Calm Like a Bomb

It's Sunday morning and I was up way too early today. I had a few beers last night, not enough to make me hungover or super drunk or anything. I went to sleep at about 1130, which is pretty early for me. Then for some reason this morning I was wide awake at 4am. I tried to force myself to go back to sleep but that only lasted until 545am when I just couldn't sleep anymore.

I was still a little groggy so I really couldn't write anything. Instead I just surfed the web a bit and tried to go back to sleep at around 7. That lasted about 2 hours and finally I just got up. I staggered down the stairs and into the garage to work out and run on the treadmill for a while. It's been over a week since I last did either one, because I got lazy last week. I only did 1.75 miles today since I hadn't run in a while and was already dieing on the treadmill. Figured I'd wait until tomorrow to really kill myself while running.

After a shower and change of clothes the song "Calm Like A Bomb" by Rage started playing on my itunes playlist. If you don't know this song, go listen to it. It has one of the best opening bass lines ever in my opinion. So of course, I had to relearn how to play it right that second. I used to play bass almost everyday when I was in college just to kill time and because it was fun to play along to my favorite songs. I still know how to play quite a few songs, but not nearly as many I used to know. Bass is also a pretty good workout for your hands and forearms. So I relearned how to play that song, then started playing a few others (Chick Magnet, Disco Inferno, Pawn Shop, Groove Is In The Heart, I Will Survive, Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts). As you can see from the picture above, I have an extensive music collection which is why I like to play songs from all types of genres.

After that, and a quick discussion of Lost and how skinny Lindsay Lohan is over text messages, I'm ready to get some grub and start my day.

Catching Up...

Last sunday we tried to go back to the Back Abbey for some awesome sounding burgers and of course more Belgian beer. Four of us went there the friday before and we all missed the fact that the Back Abbey is closed on sundays. BOOOO! We ended up walking down the street to Heroe's for some burgers instead. I was a little hung over from the night before so I didn't have any giant 33 oz beers, just an iced tea.

The day before I went to Newport Beach and checked out a bar with my friend called Mutt Lynch's. This place is right on the beach with people walking into the place in bikinis which is tormenting for a single guy. Mutt also has some great pizza and giant 32oz beers. We got there at about 5pm and my buddy was intent on getting me drunk for some reason. So we ordered a giant pepperoni pizza with had loads of cheese and layers of pepperonis. It was amazing. I also got a Newcastle (left).

Finished that beer and a couple slices of pizza and I went on to have two more giant beers (Fat Tire). Then I decided to slow it down a little so I had a regular size pint of Amstel Light. We started playing some pool as the night went on and the bar emptied out. I played some pool with a good looking girl and her mom and aunt. Interesting peeps. I won the game and she bought be a beer. So that was cool. Then they took off before Mutt Lynch's doesn't have any hard alcohol, just beer and wine. Somehow after all that beer I managed to not throw up on the ride home. Usually the car is my worst enemy after drinking. I'd highly recommend checking out Mutt Lynch's. And if you do, give me a call so I can come along as well.

Friday fun!

So this past week was a really busy one at work. When friday comes around I'm ready to go out and have a little fun. Lucky for me, I have cool friends who know new spots to go to all the time. Last night we went out to a place called The Back Abbey in Claremont. They are supposed to have extremely good food and 30 Belgian beers on tap! A beer drinkers heaven! Unfortunately, this place is about as big as a bathroom. It was too packed to sit down and eat, but we couldn't let the night go by without trying out some new Belgium beers. We would return later when it wasn't so packed.

We walked down the street and found a good Thai food place called Bua. The four of us got a table pretty quickly and started perusing the menus. I already knew I wanted the spring rolls to start and I had some chicken fried rice as well. And of course a Thai beer, Singha. My friends had some duck, spicy beef noodles, and some sweet noodles with vegies. I tried the spicy beef noodles, and it was really good. I'll probably have that next time.

We packed up our doggie bags and headed back to the Back Abbey for our dessert beers. The place had emptied out some so we got to sit right at the bar which only had about 7 chairs. We each ordered a different beer and passed them around to get a taste. I had the Piraat which of course had a pirate on the tap. That drew me in right away, and I wasn't dissapointed. The other beer that I tasted which I really liked was called Chamay. Had a nice golden color and was tasted great! One really cool part about this bar was that every beer they had on tap, had it's own beer glass. Not something you see everyday, so I thought it was cool. And I might be heading back there tomorrow for the food. We decided we have to have a burger and some of their double fried french fries with dipping sauces. Yelp it and you'll know what I'm talking about.

