xmas lights

you know how people put up christmas lights on their front lawns and on their trees and all? well how do they get the lights all the way up those really big trees? there's a house near me with a tree in front with lights all the way up to the top, and it must be about 50 feet high, no joke. how do they get them up there? i seriously can't think of one single way.

religion

it's kinda funny that i'm doing a blog about religion, since i may be the dumbest person on earth when it comes to the subject. one time i put a eucharist in my jacket pocket at a funeral because i didn't know i was supposed to eat it. then an hour later at the cemetery when someone asked me what i did with it i pulled it out of my pocket. then i proceeded to eat it as dicreetly as possible. i guess that was my jewish side at its finest. one of my funniest and dumbest moments all at once.

anyway, recently i've been thinking about what religion i am. it seems like i should know by now, right? technically, i'm half jewish and half christian, but that doesn't really mean anything. a good friend of mine, let's call her natalie r., always used to preach to me that it's impossible to be half anything when it comes to religion. i tend to agree. so that's out. conventional religion has eluded me.

then there are things like atheism - believing there is no god - and agnosticism - not knowing if there is a god or not. that last one always seems like a copout to me. i mean, no shit we don't know if there's a god, i could've told you that. knowing me though i probably screwed up that definition, even though i did just google it.

but i don't fall into either of those categories either. i say there is a god, but that's all. just, a god. why does he have to be attached to an established religion? can't i just believe in him? what's that called? theism? monotheism? scientology? my cousin, who is actually jewish, now describes himself as "indifferent" to the whole scene. but i don't think that's me. i think about god a lot and why stuff happens the way it does. who knows.

basically, i don't know what i am and i don't know what i'm not. i think i'm just ignorant.

today and tomorrow

so i'm in the car coming home from work tonight. it's like 1:15am and i'm listening to sports radio. the update guy comes on and talks about the iverson trade. then he says the sixers play their next game tonight. it always surprises me when they say that. it's only 1am. tonight isn't later on today; tonight already happened. i guess it begs the question, when does today become tomorrow?

i always get annoyed by those people who, once it's past midnight and they're talking about tomorrow, say "oh well actually i guess it's today now." oh i get it! it's after midnight, i see what you did there, very clever. to me, the next day doesn't start till you go to sleep and wake up.

but every time i hear that on the radio i also think, is there anyone out there for whom the sixers game actually is "tonight"? at 1am? i mean, is there some guy who's getting up at 12:30am, showering, eating breakfast, driving to work, turning on the radio and hearing the update and thinking"oh hey the sixers play tonight"? and if so, the game won't be on for another 18 hours anyway. and this guy probably goes to sleep at 6pm so he won't even be able to watch it.

even if there are lots of people like this, there are still 100 times more who are still up and have yet to sleep. so basically, radio update guys, put some thought into it next time.

funeral processions

i don't understand funeral processions. is it really so crucial that everyone get to the cemetery at the same time? is it worth interrupting traffic and inconveniencing hundreds of people along the way? i mean, everyone has directions anyway. i don't get this rule. how did it start anyway? one day people just declared that people going to a funeral have right of way, ignoring all red lights and other drivers? i bet it seemed like a pretty stupid idea when it was first introduced, but somehow it has become accepted in our society.

the other day i saw one going through this huge intersection near me, grant and the boulevard (i always brag about how it's the 3rd most dangerous intersection in the country, although they put those red light cameras up there a year ago, i got caught once, 100 dollar fine, i ran a red light by .03 seconds i think, what a joke). anyway, this one procession was going through, the light turns red, they continue to go. i don't know if the opposing traffic didn't realize what was going on, or just didn't care, but the procession just got totally obliterated. it was great. no accidents or anything, we all just inched our way forward until they slowed down and then we went through them. it was a like a rebellion or something. very surreal. i was glad to be a part of it.

deal or no deal

so i was watching deal or no deal the other day. i really don't like that show. i mean, they just give away money. i keep thinking, how do you become a contestant on this show? you can win thousands of dollars just for calling out numbers on briefcases. why doesn't everyone in america try to be on this show? it's free money. just seems weird.

