cyberinferno

I decided to take Trife's advice and record a video of people entering the building which I mentioned in my previous entry. My hilarious commentary also accompanies the video. I recorded all the clips separately because the "flash" on my phone glows red while it's recording, and I didn't want to be obvious about the whole thing. To be more discrete, I did put my finger over the light and held it by my waist while I sat down, but I think anyone who had looked in my at the phone would have noticed it. Without further ado, here is the video.

LEAVE ME COMMENTS!!!

Once upon a time, I was driving to UTD for my Physics lab when I passed a school bus. The children on it were holding a sign. Though I normally would not have payed any attention to their antics, I couldn't help but catch a glimpse of their it as I passed the bus. It was so shocking that I actually slowed down to let the bus catch up to me to confirm what my peripheral vision had suggested. They raised their sign again when they saw me again (I assume they just noticed the same car and were not actually targeting me). As you have probably ascertained from the title of this post, their sign said, "Honk if you're not gay!" I mused about whether or not to give them the satisfaction of getting my attention much less my honk.

As I thought about it, I realized the kids were rather clever with their sign. First, it was attention grabbing. Second, it was something different than every the standard sign. Third, they play off most people's homophobic mindsets and are also targeting the vast majority of society with the sign. And the funny thing is that I don't think I'm giving them too much credit here. I think when they thought of what to put on a sign, they probably took into account most of these factors.

So what was a young liberal with a strong belief in equal rights for homosexuals and gay marriage to do?

I honked

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I would like to thank you all for your contributions to my MyCokeRewards account. And by "you all" I mean Trife. She regularly gives me codes for Coke bottles (mostly 2L) and occasionally a Sprite. My mom has also contributed quite a bit, as did my Physics of Astronomy class last semester. Oh, and Will contributes quite a bit with the 12-can boxes. But I want the rest of you to feel guilty. Yeah...feel that guilt. You know you've consumed Coke products. All you had to do was text me the code...that's actually the easiest method since I can then just forward the text to COKE (2653). Though I recently added a MyCokeRewards widget, so it's super easy from my computer too now. Anyway, enough with my bitching. I still love you all...I would just love you more if you gave me Coke codes.

So without further ado, this is for Trife:







Yeah, it's fucking sexy. It sits happily on the ledge above my monitor between my speakers, smiling at me, reaffirming my love for Diet Coke.

Oh, and even after redeeming these points, I'm still trying to save up enough for an alarm clock/iPod dock, so please keep (or start) sending codes!

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This is an entry I've been contemplating for quite some time now, and since trilogies are awesome (even if at least one part typically sucks. I'm not talking about you, Back To The Future), I figured I could throw it in here and get away with it being a sort of half-assed entry.

I really hate automated doors. Without further explanation and justification, this might be construed as my contempt for people who are physically handicapped. That is not my intention at all. I was on crutches for six weeks. I know how difficult it is to get around when your legs are not both in working condition. And many people would give their left nut (sorry, not sure about female equivalent here cause left breast just doesn't work) to have that sort of mobility. So I have nothing against the handicapped.

What I hate about these contraptions is that they open so damned slowly. Not just that, but because they're automated, no amount of force will make them open any faster. Push/pull with all your might, and you might actually get the door to go move an inch farther than it wants, but not much, and it will quickly snap back that amount if you release it.

UTD is a very friendly school for physically handicapped people. so about half the doors are like this. And to further annoy me, there is no consistent pattern to which doors are automated. Yes, I know if I really paid attention, they are labeled (some more prominently than others). But that's too much to ask for someone who is just trying to enter a building with some sense of rapidity. I notice others entering buildings using counterintuitive doors, and I can only assume they do so in order to avoid these contraptions. I have 15 minutes to kill between my first and second class on TR, so I will sometimes just chill outside and watch people entering the building (since when exiting, the manual door is in the natural place on the right). I know I'm not alone in my contempt for these mechanisms.

