Category: General

I like to joke that I’m an alcoholic.

Wait – what’s the difference between an alcoholic and a drunk?

Us drunks don’t have to go to those fucking meetings.

It’s mostly a joke. I don’t actually drink that often. And the number of times I’ve been so drunk I passed out and got sick in the last several years is exactly once (which was an awesome Hallowe’en party and I will definitely be back again next year! Right Ken?)

But even so, I do like to drink, and when I’m on my game, I can drink a lot for my size.

Still, I think I may have found the perfect accessory, one that will both enhance my drunkish reputation, and help me maintain my drinkin’ boundaries.

Behold the iBreath: a plug-in breathalyzer for iPhone!

How cool is that?

If you’re wondering what to get me for Christmas/my birthday… add this to the list.

If you’re not wondering, well, then, just click through and read about it.

This is the coolest site on the internet. EVAR.

You’ll need no other site after this.

‘Tis the season. The season for eggnog. I love eggnog. I even love it when there’s no spiced rum in it. It’s also really good with coconut rum. Mmmmmmm.

But when I’m working or just not in the mood to get my drunk on, I order eggnog lattes. Starbucks uses soy with vanilla flavor, which I may have mentioned before as a cheap way to save a tiny little bit of money – soy is usually cheaper than extra flavoring. And even if not, you won’t be getting bovine growth hormone in soy milk.

When I order a soy eggnog latte, however, invariably I get The Look. The barista will pause, furrow their brow, and stumble with words as they try to process my order.

“…soy… but that’s… you know that there’s still dairy… we don’t have soy eggnog…”

It does not compute for them. So I always have to explain myself. “Yes, I know there’s dairy in it. Yes, I just want you to put in the soy where the milk would ordinarily go. You cut the eggnog with milk, right? Just substitute soy.”

Why is that so difficult to understand?

They all ask me the same thing. I assumed it was just a Starbucks thing. Until I and a friend stepped in to the Bikini Coffee Co. downtown. While waiting for the inked, bikini-ed barista to make my (non-soy – there’s no point when they don’t use vanilla soy) eggnog latte, I made a joke about how Starbucks treats me when I order soy eggnog lattes.

Once again, I got The Look. “Well… yeah… that doesn’t… make…”

As cute as she was when she looked perplexed, it was still a point of irritation for me to have to explain.

I polled my friends, and they said that I needed to order it differently. Tracy said I should ask for “half soy, half eggnog latte”. Kevin suggested I contact corporate HQ and tell them I don’t like all the pushback. I thought that running it all into one long sentence might work: “SoyEggnogLatteYesIKnowItHasDairyInItIJustLikeTheFlavorPleaseStopAskingMeQuestions”.

Well, today, I tried it Tracy’s way. And it almost worked.

I said “I’d like an eggnog latte. Can I get that with half soy and half eggnog?”

The barista replied, brightly, “I can do that!” My hopes for a no-questions order rose. She started to mark the cup, paused, then looked up at me. “So… you don’t want milk in that?”

Sigh. “No. Just put the soy in, in place of the milk, please.”

Seriously. Why is this so difficult? I just like the flavor that way.

I normally post this over at my running blog, but I wanted to mention for my own future reference that last night’s 5.4 mile run was my fastest time for that route all year: 5.4 miles in 51:39, for an average 9:33 per mile pace.

I am improving!

Today is VP-Elect Joe Biden’s birthday. Pres-elect Obama delivered him some cupcakes.

Also today Capt. Beau Biden, Joe’s son, shipped out to Iraq to serve as an assistant Judge Advocate General (JAG) with the 261st Signal Brigade in the Delaware National Guard.

That’s a sucky birthday present. Best wishes to VP-Elect Joe Biden and, especially, to Capt. Beau Biden.

Can we bring ’em all home safe, please? Soon?

I still have the Saul Bass “James Bond Theme” running in my head!

What does it say about tech that all today’s James Bond needs is a cell phone and a digital camera?

I’m filling out my medical insurance enrollment forms. Ugh. Comparing all the options, and deciding what kind of coverage I’ll need in the coming year, is making my head swim. But, at least until President Obama can enact some kind of health care reform, it’s probably to my benefit to pay attention to all this. Y’know, be prepared.