but on to my point. every time i watch one of these game shows (millionaire, greed, weakest link, etc), i always have the same thought. say you were on deal or no deal, and you didn't take the banker's offer because you wanted more money, and you end up getting the 5 dollar briefcase or something when you could have had like 500,000 dollars. my question is: how could you live with yourself after that? knowing that you blew 500 grand on a hunch you had on a TV game show in front of the whole nation. or gambling on the million dollar question on millionaire and getting it wrong and only getting 32,000? i mean, how can you go home and sleep that night? or go to work the next day? i would be haunted by it forever. any money problems i had after that would just be that much worse. it could potentially ruin your whole life.

i also don't get how, when this happens, the contestant just smiles and takes it in stride. if it were me up there and that happened, i'd be catatonic. i'd start yelling and flipping chairs. i don't get how these people can have so much money on the line and hide their emotions so well when they blow it all. it's probably all fake.

this also happens on jeopardy at the end during final jeopardy. as they reveal everyone's answers and wagers, all the contestants are stone faced. wouldn't they be nervous about their opponents' answers? and when they see them, wouldn't they quickly do the math in their head to see what their new total is and if their wager was enough and all that? they never do that at all. i think trebek tells them they can't have any reaction whatsoever. they probably already know the result.

more random game show thoughts while i'm on the topic. whenever i watch wheel of fortune i start believing pat sajak has seen that wheel turn so many times in his life that he can tell where it's gonna stop before everyone else can. sometimes he'll say what it's on when it's like 4 spots away. it's amazing.

chicken tenders

so i'm at work tonight (i'm actually still at work writing this, don't tell anyone), and around comes dinner time so some people from the office (can i call it an office? it's not really an office building, more of a complex). so three people from the complex get food from this place we frequent called angelo's, i pass because i'm not that hungry. so the food arrives and the two guys i'm with start eating right away. but the third guy, nick, can't be found anywhere in the complex.

so the aroma wafts my way and of course i start getting hungry. and i start wondering what to do in this situation. can i eat this dude's food? how long do i have to wait? i joke to my colleague brad, who got the food, that if he's not back in 5 minutes i'm eating his food. half joke, that is. i mean, i was hungry, and we all know i love food. so 5 minutes later i'm about to eat it and brad says you better give me the 8 bucks for that if you eat it. the following conversation ensues.

J - 'but nick already gave you the money for it right?'
B - 'yeah'
J - 'so i shouldn't have to pay you'
B - 'but you're eating his food, you gotta pay for it'
J - 'but not you, if nick shows up then i'll pay him'
B - 'if nick shows up he'll wonder why you're eating his food'

i realize i am stuck. i say look, i'll go look for nick so at least i can say i made an effort to make sure he didn't miss out on his food. of course i really just wanted to make sure he wasn't still here and about to burst in and see me gorging myself on his chicken tenders.

long story short, i pay brad the 8 bucks and eat the tenders, which of course were cold after all this deliberation. but i can't help feeling i got screwed here. i should've gotten that food for free, and that way, next week, if nick says anthing, i'll pay him. if he says nothing, then oh well, his loss. don't buy food and not eat it. if i were him and i came in the next week and found out someone had eaten my food, i'd feel like an ass asking for the 8 dollars for it.

this touches on another tricky food related topic. when people order food and there are leftovers, i.e. pizza slices, and everyone is full, can the guy who didn't get anything have it? does he have to pay? are the original buyers entitled to save it for tomorrow? after 4 years of encountering this in college, i still don't know the answer.

new orleans

it's been awhile since my last blog, i'm sure you're all very upset and feeling empty inside. very long entry this time to make up for time off.

this story started back in april, when i began looking at tickets for eagles road games. saints tickets were about 4 times cheaper than everywhere else, so i started thinking about it. this would give me a chance to go to one of the sweetest party cities in the country, drive through the south and knock off like 5 more states i've never been to, satisfy my newfound love for road trips, and oh yeah, go to an eagles game for only 25 bucks. so the next night i drunkenly purchased 4 tix, saying at the time that actually having the tickets will make us make it happen, and if we can't do it, i'll just sell them and get my money back. and so it was done. fast forward 6 months, and i had found two others to make the trip with me, oh and a free hotel room also.

we left at 2am friday morning, got there at 8pm. some would say driving all day on a friday the 13th is a bad omen, but oh well. checked in, ate, hit bourbon street. nothing better than talking to people that night and telling them we just drove 19 hours and then immediately went out and partied it up. a true hero's welcome. near the end of the night, we started jawing with two saints fans. the pushing and yelling somehow lasted for 20-25 minutes, even though their whole argument consisted of repeated yellings of "who dey?!" i thought that was the bengals chant, but maybe every southern team uses it. it was funny, though, to watch all the hot girls slowly move away from our ongoing argument. at one point i said something to the effect of "no way we're gonna lose to this piece of shit city." they didn't seem to like that too much.