There must be a better way to have doors open. I propose vertically opening, sliding doors. Why vertically opening? Because it would be fucking badass. I should start a fund or something and put a locked box outside each one of these bastard doors.

Or I could always just use the other doors

Saw this car while I was getting sushi with Mehul. Any thoughts?

I would first like to start by wishing everyone out in LJ-land a happy new year. I hope you all imbibed enough to have a fun night whilst avoiding the dreaded new year's hangover.

With that in mind, have you all made your new year's resolution? More importantly, do you remember your resolution for the past year? I find it funny that we all resolve to do to something, and not only do we most likely fail to accomplish it, but we forget it by the end of the year. Personally, I'm fairly sure mine was to simply get decent grades so, for once, I think I actually succeeded. However this year, instead of a nice, simple resolution, I have resolved to procrastinate less. While it doesn't sound complicated, my procrastination is special in that it extends to just about every aspect of my life. I procrastinate about taking out the trash, writing LJ entries (I still have two "drafts" that I haven't written), getting my car fixed (check engine light has been on for about a month), depositing checks in my bank (with multiple locations less than two miles from the apartment), etc. And that doesn't even take into account schoolwork. Just about the only thing I don't procrastinate about is brushing my teeth in the morning and that's just because my breath tastes like ass (or how I imagine ass since I have not experienced it for myself). I'm of course realistic to acknowledge that procrastination is a part of life for everyone, which is why my resolution is to simply lessen the amount of procrastination. Here are just a couple things I've procrastinated about:

• Getting my car checked out. It has issues when it hits higher RPM's with hesitation...which is probably why the check engine light is on. Oh, and my battery died today which is now the 3rd time in about as many months. I think it's time to get that replaced too (and I'm doing it tomorrow with my Dad).
• Getting my car sound system fixed. It's not just the amp that's blown anymore. Now the head unit is dead, which means that my cell phone is doubling as a sound system for my car. And while its speakers are impressive for a phone, they're not the best quality for cranking music while doing 80 down the tollway.
• Call Bullova about getting my watch repaired. I've been putting this one off since, oh, July or so for no good reason whatsoever. I've got the original box it came in as well as the original sales receipt, and if I wait about four months longer, it will be out of warranty.
• Clean up apartment. Though I've cleaned up all food products, my room is still a pit (especially with X-mas gifts piled in a corner)
• Finish the Rocket Bowl guide that I started writing almost two years ago.
• Operation Six Pack (detailed below), which was originally set to be deployed on December 13 but has yet to begin. Operation Six Pack consists of doing what it takes to get in better shape (though the name clearly states the ideal goal). Though I'm not in terrible shape, I would like to at least get back to the shape I was in during high school (pre-Chipotle shape, since I still have my 5 lb. "Chipotle bulge"). I stepped on the scale today and it reads 161.0 lbs (weighed in the morning before eating, and down from 163.2 lbs the other day), which I would be fine with if it were all muscle, but I can certainly see that it is not. I don't really have the goal to lose weight, just to burn fat and build muscle. I'm not trying to get ripped, just more toned. Operation Six Pack consists of two parts, one of which is the eating part and the physical part.

The eating part is mostly me cutting out the shitty food I eat. As some of you know, I have been on the fast food diet for the past five or six months. I do not intend to change this (completely), but to instead weed out the bad fast food and keep what's not so bad and/or to limit the intake. I've been paying more attention to what I've been eating recently, and I discovered that the Spicy Chicken sammich at Wendys is 440 calories (not too bad, of course without mayo), but the large fries I typically get along with it are 540 calories. Yes, that's right. And the fries have 24g of fat to the sammich's 16g. And though the chicken sammich has a lot of bread, it has fewer carbs, at 46-69g. It does, however, have twice as much sodium. And since I order the meal, the large soda along with it doesn't help. That's another thing. I've been limiting myself to a maximum of one soda per day, which I've actually been quite good about. I won't lie, the first couple days I had a headache as I tried to quit cold turkey.

