Thinking With Portals

Silence

2010-01-16T06:15:00.001-08:00

I guess I should post some content soon. Damn I'm lazy.

New Content

2008-11-04T05:40:00.001-08:00

Coming soon. I promise. I'm working on a post about food and restaurants. Basically the top 10 places I've eaten. It's not easy, so many excellent meals and so many excellent places. The list will vary from an amazing meal with drinks in Louisiana for under $25 to a $550 dinner in Las Vegas. I hope to have it done this week.

Dead Space

2008-10-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

2 more days. I can't wait.

LHC down for 2 months.

2008-09-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Sigh. By now you've heard that the Large Hadron Collider suffered a fairly major electrical problem and will be shut down for 2 months while they make repairs. There was a faulty electrical connection between two of the magnets and they stopped superconducting. I guess they were regularconducting instead. Anyway, they melted and that lead to mechanical failure. Helium everywhere. Bad things my friends.

Or maybe that's what they want you to think....... maybe this story is a cover-up, and that the LHC was shut off because it created a black hole that ate part of the electronics; or their maintenance guy; or something. Anyone know where the G Man is these days?

The Candidates

2008-09-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

I wish you'd stop sniping at each other and STFU for 10 minutes. All politicians are liars in the end. I can deal with that at this point in my life. Sucks, but I'll deal. Stop with the attacks and negative ads. Stop with the slander and libel and instead tell me what you want to accomplish as president. Then tell me HOW you plan to go about doing it? I don't care if someone's daughter is knocked up, that's not the point. Don't tell me you're going to change government and immediately drop the subject when pressed on the HOWs Tell me how you plan to implement these sweeping changes. Spend your energy telling me what and how you plan to run the country as president and STFU about the other candidate's shortcomings.

See, this is exactly why I always vote third party. I can't necessarily trust them any more than I can the other two, but at least some of them are telling me HOW and WHY. That's got to count for something right?

No Reservations

2008-09-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ah, thank you Travel Channel for the NO RESERVATIONS marathon on labor Day. Somehow I'd missed ALL of this season. Yes, I'll hang my head in shame now. Watching the ever snarky Anthony Bourdain travel around the world and eat some of the best looking food I've ever seen was the perfect time waster. No, that's not right at all. It wasn't a waste of time, it was informative, awe inspiring, educational and even hilarious. Made me hungry every step of the way. Also strengthened my resolve to visit and experience Spain in the very near future. Time to start saving. Costa Brava here I come.

Also I'd like to add that I really really heart Anthony Bourdain. He's my culinary hero. I just gotta heart someone who seethes with hatred for Rachael Ray as much as I do. He may hate her more. Wow.

I need to post something

2008-08-31T11:33:00.000-07:00

But I'm too busy to do it today. Gotta take the pup out to play :D

Good news though, all family and friends in the path of Hurricane Gustav are away and safe. Whew!

Dr. Horrible

2008-08-12T17:57:00.001-07:00

Important announcement!

If you haven't watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog yet, go watch it now! Run along and watch it here right now, then come back and tell me what you think. It's okay, go on, I'll wait. No, I'll watch it with you.

Yes, it's that good.

Madden '09

2008-08-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

The sky is clear, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, it's cool and breezy and only moderately humid. It's the perfect summer day. Well, it would be if Madden '09 didn't come out today.

Oh joy! Another Madden is out. It'll be so much fun at work today that I can't wait to get there. Madden players are so articulate and educated and polite. Wait, let me turn the sarcasm font off.

Ugh. Madden release day. No offense to the few Madden players who speak proper English are are upstanding citizens, but in general Madden fans are the lowest common denominator. Not even good enough for Jerry Springer. There are three types who love the Madden. The first is the yo-yo-yo side hat wearing white boys. "Yo, when Madden coming out?" Sigh. The second is the gangsta thug type. "Yo yo, when Madden coming out for the P3?" The P3? These are the same people who want GTA IV. The IV isn't the number 4, it's pronounced I.V. as in intravenous. Then there are the knuckle dragging, steroid pumped, metrosexual guido types. Probably the most despised types. They think all men want to be them and all ladies want them. Um, ewwww. Not sure what I'm talking about? Go to You Tube and watch My New Haircut. That's the type.

So I'm off to work. Time for 8 hours of non-stop hell. Oh yes, we'll have some pleasant customers today, the kind who are polite and nice, but sadly they won't outweigh the hell we'll get from the rest. Is it wednesday yet?