regarding the hurricane, the city itself seems fine for the most part. on the drive in you could see wreckage that clearly just hadn't been touched, and lots of houses that were just abandoned. they seem to all be able to joke about it, though, as evidenced by the many drinks named after hurricanes (the katrina rita being my favorite), as well as hilarious gift shop merchandise. as i always say, if we can't laugh at ourselves, what can we laugh at? and if there was any city that could laugh about this, it's new orleans, or at least any city in the south. the southern hospitality was noticeable, they clearly know how to have fun down there. the town was probably founded by a bunch of boozehounds.

just look at bourbon street, which is pretty much the greatest place ever. there are approximately 519 bars packed into like 8 blocks, they stay open till 5, no covers, you can buy beers and drinks on the street, you can drink on the street, lots of live bands, 64 ounce beers, and cops who were drinking beers right next to us. one fun thing is the shot girls that populate every bar. they approach you and force test tubes full of alcohol down your throat in very suggestive ways. then just as your stomach starts to churn, they ask you for 3 bucks. my favorite was this russian chick who caught me ogling her as she walked by, then made a b-line for me, said 'yes you vill take shut now,' and then afterwards grabbed an extra dollar out of my hand as she explained, 'teep for me.' thanks natasha. i felt so used.

one highlight of the weekend was driving my eagles-decked-out car down bourbon street past tons of eagles fans while blaring the eagles fight song on repeat. the best. ratio of eagles fans to saints fans: approximately 12-1, not even kidding. eagles fans really do travel everywhere. made me very proud. saturday afternoon we sampled some local cuisine at acme restaurant by getting some po' boys. basically a big sandwich that you can get anything on, mainly seafood. i got the acme special, which was roast beef, ham, turkey, american cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo, all covered in gravy. for dessert i had the triple bypass. good stuff.

sunday morning we hit bourbon st. at about 10:30 to find it as lively as ever, filled with all eagles fans drinking as if it were 10:30pm. we then marched all the way through the city to the superdome, reciting eagles chants all along the way. possible highlight of the trip, seeing as how the game itself was a letdown. one thing about the dome is that it was a lot louder than i expected, almost deafening noise. that's the one thing i'll give saints fans credit for. certainly not for all the shit they gave us on the way out. the worst was the father and son in front of us who kept talking to us after the game, at first being assholes then being annoyingly nice. the dad was hell bent on giving us his phone number so we could meet up with him next time we came down. which he did, while forgetting to give us the area code. he even said to me, 'bring your mom down, too.' the son then sat down next to me and said "i really think god wanted the saints to win this game." i wanted to say something so badly but i didn't, which was probably good. yeah clearly god loves you guys, he gives you one of the worst disasters in history, kills thousands and causes billions in damage, then feels bad about it so he tries to make it up to you by rooting for the saints. that must be it. don't even get me started. although if matt bryant can hit a 62 yard field goal to beat the eagles, maybe god really is against us. but like i said don't get me started.

we kept it relatively chill that sunday night. i had my 64 ounce beer, which i now love and wish they sold in every bar in the country. on the way back we drove across the pontchartrain causeway, a 23-mile long bridge that goes over lake pontchartrain. that means i went over the world's longest bridge and the world's longest bridge over ice-covered waters within a 16-day period. i wonder if anyone's ever done it quicker.

we stopped at a sonic on the way back, which i've wanted to go to for a long time. it took like 5 minutes to figure out how to order, but it was worth it. sonic is my new favorite fast food place. they have everything. burgers, chicken sandwiches, nuggets, coneys, burritos, popcorn chicken, shakes, ice cream, a ton of drinks. it's every fast food place rolled into one. so good.

some trip specs: 2570 miles, 40 hours of driving, 9 states. all to see the eagles lose on a last-second field goal. oh well, it was worth it.

road trip

this weekend i took a road trip with my cousin to maine and canada. our main destination was west quoddy head, maine, the easternmost point in the united states. but after that we also trekked deep into canada all the way to prince edward island in order to hit up 3 provinces. why? just to say we've been there. this is really my motivation for going to 80 percent of the places i wanna go, just to say i've been there. i'm getting obsessed with it lately actually. it did, however, lead to a funny conversation with the customs guys entering canada.

