Crazy Lawsuit Game

- whatever character Sean Connery played in the film, Medicine Man. Pretty cool movie. They do some chemistry (gas chromatography) in the rain forest trying to find the cure for cancer. The British lady who was the mom in 3 Men and a Baby is in it too. Wow, I just completely mixed up Lorraine Bracco and Nancy Travis. Sorry ladies. Nancy was the mom from 3 Men but she was not in Medicine Man, that was Lorraine who of course was also in Goodfellas, Hackers and some other recent HBO show about the mafia with the weird ending.

I need to get back to the rainforest. I toured it once in Costa Rica on a trip with my dad and brother to Tortuguero National Park where we hiked through the rainforests, saw toucans, brightly colored frogs and had an incredible time. That was also the trip where I led newly hatched sea turtles to the ocean at night with my flashlight. First I need to get out of school, then pay off some debt, then travel and get back to the tropics.

Sorry about the new Google ad box to your left. I had only made about 28 cents since I put it up last year sometime, so I thought it might be time to put one a bit higher on the page.

Hopefully J and I will be going camping this weekend. Yes it will be cold but we'll be in the woods and as long as no skin is exposed, it'll be fine. There will also be a campfire.

Congrats to Waukesha County in Wisconsin for using common sense! They have decriminalized your first possession of marijuana arrest. For first time offenders who only have a small amount of medicine on them when caught, they can be issued a citation and made to pay a fine instead of clogging up the legal system. They don't really say what a "small" amount is but I assume it's less than an ounce but sounds like it's up to the individual officer. Of course, dealers and people caught with pounds will still be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. These are the baby steps that society is taking towards ending the outrageous and useless war against drugs. Okay, the war against drugs isn't completely useless, but the tactics of the past 30 years haven't worked so maybe we should try a new approach?

The FCC went crazy again. Now they think they can shut down websites. Popularity Dialer.com is a website that will call you at predetermined times if you need to get out of a date or lame dinner party or if you just need to hear your phone ring. It was started by Jenny Chowdhury and Cory Forsyth when they were college students and the site has no ads and is free of charge. But some jerk made their site call a FCC lawyer who didn't appreciate it and shut the website down. It doesn't seem like they should be able to do that, does it? Read David Pogue's post explaining the whole thing. Once again, fuck the FCC. Here is Penn and Teller explaining why the FCC should be disbanded.

Labels: camping, Costa Rica, injustice, medicinal marijuana, movie

- Jesus Quintana played by the incredible John Turturro in The Big Lebowski. Edit(12/3/07): I can't wait to see No Country for Old Men, the Coen brothers current theatrical release. If you haven't seen any of their movies, I would highly recommend, Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the previously mentioned The Big Lebowski.

I assume you've heard about the British teacher who went to teach in Sudan. If you haven't, here you go: she let her class of 7 year olds name a class teddy bear. They came up with Muhammed which is a very common name for men in Islamic cultures. But it turns out that's not OK and she's going back to prison for a few days. Oops.

I completely see their point though. Do you see it? She broke the law by allowing her young students to name a bear Muhammed. Bear is an animal and that's insulting to the Prophet. Her punishment is 15 days (although she had already served 5 leading up to the trial, efficient legal system no?) and deportation. Some jail time, banishment, media circus and hopefully a free first class ticket home, right chaps? Hopefully she'll be fine after this whole debacle, but it serves a valuable lesson.

Learn the customs of the foreign nations you visit.

Simple really, but so hard to actually do. For example, did you know that in Brazil, the okay sign,

means asshole? Spitting in public isn't considered bad manners in China? (Although they have a public campaign against it for health reasons and it being nasty.) It's bad manners to refuse food, um, somewhere. It's a huge sign of disrespect to show someone else the bottom of your foot in the Middle East? (Like when you sit cross-legged, so be careful) I'm sure someone has a book about things of this nature, and I'm sure it would be in the intro chapter of most good travel books, so read up!

The other lesson here is that the First Amendment is great, wonderful and just fucking awesome. For example, let's say the shoe was on the other foot and pretend that the Sudanese teacher named her class' teddy bear Jesus Christ. And say the government thought that would be horribly insulting to poor Jesus. So they tossed her in Leavenworth (or maybe Guantanamo) for a couple days then sent her ass back to Sudan. Does that sound a bit extreme? Or does that sound like a good idea?

Be careful, Jesus, Muhammed, Buddha, Vishnu and Mother Nature are always watching.