The “Plus PPO” plan is an extra $36.80 a month and it covers “Alternative Care”:

50% up to $450 – special plan year. You may use any licensed chiropractor, naturopath, or massage therapist

Now, chiropractic or naturopathic “medicine” is pseudoscience. I would no sooner give money to receive that kind of treatment than I would give to a church.

But… “massage therapist”?

Wait a minute. Let me think about this. What kind of “license”? How closely do they check these things?

Would, say, a lapdance from Stormy count as “therapy”?

I wonder if she’d be offended if I asked for a receipt next time I was at Devil’s Point…

Update:

Turns out I was reading last year’s forms. I haven’t found this year’s forms yet. So the cost and benefits may be different. But I’m still considering asking Stormy for a receipt. I may have found a loophole that will allow me to subsidize my hobby… 9:11 AM – bam

Also via Pajiba comes word that they’re making a Sam Kinison biopic.

Just… No. Please, no. Let my fondest memories of him remain unsullied.

The man died on a road trip to Vegas, with wife #6 or some shit. The man was an inspiration to me. Angry is always funny, but with Sam, you laughed because he kinda scared you a little bit. Intense was not a strong enough word.

Please, Hollywood, there was only one Sam.

There’s a “bug” that affects some people when using Firefox: sometimes, videos will load, but not play past the first few seconds. It’s quite annoying.

It’s annoying to me, anyway, because it happens to my friends all the time, but it doesn’t happen to me. So I have to hear them complain about the video links I send them all the time.

I assumed it was because I have the latest, greatest beta version of Firefox and they don’t. Or I was gifted and lucky. I don’t know. Somethin’.

But today, I was over at the best snarky movie review site in the world, and I wanted to watch this trailer (it’s a “red band” trailer and NSFW):
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RMqchLRIME&hl=en&fs=1]
… and I finally was bit by this bug. It wouldn’t play. I had to restart Firefox and do some fucking troubleshooting, which really annoys me, too.

Tracy has no sympathy for me. But, man. What a pain in the ass.

I can’t live like this. What’s the internet without YouTube What if it happens again?

Checking out the President-elect’s blog, today I see a post about Obama meeting with Sen. McCain to discuss ideas for approaching and solving some of our nation’s many troubles.

The blog post quotes, among others, one Tamara, of Springfield, Oregon – perhaps it’s the fact that she’s from my home state that made her quote catch my eye:

“If you truly want to gain the support and respect of those who did not vote for you, you could ‘reach across the aisle’ so to speak and begin with incorporating some of the ideas from the Republicans.”

Wait a minute.

Didn’t we, as a people, just spend 18 months rejecting the ideas of the Republicans? Didn’t Republicans, by and large, lose and lose big up and down the ticket? Local races, state races, national races… a whole lotta lose for anyone with an “R” after their name. Even the ones who tried to hide their party affiliation, like former Senator Gordon Smith, whose TV ads pictured him with Democrat Ron Wyden, or Democrat Barack Obama. Or Dino Rossi, whose only mention of his Republican-ness in the ad I saw consisted of white letters on a white background saying that he was “GOP”.

And yet, the voters could instantly tell that the Republicans were, in fact, Republicans because of the obvious signs: they hated the gays and the brown-skinned people, and accused their opponents of harboring treason in their hearts, and associated with terrorists.

Which of these “ideas” of Sen. McCain, you know, the ideas that cost him the election, is President-elect Obama supposed to incorporate into his platform, exactly? Is Tamara suggesting that Mr. Obama now appoint an intellectually incurious, uneducated, vindictive nobody to his Cabinet? Is Mr. Obama supposed to now actually associate with someone who pursued violent means forty years ago, who was never convicted of any crimes, and who has reformed themselves and become an influential member of society? Or is Mr. Obama supposed to drop everything in a media stunt, and rush off to get involved in issues that will not benefit from his actions, only to have his own party reject his help and vote against his ideas?

This is not change we can believe in.

Elections have consequences. And the vast majority of us (certainly a larger percentage than trusted Bush over Gore in 2000, and a larger percentage than trusted Bush over Kerry in 2004) trust Mr. Obama to get things done.

If we’d wanted Sen. McCain’s ideas, we would have voted for him.