'where are you from?'
'philadelphia'
'where are you going?'
'prince edward island'
'what for?'
'just to go and see what it's like'
'that's all?'
'yeah we just wanted to go and see some provinces'
'when are you coming back?'
'tomorrow'
'so you're driving all the way from philadelphia to prince edward island and back in two days just to see what it looks like?'
'yup'

we realized afterwards that it probably did sound like a made up story. but as i said to my cousin, "two idiots like us are the last people they should be worried about letting into their country."

anyway, the easternmost point of america is just as boring looking as you might expect. but i was thrilled by the whole thing, especially by the humor of things such as parking in the easternmost parking spot in the U.S., and taking my easternmost piss ever in the U.S. above is a picture of me at the absolute extreme eastern tip of america. pretty cool stuff, huh?

ironically, only a few miles away we passed a building on the side of the road called the 45th parallel, which made us realize that we were on the 45th parallel, which means we were in the exact middle of the northern hemisphere, equidistant from the north pole and the equator. another small thrill. also, maine foliage is very beautiful.

so i added maine to my states-been-to list, pushing it to 22, and we forged ahead into canada. this marked my first time in the atlantic time zone (GMT -4). we flew through new brunswick and onto prince edward island, arriving at charlottetown, the capital, at 10:30pm, only 1070 miles later. after being awake for 30 something straight hours, i fell asleep approximately 1.3 seconds after my head hit the pillow that night.

getting off the island was interesting for one reason. the only bridge that connects to the mainland is the confederation bridge, which is 8 miles long and only one lane each way. the toll was $40.50 canadian. that's $36.23. 36 fucking dollars to cross a bridge. this just went to prove my point that they can really charge whatever they want for bridge tolls, because what else are you gonna do? especially on prince edward island. it's either load your car onto a ferry for 100 bucks and take forever getting over, or buy a house on PEI and start a new life. when our american cards wouldn't work in the ATMs near the bridge and we didn't have enough cash for the toll, i was relieved to find that some lanes actually have machines that let you pay with a credit card. this led to my declaration that if you need a card machine at the toll booth, the toll is too high.

back on the mainland, we drove into nova scotia for a few minutes to say we'd been there, too. on the way back came the moncton magnetic hill theme park. legend goes that this one little hill has had magical magnetic powers for centuries. and if you park your car at the bottom of it and put in neutral, it will roll backwards up the hill. so we pay 5 canadian bucks to do it, and sure enough, it worked, and we rolled all the way back up the hill. it was cool, but it also left a lot to be desired, somehow.

a side note about the canadian highway system. someone needs to introduce the concept of rest areas to these people. any time you want gas, you get off at the exit, and then have to drive four more miles to find the actual station, which is just in some nearby town. and there may or may not be a sign to guide you there. very frustrating.

to pass the time we decided to learn all the canadian provinces and their capitals. we then came to the conclusion that there are less than 500 people in america that can do this, and we are now two of them. we also listed every country we could name in the world, and came up with 156. on the way back, i wondered if we were the first people to eat in both a canadian and american subway on the same day. probably not.

all in all a great trip. some specs: 2023 miles, 33 hours spent driving, 3 provinces, 7 states. next up: new orleans, with a quick stop in syracuse first.

4 hours

so we've all seen those commercials for viagra or cialis or whatever it is, and the part comes where they say if erection lasts 4 hours call your doctor. of course this line provides for approximately 475,273,409 jokes to be made about it, but i figured i'd chime in with my thoughts on such a situation.

to me the worst part would be about an hour in when your realize the problem, and you remember the 4 hours thing, and you know you have to wait another 3 hours before you can do anything. it must be funny at around the 3:45 mark. "okay i'm gonna give it 15 more minutes! if it's not better by then i'm driving to the hospital, i swear!"

but what if you can't wait that long and you go after a few hours. they'll probably ask you how long it's been and then you'd have to sit there in the waiting room - very awkwardly - until 4 hours hits.

those viagra commercials always creep me out anyway. the guy comes home and gives his wife this look, and she smiles and looks away all shy. they make it seem so happy and innocent but i'm just like, "i know why you guys are smiling, you're both gonna get some for the first time in a long while."

