, but once she became Faith in BTVS, I was hooked. What an excellent character: strong, ultra-sexy and with a twisted dark side.

Mary Katherine Ham was on O'Reilly tonight. I like her. I love conservative hotties and I am not the only one who feels that way.

And now on Hannity & Colmes my favorite "entertainment reporter" (at least for the moment) Jill Dobson is on. She is totally cute, but I don't know if she is conservative.

the tour has begun

Since it was raining yesterday evening I didn't go running, instead I went to Old Chicago to begin the World Beer Tour. It is going to be a long journey (110 different beers required to complete it). Weather is much better today so it will be a post-work run instead of a post-work bar stop tonight. Now that I am back to wearing my contacts, I have the potential to see some eye candy on the running trail.

one week ends and another begins

Again we come to the end of another week. I consider Monday the start of the week despite the way most American calendars are configured. If Sunday is part of the weekend shouldn't it be a the end of the week? Today was pretty good, went running this morning, went out with J in the afternoon (babysitter for the kids), completed a couple home improvements and otherwise relaxed. I found out about Old Chicago's World Beer Tour today. Sounds like a program I need to check out. Seeing a cute bartender at Old Chicago today makes the prospect especially appealing. 'Tis the season for Oktoberfest beers so now should be a great time to start the tour.

some things don't change

Since 1991 I have been eating the same same night time snack: chips and salsa. I have changed chips a few times over the years. Chip changes have usually been dictated by changes in availability. For the last several years I have been eating Tostitos Crispy Rounds. From time to time I will have a different chip, but this has been the mainstay. Previous chips were the same style as these, just different brands. As for the salsa, it has been Pace Picante Sauce. For years I used the mild, but have been on the medium for the last decade or so. As with the chips I occasionally pick up a different one to try, but I have always returned to old reliable.

It is scary to hear myself talking about doing something for 16 years. Not because it particularly bothers me to be such a "creature of habit", but because it contributes to thinking of myself as old.

blissful sleep

13 hours of sleep last night. I needed it. Stayed up too late most of this week. After getting up late (1pm) I mowed the lawn and then took the recyclables to the collection center. Now I am watching the Michigan vs. Penn State football game. Thinking about going out tonight.

another Friday lunch

Yesterday sucked. The first three hours of the work day were consumed by a manager in my cubicle hoping that I would tell him what he wanted to hear so he could update his management so that they could hear what they wanted to hear instead of the truth. They over promised to the customer without consulting the technical community regarding feasibility and now they are trying to point the finger at us for not delivering something we never agreed to deliver in the first place. At 10:15 I told him that the update he is going to get at 11 will be of a quality commensurate with the 45 minutes given to produce it.

Today has been quiet so far and I am now at my usual Friday lunch spot.

odd walking

If I see two females walking together I don't think too much of it (other than to check them out if they are hot). I am talking here about walking for fitness purposes, not just walking through the mall or on their way to something. However, when I saw two guys walking together yesterday while I was running it struck me as odd. I thought about this for some time and decided that if the men were old (over 60) it wouldn't have struck me as it did. Furthermore, I think that the younger the guys would have been, the weirder it would have seemed. Curious.

anti-dog rant

I heard a story on the radio this afternoon about a family whose cat was killed in their home by two pit bulls. The woman trapped the marauding dogs in the room they had forced their way into where they tore the cat to pieces. When the cops arrived, they called animal control to take the dogs instead of doing what they should have done which was to shoot the dogs dead on sight, which is what the woman should have done in the first place.

I don't like dogs in general and pit bulls in particular. Every time someone or something is attacked by a pit bull (or other dog), the owners say "he was the sweetest dog, he played with our kids, blah blah blah". If that is true, it makes it even worse because it proves that even the "best little doggie" can turn on a whim into a vicious killer. At least if only rabid, evil looking dogs would attack people we could be prepared, but if we are to believe the owners then we have to be wary of every dog. Because every dog that attacks someone was the "nicest dog", until they weren't.

If the owner of these pit bulls had forced his way into this woman's house and brutally killed her cat, what would he have been charged with? Why shouldn't he be charged with that exact same crime now? Just because the dog for which he is responsible did the crime in his stead, why is he less guilty? If we don't charge the owner with the same crime we would have if he had done it himself, then we have just created a great loophole for hit men. Instead of shooting the people they are contracted to kill, hit men can just use killer dogs to do the job.

Mankind toiled for millennia to raise his standard of living above that of animals. Having achieved that end (particularly in Western, capitalist democracies), why reverse course and pollute one's living space by sharing it with a foul beast?

too blurry to enjoy

Still not wearing my contacts due to ongoing eye infection. This was very unfortunate as I was running today. I didn't wear my glasses while running and as a result missed out on checking out several hotties. I am near-sighted so everyone I passed on the trail was just a blur except for the split second during which they were within two feet of me. That was hardly enough time to get a good look at the women I passed.

what am I supposed to be doing?

Since I had a dentist appointment this afternoon I did not make the slides for tomorrow morning's 8am meeting (which was scheduled at 2pm today) before leaving work. So that's what I should be working on now, but instead I am blogging and watching ST:TNG. It is the Darmok episode, definitely a classic of the series.

ad that I mute

Is it just me or are the Ellis Island ads annoying? Instead of making me think about how we should save a bunch of old buildings, it makes me think that we should have more island immigration processing centers. Why did we used to have immigrants come to an island first? To keep them from running loose on the mainland! To quarantine them if they were possibly diseased. To prevent them from having a foothold here if we wanted to send them back!