After our excellent beers, we walked back towards the Thai place and found a Mediterranean restaurant and bar that had hookah. So we each had another beer and ordered some strawberry hookah. I had a Lebanese beer called Almaza. It was a light beer and tasted pretty good. The hookah lasted a long time and wasn't too badly priced at $15. The service was a little slow, but that's not surprising. Seems like every hookah bar I've been to has been this way.

I loved that all three of these places were on the same street super close to each other. It was definitely a great way to begin the weekend. I'll keep you posted about the burgers at the Back Abbey if I go back on sunday.

Coming Soon...

It's been a few days since I posted anything here, so I really need to take some time and write again. But until that time comes, go visit my friend's site for a good laugh.

www.randomruckus.com

See ya soon.

Mondays suck!

I think the majority of the world would agree that Mondays suck. No matter what you do, how much you make, or who you work with, you always hate to see your weekend come to an end. Going back to work on Monday is never any fun. The reasons for work on Monday not being fun will vary widely though. I thought about this today as I was walking across the street to help someone with a minor problem that they couldn't tell me any information about aside from "It's not working!" So I thought I'd write about some of the awesomely crappy jobs I've worked in the past to help alleviate my pain.

In high school I worked at Toys R Us. If you collected Star Wars action figures or Hot Wheels, this was an ideal job. However, there were some drawbacks to it like any other job. The place is a giant toy store. Kids go crazy when they see so many toys that they want. And of course, the parents just don't care about controlling the kids while inside TRU. I've seen kids use the restroom in the aisles while a parent just turns their head. I've had to clean up puke in an aisle right next to the restrooms. Kids will pull toys of the shelves and just toss them away as soon as they see something new making a huge mess to clean up.

The parents were not much easier to deal with. I worked at Toys R Us during two interesting times. First, I was there when the Tomagotchi was huge, and at the same time UPS went on strike. So we had this amazing toy that everyone in the whole world wanted 3 of and we weren't getting any shipments of them. So parents would scream and yell at me, the lowly Toys R Us employee, because UPS they couldn't find the toy their kids wanted. They'd tell me to go look in the back after checking the inventory in our computers and seeing that we had none in stock. Kind of like the movie Waiting, we found ways to get our own revenge. We'd go to the back to "check for a toy" and hang out with a fellow employee for 10 minutes while the parent twisted in the wind up front. We didn't care, we were getting paid minimum wage. Other times we'd grab the toys and hide them somewhere in the store for ourselves.

The other interesting time that happened while I was working at Toys R Us was the Christmas that the Tickle Me Elmo first came out. Rabid parents are 100 times crazier at Christmas time. Having our store hours extended until midnight for a month didn't help either. Toys R Us helped prepare me for how to deal with insane people later in life. Whether I'm at work or not, I somehow seem to draw the crazies towards me.

The other job that I worked which I think had some influence on my future was a valet driver. In college I worked as a valet driver for a Viejas Casino in San Diego. I think everyone should work for tips at least once in their life. It really opens your eyes to how hard some people work for such crappy pay. Makes you see how much certain jobs (restaurant servers, valet, hotel maids, casino dealers etc.) really rely on tips. It's pretty bad when you get excited over a $2 tip. Having worked that job for a mere 3 months really changed the way I thought about tipping.

Well, I feel better. Maybe now I won't be so frustrated when I ask a user to "log off and sign back in" and instead, they shut down their computer. Oh well.

p.s. Happy Easter

The Dark of the Matinee

It's been a while since I've gone to the movies. I think the last movie I saw was The Watchmen, and it was excellent! The problem with movies now is that they cost so much. $11 per person is ridiculous! Makes me happy to be single! HA!

After watching The Watchmen I got curious about the actual comics. I spent a few days at work surfing the web and reading all about the series of comics. I had actually read the wikipedia entry and the entire plot before seeing the movie. Lucky for me, my short term memory sucks and I forgot all the big plot twists.

I still wasn't satisfied with just reading short summaries about all the characters, or even the authors, so I cruised to the store and bought the new release paperback. I'm sure some of the super fans would be upset to hear that I didn't go search for the original 12 comics or buy the collectors edition hardback, but who cares? I'm reading the book now and loving it. Takes me back to my childhood when I used to watch the X-Men cartoons constantly.

This comic is slightly different, but just as good. I like that it's set in a fictionalized version of the real world. It really sucks you into the story. Makes you wonder if any of this actually could have happened. And if it had happened, how different would your life be today?

And if anyone thinks this post title sounds familiar, it's the name of a song by Franz Ferdinand. Great band, check them out.

Why are you bad America?