haircut

i got a haircut today. i don't really like haircuts that much because i never know where to go. as a kid i never had a barbershop my parents would always take me to. my mom cut my hair for a long time. i've been going to master cuts recently because i got one of those cards that gives me a discount if i get 10 haircuts there. i'm at like two right now and i feel so pathetic asking them to stamp it at the end because it seems so far away, and it's only for 10 dollars off, not even a whole free haircut. doesn't even seem worth the effort to take it out of my wallet 10 times.

if it were worth one free haircut i would be so anxious the whole time during my free one. we would walk to the counter and i would bust out my card, much like seinfeld in that old american express commercial where he tries to top off his gas so it hits exactly 20 dollars. lights would shine and angels would sing. i'd say "excuse me, but i believe this one is on you guys!" and then i'd have to tip the lady anyway.

anyway, onto the origin of this post. today at hair cuttery i had this girl who was cool, and we were talking the whole time. probably the second best haircut convo i've ever had. (number one occurred back in april up at school, hot girl, good laughs, sparks flew, emotions ran high, she actually looked at me man, tractor beam, sucked me right in)

but today this girl was more concerned with talking than actually cutting my hair. and the most awkward thing about haircut convos is the mirror in front of you. she would stop cutting and stand literally directly to my right, and look at the mirror to talk to me. so instead of looking at each other, we were communicating through the mirror. and it's extra weird because you have to look at yourself at the same time. it's like watching yourself on TV and seeing how uncool you really are when you talk to girls.

and then walking out after the haircut is always odd. i always wonder if people are staring at my hair. and i wanna just violently rub my head to get all the loose hairs out, but i wait until i'm far enough away so the girl won't see me. is that insulting to them? seems like it could be. i'm just too damn nice.

maps

it must have been exciting for map makers when we finally got into outer space and got high enough to see what the outlines of the continents looked like. because until then, they didn't really know if their maps were correct. no one had ever seen the earth from above, like a map depicts.

so when pictures of the earth first started coming back from the first satellite or whatever, all the map makers were probably very nervous. what if they were totally wrong? "oh that's what america looks like! we were way off!" and then they woulda had to change all their maps. i'm assuming they were right, though. and that was probably a pretty good feeling.

new orleans

so i got my eagles-saints tickets in the mail today. the game is at new orleans on october 15th. the tickets were soaking wet when i took them out of the envelope. i guesss they're not fully over katrina yet. ZING!

in reality the tickets were wet because the package was sitting outside my front door all evening in the rain. however that rain was from the remnants of hurricane ernesto. that's kinda ironic.

if there are any eagles fans out there who wanna road trip with me to new orleans for the game, let me know. i have 4 tix.

cruise control

here's a fun game to play while driving on the highway to avoid a boredom-related accident.

put your car on cruise control and see how far you can drive without touching the brakes or gas. the faster you go the harder it is, obviously. i played yesterday at 74mph and went for 45 miles, on just a 2-lane highway, too. i think that's pretty impressive, but i'm sure the record is much higher than that.

delray beach

so i was at work today (i just like saying that), and this woman came in to the room where i work at. she noticed i was wearing a shirt that said delray beach, florida on it. so she says to me, "oh, do you live in delray beach?" think about it for a second. what a stupid question.

yeah, i live in florida and i work in new jersey. i make the commute every day. it's costly, but it leaves me just enough money to buy this sweet delray beach t-shirt so people can ask me dumb questions like that.

right after she said it though i think she realized it and said, "or do your parents live there?" good cover. still, i found this funny.

motorcycles and ezpass

i was playing grand theft auto the other day, and a thought came to me. do motorcycles have radios? seems like it would be really hard to hear anything while driving even remotely fast. and it would be very distracting to change the dials and all.

expanding this thought, motorcycles probably don't have a lot of stuff you'd find in a normal car. CD players, tape decks, heat, AC, glove compartments... how inconvenient.

i wonder if you can get ezpass for a motorcycle. where would you put it? i just got ezpass a few weeks ago, i love it, i wish i had gotten it the day they invented it. one funny thing about it is when you go through a lane that can be either ezpass or cash. the toll booth person obviously doesn't know whether you are gonna pay with cash or ezpass until you roll up beside them. so when i stop for the ezpass to register, there's always an awkward second or two where they lean toward me for the money, but i just stare straight ahead waiting for the bar thing to go up and let me through. when it does i just wave to the person and go.