So aside from the soda limitations, I have set a limit of 800 calories per meal I eat. I have two "bad meal" allowances per week, one of which will of course be reserved for Chipotle (my burrito is 1057 calories, though I can cheat by eating half of it for one meal and half for another) and a large movie popcorn (which I share, but it is ridiculously unhealthy with 1640 calories and 126g of fat). Yes, it's rather arbitrary, but I figure it weeds out combo meals that aren't good for me. I'm also eating more at Subway, Jason's Deli, and Quiznos, or just eating the simple things when I go to other fast food places. I'm not claiming that this is the greatest diet ever, but it's certainly an improvement. Think 12-inch sub to 6-inch sub and soup (900 calories and 42g of fat with a footlong Italian BMT vs. 760 calories and 23g of fat with a 6" Italian BMT and Chicken Noodle Soup). I've also found that eating slower is quite effective. I got my soup and sub combo and was full after eating the soup alone, which has only 2g of fat. I've realized that I'm full before I finish eating. Oh, and I'm saying goodbye to fourth meal.

I don't intend to give regular updates (what I eat on a daily/weekly basis) mostly because I don't think anyone gives a shit. I'll be surprised if most of you make it this far in this stupidly long entry. I'm going to see if I can keep this up for a full month and basically give a subjective analysis of how it goes. I have actually taken "before" pictures, but unless I see a drastic change, I probably won't post them (which will of course then be posted next to "after" pictures). My workout is the Men's Health Abs Diet Weekly Workout Schedule. I will be following it strictly.

In case any of you are wondering what spawned this endeavor, it came from a conversation I had with my friend, Brittany, about Nair. She was talking about Nairing my chest hair into the shape of a heart, and I became slightly curious what I would look like if I didn't have a hairy chest. Or hairy arms and legs. If Operation Six Pack is successful, I will undergo Project Nair (which would of course require pictures). And I'm talking the whole nine yards (referring to the Nair, not the pictures). But don't fear (for those of you who think I've gone completely insane by this point), it would be an experiment only and probably won't happen since Operation Six Pack will probably fail.

ANYWAY, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE AND PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT AND TELL ME I'M A MORON, I'LL FAIL, OR COMMEND MY EFFORTS. AND PLEASE SHARE YOUR OWN RESOLUTIONS AND PLANS.

As most of you are well aware, I have a half-serious, unwritten list of things I would like to do in my life. Some are life goals, but most are simply unconnected events that I think would be emotionally or spiritually beneficial in some way or I am simply curious about. These range from getting my own entry in the Wikipedia (which used to be the dictionary before I lowered my standards) to sky diving (which will never happen). Well, I can say that one of these tasks has officially been completed, though not in the traditional way I anticipated.

His name was Larry. We met at Whataburger at approximately 2am on Saturday, November 24. The drive-thru line was particularly long, so I went inside for faster service. We caught glances while I was filling my Strawberry Fanta. He was an approximately six foot tall African American man who smelled like an ashtray. He was probably about 35 years old. As we locked eyes, he said to me, "Hey, brotha, could you do me a favor?"

Of course, I first think to myself, "Do I actually have any money in my wallet?" (The answer to that question would be "yes," as I had a single dollar bill that I intended to give to a girl in my English class who was so kind as to loan me one.) I calmly sipped my drink and asked him what he needed. He explained that his friends had left him at a gas station. Since Dallas has decided that it's time to be cold, it was quite chilly outside and there was light rain. I asked him where he needed to go, and he said he needed to get to a place by the Valley View Mall. I thought about his request for a moment before I told him I would oblige his plea. We both waited for our respective food orders to come out, and I led him to my car.

The stench first hit me when the doors closed. It smelled like I had four passengers who were all chain-smoking. Fortunately, the heating kicked in and my nose grew acclimated to the stench before too long. I could tell Larry was not from around this area. He had no sense of direction and was surprised at the number of bars we have around this area (which is trivial compared to other areas of the city). In any case, Larry and I exchanged brief bits of our life stories during the drive. I learned he was from east Texas and that he had gone into a gas station to buy some cigarettes when his friends simply left. Being that I was recently left in the West End by one of Andrew's friends, I sympathized with his plight. Since I will never know if he knew the reason, I will assume that he was being honest. As we approached the mall, he had me turn into an apartment complex. He was only vaguely familiar with where we were going, as it was one of his relatives' apartments and was the closest location that would be of benefit to him. I dropped him off and he thanked me repeatedly, we shook hands, and I went to the first gas station I found to fill up (the low fuel light was on the whole way).

