where I have been wasting too much time lately

Google Image Labeler and the Yahoo BIX thing.


Go to this contest on Bix

there are no "free" scooters

Among the many commercials that piss me off are the ScooterStore ads. They tout how you can get the scooter or power chair you "need" at no cost to you. Guess who it does cost? You and me and everyone else paying Medicare taxes, that's who. The ads try to make it sound like the company is giving scooters to the elderly. What they are in fact doing is talking elderly people into becoming excuses to bill Medicare for the scooters they make.

little victory

I weighed myself before leaving last Saturday for the Thanksgiving holiday. This morning, after a week of family visiting and partying, I weighed exactly the same. Less would be better, but at least I didn't gain anything.

liver check

Well, I survived the holiday with the families which means my liver must still be working. The wife and I went out Friday night with her brother and his latest wife (married in September of this year). I stayed in bed until 2pm on Saturday. The parts I remember were fun.

time for some truth

I don't really care what this sounds like at this point. My wife and I went out with her brother and his new wife (married in September, third wife). I am drunk, wife is in bed, brother in-law and his wife are downstairs. My wife deserves all the accolades for staying with me. I am a lot to put up with. On so many fronts. Why does she stay with me? The kids are a major reason. Without them she would have been gone two years ago. No question whatsoever about that. And I wouldn't deserve for her to have stayed. Without the kids, would I have done what I did? I don't know. Without the kids she would not have stayed. No doubt about that. I might go and take a walk now. It is cold outside, so am I.

bitterness extended

So my wife's sister's new house is even bigger and more extravagant than I imagined. It is in the same class of house as her parents'. Her parents are 60 and her dad has worked his way up to a very lucrative job and owned several houses over the years, trading up each time. So of course a pair of 27 year olds, neither of whom has a career-type job, should have an equivalent house. And what would a new house be without a bunch of new furniture? So far the holidays have not brought out the best in me.

more family friction

My brother and his wife recently moved into a new house (not new construction, but new to them). They got a loan from my parents for the down payment which they needed since they haven't sold their previous house. They couldn't sell it because they had allowed it to degrade into total squalor. My brother has a good job and works hard. His wife stays home with the kids. That's all well and good. Except that she did absolutely nothing to keep their house clean. She let her kids do anything and never cleaned. When I helped him move out I was appalled by the conditions in which they lived. Kids writing on every wall and piece of furniture, a door ripped off its hinges, blinds destroyed, debris and filth everywhere. It was much worse than I have seen on TV when they have one of those "intervention" shows. My brother has to take some of the blame because he let it happen, but she is the one who was there all day and could have done something to prevent it. Since moving out, my dad and brother have done a ton of work to get the old house ready to sell. So while they have two mortgages and an outstanding loan from my parents what does the sister-in-law tell us about: how great her cat's Halloween costume was! What the hell are you doing spending money on a Halloween costume for your cat? You completely destroyed an entire house and put my brother into debt to get out of it and now you are spending part of his paycheck on a freaking costume for your cat? My wife and I just want to smack her. She needs a big wake up call. Unfortunately, my brother is largely non-confrontational and she is a shrill, loud-mouthed bitch so he is unlikely to whip her into shape. It is really getting kind of sad, because I cannot imagine that he is very happy in that situation. I think he has just gotten numb to it.

holiday plans and bitterness

Driving 380 miles to my parents' tomorrow, stay there until Wednesday morning, then drive another 100 miles to my wife's parents' where we will stay until Sunday. My main objective is to avoid going to my sister-in-law's new house. I don't want to have to swallow all my bitterness about it. She and her husband lived for four years in a house owned by her parents and then for the last year lived in her parents' house. Now his (the brother-in-law's) parents hand them a huge chunk of money so they go buy a huge house at a buyer's market price. It is just a tough pill for me to swallow that they now have a bigger house and larger garage than I do. I have had a solid career for 12 years, never gone back to live at my parents' house, haven't lived in parentally subsidized housing, nor gotten free child care from my mother. The unjustness of her and her husband continually being propped up by her parents and falling ass backwards into money and market timing is too much.

lists for jadedgirl

Jadedgirl put out a post asking for lists and it sounded like a fun so here are a few lists from me.