Edit(12/3/07): She was pardoned! Congrats to Gillian Gibbons and I'm sure she'll want to thank these two gentlemen:

The pardon came following efforts by Nazir Ahmed and Sayeeda Warsi, Muslim members of the House of Lords, to persuade the Sudanese government that releasing Gibbons would create international goodwill toward their country.

She was released 6 days before the end of her sentence. I think she's still being deported but probably wants out anyway. There were some protests calling for her execution, so it might be best to hang out in the UK and let this whole thing blow over before returning to a foreign country to teach.

Labels: 1st amendment, freedom of speech, injustice, sex and religion, The Big Lebowski

I rewatched the South Park movie over Thanksgiving break. Such a great movie and I still can't believe they got to sing "Uncle Fucker" during the Oscars. Nice work Matt and Trey!

I did get some work done but not much from here. It's nice working at home although the cats do get a bit annoying.

We worked concessions and J and I sold popcorn to people who hadn't eaten beforehand or feel its their duty to support Clemson by supporting Aramark and its overpriced food. 20 ounces of bottled soda is now $3.50 at all Clemson sporting events. Yikes. Thank Yahweh I haven't been to a professional sporting event recently cuz I really don't want to know what Aramark charges those poor souls. Go Capitalism!

Speaking of capitalism, we did not partake in the mayhem known as Black Friday. I did see that Wal-Mart had my Kitchen-Aid mixer, usually at least $250, on sale for $140 with a minimum of one per store. Great, so to save some money I would've had to camp in front of that store and then fought people off as I tried to find the one or maybe two mixers that were on sale. No thank you. Instead Mother Nature called, Subaru, his wife and I got up entirely too early (although not as early as you psychotic shoppers) at 6 am and drove up to Crowder's Mountain which is just over the state line in NC. J was supposed to go but chose warmth and sleep over hiking, exercise and climbing.

The hike isn't very long but its the elevation change you have to watch. It was a nice 40ish F degree weather but the wind had a nasty bite to it. We all layered and were mostly warm all day. I was making fashion statements left and right with my new iridescent red helmet, my green thermal shirt, blue thermal long johns and red shorts over the long johns; take that fashion! I had my favorite pair of comfy training pants that I would slip on over my climbing harness in between climbs because layers equals warmth! We didn't feel the effects of the cold until our last climb of the day. The rock had been in the shade all day and it was freezing! I wanted to finish strong so I climbed through the cold fingers and made it to the top. I need to start taking my camera places again. I haven't alot because it's old and we want a new one but that doesn't change the fact that I have one and it's better than nothing.

Huge thanks to Subaru and his wife for inviting me on their trip and for tying the ropes securely and none of us fell off the mountain! Hooray!

Saturday was sleeping and football. Clemson beat our in state rival, the University of South Carolina Gamecocks off a wonderful field goal by soccer star extraordinaire Mark Bucholz. Bucky had a solid soccer season and hopefully will cap his football season off with a bowl game victory. We're ranked 16th in the nation and will probably get a decent bowl. The closer to New Year's Day, the better!

J asked me what we should get the grandparents for Christmas. Ideally I would like to make it ourselves, but other than that, I have no clue.

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and don't worry about having to go back to school/work, Christmas is right around the corner!

Oh, you want to know what we (mostly me) made for Thanksgiving? We were in charge of the pumpkin pie (Paula Deen's recipe), the stuffing (Williams & Sonoma recipe, I left out the chestnuts because J doesn't like nuts in foods) and the mashed potatoes (W&S again).

What did YOU make?

Labels: Clemson, climbing, football, Subaru, Thanksgiving

Anyone watch Weeds on Showtime? We got hooked after renting the first season on DVD but thankfully the season just ended so we can cancel that expensive movie channel package. It's a great show and I highly recommend checking it out.

Barack Obama told some high school students that after he graduated high school (where he drank and used drugs) he realized that he had "wasted a lot of time". Not too many people can use drugs and be highly productive at their jobs. Some try, a few succeed, many more fail. Keep the drug use responsible people! Buy groceries, feed your kids, then after they're asleep, break out that gram of blow and go to town. Don't try and do lines while driving your kids to school. That's bad parenting.

Clemson University is open today but it's dead. Crazy dead. We have a solid 25% showing in our lab and I'm sure there are even less in other labs. It's nice though. Not too many distractions. I think I'll take my book outside and read during lunch.