I've found that people have a real hard time with anything that deviates from their normal daily activities. Give someone a new phone and all of a sudden they forget how to dial. Move a form to a different place on the network and now filling in a date becomes difficult. I don't know why this is, but I find it very confusing.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I work in the IT department for my company. So the two examples I mentioned earlier are from personal experience. I get to answer questions from my company's users on all kinds of computer, printer, and/or phone related topics. I found a website that is full of funny and confusing stories and I often check it out when I need a good laugh.

So whenever you think you deal with some really dumb people, go check that site out and laugh at someone else's misfortune. It always makes me feel better.

Brain Dumping Time

Apparently this blog is becoming a place for me to spill all the thoughts in my head into one place, at one time. So here goes tonight's session...

Today was opening day for Major League Baseball. My beloved Dodgers were in San Diego to start the season and they won 4-1. Kemp looked impressive in the field and with the bat as he smashed a HR to deep centerfield. Broxton looked good as the closer too. He hit 99 and 100 on the radar gun.

Tonight was also the first day for a new show that I will be watching regularly simply because it stars Bob Saget. Surviving Suburbia premiered tonight and I thought it was really funny. After just recently seeing him do his live stand up act, I kept picturing him saying really dirty things and making obscene hand gestures. That was funny in my head too. 9:30 Monday nights after the horrible DWTS.

Over the weekend I finally went to Best Buy to spend my gift cards that I got for my birthday. My birthday was in February, so I'm a little late. Anyways, I've been working out and running pretty frequently so I decided to get myself an iPod shuffle. I already have an iPod Classic (160GB) and an iPhone (3G 16GB, Black) so you might be wondering why I got a Shuffle. I looked at some reviews for an armband for my iPhone, but I didn't find any good reviews. Plus I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't like the idea of having my big iPhone strapped to my arm while running. This is why I got myself a blue 1 GB Shuffle. Not the new iPod Shuffle with no buttons on it. I don't like the idea of being locked into one pair of headphones. Plus 1 GB is plenty for my short runs, I don't need 4 GB. And I like the color blue.

After Best Buy, I went to Target to buy some new music with a gift card that I've had sitting in my wallet since Christmas. Anybody seeing a theme here? Yeah, I don't go shopping much. So I get there and find two new cds with girls for lead singers, Lily Allen and the Ting Tings. I go to pay and find out that my gift card is empty. I forgot that I spent it in February buying myself Mario Kart Wii online. Oh well, two cds $24 even. I like the cds, so I didn't care.

I'm still working on my playlist of songs for my "Run Pod" which is fun. I listen to 2-3 seconds of songs in my library and know right away if it will be a motivating song for me to run to. I'm sick with music. I can't remember what I did with a friend last week, but I'll know every word to a song I haven't heard for over 10 years.

And last but not least, I had the correct response to the Final Jeopardy clue tonight. What is the speed of light? Suck it Trebek!! I'm out.

Happy Friday!

It's finally friday! This week was a bit busy at work for me. Too many projects going on at once. eForms, new email server, redrawing the regions of the sales staff, and people playing musical offices. But all that can suck a lemon now that friday is here!

I was feeling kinda tired and lazy after work but I still forced myself to workout. Only the second time this week, I slacked off. And I didn't run. I'll try to wake up tomorrow and do both to catch up. But for now, I'm looking forward to some sushi and maybe a beer or two. Hope you all have a great weekend!

April Fools Day

This post is going to jump around a bit, so be prepared.

Today was April Fools Day. In the past I've pulled a couple good pranks on my friends. Both times it involved stealing a vehicle and both times I had my victim nearly in tears. In high school I got my neighbor's mom to give me her daughter's car keys. My friends took her out for ice cream while I "stole" her car and parked it in a friend's garage. She came home thinking her car was stolen, was ready to call the police and about to break down into tears before I gave her the "good" news. She was pissed, but also surprised that I could come up with the plan and execute it so well. I was kind of a goody goody in high school, but I had a sneaky evil side too. In college I convinced a roommate that someone stole his two jetskis and trailer. He was about to drive away in an angry rage and probably cry in the car when I told him I hid the jetskis around the back of the house. It's so much fun to pull a good prank like that!

Today was also the day that the conficker virus was supposed to kill the internet. As you can see, that didn't happen. But I spent the last couple days checking my computer to make sure that it had all the important updates and also a new anti-virus program. I also spent most of the day at work checking google news for anything about the virus. Apparently it phoned home and got new instructions, but didn't do much else. It may strike in the future, but nobody really has any clue about that.

Since today is also wednesday, it's a Lost night for me too. I won't recap the show here, because if you aren't a Lost fan it won't make any sense. All I will say is that this season is starting to get really good. Lots of questions are being answered and I feel like a lot more will be answered before the season is over. Only one more season to go after this one. And Ben is still evil. Ok, that's all.