Movies

• Pulp Fiction
• Magnolia
• Closer
• Miller's Crossing
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Highlander
• True Romance

Music

• Alanis Morissette
• Tori Amos
• Siouxsie and the Banshees
• The Cure
• The Smiths

Books

• Atlas Shrugged
• On the Road
• Flatland
• Touching the Void
  
• Eat the Rich
• The Crystal Horizon
• Nine Princes in Amber

TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer
• X-files
• Roswell
• The Office
  

I wish it was my alma mater

I saw today something I have been looking for since I graduated from college: something using the word "alumnus" instead of "alumni". You see it everywhere: license plate frames, bumper stickers, window stickers, shirts, coffee mugs et cetera. They always say alumni which is rarely the case. If more than one person in the car graduated from the same university, then an alumni window sticker would be correct, but that situation is certainly the exception. Today I saw a license plate frame with "University of Chicago Alumnus". Bravo!

another uneventful weekend

Leaf raking, lawn mowing. Wow. Sorry this is so lame. Maybe something interesting will happen soon. I really thought my previous post would generate more response.

straws

A bad straw can ruin the whole drinking experience. It is maddening to grab a straw and stab it into the counter intending to free it from its wrapper and have it buckle instead! Worse still is when the wrapper is not easily torn off after a failed stabbing-removal attempt. The opening experience usually sets the tone for how the straw is going to work, but there are other ways that a straw can impress or disappoint you:

• too long or short for the cup
• too narrow for sufficient flow at reasonable suction
• too weak to support high suction (needed for milkshakes or sucking up the strawberries in a strawberry limeade)
• too weak to move packed, crushed ice

If I was a doctoral student, this would be my research project: A Quantitative Study of Drinking Straw Experience. I would look at lots of parameters: wall thickness, material elastic modulus, diameter, diameter to length ratio, straw length to cup height ratio, coefficient of friction between straw and wrapper, delta between wrapper circumference and straw circumference, ratio of straw buckling load to tearing strength of wrapper, et cetera. Terms like these are way in which I see the world.

I know a good straw (Circle K) and a terrible straw (Subway) when I use one, but an extensive study would allow me to define with numbers what distinguishes good straws from bad and provide actionable guidance to companies seeking to improve their customers' drinking straw experience.

McDonald's has always had good straws and they seem to be the same at every location. Locally, Circle K has excellent straws. Subway has changed theirs several times and they are always terrible. Huck's also has crappy straws. Arby's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Nick-n-Willy's are all adequate. They do not frustrate me, but don't wow me either.

is it a Peoria thing?

Something that I do not remember seeing any of the other places I have lived is stores paying people to stand at intersections holding signs advertising going out of business sales. I have seen K's Merchandise, Leath furniture and now to the Bombay Company do this. I also have noted since moving to Peoria that lots of things get advertised by little roadside signs: gun shows, coin shows, charity dinners, running events. This too is new to me.

it has been 8 years

Tomorrow J2 turns eight. It is hard for me to believe that I have been a parent for eight years. I still haven't incorporated it into my self-image, frankly I don't really have being a husband assimilated either and that has been over 11 years.

Nevertheless J2 and I went camping yesterday. Nothing elaborate, just simple car camping at Jubilee College State Park. All of my camping equipment is of the minimalist backpacking variety, not the luxury car camping type so we really stood out among all the RVs and monster tents at the campground. We had a pretty good time just talking and watching the fire and managed the cold night snuggled into our sleeping bags. For 45 minutes around dinner time we had to hear people a couple sites away searching and calling for their dog that they thought they had lost. It was annoying and pathetic to see these people so distraught over a dirty, burdensome beast. Turned out that the dog was in the trash can under the sink in their RV.

late night alone

G is sick, J is tired and J2 was going to bed at his normal time so I went out. I first went to the store to get some medicine for G, then I drove to a bar that the local rock station was going to be visiting. After getting there and seeing it from the outside, I decided not to go in and instead went to a place I am comfortable: my local BWW. I had a couple beers and played a few rounds of Buzztime trivia. I saw 5 hotties and talked briefly to one while she was asking the bartender about what wine they had. You should not go to BWW and then get picky about the wine!! Time for a snack then off to bed.

time for a new TV series

The second season of Everest: Beyond the Limit has started. I haven't watched the first episode yet, it is waiting for me on the DVR. Since summiting Mt. Whitney a few years ago, I have been pretty obsessed with tales of real mountaineering. Not that a siege-style commercial climb of Everest necessarily qualifies as such these days, but it is still interesting to me. Maybe it will be interesting to you too. I have really enjoyed all the mountaineering books I have read and the one great mountaineering movie: Touching the Void (based on the book).

didn't beat them so he joined them

Talk about cashing in on undeserved fame. I am really annoyed by the Lipitor commercials with Robert Jarvik. If his artificial heart was so great, Lipitor wouldn't have as large of a market. He got famous 25 years ago for an artificial heart. Where is it now? Nowhere. Look at a computer from 1982 or a car. Those technologies have advanced substantially since then, but the source of this guy's fame and supposed credibility has done absolutely nothing in that time.