J and I have instated "No TV Wednesdays". Both of us felt like we were watching too much TV, so to combat that, TV doesn't exist on Wednesdays from now on. This includes Wii too. So far it's been nice. Instead of make my breakfast and plop on the couch, I made breakfast and ate it while cleaning up our bedroom and then vacuuming. We won't be home much tonight; we're working concessions at the Clemson/Presbyterian College men's basketball game tonight. I think we're both going to like it and will probably add in another TV free day. What helped prompt this decision was the study J saw that found watching TV actually makes you stupider. I'll have to see if I can track down the reference or at least get J to refresh me on the details.

Big thanks to Subaru for sponsoring the Subaru Challenge this past Saturday, November 17! It was an autocross for Subaru vehicles and their sister cars made by Saab. I think there were 1 or 2 Saabs there. The majority were Subaru WRXs and STis with a few mid 90's Imprezas, a Legacy here and there and one SVX. I of course was co-driving Subaru's Subaru. His fastest time was a 49.576 and mine was a 49.671, so just a hair off his time. Subaru's regular co-driver was having some cone trouble and was a bit further back with a 50.163. We didn't think you could have 3 drivers in the same car in the same class, I moved to a higher class so I would drive in another group. They got 3rd and 4th in ESP and I locked down 4th in SM. RAW time I was 20th out of 99 and the tough SM PAX dropped me to 28. Basically PAX is a system that the SCCA conjures up to "equalize" all the classes. You multiply your raw time by the PAX to get your PAX time. ESP's PAX is 0.834 and SM is 0.856. The toughest class is AM and its PAX is 1.000. No mathematical help in that class. The "easiest" class is HS with a PAX of 0.792.

I was very pleased with my performance but really wanted to get Focus out there to see what she could do.

The course was very fast with some nice offset transitions. The fast parts were really fast, full throttle fast, and the slow stuff was fun with lots of steering input.

Full results by class
RAW time results
PAX time results

We're not going anywhere for Thanksgiving and I'm planning on working most of the time, so I'll see you later!

Labels: autocross, Subaru

We just ate there for lunch. It's "NY style" thin crust pizza and is my favorite in Clemson besides Mellow Mushroom.

I'm going to a friend's house tonight to hang out. We haven't really seen each other since my wedding and even then didn't get to enjoy each other's company. His wife won't be there so as J said, it'll be like high school again.

I um. gleeba glork. OH!

J and I finally watched Michael Bay's version of the Transformers. I went in with zero expectations and was not disappointed. I grew up watching Transformers and they have a special place in my heart. Although recently I rewatched Transformers The Movie and could barely get over the horribly cheesy 80's hair metal soundtrack, everything else was awesome.

We'll start with the bad cuz (does anyone mind that I abbreviate because with cuz?) that's the most fun. Bumblebee was a cute yellow Volkswagen beetle in the cartoon. GM was super incredibly obviously a sponsor of the movie and wouldn't stand for that, so they made him into a pretty cool late 70s/early 80s Camaro. Fine, no biggie and I understand that you have to make the check writers happy. THEN they go ahead and allow the Transformers to change what they transform into on the fly. Huh? Old Camaro Bumblebee was driving around, showing off, driving on 2 wheels, when he passes a brand new 2009 Camaro and then transforms into that. What? I guess that's ok but are they confined to transforming into automobiles? Could they transform into anything they want?

Next they attempted to give the Transformers mouths. In the cartoon they had large face plates covering the lower half of their face and the plate would bob up and down when they spoke. That has to be easier than trying to draw a robot mouth and make it look real. That didn't stop Michael Bay! He gave them weird robot mouths and we'll like it!

The robot form didn't really look like their other form but it wasn't terrible.

Megatron is a gun. In the movie he was a jet.

In the cartoon, the Transformers were the main characters and there were a couple humans who didn't get in the way of the robot on robot fighting action! Michael tried to have a plot and story and character development but none of that worked. Even that cute drunk kid from Holes couldn't save it. Speaking of which, don't watch Disturbia. Just don't. Sorry Shia. They briefly mentioned only a handful of Decepticons (the Transformer bad guys) and had just a bit more movie time devoted to the Autobots (the good guys). I really loved the scene where Shia sits in Camaro Bumblebee for the first time and wipes the dust off the center of the steering wheel revealing the Autobot emblem. That almost gave me chills and definitely brought a smile to my face.

Oh, I would also like to point out that Michael Bay saw no money from my viewing of his film. I borrowed it from a friend who bought it for some reason.

Basically it was an okay movie that made me miss my childhood and really made me want to watch old episodes of the Transformers cartoons.

