David's Tangled Thoughts

Someone at the CIA came to my site this afternoon. Apparently they were doing a Google search of the BlackBerry Storm 2 and Windows 7. So the looked over my site and that's what they read? C'mon! I've got much more sensitive information on my site. Err... strike that. My site contains nothing but crap and is of no interest to the government. *bites nails*

When it comes to pizza, my dad and I do not see eye to eye very much. He likes weird things on it like, ham, pineapple, and barbecue sauce. I’m more of a traditionalist double the pepperoni and double the cheese and I’m all good. For restaurant pizza, a supreme style is the safe choice--usually a Supreme Pan from Pizza Hut. I remember when I was five or perhaps younger when I asked my dad if I could have a pizza without the monkey eyeballs (what he called black olives). He said that people couldn’t special order a pizza—that everything comes mixed like it is described on the menu. I believed him. Field trips are awesome. In my opinion, schools don’t use them often enough. In first grade, when I was at Sigsbee Elementary, we went to the main island (Key West). I forget what the main point of the field trip was but I do remember that for lunch, it was planned that we would have pizza in the park. The really cool part was that we were going to go to a Dominos to make the pizza o

There's a weight-loss competition going on at work. I'm on it and so is a coworker who did me a favor last week. She said that she would accept my thanks in the form of chocolate. I'm paying her back tomorrow with this. It's almost as wrong as fried Twinkies but I heard that chocolate covered potato chips were tasty. UPDATE 26 Oct. 2009 @ 2235: It's true. Chocolate covered potato chips are good. The coworker that I gave them to liked it. She knew I was sabotaging her (c'mon how could you not know that) so she tried to resist by passing them out. I took one chip and it was tasty. It made me want a coke, but it was good. So I've had a number of people asking me where they could get them. I should have kept my mouth shut. I could have been their supplier and made some money. *evil grin*

Leading up to last Thursday, I had been reading articles on the BBC website that Nick Griffin, chairman of the British National Party (BNP), was going to be on Question Time. I am nominally aware of Griffin and the BNP but I didn’t pay much attention to them until they won two seats in the European Parliament. It was kind of shocking that people would vote for party that is overtly racist. I was curious to watch and find out what he views as the UK’s problems and what his agenda would be when he gets to Brussels. Question Time is not available for me to watch on TV. I looked on BBC America and, not surprisingly, I couldn’t find it so I had to wait until last night to watch it on YouTube. (Yay for YouTube!) The program turned out to be a disappointment. It started reasonable enough and there were a few moments of good, quality, debate but most of it seemed to be some sort of show trial of Griffin and his party. The audience was hostile to him, the host was short with him at tim

I love fall but when I think about this season, I don’t have pictures of bright and colorful foliage going through my head. Maybe I’ve been exposed to it too many times, but I’m rarely in awe when all the trees turn. When I look around, the view is a lot duller than what you see on some picturesque postcard. Perhaps I need to put this photo through photoshop?

I don’t need to get every single new bit of technology that comes off the press but I’d like to. If I had the money, I’m sure I’d be prepping a little shopping spree right now to get the new BlackBerry Storm and the latest Windows OS. But since I’m poor, I can pretend that I’m a frugal person and try to convince myself that such upgrades are not worth the money. Because, you see, they aren’t. I have a love-hate relationship with my phone. I love what it can do but I hate how lazy it can be sometimes. Sometimes it can get so slow I want to throw it against the wall. Instead, I calmly do a battery pull. Yet, the Storm Mark I, is my baby. If I accidentally leave it at home, I have a little panic attack. It’s funny and yet oh so sad. I bought a computer also not too long ago. It’s a Vista machine and it wasn’t as big a nightmare that some other people were making it out to be. Granted, I was staring fresh. None of the programs that I had on my XP machine were transferred over.

If I was an executive and my pay got cut by 90%, I would be gone before the sun rose again. Article here .

For those of you who are friends with me on facebook, you might have noticed that I made a new friend. Buuut... I'm betting you didn't. Actually, that new person, Dave, is my uncle. Now I have a personal policy regarding facebook. I will not friend my parents or my aunts and uncles. I still treat them as authority figures and there are things on my facebook page that I'd rather them not see. There's nothing bad on my page but it makes me uncomfortable to let them mix in with my other social circles. I made an exception for Dave because 1.) I don't really think of him as my uncle. He's only six years older than me. 2.) He doesn't regularly interact with my parents so I don't have to worry about him saying, "Hey did you see your son..." Finally, 3.) There's really no other way to contact him other than snail mail and... well... it never seems to work out.