those toll booth people must hate the ezpass/cash lanes, because they never know if they're getting cash or an ezpass person. it probably already sucks enough to have to work there. you can't even bring a book to read because you'd never get any free time to read it, you're constantly being bugged by cars coming through. never a moment's peace.

one great thing is the random hot girl that works at the toll booth. it's like finding a quarter on the ground; it lifts your spirits, but in reality it means absolutely nothing. you start thinking how could a girl this hot get stuck working here. i almost wanna ask them to get in the car with me.

hitting a light

when you're driving around, what exactly is 'hitting a light'? see i used to think it meant a green light that you could drive right through. because a hit is a positive thing, as in hit or miss, hit being good and miss being bad. but lately i dunno if this translates to traffic lights. people seem to use hit more when talking about running into a red light, as in like, "i can make it in 20 minutes if i don't hit any lights." i'm still torn on this issue.

in matters that actually mean something, i now have a niece. josephine anne koven. sounds like someone from the 17th century, but i'm sure i'll get used to it. i can either go with joe, joey, or josie. think i'll go with joey. i wanted a girl because now i have a nephew and a niece. i'm also excited about having an infant in the family again because now i can bring back all those great baby-killing jokes that i ran into the ground two years ago after my sister had her first born. i know that sounds terrible, but come on, those jokes are hilarious. everyone knows that.

cop cars

a quick late night thought. i was driving behind a cop car for a few minutes tonight and i wondered...

it must be really annoying for cops when they drive on the highway or any big road, because they're always gonna be stuck behind a guy who is doing the speed limit because there's a cop behind him. since everyone around them is going slower than they want to go, they constantly have to weave through all the cars. that's stressful driving. no wonder cops are such assholes when they finally pull someone over.

helen keller

i was just watching an episode of south park where they put on a play about helen keller. it was pretty weird, but it got me thinking about ms. keller (i'm assuming she's a ms., i mean who would ever marry her?)

anyway, her whole deal was that she was blind and deaf from birth, but somehow she managed to learn how to write and communicate and live and drive a car. ... alright i made up the part about the car, but the rest is true (subtle reference right there).

i'm sorry, i just don't buy it. imagine being blind and deaf your whole life. how would you even know who the fuck who were, or what you were, or what a human is, or what anything is? you'd be completely clueless forever. it's not like someone can tell you, hey you're blind that's why you can't see any of us, because you're deaf. and people couldn't motion to you that you're deaf because you're fucking blind.

i was gonna say i'd wanna kill myself, but the thing is, even if she did want that, did she know what death was? she's just a blob sitting there. i'm sure she felt pain and all, but no way she could've figured out the concept that lots of pain leads to death. how sad.

and another thought just crossed my mind. was she the only person ever who was blind and deaf? there have to have been others. imagine how much life sucked for these guys. not only are they blind and deaf, but their whole lives they're being compared to helen keller, who was clearly more kickass than any of them ever will be. she was the most successful one of their kind. and it's not like they can even use her story as an inspiration, cause how are they gonna even know who she was and what she accomplished?

alright well this blog is sending me straight to hell, if it wasn't already decided.

EDIT: i just discovered that she was actually perfectly healthy until she was 19 months old, making this entire blog pointless. probably shoulda researched before writing this. oh well. and now that i think about it, i lost some respect for her. she was fine for a year and a half. helen keller = overrated.

south carolina

i got back yesterday from myrtle beach, south carolina. usually i don't post about my life because it's boring but this was pretty cool so why not.

south carolina was my 21st state i've been to, and that includes states i've only been to because of airplane stopovers. yes that counts. i'll argue this point to the death, even though i've found not many people agree with me. my goal is to go to all 50 states.

i thought new york bars were expensive. in myrtle beach the standard cover is 10 dollars. although that can be brought down to 8 with a handy coupon printed by a machine at the hotel. man am i cheap. when our waiter at pizza hut told us to go to this one place because you can pay one cover and get into 12 bars, we were very excited. but when we went we found out that by 12 he meant 3, and when he said that senor frog's was one of the 12, he actually meant it wasn't.

one day we went to a beach with all black people. literally everyone around us was black. i thought about it and realized that this must be what it's like for a lot of black people who are always surrounded by white people. it made me think about race in a different way after being in a situation like that.