Of course, lots of pretty special effects, most computer generated, but as usual, can't save Michael's movie from itself. I'd give it a solid C.

Labels: 80's TV shows, movie

Moe Syzlak from the Moe'N'Lisa episode, that's the episode where the Simpsons go to the WordLoaf writers' conference in Vermont. Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Franzen and Michael Chabon guest star (and/or voice). WordLoaf is a spoof of the actual Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College in Vermont.

The autocross was lots of fun on Sunday. I was the 3rd car out and spun out like crazy. I was coming off a turn and wasn't looking ahead like I'm supposed to and the first cone of a slalom caught me off guard so I cut the wheel hard to the left and tapped the brakes a bit. The rear end stepped out and there was nothing I could do. I didn't hit any cones though and didn't stall the car (because "in a spin, both feet in", that is both feet on the brake and clutch, or both feet on the brakes for automatic drivers), so pulled away and got a 50 second run. I shaved 9 seconds on my 2nd and 3rd runs down to 41.7 seconds. I figured I could go a bit faster in places and shaved another 0.7 seconds for a 41.0 flat. Good enough for 4th in class out of 13, 35 out of 153 in PAX, and 65 out of 153 in raw time. Not too shabby.

J and I cleaned last night. We've been in our current abode for 6 months now and it's time for a change. We moved the couches around and are getting rid of some things that I was supposed to sell on eBay but never got around to doing, so I will be freecycling them. It did clear up some nice space downstairs though. Of course now our spare bedroom is completely out of control, but we'll tackle that task at a later date.

If anyone likes Subarus, the Subaru Challenge will be coming to an Atlanta near you! We'll be at the Turner Field parking lots (the Green lot I believe) all morning and most of the afternoon this Saturday November 17th. This is an official Subaru event so they'll have examples of the newly redesigned 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX, and I think one is actually in the autocross. I'll be co-driving Subaru's Subaru. I can't wait!

Please click here for a sneak peak at the new Subaru World Rally Championship (WRC) Impreza WRX STi.

Labels: autocross, Subaru, weekend

My heart felt gratitude to all the veterans who have fought for this great country of ours. Especially thanks to both my grandfathers and Uncle Tony. I love you guys.

The autocross was lots of fun this weekend and since it was in Greenville, I made it home by 3 pm. Of course I left at 6:45 am.

I'll be back later with a recap of the event and some comments.

Labels: autocross, weekend

I hope you're having a glorious Friday. I know mine is going pretty well so far. J has finally decided to start climbing with me and has shown enough commitment to warrant getting her shoes, a harness, chalk bag, the works. This will be part of her Christmas presents. Since we don't have internet at our house, we haven't been able to order or even look around yet to see what's out there. Climbing shoes aren't cheap. They range from $60-$150. I need a new pair also. I'll be sure to post up the cute items she picks out. They will be cute, I guarantee.

I stumbled across the United Hollywood Blog while watching a video of some of the cast and writers of "The Office" as they were striking. I knew "Ryan" was a writer but didn't know that "Tobey" was one also. It's nice to see some of the actors supporting their writers by joining them on the picket lines. If anyone in SoCal is reading this and wants to join in the fun, THE picket line today will be at the Fox Plaza, but you better hurry. It starts at 10 am Pacific which is 1 pm Eastern. Fight the Power!

In delicious breakfast news, Jennifer "Jen" Causey runs a blog, Simply Breakfast, that is pictures of her breakfast. On October 18th, she enjoyed this:

Yum! Who doesn't love a bagel and coffee?

It looks to be updated most weekdays with a few missed days here and there. This is a really good idea. If only I could get my photos to look like hers. Lots of natural lighting. I'll see if we have a window that could make my breakfasts look that good.

What's that? You wish she had a book that showed her love of photography and all things breakfast? Ask and ye shall receive!

Labels: Breakfast, climbing

That was a pretty good South Park episode. So by now everyone knows that "Dog" the bounty hunter used the n-word while discussing his son's girlfriend, who is black. Whatever channel his show was on already pulled the plug. I'm sure that was just an excuse. Whoever greenlit his show had already been fired and they just needed a good excuse to pull it off the air. All speculation of course.

His son was actually the one who sold the recorded conversation to news outlets. Nice.

My question is, who cares? Are we really mad at a BOUNTY HUNTER for using a racial slur? If my child's role model is a freakin' bounty hunter, I have failed as a parent. I suppose Dog and Boba Fett have their place in society but that place is nowhere near political correctness and role model.

