Going into the "adult" section

Shhhh. Don't tell my wife, but I just came out of the adult soda section at our local supermarket. Now you may be wondering.. WTF is "adult soda"?! Put your dirty mind to rest it isn't fizzy lubricants or soda in multi-purposed shaped bottles. Quite honestly... I don't know. Everything in that aisle looked like plain old pop. Perhaps its to give shoppers that naughty feeling without the store having to invest in red velvet curtains to hide the "products" from the kiddies.

Tech Tuesday: Vat to do...vat to do

Yesterday it became extremely apparent that I am all to dependent on the digital age. Both the Xbox LIVE and the Zune Marketplace servers were down for maintenance. That meant two of the three things I like to do when the kiddo has gone to bed and the wife is busy chatting with friends or reading a book, were unavailable. Despite being warned via email, LIVE message, AND dashboard announcement of the impending hiatus I was caught unprepared. So basically I had to resort to play all alone with no friends and stale music. *sigh*

Thank God Heroes was on last night or I might have withered away.

I'm sorry this post is passing on the boredom I experienced. (I'm not even going to put a picture to whet your imagination.) :)

ETA: Everything is up and running now, except for a small glitch with the Call of Duty 4 matchmaking (which makes playing online IMPOSSIBLE.)

REALLY strong coffee

Anyone who knows me, knows that I like my coffee pretty strong. If I can see the bottom of the mug, its too light.

A few months back Starbucks switched from brewing coffee every hour to every half hour. Obviously the purpose of the change was to provide fresher brewed coffee. To avoid wasting coffee they switched from brewing "full" batches to "half" batches (but doesn't that make the half batch the full batch now? Sorry, that's neither here nor there). Now that half as much coffee is brewed at a time, they run out quicker. In order to avoid making the customer wait for a new pot, a lot of time they do the ol' "tip the carafe" trick. If given the opportunity to wait for the coffee...take it! Several times I have enjoyed the first 3/4 of my cup when my mouth is suddenly infiltrated with hundrends of coffee grounds. Here is a picture from the last time it happened, the proverbrial "straw".

The thing that sucks the most is if you get your coffee to go, you have no idea this is going to happen until your sitting at your desk and all of a sudden a pile of coffee bean corpses are in your mouth. As I said, I like strong coffee now chewable. Its getting so bad I might start brewing my own coffee at home... nah, that sounds like a lot of work. :)

Oh how they grow...

I realize that this is a bit of a selfish post and has a very targeted audience (mainly me), but I was going through some old pictures and came across an old photo of Keegan (my son, for those who don't know).  It is CRAZY for me to think that this...

is the same little person as this...

Woah!

Did you Know...

Pac-man was partially inspired by Namco desinger Tohru Iwatani seeing a pizza with a slice misssing?  Pac-man's name in North America was originally Puck-man, but was changed just before release (if you're wondering why, think P=F).  The Japanese name for pac-man is pakku-man and comes from the Japanese onomatopeic phrase paku-paku-taberu.  The paku-paku imitates the sound of the mouth opening and closing (twice, kinda like a smacking sound).

Sources: 

http://www.gamespot.com/features/vgs/universal/hist_pacman/p4_01.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man

Smileys: a leap forward for passive-aggression

I just had a sort of epiphany... By simply adding a colon and sideways parenthesis (singular for parentheses, file that one under who cares), you can say some truly hurtful things and totally get away with it.

Examples:

• You are the stupidest person I know :)
• I'm going to kill you!!! :)
• Wow! You're 45, don't have a job, and still live with your parents?! That's awesome! :)

I think subconsciously I inherited the use of smiley faces from my mom. She used to leave chore "todo" lists on the fridge and always put a smiley face at the end. Something along the lines of:

"Please do the following:
-Clean the kitchen
-Clean your bathroom
-Dust & Vacuum
Thanks, Mom [smiley]"

But I always interpreted it as this: "I know its summer and you would probably rather be doing something else but instead, do these chores or you'll be sorry! Don't like it? Awwwww, Mom. [middle finger]." (Ahhhhh... teen angst.)

For some pretty funny passive-aggressive notes (many with smileys) check out passiveaggressivenotes.com.

ETA: I just noticed the irony in putting the info about the plurality of parenthesis in parenthesis... I know, I'm lame.

Winning Wednesday: Heroes

Monday night was the premiere of season three, and it didn't disappoint. If you haven't watched Heroes and don't know what the hype is all about, you don't know what you're missing out on. I was a bit skeptical about the show and only saw one or two episodes in the middle of the first season. I had seen other shows with superhero types a la Smallville and the like, and didn't really enjoy them. Our friends were really into it and I ended up getting season one for Christmas. My wife and I devoured it, watching at least four episodes a night (that's right I said my wife, its not just a "guys show"). As soon as possible we purchased season two and did the same. Heroes manages to keep you on your toes, telling the story of each of the characters and how they are tied together (think Lost, but with superpowers). If you haven't been watching it, I think it might be pretty tough to try and jump in now without any background. Go to Blockbuster or Netflix and rent disc one of season one and I guarantee that by the end of it you'll be hooked.

Heroes is on NBC Monday nights at 9pm and is rebroadcast on G4 Tuesday at 10pm.