all south carolina liquor stores close at 7pm every day. that really sucks. and in one place, they took a picture of me because i was under 25. weird.

oh and i also almost got arrested on the drive down and one night i got thrown to the ground by a bouncer. i can cross those things off my life to do list i guess. and the one night i did 14 shots in an hour, my new personal best. that was the bouncer night.

i wonder what the most shots anyone's taken in a night is. freshman year at school i watched my RA take about 35 shots of vodka, and he claimed he did 50 that night. he was kinda large though so i guess it could've been true.

and oh yeah, i got a job too. what a relief that is, and finally i won't be so piss poor.

the insert key

this has to have happened to everyone in the world who has used a computer. you know that 'insert' key near the backspace that you always hit by accident? and it makes you type over what you already wrote instead of inserting it inbetween? does anyone ever use this key for its real purpose?? i say no. it has only ever caused frustration to me, never help.

if i could vote one key off a keyboard it would be either this one or the windows logo key between ctrl and alt. i've never used that one.

nothing to lose

one thing that always really bugs me while watching sports is when the announcer will say 'this team really has nothing to lose." it's heard most during playoff time, when a heavy favorite is taking on an underdog. or sometimes if a team is making a late comeback in a desperate effort to win the game. they always say this team has 'nothing to lose.'

not true. they have the GAME to lose. by definition, a game is something you can lose. and if it's a playoff game, they also don't have just the game to lose, but also their entire season in which they worked so hard to get to that point. actually, they have everything to lose.

in fact, it would be quite a disadvantage if one team indeed had 'nothing to lose.' if, say, the outcome of the game didn't matter at all because said team was gonna advance anyway. that just wouldn't be fair at all. and even then there would be potential injuries to star players, that's something to lose.

what a stupid saying.

the origin of words

this is a topic that i've tried to write about before but somehow i can't express it clearly into words and it just ends up sounding dumb. so i'm gonna try and keep it short.

do you ever wonder where certain words come from? obviously the majority of words have logical latin roots or are combinations of existing words or whatever. but there a lot of words that simply couldn't have been around when language was invented/discovered.

just off the top of my head, take the word paint. who the hell knows when paint was invented, but i'd guess sometime in the last millenium. so when the first carpenter or scientist or whoever came up with paint, where did he get the word from? did he just slap it on a wall and say, 'hey i think i'll call that paint!' it must have sounded totally strange at the time, but somehow it became part of our everyday vernacular.

some may say that all words have specific derivations and etymologies. okay but even if 'paint' came from something else, this dude probably didn't know about it, he's just some guy who invented paint, he wouldn't know about languages and derivations and all that. and sometimes a name is given to something and then the public renames it based on what they like because it catches on. well where would the masses get some random word like paint from?

this works for all kinds of words, mainly objects that are relatively recent addtions to our way of life. just look around your house. rug, window, cement, desk, pencil, curtain, fireplace. okay that last one was a joke. but surely, language was pretty set in stone by the time these things were introduced to society.

many i have posed this question to have dismissed it as a stupid question that probably has a simple answer. but if you can't tell so far, that could be the answer to a lot of my blogs.

whose fault?

i was driving around today, in my painfully hot car which no longer has AC, and i saw an ambulance on the road and started thinking. ambulances, when they have patients in them (are they called patients? or just passengers? i say you don't acquire patient status until you actually get inside the hospital), anyway, when this is the case, they have their lights and sirens on and can run red lights and people have to move to the side to get out of their way and all.

well what happens if you get in an accident with an ambulance? is it your fault automatically? say you're driving along coming up to a green light listening to some loud music. an ambulance is racing along with a passenger in the back on the intersecting road approaching the same light, and for them it's red. you don't hear the sirens and you collide with the ambulance. (i know they slow down and all, but there was bad visibility at this intersection and you got in a wreck).

are you at fault? would you have to pay to repair your car and the ambulance? my hunch is yes you would. but i mean, all you did was go through a green light. it seems the ambulance's only defense would be that you're supposed to hear their sirens and slow down. is it your fault because you were listening to loud music? and it's not like you could stop and exchange insurance and all because they would still be in a rush to get to the hospital.

if they said it was my fault i'd be pretty pissed, but i probably wouldn't get a lot of sympathy because after all i did just hit an ambulance with some dying guy in it.