Weekend at the lake house

2008-07-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

We have friends in north jersey. They live in Sparta. Yes, we do get drunk, stand out on their deck and yell "THIS IS SPARTA!". At least I have. More than once. But I digress. We frequently go up to visit these friends. They technically live in lake Mohawk, very close to the lake, walking distance. It's lovely up there. We refer to their house as our lake house. What are your plans for the weekend people ask, oh we're going to the lake house. LOL No kids, no pressure, just relaxing, eating and drinking. Of course the 3 dogs will be noisier than 3 children will be. 3 Jack Russell terrorists in the same place for 24 hours. Should be interesting. This is the first weekend we're spending up there since we got Abby. That's it for now. Time to get ready to go. More on the weekend when I get home tomorrow.

The Cake is NOT a lie.

2008-07-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here's the cake recipe, delicious and moist. Of course I'm having trouble finding volatile malted milk impoundments so it might not be as good as the original.

The Cake

one 18.25 ounce chocolate cake mix
one can prepared coconut pecan frosting
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
one cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup butter or margarine
1 2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all purpose flower
don't forget garnishes such as:
fish shaped crackers
fish shaped candies
fish shaped solid waste
fish shaped dirt
fish shaped Ethel benzine
pull n' peel licorice
fish shaped volatile organic compounds
and sediment shaped sediment
candy coated peanut butter pieces; shaped like fish
one cup lemon juice
alpha resins
unsaturated polyester resin
fiberglass surface resins
volatile malted milk impoundments
9 large egg yokes
12 medium geosynthetic membranes
one cup granulated sugar
an entry called: "How To Kill Someone With Your Bare-Hands"
2 cups rhubarb; sliced
2/3 granulated rhubarb
1 Tbsp all-purpose rhubarb
1 tsp grated orange rhubarb
3 Tbsp rhubarb; on fire
1 Large rhubarb
1 cross Bohr hole electromagnetic imaging rhubarb
2 Tbsp rhubarb juice
adjustable aluminum head positioned
slaughter electric needle injector
cordless electric needle injector
injector needle driver
injector needle gun
cranial caps
and it contains proven preservatives, deep penetration agents, and gas and oder control chemical's that will deodorize and preserve putrid tissue.

Nothing to see here

2008-07-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

Move along. Move along.

Well, it's been a quiet week on the appliance front. They're all behaving the way they should. Even the fridge. They all saw what happened to the microwave and don't want to end up on the same scrap heap. Oh, that nuker didn't get off lightly. I kicked it and beat it with a metal meat tenderizer before loading it into the car for it's trip to the recycling center. That'll learn them to quit working on me.

Really, that's about all I've got. Sorry. Maybe I'll think of something witty to post later.

Viva la Revolution!

2008-07-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

The blender, toaster and microwave must have had a secret meeting earlier this week. They all decided to commit suicide at exactly the same time. I missed that meeting while I was alseep obviously. All three appliances have been dying slow death over the past 6 months. The nuker door won't open with the press of the button, you have to push the button and pry the door open at the same time. Convenient while your hands are full of things that need to go in to the nuker. This morning it took 5 full minutes to heat a bowl of pasta to a temp hot enough to melt cheese. Actually, the cheese never melted. There is still cool to the touch mozzarella on top of my pasta. Before it heated the pasta though, it counted down the timer to zero without actually doing anything else but count down. I reset the timer and leaned on the door, then it counted down and actually tried to heat the food. It is an 9 year old appliance to be fair. The toaster, she only toasts on one one side. To be exact, it's a 4 slice toaster, but only two slices toast, the other two are dead. The toaster is 5 or 6 years old now and has seen a lot of abuse. I don't blame it for wanting to take itself out of the game. The blender, I thought that would last forever. It's a 20 year old Waring bar blender, all stainless steel and metal parts. It still works. Kinda. It's slow to catch and start. But once she gets going, she makes short work of anything I throw at her. Maybe she just needs a cleaning. I'll try it. That toaster and nuker though, they need to be replaced soon. Like this weekend. Why do the appliances all revolt and die at the same time as if it was some sort of coordinated effort? Is it Skynet? GLaDOS? I'd better watch my back, I think the wall oven was looking at me funny earlier. Not funny "haha" either.

Huge success.

2008-06-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

I'm drinking some afternoon coffee. What, you say, you never drink coffee in the afternoon! Today I'm making an exception because I'm drinking coffee out of my brand new Aperture Laboratories coffee mug! Wait a minute, it's not the Aperture mug, it's the Black Mesa Research Facility mug. My bad. Sorry. If you've ordered anything from Valve Software you might know why I'm so excited. I ordered the mugs (and WCC t shirt and Orange Box soundtrack cd) monday morning at 7:17am. Here I sit less than 60 hours later drinking from my new mugs. w00t! Valve got the stuff to me in about 53 hours. I even chose the "free shipping" option when I ordered thinking the stuff would be here maybe next week. Boy was I wrong. Valve kicks ass when it comes to shipping your merch to you. I'm going to get another t shirt for a co-worker just to be sure the uber quick shipping wasn't a fluke.

