facelift

i solely changed the look of this site because i've grown tired of my buddy's site looking the same. by no means does this mean that i'll be more frequent with posting my thoughts/goings on. i just grew tired of my highbrow content looking like the junk these guys regularly poop out.

worst. night. ever.

i made a silly decision today. one of the benefits of being a regular at my local comic book shop is that the owner frequently offers me passes for two free tickets to various movies. most of the time, they're for 1) movies i'm not really dying to see, 2) at a location around town that's not that convenient or 3) offered for a day when i'm expecting to travel.
so last week when he offered up his last pass to pittsburgh's premiere of the simpsons movie tonight, i was very elated. sold. done. i'm going. right?

no.

even as last as 5pm tonight i was going. it was a 7:30 show at the theater i always frequent (if the only theater i've gone to for the past 3 movies i've seen equates to "frequent") and i knew for a fact that i'd be in town.

we didn't get a sitter. suze never really committed because her sister is in town from rochester, ny. and as i've alluded to before, i don't really have any friends here in the steel city.

damn. it's 9:30. i'd be on my home now thinking how great a time i had. even if it was by myself.

doh!

secured network?

my boss scared the shit out of me today. he's been a big muckity muck here is pittsburgh for some time. he's so damn smart....probably the smartest man i've ever worked for. he has the innate ability to bring forth all kinds of data points to support his statements, its crazy. he's extremely well read, so nobody questions any of his points. very professorial in nature. i really enjoy talking with him about just about anything.

except today he told me of a conversation he had over the weekend with one of his CMU buddies. CMU is one of the best tech schools out there, or at least the word on the street here in the 'burgh says so. his buddy is telling him....which he now tells me....that nobody should ever do online banking and such on a wireless network. secured or otherwise. apparently, when one has the desire and knowledge, they can look into all kinds of shit. now....this guy is some kind of supernerd. but by just grabbing one nugget from my bosses machine (remotely at that), this guy was then able to check the credit lines on several credit cards, his money market account numbers, the names of his daughter's friends that had logged onto the net using his network and a ton more. i don't think that's any news to anyone. it wasn't news to me. it just scared me because i know that we do a lot of online banking. i fucking hate stamps.

but this news hit me on the right day i suppose. i've had a network for some time, but never really took many steps to secure it. i once heard that there's basic protection in wireless routers anyway so i took comfort in that. i did very limited stuff like personalized my network name and changed the password to the router itself. but i never fucked with any of those foreboding acronyms like WPA vs. WEP, SSID and all that subset masking shit.

so as soon as we put the little one down tonight, i jumped onto the linksys website for a little tutorial. i managed to get through all the steps, despite my router being kind of old. what can i say...it was free so i can't really knock on it. i did learn that i can't enable WPA because my wireless-b doesn't support it. i'm considering upgrading.

first the dash, then the tree-fixin and now this.

booger would be proud.

really?!?!?

so on my way home last night, i snapped this little picture with my phone. this guy is certainly an early believer in the power of a well spoken jr. senator from the great land of lincoln.

but to order a vanity plate to endorse him? i feel so bad for this guy. i voted anti-bush last time, yet i still feel sorry for those fucks driving around with those kerry/edwards bumper stickers on their car. i guess this is less permanent option with PA allowing the people of the commonwealth to change license plates as they please, but this guy definitely gets my shit for brains award for the summer.

even more of a man

i'm growing quite the set these days. not only did i make the car repair from the other day, but yesterday consisted of several manly type activities as well. let's assess the level of manliness....

mowed the lawn - tiny nutsack (everyone with a yard does this)

built a new screen window - big nutsack (i don't think many people get into this unless they have to. wait a minute...i had to so should i revise my grade?)

created a device to straighten a crooked tree - huge nutsack (it involved rebar, turnbuckle bolts, a hacksaw and 1/8" wire rope. the use of rebar alone makes the grade, let alone the ingenuity.)

drank beer - basic nutsack (sure, everyone does this too, but do they crush the cans with their hands and throw it onto the neighbor's lawn after each? not in my circles, they don't. but then again, they were my neighbor's beers.)

plans for today????

read comics - i have a vagina and/or my testicles haven't dropped yet.

i wish i were a jew

however, if i were in fact a jew, then perhaps i wouldn't need to be singing the bar mitzvah song tonight. you see, today i am a man.

i saved at least $100 dollars by doing a car repair myself. my brake lights were all fucked up, staying on 100% of the time. over the past two days, i had to take the fuse out so i wouldn't run down my battery. so, i bought the part and did this shit which included having to take apart my dash, unhook some electric wires and all kinds of crap.

therefore, i am feeling very manly tonight. i guarantee that if the wife weren't already knocked up with number two, my sperm would be firmly planting in an egg this evening.

for your consideration

i just finished watching christopher guest's latest send-up entitled the same as this post. i considered this thing a pile of poop. i don't know if it was my mood tonight or what, but i just didn't get into. i loved spinal tap, thought guffman was decent, best in show was a hoot and yawned through mighty wind. so, i'm not a huge fan, casual at best. i guess. admittedly, i was a bit distracted...i had to pause it to go move the sprinkler, so maybe that's the culprit. or maybe the three ice cream sandwiches i downed in the first half hour got in the way (complete with three separate trips to the freezer). so who knows. there were parts that i liked....some characters had their moments and there were some fun lines, but i just didn't love it.