Tough break Dog but sometimes the limelight feels like a microscope. Good luck on your future bounties.

Curb Your Enthusiasm did a n-word episode also. It was pretty funny. I love when the white guy is lambasted for using the word and the black person becomes outraged and uses the word repeatedly. Hilarious. In defense of the n-word and why I don't feel it should be outlawed, I give you the immortal (paraphrased) words of Paul Mooney: I've been called it enough that I can use it whenever I damn well please. Right on Paul.

Labels: injustice

I think J and I should start a non-profit organization. It's such a great tax shelter and you get to help people while dodging taxes. Not that we pay tons of taxes but still. I keep hearing about all these pro athletes that have non-profit organizations and it's such a great idea. It's definitely a win-win-win situation. The athlete wins because he pays less taxes because he donates lots of money to his organization. His family gets a paycheck by running the non-profit and they give back to the community. Lastly the community wins because there is a non-profit helping them out and they can get some national coverage fairly easily because they're connected to a pro athlete.

Of course I don't think any of that would work if you didn't actually want to help people. The non-profit that helps no one but has lots of money only helps themselves. You gotta give back.

It would probably revolve around promoting reading to kids and adults, or spaying and neutering feral cats, or helping the environment. I think a non-profit that helped improve public parks and land would be really cool too but I don't have the botanical knowledge for that. I don't know. I do know that I have to get out of grad school so I can start implementing all these plans.

I really want to start a hydroponic garden. I don't know why but I'm really drawn to the idea of growing things without dirt. Plus I could recycle the water and hopefully make it eco-friendly too. I have also heard of aeroponic where you grow things in air, but that seems a bit too crazy for me.

It was almost freezing this morning. Ski season is just around the corner! J and I are planning our late Honeymoon for mid-January and we'll be going skiing. I can't wait. Hopefully it snows like mad in early January.

Labels: business idea, skiing

Why should they not get a cut of all avenues that their writings take? Ok, fine, you can get residuals for reruns but we get all the money from DVDs, downloads and merchandising. Sound good? No? Ingrates! Stupid writers! Any moron can write! Here, here's next week's General Hospital:
Open on a hospital bed. There lies some guy. He looks confused. "Who am I?" he says. Then a monkey comes crashing through the window and takes his blanket. Pan out from a glorious ass shot. Hot nurse comes in and there is some heavy petting. Then an elderly woman comes out of the bathroom and tells them they're brother and sister! Then they hop into a time machine and go to Seattle circa 1340. They're surrounded by trees. Glorious redwood, oak and maple. There's a deer! Then they're crushed to death by a velociraptor fighting Sasquatch. The End!

Ha! Told you any moron can write. Wait, what? That isn't good? So we're going to an all reality show all the time format? Take that writers! What? Millions of people cancelled their cable, DirecTV and Dish because there was only news, sports and reality TV? Oh. Maybe we should've given the writers a few more table scraps.

Ta-Da! Today's prediction for the future of TV has been brought to you by "Seth supports the Writer's Guild of America". Good luck guys and gals. If you need a place to crash, my couch is always open.

Labels: writing

Nope. Not kidding. Remember when I washed the first kinda cool cell phone I received? Well, J ordered a new one, in pink and that one lasted 4 days before I washed it. Note to everyone: check pants pockets before starting the washing machine.

Fortunately a friend had a couple old Cingular/AT&T phones laying around and donated them to us. Huge thanks to Subaru! Even though I am not allowed to have a nice phone yet, I always watch to see what the companies are coming out with. GPS, bluetooth, etc... I've previously stated that I like Helio's GPS phones and obviously I love Apple's iPhone. Hopefully the next gen iPhone will be right in my price range. I can handle iPods but not cell phones. Samsung has the Upstage for Sprint Services which is cool. It has screens on both sides of the phone. It's a "bar" style phone which I really like. Only problem is it's "only" $100 and that's only if you want to have Sprint service for the next 2 years.

Next up is the Juke by Samsung. This one is for Verizon's service. And it comes in various colors! Oooh! Wow. It's fairly thick. Yes it's a "thin" flip phone but is still very thick. Maybe a little larger than Pez dispenser sized. And it's supposed to be a sort of music player. Sure. Is it compatible with iTunes? And why does it take forever for the "Chat Live Now" people to respond back? Are they chatting with dozens of customers at once?

For reference, we are locked into AT&T until 2009 and when J gets my new cell phone in May, we'll be with Ma Bell until 2010. By then who knows if we'll still be using cell phones?

Labels: cell phone