Oh and if you love Portal, please email Valve and beg them to release GLaDOS spheres and Weighted Companion Cube Christmas ornaments. I did. I'd buy at least two of each one. If they get enough emails on the subject Valve might actually listen and give us the ornaments we so covet.

Summer sucks.

2008-06-09T16:23:00.001-07:00

I hate summer. Heat and humidity suck. Oh wait, it's not even summer yet. Then why in the hell is it 100 degrees! WTF?? Add all that dew point and stupidity, err humidity, and it's 105 out there. It might cool off to 87 tonight. Oh yippie. The AC is cranked up (or would that be down?) to Arctic Ice levels. I saw some polar bears in the basement. Even the pup won't go outside. Yeah, it's that hot. It's all Al Gore's fault. If he hadn't invented Global Warming and the Internets this wouldn't be happening and it would be a proper 75 degrees out there.

Tagless shirts

2008-06-04T13:32:00.000-07:00

Tagless shirts? You know, the new shirts without that annoying neck tag. That tag that digs into the back of your neck first causing itching then burning until you go insane and practically rip the shirt in half trying to pull that freaking tag out?? I hate those dang neck tags. Now they have tagless shirts. Yay you'd think, no more annoying itching burning from those useless tags. You'd be wrong, so very wrong. Those so-called tagless shirts are a lie! They're not tagless at all. They've moved the tag to a new location and made it 1/4 the size it used to be. Now it's a stealth tag waiting for just the right moment to strike. A waist level tag is still a tag and it digs into your skin like a scalpel. The new tags are sharper and itchier, they go from itch to burn in seconds leaving a red rash in their wake. They're stubborn too. They don't pull out as easily as the neck tags. You can pull and tug and try to rip them off with your teeth but you'll leave a hole in your shirt. Go on, I'll wait while you try. See? A ripped shirt! AAARRRGGGHHHH!. Tagless my Aunt Fanny! Time to write some letters of complaint! They'll just send me coupons for more stealth tagged shirts, you watch. It's a conspiracy I tells ya!

Chili

2008-06-04T12:26:00.000-07:00

I made a huge pot of chili today. Who wants some? It's a nice chunky one with cubed beef (none of that ground beef garbage), black beans and home grown jalapeños. Yum. You can blame any typos on Abby. It's difficult, at best, to type with a JRT sitting on your lap and licking your fingers.

Say hi to the nice people Abby...... l oo , 'ffffffff,jkkkkkkkkkkk mmmmmmmmm mmmmmm

Dying appliances.

2008-05-31T15:35:00.000-07:00

My fridge is in the last stages of a slow painful death. I can hear the death rattle and see the water pooling around the bottom. We've had it serviced/fixed 3 times (twice they couldn't even find the problem) in the past 18 months. I'd hoped to have it last another year or so but I don't think that's going to happen. It looks like I need a new fridge. That's awesome! Then I discover that the fridge I covet won't fit into the fridge spot in the kitchen. It's 1 inch too wide. Cry. Now I need to find a new one and find one fast. Good thing the fridge decided to die after I spent $300 on perishables at CostCo today. Or I could just ignore it and hope the problem goes away. :D

The nearly perfect day

2008-05-27T05:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the nearly perfect day. It was just the two of us all day. Well, 5 of us if you count the pets, but the boy was gone for the weekend. w00t! Woke up, got myself a cup of coffee, sat on the deck drinking coffee while the pup patrolled the yard and did what she had to do. I love sitting on the deck in the fresh air while drinking a cup of coffee. Booze works too. It was in the lower 70's and sunny. Nice weather to start off the day. We took our time getting motivated, eating breakfast, doing some laundry, prepping sausage and peppers for dinner all at a very leisurely pace. The other half did some HAM radio stuff while I played some GTA IV. We took the pup to the dog park for an hour or so. She played with a couple of dogs and chased her ball around. Got home, took a "nap" (nudge nudge wink wink, say no more say no more), took a cool shower. Perfect. Here's where the "nearly" comes into play in the nearly perfect day. It got hot. Too freaking hot for me. It was 86 degrees outside, 82 in the house. I almost turned the AC on it was so freaking hot. I really hate this summer stuff, it's too damn hot! I sucked it up, got myself a cold beer and sat on the deck in the shade. It was bearable but just barely. Grilled some sausage and peppers for an early dinner, had another cold frosty drink, sat on the deck being lazy, lather rinse repeat. It cooled off by the time the sun set that the house was a bearable temp again. Watched some Food Network stuff (damn you Alton Brown for making me hungry again at 8pm!) ate some fresh fruit, cheese and crackers and pepper salami slices. Yummy! Took the pup for another walk played some GTA again and went to sleep. It was the nearly perfect day too bad those don't happen very often.

So, how was your weekend?