We need more of that thinking today. Instead of letting every hard-luck case with a sob story into the country first and then having ridiculous legal proceedings and expenses to deport them (on the rare occasion that actually happens), don't let them onto the mainland in the first place. Keep them on an island until they prove they are supposed to be allowed in and after we have tested them (for communicable diseases at the very least) and determined we are going to let them in.

So rather than "Save Ellis Island" I say "Reactivate Ellis Island"

basic entertainment

Now watching the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader show on CMT. Is it lame? Maybe, but it includes plenty of eye candy so why not? Not sure what I'll do tomorrow. For now though I am going to have a snack.

fun night out

We had a babysitter tonight and got to go out. We tried a new restaurant where we ended up having a really great dinner. Nothing fancy, just simple, good food. I had a burger and J had a personal pizza. After that we ended up at a local strip club. We had a great time there. I found a petite, goth looking girl who gave a nice couch dance. J got to see the stripper she has always had a big crush on. J hasn't seen her in half a year and was very excited to get reacquainted with her.

lousy day

Today started crappy and didn't really get any better. Got woken up by the alarm just when the dream I was having was getting good. When I got to the parking lot at work, I realized I had forgotten my badge so I went back home home to get it, which of course meant I was significantly late. I really felt like I was falling behind all day today. More new tasks got added to my list today than I was able to accomplish. As a result of being late, I stayed late which meant I didn't go running and I was really grumpy when I got home. As I was changing I snapped, all the clothes I never wear had gotten in my way one too many times so I started purging. I separated all the stuff into the following categories:

• keep and wear
• suitable for lawn mowing
• items for which I am currently too fat, but hope to get into again
• clothes to donate to charity
• shrunk so much it is closer to my 8 year old's size than mine

I feel a little better now.

post party post

The after party was fun, too fun as it turned out. We slept in late this morning. When I finally did get out of bed I had a headache. J was much worse off having woken up earlier and hurled. My hangover symptoms were limited to the headache and generally feeling run down. She was nauseated and very run down. I was supposed to get back to my parents' earlier and help my dad and brother work on his old house. He needs to fix a ton of things before he can try to sell it and my dad has been helping him a lot. I didn't end up getting over there until 3pm and with my hangover I wasn't as helpful as I could have been. My main task was to solve an electrical wiring problem in the bathroom. I did not solve it while I was there. I have since come up with an idea that might fix it, but I will have to diagram the wiring and have my dad try it later this week.

post wedding, pre-party

Had to get up at 7:30 in order to get to Detroit for the 11am wedding. Wedding was a strange mix of traditional and non-traditional. It was officiated by a pastor who talked a lot about God and other religious stuff, but it wasn't in a church and he seemed more like a bartender than a religious official. The ceremony was in the same room as the reception with everyone seated at their dining tables. The whole thing just struck me as odd. It was pleasant and not too long. The maid-of-honor was kind of hot as was one of the waitresses.

Now I wait at the in-laws for the after party. J is napping. In the back yard a couple of tents are set up. It is supposed to be some amalgamation of Margaritaville, tiki bar and luau. There will be grilled meat and beer so it should be fine.

On another note, I do not see any signs of the looming economic crisis you hear about on the news. Here I am in Detroit where the auto companies are going down the drain and for mile after mile all I see is new retail construction. There are new shopping centers everywhere! I haven't seen any roaming bands of people kicked out of their homes by foreclosure in the so-called mortgage crisis either. I just don't see any evidence to support the hysterical news reporting about the economy.

how serious were you about your meeting?

So you send out a meeting notice and it is going to be a teleconference. Do you put the call-in number in the meeting invite? Not if you are this guy at work. Instead you say that the meeting will be using some other guy's teleconference number. That's nice and all, but not very helpful to people who don't magically know the other guy's number! Was I supposed to hunt down the number so I could call into this guy's meeting? Well I didn't, instead I went out to lunch. If the meeting was that important, he should have made it convenient to participate!

a run

Went running tonight despite my head cold and eye infection. It is absolutely necessary that I get back into a good running routine if I am ever going to drop the weight I have put on this year.

I found a few locally originating blogs tonight and left a couple comments on them. Hopefully this will generate some new traffic for my blog. Not that there is too much of general interest here.

Now I am watching the end of the ST:TNG episode wherein Chief O'Brien gets married. Turns out (later in the series or maybe during DS9) that getting married was a mistake. Too bad we usually cannot see such things as mistakes before it is too late.

no labor today

Nice to have the day off work. Didn't do anything special though, slept late, mowed the lawn, grilled out, took a long nap, watched Monk. Back to work for only three days this week. Friday we drive to Michigan for J's brother's third wedding. It is going to be a pain in the butt, but we have to do it.

tennis bad and good

On the downside, most of the hotties have been eliminated on the women's side of the US Open. Sharapova, Vaidisova, Ivanovic, Hantuchova, Hingis, Golovin are all out :( Chakvetadze is the only good looking one still in the tournament.

On the upside, the American Express "dispute resolution" commercial with John McEnroe is great and the Serena Williams commercial for the HP laptop is also funny where she talks about how she is going to look in her video game.

weekend excitement, not

10 things I did today:

1. got a haircut
2. moved a sleeper couch upstairs
3. took a ton of cardboard away for recycling
4. grilled chicken and salmon for dinner
5. watered the lawn
6. went grocery shopping
7. watched South of Nowhere
8. watched Painkiller Jane
9. watched a little US Open tennis
10. despaired over Michigan's pathetic loss to Appalachian State