oh well. look at this pic:
see that giant fucking egg on this fighter's head? keira had one today. she tripped on some shit on the floor and did a header into the corner of a dresser. i haven't upped the post yet on her site, but there will be one soon. and yes, for you bmore boxing fans, that is one-time heavyweight champ hasim rahman. my dad used to sell him bling. but that was before he got the title. or the egg. fuck....here's another look at it. i think it was holyfield that did that to him.

anyways, as the one that left the shit on the floor that she tripped on, i swear that this is what i saw whenever i looked at her today.

lunchtime d-bags

funny thing happened this afternoon as i walked around during lunch. on my way to subway, i noted a bunch of people in cubs jerseys. (that's not the funny part, but is related). my office is located in a place called station square which was an attempt at creating a downtown mall out of a cool old space. this use to be the train station for the south side of pittsburgh, so the building was converted to have retail on the ground floor and then a modest office tower of 7 floors was added. it supposedly was cool when it first opened, but in my opinion its devolved into a sad mix of hunt valley mall circa 1997 and baltimore's market place station. dead space during the day, trashy nightlife spot for the suburbians that go into the city for a good time.

part of this complex is a sheraton hotel. which, i guess is nice. it's a sheraton which aren't exactly the best but certainly not the worst. it's downtown and has a good view of the city. so when teams come to town you see a lot of people wearing their jerseys walking this sad little space.

so, i'm walking behind these two total dusches. knowing the place, i figure that they're just getting a jump on that panty sniffing that goes on later in the day here. long sleeve shirts unbuttoned to show some chest fuzz. heads turning to look at just about every female in the joint. it just so happens that we turn a corner and a family of cubs fans start gushing.

holy shit. i'm walking behind some pro ball players. its their second baseman and a starting pitcher. i don't know who the fuck they were and in all honesty, it took me about 5 minutes to scrounge around the cubs website to find them.

what's happened to me? i used to love baseball. i still love the idea of it, but i'm just not into as much. i don't follow shit anymore aside from a little bit of bonds chasing and any updates i may read at F&J.

regardless, if i still were into it, i'd not know who these fucks were. blame it on not ever really being into the NL, blame it on the fact that its hard to recognize people out of context, blame on what you will.

good riddance

i just had one of my assistant AE's give her two weeks notice. which completely makes me sad.
i wanted to fire the knucklehead a few months ago. however, we are short staffed on our account management team and we needed to find her replacement first. otherwise i'd be stuck trafficking spots out to stations, updating status reports and such. that's not exactly beneath me, but i've been there and done that so to speak. so fuck it....yeah this type of activity belongs to my underlings. not me.

so, in effect i am actually relieved at the news. but i'm pissed too. i wanted to drop her for some time now. she's a bright kid, but just didn't get the details. we actually had to pull her from Cedar Point, our flagship account. she was doing so poorly that the client didn't exactly ask her off the account, but practically jumped through the phone to hug me when i called to let her know about the staff change.

i do think my reaction performance should be up for a SAG Award or something. fuck me if i didn't pull off floored, surprised and shocked. i'm method to the end. deniro can suck it.

thank god almighty

as of today and after nine years, 11 months and 29 days, my college education is finally paid off. which begs the question...why the hell did it take me so long? i followed the strong advice to pay more than my monthly charge for 7 of those almost 10 years so you'd think that it would've been paid off early. granted, i only paid about 25 bucks more than the due amount per month. but shit, that's gotta impact something right? maybe some of you higher math nerds can help explain why i feel like i got fucked by the man (i'm looking at you ezahn or the dude). (sorry to not single you out lucas as i know you know the answer too, but i called reference to you in my reply to a dzahn post). (and i guess i should apologize to you too john. but you'd just wax poetically with obscure references that are slightly out of my intellectual reach). (does bruceany read these things? he majored in math....i'm sure he's got an opinion too).

(i have smart friends). (and friends with smart siblings).

anyway, i'm glad that my bs in biz admin is finally paid. i guess i did well enough in school. i have two friends i keep in touch with (kind of sad). i have great memories of chopping down campus trees with my $8 machete. and dropping a deuce in the campus fountain. and fucking girls i probably shouldn't have. well okay only one. that's my biggest regret from college. not getting more ass. i passed on so much it's just sad. and what did that do for me? granted, i have a great family now, but boy i wish i had more memories of kicking chix to the curb or doing the walk of shame back to the dorm. wait...i'm a guy. that wouldn't be in shame would it? wouldn't i be giving people high fives on the way back to my house because i had been nutsack deep in beaver mere moments ago? anyway, huge regret that my score card isn't as high as it could've been. oh well...i caught a fish this big too. honest.

speaking of regrets, lately i'm starting to feel bad that i cheated on a final. i think watching school ties with the wife made me scrape that memory from the depths of the psyche. it was so dumb. there was this dumb jock ballplayer on my floor that needed help, grabbed it and talked me into it. i'm such a sheep. i didn't even need to. i guess that's just rationalization.

damn...did i just pay off a decade worth of regrets?

please note the little g in my post title. i'm not a believer. fuck him. unless He reads this. then i'm just confused. praise jesus.