EDIT: tim pointed out that new york state has a law that you're not allowed to listen to music so loud that you can't hear emergency vehicles. i imagine all states are probably like this.

but this raises another question, can a police officer arrest you for playing music too loud while you're just driving? if so, how loud is too loud? is 6 dots too much? i like to play mine at 6 dots. of course the dots aren't a universal system. there doesn't seem to be a standard scale for dots or bars or numbers in car audio systems. and how could the cops prove what you're listening level was? sound radar? this is just a legal mess waiting to happen.

what would you see?

what if someone made a room that had mirrors on the walls, ceiling, and floor. all mirrors everywhere you looked, you're totally surrounded. what would you see? i guess you would see just you, because everywhere you looked your line of sight would bounce all around the room and eventually back onto you. i'm trying to think what it would look like, but i really have no idea. i bet it would look really cool though.

now say for a second you were invisible and you were in this room. what would you see then? if it's all mirrors then what would they reflect? there would be nothing to have light bounce off of and onto the mirrors. in fact now that i think about it this room would be pretty dark, like pitch black, because if you put a light in it would just reflect that. hmm. what if you brought in a flashlight with you and waved it around. that would be awesome i think.

what about one-way mirrors? a portion of one wall could be a one-way mirror, and you could shine light through from the other side. does light go through a one-way mirror? that would be kinda weird, i mean, what would it look like from the mirror side? maybe that wouldn't work. if it did though, you wouldn't have to be invisible because you could just be in the room on the other side with the light and looking through the window. and the room would still be all mirrors. wow, what would you see?

EDIT: nicole found this helpful and interesting link: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question421.htm. the last paragraph says that shining a light through from another room would not work. damn. something tells me i'm trying to play god here. god shmod, i want my mirror room!

where'd they come up with that?

i think a great idea for a book would be to talk to a lot of famous bands and groups from all genres and eras of music and find out why they named their group what they did. there's thousands of groups out there but unless you're a hardcore fan, you really never hear about the origins of their name.

each group could get a few paragraphs or so. there's probably a lot of funny stories to be told here. what a great coffee table book that would be, and a good conversation starter as well. i'd definitely buy it.

i bet a lot of bands would just be like, it sounded cool, so we made it our name, and probably wouldn't have cool stories. they could all get listed at the back or something. but yeah, i should try to publish this.

how many time zones can there be?

i started this blog for three reasons: a) my cousin has one and it's pretty funny and after reading what he has to say about the world i feel like i have some things to say as well ... 2) i sit at home a lot these days and have nothing better to do ... and d) reason number two all over again, it's important enough to be listed twice.

since my life isn't very exciting, i'll just use it to post about random shit that enters my head. it will serve much better purpose this way.

first topic. i'm adjusting my profile on this website, and it wants my time zone. fair enough. but there weren't just 24 options, one for each hour. there were like 200, including about 30 different cities for the eastern time zone alone (the old -5:00 GMT).

first, what possible reason could there be for the government - or whoever does it - to distinguish all these zones from one another? i know there are some half hour exception deals here and there around the world, but 30 different cities in the eastern zone alone? something else is going on here. do these places really all have their own area-specific time rules? how confusing.

second, why was philadelphia not on this list? hello, 4th biggest city in the country, or something like that. i saw a town called knox, indiana on the list. i have legitimately never heard of this city. if there are any bloggers from knox, this must have made their life. why do some loser towns get listed on these lists but not the biggest ones? something tells me the answers to both these questions are related to each other. begrudgingly, i went with new york, although san juan was tempting...

another thought. it dawned on me that the eastern time zone is probably the best damn time zone in the whole world. think about it. new york, philly, boston, montreal, toronto, baltimore, dc, atlanta, miami, orlando, pittsburgh, knox, even detroit is in our zone (i was surprised to learn this). and that's just in north america. im sure some of brazil is in there too, and you know how hot the girls are down there. seriously, what other time zone is fucking with us? i say none.

be proud, east coasters!

EDIT: nevermind about brazil, i was way off!! check it out: http://www.travel.com.hk/region/timezone.htm look at asia, could these zones make less sense? why couldn't they just draw vertical lines?

EDIT #2: check out the border between pakistan and china. if you walk from pakistan into china, you jump forward 3 hours! when i get enough money saved to travel the world this will be one of my stops.