This afternoon, I went to see to Where the Wild Thing Are . The last review that I read on it mentioned that this movie seems to be pulling in adults more than it is children. My impression is that it really is a movie more geared towards adults that have read the book. The kids that were in the theater were evidence enough. Many, including Sara’s son, were not engaged by the movie. Personally, I thought that the movie pretty much followed the book. Granted, it’s taking a small story only hundreds or words long and turning it into a movie but still nothing in the movie seemed to be out of place. Just as much as the book seemed to be simplistic, so did the movie. It’s pretty straightforward and the conflicts in the story are basic mostly dealing with emotional feelings of loneliness and rage. I thought that this movie was a little shallow and missed an opportunity to really depict child psychology. My other main gripes were that the problems of the wild things didn’t seem to co

I'm blogging from the mall tonight. I'm planning to watch Where the Wild Things Are with Sara and her son this weekend. I know that I've seen the book way back in elementary but I don't remember the story so I thought I'd stop into the bookstore to get acquainted with it. The book is nice but it lacks any kind of nostalgic feeling for me so I was pretty much not impressed. I suppose, though, it would be a good book to start a child off with. I certainly like adventure stories. I'm now slowly eating dinner at the food court. I decided on Panda Express because I have to remind myself every now and then of why I hate that place. Keeping in mind that I am trying to loose weight, I ordered plain rice, mixed vegetables, and chicken with mushrooms. It was the chicken and mushrooms that I was looking forward to. Unfortunately when I got my plate, I discovered that the number one ingredient in the dish is actually... zucchini. Go figure. :-( I should have mon

62 lbs. That's how much I have to loose to be considered "normal" for my height. Yeah right. I have, though, joined my company's weight loss competition. The winner will get $300-something dollars. Since entering, a few of us have been doing some lighthearted trash talking. Whatever happens, I must beat Jamie from bldg. 6. The competition runs up 'till Thanksgiving and there are weekly weigh-ins and prizes. I'll have to remember to keep y'all posted. Wish me luck! I went cold-turkey with the pop. Holy crap, am I actually shaking?!

...Okay not really. It’s been a couple years and a couple car repair bills since my car has made a long distance trek. Yesterday, we managed to drive all the way to Wisconsin and back without it breaking down. I probably won’t be doing that again anytime soon, though. I’ve always wanted to go to Six Flags Great America while they held Fright Fest. I never really made the effort to go but I thought that this year might be good time to do it. So the plan was to invite our cousins, Jessica and Eric, to Six Flags and hang out with them. They are related to us as their mother and our mother were sisters. They live in Illinois and we see them every now and then and I consider them one of the few remaining family members from my mother’s side of the family. Six Flags has changed quite a bit since the last time I was there in 2000 during my high school senior trip. They’ve taken out and replaced a number of rides. One glaring difference was the addition of a water park—it’s closed rig

I'm heading over to the other side of the lake to freeze my ass off riding rollercoasters. GPS is now enabled.

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<<--See also: " Throw His Ass in Prison. " Sometimes, I wish I could get Rex to speak for me.

When I was in high school, I spent a lot of time on PinoyExchange which is an online forum. I liked it a lot and was a frequent commenter on the Local and Foreign Issues board. After getting into a number of heated exchanges which degenerated into cheap shots and insults, I pretty much quit. I had to because I would come home from school anticipating another insult for which I would have formulate a response—because I always had to have the last word. Since then, I mostly stay away from the board and gravitate towards TV and Movies . The people there are more amiable but the place can be rather dull. I mean, what more can you say after posting, “I love the Gilmore Girls ?” Okay, so there’s a lot more you can say but it’s not as stimulating. So I’ll find myself back to the Foreign Issue s board where I just read and sometimes shake my head. Occasionally I post something with the promise that I won’t get drawn into a squabble. And usually, it takes a couple posts before you fin

As some of my friends have finally started up their facebook accounts, I am also taking another step. I have signed up for a twitter account. I figured that I would at least reserve an account using my preferred user name. The account has been tied into this blog (which you should see off to the left) and I will try to make some tweets, but I make no guarantees. Oh, and if you do have an account, please, please , follow me. I feel like a loser because I don't have any.

In a gut-stopping game (even if I couldn't see it), the Spartans beat the other team down the road 26-20 in overtime. This win is sweet considering the embarrassing defeat to Central and heart-breaking loss to Notre Dame. It sure is a confusing start to the season but as always, I hope that the Spartans keep marching to victory.

Rio has been selected as the city to host the 2016 Olympics. In a stunning turn of events, Chicago was eliminated in the first round. That wasn’t just losing a vote. That was a bitch slap of humiliating devastation. It sure made for some interesting talk this afternoon as analysis began on why we lost. First we have geopolitics. We’re getting the blame for the global financial crisis plus there are two unpopular wars we’re fighting. Then there are those who go farther saying that this is just more evidence of anti-Americanism. Republicans are making light of this saying that the IOC are a bunch of racists—a reference to themselves being tarred and feathered with this accusation because they don’t support Obama. There is also the “why-not-Rio” factor. There’s the fact that the Olympics haven’t gone to South America and as President Lula mentioned in his speech, bringing the games to Rio opens the games to the masses down there (well at least the ones that can afford it). Percepti

Before moving "downstairs" I had three nearby cubiclemates that I conversed with frequently. I would say that we were pretty tight and the conversations that we had were a hoot. I'm now gone but am still close by and I still see them every day but one of them, Charly, is leaving. Her family is moving to Utah and she's going with them. I'm so sad to see her go. She and her family are good people. They're Mormon so they have to be, right? :-P One recurring topic that always came up was how much we were hungry for Hacienda food. If it wasn't that, it was Olive Garden. And we talked a good talk about going there but we never followed through. It didn't help that all of us were time shifted. The first one in came in a 0700, then me at 0900, then 1030, and then 1400. Tonight, though we managed to pull it off and off to Hacienda we went. Food, drink, and conversation were all good. I know that she will do great in Utah but I think that it is too