In case any of you are confused at this point by how this could ever accomplish a life goal, even a random one, I shall at this point make it clear. I have always said that I would pick up a hitch-hiker. I am aware that this is not traditional hitch-hiking since he was not on the side of the road with a bag and his curved thumb in the air, but before anyone replies saying that this is not the same and should not count, consider the similarities between the two: he was a person I had never met and will never see again; I had no reason to trust him; for all I knew, I could have been putting myself at danger by picking him up; and he was wearing a large raincoat that could have been concealing a weapon.

Which begs the question, less than a mile away from my house and facing a 15-minute drive with a complete stranger, what in the hell was I thinking? (I'm kidding of course. I think I've already justified why I did it, and it was not to fulfill a life goal. I didn't think about that until about five minutes into the drive )

Once upon a time, I was strolling through Italy and I saw this street vendor selling "authentic" (stolen/fake) purses/bags. I was waiting for my parents to get out of the bank so I started walking around his collection. I saw this bag and something happened inside of me. I wanted it. The seller caught my eye and picked the bag up, teasing me with it. He was quick to show me the labels "proving" its authenticity, zippers, the inner lining of the bag, and he let me feel it and test the zippers. It all seemed legit. He told me €100 (about $140 at the time). I smiled and said, "No thanks." He quickly dropped down to €80. I still resisted. I turned and walked away (only taking one glance over my shoulder to see the bag) and heard him say €60. I'm not sure how much I actually could have gotten the bag for.

Of course the more traumatic realization from all of this is that I desired the bag in the first place. I used to enjoy laughing at guys with man-bags. And it wasn't just any plain man-bag that I wanted. It was a Louis Vuitton (which I can sadly spell unassisted). Yes, that means it's ungodly expensive. The specific man-purse which I desire, The Louis Vuitton Abbesses Messenger, costs a rather hefty $1,180 from eluxury.com. Without further ado, here it is in its full glory:


Not too flashy yet elegant and beautiful. If you click it, you can see it in higher quality as well as see the inside. unfortunately, considering that I've set the price of my future HDTV at under $1100 after taxes and everything, it seems rather unreasonable to even consider paying such a ridiculous amount for a bag that will undoubtedly only confuse more people into thinking I'm gay. And though I don't take offense to that misjudgment, at the same time I'm not sure I want to give off potentially mixed messages. Oh, and though I've seen the bag marketed as a laptop case, I don't think I can pull that off when I don't actually own a laptop.

Oh, and not that I have thought about it at all, but a good quality leather replica runs for $169. Picture of the quality of the replica I've never considered:

I saw this on a blog that called it a "Good EMO Rundown." I'm going to call it, "Making a big fucking deal out of something that afflicts a tiny fraction of emo culture." I don't know why I'm so offended by this. I in no way consider myself to be emo. But you'd think that news affiliates could be slightly less retarted. This would be like running a special about Muslims and showing nothing but suicide bombers.

I typically have no problem with websites that utilize codes that you have to type to prove that you're a human. That is, until Yahoo! Pool started instituting them. I have nothing against the philosophy, but I've had codes where I've honestly had to try two or three times to enter the right one (you can go back and try the same code again or try entering the new code). I've listed an example below. For the fun of it, I won't reveal what the actual code is until readers have had a chance to guess at it.