Leaving New Jersey

2008-05-13T07:06:00.000-07:00

We're pretty much done with NJ. The cost of living is killing us and we didn't buy a house above our means and we don't live an extravagant lifestyle either. We're not up to our eyeballs in debt yet we're just getting by. We have everything we need sure, but very little extra. Our property taxes are going up again. We'll be well over $9K (which is where we're at now) by the end of the summer. There are dozens more things we hate about NJ (other taxes, super corrupt politicians, etc), it's time to leave. But wait, it's not that easy. NJ hits you up with a HUGE extra tax when you sell your house and leave the state, the exit tax if you will. 2% of the selling price of the house. WTF? Now if we could find someone stupid enough to buy our house, we could barely afford to move. Houses aren't moving right now, the market is dead.

Oh, where do I want to move to? I'll get to that in a second My priorities are a bit skewed but here they are:

1) Lower taxes
2) Concealed carry permits (I'd settle for just a carry permit though)
3) MUCH lover humidity and warmer climate
4) Bigger property (2+ acres) without the $600K or more price tag.
5) Not California
6) Less dense population

I don't have to worry about good schools since the boy will be done next year. I need the lower humidity and warmer climate because my arthritis is getting worse by the day. When it's 45-50 degrees and raining I can barely walk or use my hands. It's awful to have that at the ripe old age of 41. So we've narrowed it down to several areas of the southwest. Outside of Santa Fe, NM and the Flagstaff/Sedona areas of AZ. We've found several houses we love but the move is impossible right now. Mostly because we can't sell yet and the other more compelling reason is that the other half can't find any work. After showing him one house I loved (20 minutes outside of Santa Fe) , he started the job hunt. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Fuck. Nothing for sys admins/archs anywhere in the Santa Fe/Flagstaff areas.

Maybe in the next 2 years or so things will change. Here's hoping because I need to get the hell out of this place before I go insane.

Puppy Milestones

2008-05-06T19:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a big week for Abby. She's now 5 months old and a whopping 11 pounds. She's been in the middle of a teething frenzy which has been making her (and us) miserable. She's been chewing on everything and anything she can get her little teeth around. We're going through chew toys like crazy. Today she got some relief, her lower canines fell out. Joy! The upper ones should fall out any day now. The adult teeth have broken through and the baby teeth are feeling awfully loose. Premolars and molars are next. The incisors were the first to go last week.

I'm also happy to report that at the ripe old age of 5 months, she's appears to be fully house broken. Major JOY! She still sleeps in her crate, but she's no longer shut in. She has free roam of the bedroom at night which makes her a much happier puppy. Now I'm not foolish enough to leave her uncrated if I'm out of the house for 4 or 5 hours, but for short 2 hour trips out of the house she's fine. We're turning many corners right now and Abby is turning into a wonderful dog. It's taken a lot of effort on our part, but it's so worth it to have a happy stable well trained puppy.

Another big deal for her is that she played in the "big dog" section of the dog park today and loved it. Our dog park has two fenced in sections for off leash dogs. 3/4 of an acre for dogs 35 pounds and under and a 1 acre section for dogs of all shapes and sizes. Because she's so small she hasn't been in the big dog side. She wants to be there but until today has been too intimidated to relax and enjoy herself. Today there were no small dogs at all and several big dogs. She pretty much inststed to be in with the big guys today. She was relaxed and confident and had herself a blast running around the big dogs and there were some whoppers today. A pair of Cane Corsos, a Greyhound, Golden, Shepard mix Yellow lab puppy, you get the idea. The Canes are HUGE dogs, well over 100 pounds each or roughly the size of a Bull Mastiff. Abby loves the Canes. They were very tolerant of this snack sized pup prancing around them sniffing and trying to get them to play. And the weather was perfect for it too, 75 with bright sunny skies.

So there you go, real actual content. I'll get to the souffle soon. Really I will :)

Coming soon: Actual real content

2008-04-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, you read that correctly, there will be actual real life content soon. What kind of content you ask? What will the exciting topics be? Gaming of course, but there will be posts about food, pets, concerts and home renovations. Oh, I can't leave out my job. I work retail so you just know some of those stories are going to be good ones. There will also be the occasional rant about how much people suck. Later today, after the trip to the dog park with Abby, I'll post about my first experience making a souffle. You'll get to hear about the trip to the dog park as well. I might even put a picture or two up for all to enjoy.

2008-04-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

JL421 Badonkadonk Land Cruiser/Tank

I really need one of these. It's the perfect vehicle for the end of the world. There's no way zombies or other mutants are going to get through the armored shell of this bad boy.

Make sure you read the customer reviews. They are hilarious.

Is anyone there?

2008-04-21T07:12:00.000-07:00

This is a test of the emergency blogging system. This is only a test...........