EDIT: Here's another one to figure out:

Once upon a time, I was riding in the car listening to blink-182's "dude ranch" album. "voyeur" finishes playing and "dammit" begins. I immediately think of Mehul. That's when it hit me. I'm obsessed with Mehul. I hate ringtones. It's not that I have a problem thinking of friends when I hear a song that's been assigned to their ringtone. It's more that I don't like manipulating my own mind by forming cognitive associations that are unnatural. It's one thing for me to happen to have listened to a lot of my Alanis Morissette cassette while playing Wave Race 64 and occasionally getting flashbacks of the game when I hear certain songs on "Jagged Little Pill." It's another for me to have said, "You know what? I want to think of Wave Race 64 when I listen to this album." And with ringtones, this is what I've done. I've said, "I want to associate this person with this song." And after hearing the same clip over and over, you will burn that association in your brain.

When I came to this conclusion, I realized there are different ways of handling it. One way would be to periodically rotate my ringtones out so that no specific song sticks long enough to stay in my head. Unfortunately, I realized that this would probably just expedite and exacerbate the problem I am be trying to prevent. Or I could have no specific ringtones for callers and have just a generic ring. However, I like knowing who is calling without looking at my phone. So that option was out. So I figured out a way to give each person an individual ring without adding unnecessary, false associations.

I realized that I could replace everyone's ringtone with a generic human-ish computer voice reading out the person's name and instructing me to answer the phone. So I went online to AT&T's Text-to-Speech Demo and recorded "<name> is calling. Please answer the phone," for the people who call me most frequently then converted the recordings into mp3's and put them on my phone. There are variations. For instance, Jake's is in Spanish with a Spanish speaker, Andrew's is a British speaker, and Alan's uses his nickname (A-dog, and yes, I made it up). However, I realized before doing this that it would eventually annoy me. There is also an unwanted side effect. Everyone knows who is calling you. Even if they don't know who the person is, with a spoken voice, it's pretty damned obvious. So what was a Chad to do?

My solution is, I believe, a very good one. I want to hear you when you call. Yes, I want to hear a recorded message from the caller as a ring. This will allow the caller to express some creativity in the message so I won't be hearing the same thing from everyone, and what's better to associate with a person than his or her actual voice?

To execute my plan, I need your cooperation. I would like you to record a message that you want me to hear when you call me. It can be of any length, preferably not over about 20 seconds though since I won't hear it all when you actually call. There are two methods of doing this. If you have a laptop with a built-in microphone or a computer microphone, you can open up Sound Recorder
(location: Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Entertainment -> Sound Recorder), record a clip of yourself, add it to your iTunes library, right-click on it and click "Convert selection to..." (it doesn't matter which type you use, my phone can handle AAC and MP3), then send that file to my gmail address (my LJ screenname @gmail.com). This is the do-it-yourself method.

The other method is far easier. See me in person, I'll hand you my phone, and you can record whatever right there. I do request that you not send me or record anything vulgar that I can't use. I'm serious about this. As long as it's not something annoying or a song (unless you're singing it, in which case that's just funny), I will set what you send me as your ringer. And feel free to pass this entry on to friends of mine who don't use LJ and/or don't know I have one, cause I'm already starting to get sick of these computer people. And Kim's suggestion of "The coolest person ever is calling," in a computer voice isn't going to happen. But if she wishes to actually record it, I will indeed set it as her ringtone. And I appreciate her pointing out to me that I hadn't mentioned her ringtone suggestion.

Once upon a time this morning (I always think stories should start with once upon a time in case you have yet to hear me say that), I woke up at 6am so that I could take Andrew to court in McKinney to take care of his DWI. I got up, took a shower, then my phone rang. It was my mom calling to ask what the heck I was doing up at such an early hour. I explained to her the circumstances and she replied, "That's too bad. Now I don't have time to make you breakfast." I replied, "You've never made breakfast before..." She answers, "I know, but I would have time now. Would you like a piece of toast or something?" I say, "No, thanks. I had a late Whataburger last night and am not really hungry."

Get ready for reader-participation. How will this comment be interpreted?

a) Chad is not hungry. I will not make him food.
b) I'll make him a piece of toast. If he doesn't want it, I'll eat it.
c) I'll make him a bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwich.