What you say???

Opportunity Knocks

2006-10-10T12:22:00.000-04:00

i guess next time i hear something that sounds like a knock at the door (when its almost time to get up) while i am asleep, i might want to think about answering it...

i go to brush my teeth this morning, and nothing! no water coming out of the faucet. LUCKILY i had a glass of water that i poured the night before but didnt drink, which gave me just enough water to brush my teeth and rinse out.

then i had to take a (insert name of any race here) shower, you know, where a lot of deoderant and a lot of cologne are involved.

finally, i called the roommate and left him a message suggesting that paying the water bill is NOT an option. only to find out later that the knock on the door that i ignored while getting in my last few minutes of sleep, was the water company. they were knocking to say the water in my neighborhood was going to be shut down for a bit to work on a pipe...

water company - 1, manan - 0

Commencement Pt 2

2006-10-09T15:34:00.000-04:00

wow, its been a while since ive written anything on here...

anyway, almost exactly two years ago, i wrote this post: Commencement. it was about a coworker of mine that was leaving the company to pursue a career in which he could better use the skills he learned (and enjoyed) while in college.

if you read that post, you will see how i wrote about how he was starting a new life, a new job, a new beginning. well you know that saying "everything happens for a reason"? i really believe everything happens for a reason.

you see, i just got some awesome news. fingers of fury, or as he is better known today, brian (i dont think his fingers are very furious anymore), told me he is getting married!!! now you might ask, what does that have to do with leaving one company, and going to another? and that would be a very good question.

well you see, brian met his fiance AT the job he left the company i work at for. so you see, everything DOES happen for a reason.

so here we are again, celebrating the fact that brian is dealing with commencement once again. only this time, he isnt alone, he is beginning a new life not as a he, but as a we. not as his life, as their life. not as brian, as brian and angie. together i wish them the best in their soon-to-be new life together. and once again congratulations!

How to keep a flat stomach!

2006-04-20T09:49:00.000-04:00

A little boy walks into his parents' room to see his mom on top of his dad bouncing up and down. The mom quickly dismounts, worried about what her son has seen, dresses quickly and goes to find him.

The son sees his mom and asks, "What were you and dad doing?"

The mother replies, "Well, your dad has a big tummy and sometimes I have to get on top of it to help flatten it."

"You're wasting your time." says the boy.

"Why is that?" asked his mom, puzzled.

"Well when you go shopping the lady next door comes over, gets on her knees, and blows it right back up!"

Definition of Stupidity

2006-04-14T14:17:00.000-04:00

riding a crotch rocket with no helmet, while smoking, and tailgating cars...

yea, i was driving yesterday, and in my rear view mirror, there was a guy on a motorcycle, with no helmet, ON MY ASS, while smoking (which means at some points he only had one hand on the bike).

it took EVERYTHING in me NOT to give him a brake check...

you know, i look out for motorcycles, i keep my distance from them to make it safer for them. but this guy was just an idiot. he is lucky i have a conscience...

15 Minutes

2006-04-03T18:08:00.000-04:00

Check it out!!!

Watch Out!

2006-03-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

look at what people in downtown orlando have to deal with!

Quote of the Week

2006-03-22T10:15:00.000-05:00

said by a guest speaker at a local high school...

Don't dress like meat and be surprised when a man wants to throw you on the barbecue.

The Big Dance

2006-03-20T13:13:00.000-05:00

raaaaaawr

Damn you Bucs!!!

2006-01-09T16:11:00.000-05:00

if it werent for the damn bucs losing to the redskins, i would have picked the wild card weekend perfectly. i was 3 for 4 in my pics...

What Can Brown Do For You?

2006-01-05T10:31:00.000-05:00

Have you ever felt like you didnt get served at a restaurant/bar (for 3 hours) because you were brown?

even after asking the server who was fairly regularly checking on the table next to us, (she replied, uhh, ill be right back (did she ever come back? (no!))), we still got no service...

WTF?

2006-01-04T14:18:00.000-05:00

i thought i lived in florida... we are going to get temperatures in the mid-low 30's friday night/saturday morning.

last night, i went to sleep, and it was hot, prolly almost 80 degrees, i had my fan going full blast, only had my comforter (when its cold, i have a blanket and my comforter (which isnt that thick).

i woke up to it being in the low 50s, which is damn cold for us floridians. now remember, fan on high, and not-too-thick comforter. so there i am, freezing my ass off. but you know how when you are freezing, if you move out of your current position, more cold air gets sucked under your blankets. so there i am, not wanting to move, cat inbetween my legs (the only warmth i was getting was from her).

yea, not a pretty picture, but this is what we get to deal with in florida. sunny one minute, pouring down rain and lightning... sunny one minute, sunny the next, but still pouring down rain. where the F is the rain coming from if there are no clouds???

at least for you people in colder areas, it stays cold, so you get used to it. but here in florida, we will have a low of 40, and a high of 80!

damn florida weather, cant make up its mind...

Happy Holidays!

2005-12-21T10:04:00.000-05:00

i know i have been slackin on posting on this blog, but ive found myself to be in an uninspired mood.

but i did want to take this time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and i hope this holiday season finds everyone safe and with their loved ones.

oh yea, and dont forget to bring in 2006 in style!!!

Bro's Wedding Pictures

2005-11-16T11:10:00.000-05:00

here are some pics from my brothers wedding, courtesy of Amish:

alap on my back

the happy couple, barbara and meetesh (no he isnt shorter than her)

bro, me, my dad (look how happy my dad is!)

meet and barb trying to put a garland on each other, barbara won, i wonder how she got lifted so high?

vipul and i (he must be too drunk to open his eyes!)

barbara and i

me and amish (not grammatically correct, but thats the order we are standing in, so screw you!)

i guess barbara decided she wanted her hand in the picture as well

thanks for the pics amish!!!

we all go waaay back... (me, sanjay(not pictured above), amish, meetesh, vipul)

waaaaaaaaaaay back... (meetesh, alap, naman (behind alap (not pictured above)), me)

Dear Mr. Taco Bell Assistant Manager...

2005-11-15T13:17:00.000-05:00

when you hand me my food in a tray, and i tell you it is to go. dont give me a weird look, and then go look back at the screen only to see that you were right, the order didnt say to go.

its not my fault the incompetent worker behind the cash register did not press the little button that lets you know my order was to go.

either way, even if i didnt say to go, which i did, but if i didnt, and i wanted to change it, i am the customer, and i am always right, so that face isnt necessary either way.

so quit wasting my time, and put my fucking food in a bag!

Its that time of year again folks...

2005-11-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

college basketball is starting up again, and this year is going to be oh so good!!! duke is starting off the season right with a preseason ranking of #1!

hopefully injury and lack of depth wont plague this years team like it did last year.

Wilma - Pics

2005-10-25T15:08:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Wilma gave my roommate waterfront property!

Wilma

2005-10-24T08:53:00.000-04:00

well, we almost made it through hurricane season without a direct hit on the florida peninsula, and certainly none so far that affected us here in brevard county.

but i write this today, from my home, because my office is closed because of hurricane wilma.

the rain comes pounding for minutes at a time, and then backs off. along with the rain comes gusts of wind.

so far we still have power, lets hope it stays that way...

Hacked

2005-10-20T12:41:00.000-04:00

as you might (or might not) be aware, my car has a navigation system.

exhibit a:

said navigation system has a start up screen.

exhibit b:

said navigation system has been hacked with a new start up screen.

exhibit c:

The end of an era

2005-10-14T13:09:00.000-04:00

ok, so its not so much the end of an era, but it sure feels like it. for the past 5 weeks, i have been alcohol free. no drinking... no drunken nights... no drunken phone calls... no drunken text messages...

its not like i have to drink, i had no problem for the most part kicking alcohol to the curb for 5 weeks. the part that made it hard, was i still went out. i went out and partied with all of my friends, and thats where it was hard. you know how many funny looks you get from bartenders when you order water? they really want you to get drunk! with the bartenders i knew, it was no problem, they understood, and gave me bottled water for free :)

but it was also all my friends, and other random people i know. everyone would always say, just have one... you want a shot??? one drink wont hurt you... why arent you drinking?

and not only that, but being completely sober while everyone around you is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from sober is not as fun as it sounds. things that you say or do while under the influence of alcohol, isnt funny at all when you are sober.

now dont get me wrong, i still had fun being sober, and i came in handy, because i was a consistent DD for the last 5 weeks. but ill tell you, you sure feel left out when all your friends are doing shots, and you are sitting there with your thumb up your...

tonight, will be my first drink in 5 weeks, FIVE WHOLE WEEKS!!! im sure i will probably be wasted after 2 drinks, but i dont care, it will be awesome!

i guess you are probably wondering why i havent had any alcohol in the last 5 weeks. well, as much as i joked about it in the past few weeks, it wasnt because of AA or anything. like i said, i had no problem not drinking, you gotta rest up the liver every now and then, right?

i hurt my shoulder playing basketball (or thats probably what finally caused it) in early august. actually, you know how you might be playing a sport or something, and you tweak something, and you think to yourself, well thats going to hurt in the morning.? well... that didnt happen, i have no idea what i did to my shoulder.

all i know, is i woke up in the morning, and my shoulder was killing me, i couldnt move my arm without my shoulder hurting. for the first few days, i thought that it might just go away, so i didnt go see the doctor or anything. well then, a week after it happened, i went to budapest for 10 days. so i didnt see a doctor there (technically, anyway), and then when i came back, and finally got an appointment scheduled, it was the first week of september.

this is the part that impressed me, i go see an orthapedic surgeon so he can tell me wtf is wrong with my shoulder. it had been hurting for 3 weeks now. i dont think ive ever had anything hurt for this long before. well the doctor lifted my arm and moved it around for literally 5 seconds and told me i had an inflamed tendon. i think we spent more time talking about my family, and how they were doing. duh, i went and saw an indian doctor... and of course, all indians in this town know each other... lol...

so he prescribed these anti-inflammatory pills, and also had me do physical therapy for the past 5 weeks. he said if it still hurt after all of that, they would take an mri. does that seem weird to any of you? that if my shoulder WAS hurt more seriously than he thought, he would wait for a month and a half before looking into it... ah, what do i know, im no doctor.

so back to the reason i didnt drink. the information for the anti inflammatory that i took (from the internet, the paper that came with them, and from my pharmacist friend) said that it is not suggested to drink more than 3 drinks a day because these meds can tear up your stomach, and then together with alcohol can cause ulcers. i mean, i wasnt even supposed to lay down within 10-15 minutes of taking the medicine because it could tear up your esophagus. so i guess this was some pretty strong shtuff...

well, im sure some of you are thinking, well, it said not to consume more than 3 drinks a day. what you dont know, is when we go to bars where we know the bartenders, one mixed drink, IS like 3 drinks. so essentially i would drink one drink, and not drink for the rest of the night. pretty pointless, right? yea, i thought so myself.

so i told myself that i would just not drink for the entire time that i took the meds. plus, im sure my liver could use the break as well.

so thats it, physical therapy ended yesterday, my pills ran out, and my shoulder is probably at about 85% - 90%. the rest of the recovery can be done by continuing the exercises that i was doing at physical therapy, at home.

the end of an era...

Lost

2005-10-06T11:15:00.000-04:00

i am so totally hooked on the tv show lost. i never watched it last season, but i ended up watching the entire 1st season in about 2 weeks. and now i religiously watch it every wednesday night.

it helps that my future ex wife evangeline lilly is on that show. she doesnt know it yet, but she is going to have my babies!!

anyway, this has to be the best tv show ive seen in a while. anyone else watch it?

Tire Crapdom

2005-10-04T21:03:00.000-04:00

if you keep up with my seldom updated blog, then you know recently i purchased a set of rims for my car.

if you dont keep up with seldom updated blog, then you dont know i recently purchased a set of rims for my car. but now you do!

so before i purchased my rims, my car would pull to the right. i took it to the honda stealership, and they told me that the reason it pulled to the right, was because i needed new tires. of course those bastards told me this AFTER i paid them for an alignment.

well, shortly after that incident, i purchased my new rims, and wait for it... wait for it... IT STILL PULLED TO THE RIGHT. and this was with new tires! so i had the place that put the rims on my car check out the alignment. see if they come up with something different. and they did...

they said that my caster was off, and the caster on my car, is not adjustable. so they left me believing there was nothing i could do. but come on, in reality, with money, you can always do something. there are always parts you can replace.

well, a few weeks went by, and i was picking up a coworker from this shop she takes her bmw to, and i started chatting with the guy and i mentioned my problem to him. he tells me to bring my car in one day, and he would check it out, maybe there was a bent part in the suspension, or whatever. so he said he would check it out, and then send it for an alignment. see, this shop is actually a body shop, but a few of my coworkers take their bmws to this guy. i think by doing work for them, it keeps his bmw certification up. either way, this guy is honest, and does great work.

so i drop my car off at his shop, and he tells me to pick it up at the end of the day. i go to pick it up at the end of the day, and he tells me that there was nothing bent, but they did an alignment, and the wheels were really off. im like great, i pay my $40 for the alignment, and im on my way. EXACTLY, i knew you were thinking that in the back of your head, $40 for an alignment, thats mad cheap! told you he was cool.

i walk out to my car, and the first thing that catches my eye:

do you see that? every single one of my rims was fucked up like that. ALL OF THEM. these were brand new rims, that now have gauges around all the spaces where the lug nuts go.

i walk back inside, and calmly explain to the guy what the deal was. while on the inside, i was anything but calm!!!

he picks up the phone (this is where i found out he didnt do the alignment) and calls tire kingdom, and starts cussing them out (not really, but pretty much), he was pissed to. you see, that tire kingdom is the shop where this body shop sends all of their alignments, now they have issues...

so remember, when i said the guy i dealt with was a really good guy? here is where good guy came into play. he couldve just been a dick, and been like, go deal with tire kingdom, or he couldve said, you cant prove it wasnt like that before. which has happened to me before. i got my windows tinted (when my car was BRAND NEW), and the guy tore up my window sill with a razor, and he was like "i cant say that i did that"... motherfu%()#%&_(#$Q%&_&

ANYWAY, this guy took it all into his own hands, dealt with tire kingdom corporate, got them to buy me new rims, had the new rims ordered, shipped and paid for, and put them on my car for me when they came in.

so anyway, if you know anyone who is looking to buy rims (slight cosmetic damage) and tires, both pretty much brand new...

i bought new tires so i could sell these as a set, figured it would be easier to sell them, lets hope it works!

My Brother's Big Fat Hungarian Wedding

2005-09-07T08:59:00.000-04:00

so i guess i will finally write about my trip to budapest. get ready to read...

first let me mention how every family member that traveled for this trip before i left had some sort of problem.

My Aunt:

my aunt, who also lives here in melbourne, left a few weeks early to spend some time in london with her daughter (my cousin) before heading to budapest. she left melbourne, and was supposed to fly to atlanta, and then on to london after a 3-4 hour lay-over. well, because of bad weather in the northeast, her flight was diverted to charleston, south carolina. the plane sat there for hours, and finally made it to atlanta about 3 hours AFTER her flight was supposed to leave for london. im not even going to go into how retarded the delta people are, but ill just say, that they looked at her ticket when she landed, and told her the flight had already left. except in reality, the flight didnt leave for another 45 minutes. my aunt is 70 years old, with a heart problem, and speaks very little english. she broke down crying in the atlanta airport until finally a security guard helped her out.

that is a VERY short version of that story.

my parents:

they left a few days before i did. their ticket was purchased with miles, so pretty much you give them a starting point, and an ending point, and they do whatever they want with the rest. so this was their itinerary. melbourne -> atlanta -> detroit -> frankfurt -> amsterdam -> budapest (my ticket (also bought with miles) was melbourne -> atlanta -> paris -> budapest). anyway, their flight from detroit departed around 5pm. later that night, i am partying it up at the county line, and i get a phone call around 130am. (yes the county line is a country bar) (yes they play hip-hop and rap and booty music after 12 on thursdays). on the phone, it was my mom, telling me they just landed back in detroit. yup, thats right, they flew for a few hours, and then turned around and flew a few hours back to detriot. they didnt mention what exactly the problem was, but im guessing navigation problems or something. i mean really, if it were the landing gear, you have to land either way, might as well try to land at your destination, right? :)

anyway, they ended up making it to frankfurt too late to catch their connection, and it took them a while to find someone to help them. they finally got on a flight to amsterdam, but their connection to budapest ended up being delayed so they had to stay the night in amsterdam. they finally made it to budapest, but their bags didnt make it... took an extra day or two for that.

aunt and cousin from india:

then there was my aunt and cousin who came from india. they too went to london first to visit relatives. well, they flew british airways during the strike, so they didnt get a hot meal the whole trip...

so im thinking to myself, great, what kind of problem am i going to run into?

my trip started when i packed up zoey and took her over to a friends place who was going to take care of her for me while i was gone. i take her inside, let her out of her carrier, and as expected, the little wuss ran and hid.

well, the convenient part about leaving zoey there, is the friends house is right next door to my parents house. so i left my car at my parents house, and the roommate picked me up and took me to the airport...

i fly to atlanta with no incident. i had called ahead to air france to try and get exit rows, because flying coach is not very comforatble for me. well, they said they dont do exit rows over the phone. so i get to the gate 2.5 hours before the flight, and there is no one there. i go to the air france information desk, and ask if they can help me with my seat, and they said no, but someone would be at the gate in an hour. so i sat down and had something to eat, and made my way back to the gate. i got there 30 minutes after the information desk, and there was a line about 15 people long, and the gate attendant was already there. needless to say, there was no seat change available for me. so i was stuck in a seat that was so uncomforatble, my knees were stuck in the seat in front of me for 9 hours, and there was a kid who didnt sit still the whole time. it was a very uncomfortable flight.

other then that, my trip there went fine.

budapest is beautiful! everything is old, everything has some sort of history, no one speaks english (well, hardly anyone). and wow, they are all about eating and drinking there. at my brothers wedding, dinner lasted like 2.5 hours. there was a soup, a stew, an appetizer kind of thing, and if i remember right, 4 main courses (filet mignon, perched pike, roasted duck, and one other thing, i forget...). and then there was dessert, ahh, dessert. not only that, there was a different kind of wine with each course, and the guy kept coming to fill mine up. :)

there were a lot of cool sites to see, castles, and churches, and the city. i couldve easily spent more time there seeing and doing all there is to do there. like going to these turkish baths that we went to, where there are naturally heated pools, and saunas, and pools that are freezing cold. and hot girls all over the place :)

because of the wedding (organization and such), and a bunch of family in town, there wasnt as much of checking out budapest as i wouldve liked, but i did get to see family i dont see that often, and i did get to hang with the bro and sis in law (not as much as i wouldve liked tho (they were really busy)).

either way, budapest was awesome.

we also got to meet the sister in laws family, that was pretty cool. her dad spoke the most english (besides her), and he was really cool. her family was really nice though, sweet people!

somethings that were difficult to get used to were: water, lights, public transportation

no restaurant served tap water, it was all bottled water. now whats wrong with that you might ask? well, there are two types of bottled water "with gas" or "without gas". thats the way they asked at least, you know, their english wasnt that great. the "with gas" water was pretty much sparkling (carbonated) water. the without gas, was some kind of mineral water (no carbonation) but it tasted so weird, that it didnt even taste like water. oh yea, and beers and wines were cheaper than water or coke :)

the lights, this was so messed up, when you went into an apartment building (you had to be buzzed in) there were light switches, and the lights were all on timers, so you would walk into the building, and hit the switch, and the lights would turn on. but after a little while, if you had to wait too long for the elevator or something, theyd turn off, so you had to hit the switch again. it was funny...

the public transportation was pretty different, you bought these tickets, that worked for busses, trams, and the subway. you had to go to these little machines that stamped the tickets. for some reason, the busses werent checked that often, so we didnt really stamp those too much.

all in all, it was a great time, the wedding was a blast. it was out in the countryside, there was this horse show where horses did all these neat tricks, like they taught the horses to sit on their butts like a dog. different things like that.

it is hungarian tradition that the bride is stolen on the day of the wedding. when the horse show was going on, these guys rode up on a carraige and stole the bride-to-be. in order to get her back, my brother had to take this whip, and whip a bottle off of a wooden post, it was pretty cool.

the wedding was a lot of fun, after eating, the party lasted til about 330-4 in the morning. good times... anyway, here are some random pics from the trip...

oh yea, and for my brothers bachelor party, they made him dress up in a sperm costume the whole night we were out on the town... i wont give you a picture of him in the whole costume, but ill give you this :) the head part made it on many peoples heads...

and last but not least, THE dance... :)

I'm Back!

2005-08-31T16:47:00.000-04:00

sans my bag. the bag didnt make the connection in paris, i have no idea when it will get here. but anyway, im back, im tired, im out...

Budapest

2005-08-20T12:17:00.000-04:00

I am finishing up packing for my trip to budapest, im going there for my brothers wedding. see ya on da flip side...

Stuff Portrait Friday

2005-08-12T00:22:00.000-04:00

because of bad weather around here, i never got a chance to do two out of three parts of Kristine's Stuff Portrait Friday. but, i have tons of pictures of my ride, so ill just share a whole bunch of those ;)

see, i told you i had tons of pics of my car!!! wait wait, here are some more :)

Things that make you go hmmmm...

2005-08-04T10:08:00.000-04:00

Why is it that random guys think it is ok to come up to me at a bar and oooogle and goooogle on how tall i am?

Why is it that random girls dont?

this guy came up to me yesterday while i was out playing pool with friends. he walked right up next to me and was like, let me try something. he gets on his tippy toes, and asks my friends if he is taller than me yet.

mofo, if you stood on a chair, youd still be shorter than me! does every individual guy think they are the first one to notice that i am tall. and then, do each one of them think they are going to get a cookie for pointing it out?

Raising the Bar

2005-07-27T10:10:00.000-04:00

Apparently cingular isnt doing enough to raise the bar. because there are still plenty of places where i get poor signal. infact, the other night, i had a decent signal, yet lost the ability to make any kind of phone call or send any text messages. and this happened for a decent portion of my night.

normally i wouldnt care (who am i kidding, yes i would), but i dont have a home phone, so this damn cell phone is my only phone... anyway, i was pissed.

so... last night, there i am, in one of those places where i dont get very good signal (my parents house), and my phone rings. its some number i dont recognize. now i dont know what most of you do with numbers you dont recognize, but for me, i let the voicemail pick it up. if they leave a message, then ill call back, if not, obviously its not that important.

well, for the past few weeks, ive abandoned that process. if you remember, i lost all of my phone numbers, so everytime someone calls me for the first time since then, their number wont be in my phone. so most of the time i answer.

so i get a call from an orlando number, i thought, this isnt out of the ordinary at all, i mean come on, i lived in orlando for 5 years, its bound to be someone i know. i answer, and i hear nothing. after a few seconds, i hear, "manan? mad man an?" im like, yes, and then i heard nothing. i guess my lovely cingular service cut out.

i go outside and try to call the number back, but my phone was being stupid, and it didnt work. i come back inside, and a few minutes later, i have a voicemail. so i check this voicemail, and what do i hear. i am being serenaded by two lovely ladies! they are singing nelly (ft tim mcgraw) - over and over. i was having a hard time figuring out who was nelly, and who was tim mcgraw, but either way, i thought it was pretty cool. those two ladies were Carol and Dawn.

i DO have to wonder though, how did these chicas get my numero de telefono?

Have You Gone Mad?

2005-07-26T12:00:00.000-04:00

I have this coworker, we will call him T-Low to protect his identity, who has this theory on women. he claims that all women are psycho. no ifs ands or buts about it. psycho...

anyone has a problem with a women, it boils down to them being psycho. your wife was yelling at you? psycho. this woman is calling you non-stop without you ever returning a call? psycho. a woman buys you a pony for your birthday? psycho. a woman accepts your invitation to go out to dinner and a movie? psycho.

you get the picture? he claims ALL women are psycho.

i laugh it off most of the time, and a lot of times it makes sense. i was checking out this comic i read often. it is written by a guy who lived on the same floor as my brother in a dorm at Duke University one of the years he was there. anyway, this comic strip is hilarious! when my brother first pointed it out to me, it would get updated 3 times a week (monday wednesday friday). it has unfortunately changed to once a week. but it is still definitely worth checking out.

anyway, without stalling any longer. check out Mitch In Wonderland.

on a totally different note. the shuttle discovery went off today in picture perfect form. this brought back a lot of memories, actually, it took me all the way back to elementary school. you see, i grew up (and currently live) in melbourne, florida. melbourne is about 25-30 minutes south of cape canaveral, more specifically, kennedy space center. so every shuttle launch i have been alive for, i have been carted outside (if it was during school), or been in the backyard of my parents house to watch the launch.

even better, when i was in junior high school, i was on the journalism team. cant you tell? i mean come on, perfect writing... duh! well, one of our projects was the space program. my whole 8th grade year, we were making trips to kennedy space center. and we were talking to everyone and anyone that had anything to do with the space program. we were also lucky enough to sit at the press site for a launch. back then, the press site was (i believe) 2 miles away from the launch pads. 2 miles, i know that sounds like a lot. but really, its not... the reason being, is its the closest that anyone is allowed to get to the shuttle. 2 miles... i have seen a shuttle lift off from the closest point a person can physically watch one launch from.

it was simply amazing.

since then, they have moved the press site back, probably due to the terrorist attacks and whatnot.

anyway, here is a picture that is on the front page of Florida Today:

Go Showty...

2005-07-19T00:45:00.000-04:00

ITS MY BIRFDAY!!!

:)

we gonn party like its MY birfday!

not censored...

Rollin on dubs (minus 1)

2005-07-18T10:21:00.000-04:00

on friday, i borrowed my friends truck, and drove down to miami. met with a friend of mine from college. we hung out, caught up, because it had been a while since we had hung out. we decided to keep the night tame, so we went out and grabbed a bite to eat a flannigans. the food was great, but the service was HORRIBLE. about the only thing this guy got right, was the beers we ordered.

so we get an order of wings as an appetizer. 10 hot wings. 1 thing of blue cheese, one thing of ranch. not a difficult order. when the wings show up, he says, for some reason, they made these hot wings with garlic, i can give "IT" to you for free, or send it back and have them re-make it. i am a college student at heart, of course ill take it for free!

we down the wings, which were excellent btw, and waited for our food. and waited for our food. and waited for our food. and waited for our food. the waiter finally comes by, and mentions that he accidently forgot to hit send when he put in our food order, so the manager just put the order in on the fly.

while that is all good and well, a lot of times things "on the fly" arent cooked properly. but we were starving. so we waited for our food. and waited for our food. and waited for our food. this is what you call on the fly? and waited for our food.

then finally the food came. the food was good, but once again, he took forever to bring condiments... when the bill came, we looked it over, and noticed that we had been charged for everything. so we motion the waiter over, and explain to him that he didnt take the wings off of the bill like he said he would.

he kindly explains that when he said he wouldnt charge us for it, IT meant the garlic. you see, when you order wings at this establishment you pay extra for garlic (the garlic on it was guuud). anyway, he is arguing with us, and finally asks if we would like to speak to a manager. umm... YES

so the manager comes by, and starts arguing that we didnt get charged for the garlic. well no shit sherlock, we didnt ORDER garlic, why the fuck would we pay for something we didnt order in the first place? so telling us that we are getting IT for free means the wings dumbass. what kind of retard would expect us to pay for something we didnt order, and then also expect us to be greatful when they tell us they are giving use the screwed up PART of our order for free? screw that...

i am normally a very good tipper, but the service was horrible, AND the waiter and the manager both argued with us. screw that, he got a $2 tip on a $30 bill...

after that, my buddy and i went and saw wedding crashers, it was HILARIOUS! (i saw it last night too, hehe)

LOCK IT UP!

NO YOU LOCK IT UP!

then saturday, i went and picked up the rims i was in miami to get (i got a great deal), drove back to melbourne, got the rims put on the car, and got an alignment.

these are the pics i have for now, more later when i clean the car.

July 4, 2005

2005-07-13T15:52:00.000-04:00

I know this is a bit late to be posting about the fourth of july, but i was in DC for work last week, and this was the first chance i had to get around to getting the pictures on my computer.

July 4th, 2005 was just like any other july 4th. i woke up, got dressed, drive over to a card store to pick up a birthday card for my dad. yes, july 4th is my dads birthday, yes i am a procrastinator. so i picked out a card a drove over to the parents house.

hung out for a bit there, and then went out to lunch with my parents and my aunt and cousin. good times.

after that i went home and did some laundry and packed up for my trip to DC, which i was leaving for early morning on the 5th. a couple friends met up at my place, and we were off to a bbq at another friends place.

we did the normal bbq stuff, eat, drink, play cards, do sparklers with the kids that were there... good times.

anyway, nothing out of the ordinary went down, but besides the eating and drinking and hanging out, we did do a crap load of fireworks. i managed to get a few pictures, there were even a few taken by a buddy of mine.

so for your viewing pleasure...

it was actually pretty hard taking these pictures, because i had to have the camera in night mode. which means the flash was off. which means the shutter stays open for a good amount of time. which means the tiniest movement of the camera and it is blurry. which means a lot of my pictures turned out blurry...

not only that, but i had to guess exactly where the fireworks were going to explode, which is why some of them are off center.

but these were some of the bet pics that i got.

You knew id do it, didnt you cece?

2005-07-05T12:03:00.000-04:00

10 years ago- i was attending 9th grade at stone junior high school. it was cool to wear basketball players jerseys to school over a plain white tshirt. i wore chris webbers golden state jersey. my grades were starting to slip, so the moms made me choose between playing baseball (which i had been playing since tball) or being in band. something made me choose band, i dont regret that decision at all.
5 years ago- i was in my second year of college at the university of central florida. i fell in love for the first time, got my heart broken for the first time, realized girls (roommates fiance) can be knifing bitches for the first time, because of this, i broke a heart for the first time (and realized that my heart never really was broken, i just chose to believe it was), i had sex for the first time
1 year ago- i had been at my job for a year, and i realized that working is overrated, and i wonder why adults push kids to hurry up and join the real world. do they want us to be as miserable as they are? i was getting over the second girl (out of 2) i ever loved. i tailgated at all of the ucf football games, but didnt go into a single one. i went to india.
Yesterday- i had lunch with my parents, and my aunt & cousin for my dads birthday. packed for my trip to DC, went to a bbq for the 4th of july where i ate lots of food, drank lots of drinks, and ate lots of food. (i was burping up ribs this morning, heh)
Tomorrow- i will be attending meetings all day for work here in DC, and who knows whats in store for the evening.
5 snacks I enjoy- anything with cheese on it, roll up a slice of turkey or ham, peanuts, peanut butter, i cant think of a 5th, lol
5 songs I know all the words to- pick 5 eminem songs :) or howie day - collide, vanilla ice - ice ice baby, brian mcknight - back at one, trick daddy - sugar
5 reality television shows I watch- umm, dont watch em... unless pimp my ride counts
5 television shows I watch daily- i dont have any shows i watch daily, i normally watch movies or sports.
5 things I would do with $100,000,000- id split it between all my family (estimating 35 relatives including cousins and such) which would leave me with 2.8 mil... buy a house worth around half a mil. buy a few hot ass cars that i wouldnt be able to afford otherwise. travel in style around eastern europe, and invest the rest (which im thinking would be about 1-1.5 mil), and if invested smartly, hopefully i could retire by age 30-35
5 locations I would love to run away to- san diego, the florida keys, the maldives (i dont think thats how you spell it), my bed, umm, i dunno
5 things I like doing- listenin to music, watching movies, playing basketball, watching sports, driving
5 things I would never wear- a thong, a speedo, a lip ring, a tattoo, capri pants
5 recently seen movies I like- mr & mrs smith, the longest yard, i cant think of what else ive seen recently
5 famous people I'd like to meet- marshall mathers, tracy mcgrady, glen bell, ill get back to you on the 5th
5 biggest joys of the moment- family, friends, health (physical and mental), taco bell, zoey
5 people to tag- fingers of fury, merry widow, shellibells... thats all

All In a Days Work

2005-06-21T14:47:00.000-04:00

Heard over the intercom:

"Someone in the building dialed 9-1-1, if you dialed 9-1-1 and it is actually an emergency, please dial extension xxxx"

apparently there is a higher authority then our fine emergency services in good old brevard county.

the funny part is that you have to dial 9 to get an outside number. meaning you would have to dial 9-9-1-1. even funnier, is whoever dialed it, immediately put the phone on hold.

in fact, an email went out minutes later saying the operator was still on hold. how funny.

anyway, how am i supposed to work after a traumatizing event like this occurs? we should be able to take the rest of the day off AND we should be provided with free counseling.

i may never be the same...

Current Project Status

2005-06-17T13:42:00.000-04:00

You know when you wake up, and you feel that lump in your throat, where you know you are going to have a sore throat soon?

yea, well i got that this morning. when i was at lunch, my nose starting dripping snot, and now im sneezing and my head is all stuffed up... yea, im going home...

i feel like crap!

Contrary to Popular Belief

2005-06-16T16:30:00.000-04:00

Dropping your cell phone into a liquid substance does not improve signal strength.

what had happened was...

so last friday, i got off work around 5 and decided to go home and take a nap. you know, getting myself ready for a night on the town. i woke up around 8, bs-ed around the house for a while, and finally decided to get ready to go out. i figure its ok if i waste time, because my roommate gets ready like a girl. hes so pretty *sigh*... lol

we do our little pre drinking ritual, a few drinks at the house, maybe a shot or two. except i didnt do any shots, because i was driving. gotta be responsible ya know. well, the roommate did two tequila shots and for some reason they didnt sit too well with him. normally this man is a tequila fiend, but that night, it just didnt sit right. so he didnt end up drinking it before we left. so instead of wasting it, he did what any eary/mid 20 year old would do, and brought it with him.

we get to fridays, and i notice he hadnt had any of his drink, i guess that tequila was still bothering him. anyway, if fridays had a VIP section, my buddies and i would definitely be lifetime members in said VIP section. we have friends that work in the bar, we go there often enough where the managers recognize us, we should probably buy some stock in the company or something.

anyway, we get our normal strong-ass drinks at fridays, a few shots, and we are on our way. we hit up this bar called main street pub. meet up with a few more friends, drink a few more drinks and decide that we are going to head on out to another bar.

so we head to my car, i must have been typing a text message or making a call or something, because whenever my phone is in my hand, and i get in my car, i automatically put it in my cup holder. its a routine, its like brushing your teeth, or taking a bath, or driving a manual transmission, or masturba... errr you know (thats for you Merry Widow, hehe). its just something you do without thinking about it.

so there i was, getting in my car, i sit down, go to drop my phone in the cup holder... and... SPLASH!!! i look down while thinking to myself, WTF?, and there it is. there is my cell phone, swimming in a vodka and coke.

did that stupid thing feel left out? did it get tired of watching me drink while it sat there quietly? well, luckily the cell phone and me respond to liquor in different ways. i dont die!

i quickly snatch the phone out of the glass, and toss it towards the passenger side floor. all the while spraying the roommate with vodka and coke. after a few minutes, i picked up the phone, took out the battery and sim card, and placed them all in my center console. i was putting my cell phone in timeout for underage drinking! or was my cell phone putting me in timeout for something, either way for the rest of the night, brace yourselves people, yes, i had to go without my cell phone!!!

can you believe it? i remember before getting a cell phone, i would tell all my friends. "i dont need a cell phone", "i am never going to sell out". well not only did i sell out, i came to the realization that i DO need a cell phone. because spending the rest of the night without one was excruciating. i felt naked, i felt disconnected, and even worse, there was a chance that i lost all of my phone numbers. which for the most part, is what happened.

upon getting home was where it hit hard. i couldnt make any drunken phone calls, or send any drunken text messages, or make drunken phone calls, or... you get the picture.

i wake up in the morning at around 10, the battery and sim card had been out of the cell phone and drying for about 10 - 11 hours. so i figure id give it a shot. i put in the sim card, i put in the battery, and immediately my cell phone goes into a continuous vibrate. just vibrates... pressing the power button does nothing, nothing comes up on the screen, just a continuous vibrate (so its not totally useless, haha... "hey, have you tried this toy yet?" Amish, is this a potential phunKtion product? can you market it for me?)

anyway, stay tuned for my account with the cell phone company, and how effed up my whole situation was...

til next time, make sure you pay more attention to your cell phones, and dont let them get to the point where they drown their sorrows in alcohol...

Bare Necessity part II

2005-06-10T14:41:00.000-04:00

I just learned of a funny story from that crazy monday night...

while we were searching for the keys, we ended up putting one friends fiance (the one that took a leak by the car) in the back seat of the roommates car. LDD #1 was in position to drive that car from BAs to smokey bones.

so there he is, sitting in the front seat, drunk fiance sitting in the back. drunk fiance did not want to sit in the back. so there she was, trying to climb her way into the front seat. so of course, her feet are going everywhere, including LDD #1's shoulder and arm and whatnot. LDD #1 is all like, drunk fiance, can you not put your feet all over me.

anyway, after we find the keys and are getting ready to go. drunk fiances man climbs in the back seat with her. while they are sitting back there, drunk fiance puts her feet on the center console. drunk fiances man says:

drunk fiance, nobody wants your dirty feet all over the place, especially after you peed all over them!

wow...

Bare Necessity

2005-06-09T10:33:00.000-04:00

this past monday night a group of friends and i went to smokey bones to watch game 7 of the detroit pistons vs miami heat series. and wow, what a game! miami lost, and i was happy!

before smokey bones, the roommate and i went to this italian joint, and had some pizza. since it was right near the house, we dropped by the house to put the leftovers in the fridge, and grabbed a beer.

we get to smokey bones, and we are watching the game, drinking some drinks. since we know a bartender there, the drinks are made very strong, and they come often. at one point, i hadnt even finished my captain, it was probably half done, and there was another one staring me in the face. im like, wtf? hehe

anyway, as the game goes on, the drinking continues. finally, when the game ended, we were all trying to decide what to do next. when oddly enough, the girls we were hanging out with, all decided that they wanted to go to Bare Assets. if you have any imagination at all, you should be able to figure out what kind of establishment Bare Assets (hereby refered to as BAs) is.

so we are all pretty gone as it is, we get to BAs, and it is a pretty slow night. must have been the B squad, lol. the funny part is, the girls sat almost front row, they were pretty up close and personal, and the guys decided to play pool. the pool table is right near the stage, so we werent missing much of anything ;)

the night progresses, the drinks continue to get consumed, girls get nekkid. you know the deal. apparently, the girls were watching girls dance, and an occaisional lap dance from manan would come along. what a guy, free lap dances... and i vaguely remember dancing with one of the chicas we were with. which on any normal day, wouldnt strike me as odd, but we werent really there to dance, we were there to watch dance... eh, what can you do?

so i go to pay my tab at the end of the night, and wow, $70 later, we are on our way. we walk out to the cars, and the 2 LDD (least drunk drivers) are getting ready to drive. when all of a sudden, somethings wrong. we are waiting to pull out of the parking lot in one car, and the other one still hasnt moved. we pull back around, only to see the LDD of the other car, messin with his fiance's pants, and suddenly, there she is taking a squat next to the car.

we pull up to see what the deal is, and apparently the keys are lost. now, from the other car, we wonder how that is possible, seeing that the drivers side door is wide open. so we get out to investigate. so heres the deal, LDD of the other car, went to put the key (which was not on a key chain) into the ignition, and he dropped it down the steering column. HE DROPPED THE DAMN KEY DOWN THE STEERING COLUMN! how the hell do you do that? i have never in my life heard of a key falling down the steering column.

if you ever want to sober up REAL quick, drop a key down the steering column. well, if you are a guy, and want to sober up, drop a key down the steering column, because we all sobered up, but the girls didnt. lol

so here we are, from 2 am, to about 3am reaching up under the steering column, taking turns, trying to find the key, taking turns, holding up drunk girls, taking turns trying not to rip each others heads off.

finally, it was back to my turn, so here i am, pretty much upside down in the drivers seat. my head is down near the pedals, my hand is reaching up the steering column, moving it wherever i can, trying to find the stupid key. when all of a sudden, plop! a key dropped onto the floormat, i didnt know if it was the key, but hell, i stuck it in the ignition, started the car, jumped out of the car, and was like, lets get the F outta here.

there i am, standing there, being stared at like i said the dumbest thing in the world. you see, no one realized i had found the key, but how could they not know, i started the car! well, apparently i didnt start the car, i just turned it one click. minor details. so anyway, we hightail it outta there, back to smokey bones where the rest of the cars were. so by this time, its almost 315. getting drunk girls in and out of cars isnt working too well. finally, everyone is in the right car, roomate takes one car, i am in his car, but i cant leave yet, because guy cant get his drunk fiance out of the car. so FINALLY, im on my way.

i get a call from the roommate on the way home, and hes like, where you at, i cant get into the house. im like what you mean you cant get into the house? duh, i had his keys, because i was driving his car, and i had my keys, because, well, i always have my keys... so there were no keys for him to get in.

wow, what a crazy night. might not have seemed crazy reading about this night, but it definitely was crazy being IN this night.

moral of the story: dont underestimate the detroit pistons...

Hangover Rating System

2005-06-06T15:48:00.000-04:00

If you don't laugh, then you just can't relate. Guess you have had to been there one time or another...

One Star Hangover (*):

No pain. No real feeling of illness. You're able to function relatively well; however, you are still parched. You can drink 5 sodas and still feel this way. For some reason, you are craving a steak & fries.

Two Star Hangover (**):

No pain, but something is definitely amiss. You may look okay, but you have the mental capacity of a staple gun. The coffee you are chugging is only increasing your rumbling gut, which is still tossing around the fruity pancake from the 3:00 AM Waffle House excursion. There is some definite havoc being wreaked upon your bowels.

Three Star Hangover (***):

Slight headache. Stomach feels crappy. You are definitely not productive. Anytime a girl walks by you gag because her perfume reminds you of the flavored schnapps shots your alcoholic friends dared you to drink.

Life would be better right now if you were home in your bed watching Lucy reruns. You've had 4 cups of coffee, a gallon of water, 3 iced teas and a diet Coke --- yet you haven't peed once.

Four Star Hangover (****):

Life sucks. Your head is throbbing. You can't speak too quickly or else you might puke. Your boss has already lambasted you for being late and has given you a lecture for reeking of booze. You wore nice clothes, but that can't hide the fact that you only shaved one side of your face. (For the ladies, it looks like you put your make-up on while riding the bumper cars.) Your eyes look like one big red vein, and even your hair hurts.

Your sphincter is in perpetual spasm, and the first of about five shits you take during the day brings water to the eyes of everyone who enters the bathroom.

Five Star Hangover (*****):

You have a second heartbeat in your head, which is actually annoying the employee who sits in the next cube. Vodka vapor is seeping out of every pore and making you dizzy. In fact, you are probably still drunk. You still have toothpaste crust in the corners of your mouth from brushing your teeth in an attempt to get the remnants of the poop fairy out. Your body has lost the ability to generate saliva so your tongue is suffocating you.

You don't have the foggiest idea who the hell the stranger was passed out in your
bed this morning. Any attempt to defecate results in a fire hose like discharge of alcohol-scented fluid with a rare 'floater' thrown in. The sole purpose of this 'floater' seems to be to splash the toilet water all over your ass. Death sounds pretty good about right now!

My Apologies

2005-06-06T10:41:00.000-04:00

i know it has been a long time since ive posted, but i have reasons! not excuses, just reasons, lol.

anyway, i have been traveling a lot for work recently, so theres my excuse, or reason, or whatever you want to call it.

lets see, since the first week of may i have been to sierra vista, arizona for a week, huntsville, alabama for a week, and washington, dc for a week. that leaves 2 out of the last 5 weeks at home, and 10 days out of those 2 weeks i partied like a rockstar!

a friend from hs was in from out of town, so a bunch of us were going out every night and partied...

so really, in the last 5 weeks madmanan has been madbusy.

i dont see any traveling in the near future, of course, that doesnt stop the people in charge from saying, guess where you get to go next week, or something like that. but for now, i am back!

If I could...

2005-05-11T10:54:00.000-04:00

so i got tagged by the lovely Merry Widow! i dont know whether she really wanted to know my "if i could(s)..." or if she just wanted me to blog ;) but ill comply either way!

Here's how you play:

The rules are simple when you're tagged.
Choose 5 items from the list to write about.
Tag 3 other individuals when you're done.

The theme is, as you can see, "If I could be..."

If I could be a scientist
If I could be a farmer
If I could be a musician
If I could be a doctor
If I could be a painter
If I could be a gardener
If I could be a missionary
If I could be a chef

If I could be an architect - i would build the most extravagant buildings, buildings so technologically advanced, people would come from around the world to look at them. and then i would have my own special on Modern Marvels

If I could be a linguist - i would focus on all of the different languages in india, so i would be able to communicate with relatives, and people from my culture more efficiently.

If I could be a psychologist

If I could be a librarian - i would use my librarian resources and skills to contact dan brown and tell him that he needs to write more books, because his writing wrocks. and i would have a complete dan brown section in my library

If I could be an athlete

If I could be a lawyer - i would focus on suing people who sued other people for frivolous reasons. damn sue happy world we live in... ooh ooh, the tylenol didnt get rid of my headache, SUE!!!

If I could be an inn-keeper
If I could be a professor
If I could be a writer
If I could be a llama-rider
If I could be a bonnie pirate

If I could be an astronaut - i would be the first ever 6'7 astronaut (unless there has already been one), and the first indian astronaut that was born in the US (unless there has already been one), and the first astronaut named manan!!!

If I could be a world famous blogger
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world
If I could be married to any current famous political figure

how you like them apples? guess what? TAG... youre it! (i break the rools too!)

now go get your if you coulds on!

Sierra Vista, Arizona

2005-05-04T01:13:00.000-04:00

So here i was, in the tuscon airport, 4 hours after boarding a delta md-88. md-88's arent normally what they use for 4 hour trips, but would you like to know why my coworkers and i were so lucky? well, since the cost of gas is so high, delta saves money by flying smaller plane, therefore using less gas. brilliant. except for the fact that these smaller planes arent equipped for movies and such. if i wasnt fortunate enough to be upgraded to first class because of my gold medallion status (i wouldnt really brag about it, the lady in front of me still couldnt lean her seat back because my knees were in the way), i probably wouldve been stuck with a bag of peanuts and two drinks. instead, i pretty much had unlimited drinks, and unlimited snacks... YAY!

so anyway, we arrive in tuscon, get our rental cars, and make the hour and a half drive over to sierra vista. now i had never heard of sierra vista, arizona before i was told that i would be coming here for work. and for those of you who think melbourne is small, and call it melboring... i would call this place sorry vista... it is smaller than melbourne. there is only ONE walmart, and its not even a super walmart! i mean come on, what kind of shit hole doesnt have a super walmart.

so today, we make the trip to bisbee, arizona. now mind you, i had never heard of sierra vista. do you think ive heard of bisbee??? nope... but the drive from sierra vista to bisbee (about 30 minutes) was a pretty pleasant drive. see for yourself:

and then finally...

this place was a little mining town, which now is just a very small tourist town. little bed and breakfasts, shops, winding roads. my coworker described it as being very similar to spain. its a nice little place to visit, but hell, there isnt really much going on here. for your viewing pleasure, a few more shots of bisbee...

we ended up eating at this nice little restaurant called The Bisbee Grill, and i have to say, the food was great, the service was awesome, and the people were just so fucking nice! it was pretty interesting, we were asking the hostess about bisbee, and she asked where we were from. 3 of us are from melbourne, fl and the other is from dayton, oh. the hostess was like, oh, well i lived in satellite beach when my dad was stationed at patrick air force base, and my grandfather built the first golf course in dayton. we were like, wow, talk about small world. and then there was the waitress. i decided that i was going to ask her where she was from. and much to my surprise, she was born in bisbee, moved away for college, missed bisbee, and came back.

yea, MISSED bisbee. i thought to myself, what exactly is there to miss. and where the fuck is this high school that you mentioned graduating from.

so if you ever want to see more border patrol then you have ever seen in your life (which before yesterday was NEVER), make your way anywhere along the US/Mexico border, and you will be sure to run into a few...

anyway, tonight wasnt that bad a night seeing that im stuck in the middle of nowhere, hopefully the rest of the week can be just as painless.

so to all you folks out there in the comfort of your own homes, FUCK YOU! lol, jk...

Blog Crazy

2005-04-28T14:13:00.000-04:00

So i have been going a bit blog crazy lately. i have been obsessively clicking on peoples links and blog rolls, and i have found some pretty cool blogs. so besides the ones that are already on my "blogs i frequent" list, here are some more cool blogs:

most (if not all) of these will probably soon be on the "blogs i frequent" list...

im sure there are more that i have enjoyed recently, but these were all i could think of.

Comparison of Women...

2005-04-27T14:06:00.000-04:00

i got this joke, and thought it was hilarious...

A beautiful comparison of women......

WHITE WOMEN:

First date: You get to kiss her goodnight.
Second date: You get to grope all over and make out.
Third date: You get to have sex but only in the missionary position.

IRISH WOMEN:

First Date: You both get blind drunk and have sex.
Second Date: You both get blind drunk and have sex.
20th Anniversary: You both get blind drunk and have sex.

ITALIAN WOMEN:

First Date: You take her to a play and an expensive restaurant.
Second Date: You meet her parents and her Mom makes spaghetti & meatballs.
Third Date: You have sex; she wants to marry you & insists on a 3 carat ring.
5th Anniversary: You already have 5 kids together & hate the thought of having sex.
6th Anniversary: You find yourself a girlfriend.

JEWISH WOMEN:

First Date: You get dynamite head.
Second Date: You get more great head.
Third Date: You tell her you'll marry her and never get head again.

CHINESE WOMEN:

First date: You get to buy her an expensive dinner but nothing happens.
Second date: You buy her an even more expensive dinner, nothing happens again.
Third date: You don't even get to the third date and you've already realized nothing is going to happen.

INDIAN WOMEN:

First date: Meet her parents.
Second date: Set the date of the wedding.
Third date: Wedding night.

BLACK WOMEN:

First Date: You get to buy her a real expensive dinner.
Second Date: You get to buy her and her girlfriends a real expensive dinner.
Third Date: You get to pay her rent.
Tenth Date: She's pregnant by someone else.

MEXICAN WOMEN:

First Date: You buy her an expensive dinner, get drunk on Tequila, have sex in the back of her car.
Second Date: She's pregnant.
Third Date: She moves in.
One week later: her mother, father, his girlfriend, her two sisters, her brother, all of their kids, her grandma, her father's girlfriend's mother, her two cousins, her sister's boyfriend and his three kids move in and you live on rice and beans for the rest of your life in your home that used to be nice, but now looks like it belongs somewhere in the desert along the Rio Grande, with chickens and goats in the front yard.

GOD...... DON'T YOU JUST LOVE IRISH WOMEN?

I speaka no ingles

2005-04-20T16:40:00.000-04:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

25% Yankee

10% Dixie

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

Snooze Button, How I Love You

2005-04-13T10:21:00.000-04:00

For any of you who dont know me, I love to sleep. I could easily sleep 10 hours every night, and think nothing of it. The problem comes in here, if i were to sleep 10 hours every night, i would have to go to sleep around 9pm every night. That would get me to work on time everyday, because that happens all the time!

A few months back our boss-lady had us set our own work hours, which was the coolest thing ever! so i set my time to come into work at 830... since then, i have been within 10-15 minutes (earlier OR later) of my set time.

i am by no means a morning person, here is my ordeal every morning:

- alarm is set for 650 am
- alarm clock is 30 minutes ahead (this does me NO good since i know it is ahead, oh well...)
- alarm is REALLY set for 620 am
- alarm rings at 620 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 629 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 639 am (took me a minute to realize it was going off the previous time, which explains the 10 minute gap between alarms)
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 648 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 657 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- stereo with lots of bass kicks on at 700 am
- i fumble around for the remote
- turn off stereo
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 706 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 715 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 724 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 733 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 742 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button
- fall back asleep
- alarm rings at 751 am
- i reach over and hit the snooze button and decide that maybe looking at the alarm clock to see what time it is might be a good idea at this point (this point sometimes comes earlier and sometimes comes later)
- look at clock
- realize i have 15 - 20 minutes to get ready
- jump outta bed
- find clothes to wear
- put them in my ironing machine
- jump in the shower
- jump outta shower
- shave (if necessary)
- brush teeth
- do hair (take american crew forming cream in palm of hand, rub through hair til desired messiness/spikeyness has been reached)
- grab clothes out of ironing machine
- get dressed
- feed cat (if necessary)
- spray on some polo sport
- run out the door
- run back in the door when i realize i didnt grab my cell phone (if necessary)
- run back in the door when i realize i didnt grab my wallet (if necessary)
- run back in the door when i realize i didnt grab my keys (if necessary)
- realize i locked the door, bang head on door because i cant go in through the front door because keys are locked inside (if necessary)
- use the code to get into garage and then into house (if necessary)
- run BACK out the door
- jump in car
- turn on good tunes, make sure subwoofer is working, boom boom boom status achieved
- speed to work at an average of 15 mph over the speed limit
- take shortcuts around traffic lights that are known to take forever
- weave in and out of traffic
- use obscene gestures to motorists who piss me off in any way
- pull into parking lot at work
- walk into building anywhere between 815 - 845

that is my normal day. yesterday, today, and tomorrow are not normal days. these three days, i was/am required to be here at 8 am which throws off my ENTIRE morning ritual. instead of reaching over and hitting the snooze button a bunch of times, only to look over and see the time, get the "oh shit im going to be late" feeling in my stomach. i have to look at the clock everytime i snooze (what a concept), EVERYTIME I SNOOZE i said. so instead of getting the "oh shit im going to be late" feeling in my stomach, i get the "shit i can snooze 1 or 2 more times and still not be late" feeling. for some reason, knowing that i have to actually look at the alarm clock everytime it goes off, prevents me from getting the best sleep ever in those 9 minutes, which is what i normally get when i am oblivious to the time.

friday will be a LOVELY morning, because i will be able to go back to my normal "oh shit im going to be late" self...

Time for another Good Idea, Bad Idea

2005-04-11T12:15:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: No manans were harmed in the making of this Good Idea, Bad Idea

Good Idea: Getting into a fight in downtown orlando outside a club to show off your manliness, which is a sure-fire way of getting multiple girls to go home with you who will all immediately want to have your babies (all at once)...

Bad Idea: Getting into a fight in downtown orlando outside a club to show off your manliness, which is a sure-fire way of getting multiple girls to go home with you who will all immediately want to have your babies (all at once) WHILE there are cops around who will not, and DID NOT think twice about using their tasers to stop said fight.

that was hands down, by far, the FUNNIEST thing i have seen in a long time. one kid got tased (is that a word?) in mid punch, and immediately ran to the ground. the other, for some stupid reason, must have thought: "hey, i can outrun 39275092 cops in crowded downtown orlando". boy was he wrong. he got about 10 steps into his run, when he got tased as well, and BOOM fell to the ground.

if you have not had the privilege of watching someone get tased. i suggest to march your little booty to the nearest police station and DEMAND that you receive a demonstration. you can tell them to use it on the most recent person arrested.

Snagged from Shelli who snagged it from Kristine...

2005-04-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

1. YOUR PORN STAR NAME (Name of first pet / Street where you live): Fox McClain

2. YOUR FASHION DESIGNER NAME (First word you see on your left / Favorite restaurant): Feature Fridays

3. EXOTIC FOREIGNER ALIAS (Favorite Spice / Last Foreign Vacation Spot): Red Pepper India

4. "FLY GIRL/BOY" ALIAS (First Initial / First Two or Three Letters of your Last Name) : M-Ka

5. ICON ALIAS (Something Sweet Within Sight / Any Liquid in Your Kitchen): Thin Mint Rum

6. DETECTIVE ALIAS (Favorite Baby Animal / Where You Went to High School):
Tiger Palm Bay

7. BARFLY ALIAS(Last Snack Food You Ate / Your Favorite Alcoholic Drink) : Peanut Captain

8. SOAP OPERA ALIAS (Middle Name / Street Where You First Lived: Mahendra Marshall

9. ROCK STAR ALIAS (Favorite Candy / Last Name Of Favorite Musician): Peanut Butter Cup Mathers

10. YOUR STAR WARS NAME ( First 2 letters of your first name and the first 3 Letters from your last name makes your first name. Take the first 2 letters of your mother's maiden name and the first 3 letters of the city you were born in for your last name): MaKar VaRal

I hate people

2005-04-06T12:29:00.000-04:00

So i drove over to subway on my lunch break. got myself a nice chicken bacon ranch sub, which apparently has 548 calories and 42 grams of fat (thanks shelli!). now not only do i feel full, i feel as maybe i shouldve chosen one of subways more healthier items.

anyway, this isnt why i hate people. i hate people, because when i was leaving subway, i was waiting to pull out of the parking lot. but i had nowhere to go, because the traffic i was pulling into, had a red light. so i am waiting for the light to turn green, for there to be a break in cars, so i can take a right turn onto the road, and be on my way.

well, asshole #1 (which would be the first person that couldve let me in) just slammed on the gas, and didnt give me a chance to pull into traffic.

then there is asshole #2, who did the same thing.

after these assholes, the traffic was moving at a speed where i wouldnt expect anyone else to stop. which they didnt, as expected...

i ALWAYS let people in during these situations, ALWAYS!!!

and now, because of asshole #1 and asshole #2, i will not be courteous on the roads for the rest of the day. so if you see me coming, i suggest you get outta my way!

That's sexual harassment...

2005-04-05T09:44:00.000-04:00

and i DONT have to take it!!!

so last night i went out to watch the ncaa championship basketball game. i went to one of my friends, lets call him tim, place of employment, where he works in the kitchen, bossing people around. anyway, i sit at the bar, looking around, taking in the scenery. it was my first time being at this place. behind the bar was a guy i had met elsewhere while hanging out with tim. so he starts talking to me, gets me a drink. not too long after i arrive there, the game starts.

so im watchin the game, tim is coming up to the bar for a few minutes at a time, and then back into the kitchen to finish up his work for the night. a few of his coworkers come up to me, and see my bracelet on my wrist, and say: "oooooh, YOU are the bracelet twin!" yup, thats me, i am the bracelet twin!

you see, last saturday, some friends and i went out on the town, from one place, to another, to another. one of our stops, had a $5 cover, and they gave us these nice pretty purple and white checkered bracelets to let the bartenders know that we paid to get in AND that we were old enough to consume alcoholic beverages.

well tim and i had the bright idea of making a friendly wager of $10 to the person whos bracelet stays on the longest. so here we are, 10 days later, both of us still proudly wearing our bracelets. and both of us have been asked, "wow, rough night last night?", or "what does that stand for?", and we let them know, that is not a bracelet on our wrists, but $10!!!

anyway, so one of his coworkers comes up to me, and starts talking to me. im like, oh hey, im manan, bla bla bla, and i put out my hand and offer it for a shake. when she is like "i dont care, and im not shaking your hand, you have sores on it!"

im like WTF?!?!

for the record: i do have a scab right above my thumb, and its from a wobbly drill i was using while working on the house, and it actually rubbed off some skin it was wobbling so much. you dont believe me? I DONT CARE!

anyway, shes snorts and continues to say she is joking, and takes my hand shakes it, mentions her name. and i guess she wanted me to KNOW she was joking, so she takes my hand after shaking it, and proceeds rubbing in her crotchal area! im like, umm, wtf is wrong with you?

my good friend tim, i love you tim, failed to mention that nobody likes this girl. thanks tim!

so here i am, sitting on the bar stool, with her pretty much standing on my lap, rubbing up against me, making me touch things i wouldnt touch with tim's... well, you get the picture. all of this is happening, while every time i see tim, i give him the SAVE ME look, and finally he comes over and says, hey manan, come check this out!

boy was this a mistake, i stand up, and she is like, WOW, you are tall. i guess me being tall, got the wheels spinning in her mind, because she is starting to wonder things. things that i dont want crazy ass girls like her wondernig. and then she starts all grabbing MY crotchal area, im like, whoa lady, you gotta stop. theres only one way to see that, and you are going about it the WRONG way! (and no, get your minds out of the gutter, the only way is to look at my baby pictures when my mom was bathing me! get your filthy minds outta the gutter! i am a saint!)

so here i am, trying to get away from this girl, and shes following me around the restaurant trying to grab my manhood. i know this sounds odd, that a guy is running away from a girl trying to grab him, but if you wouldve seen how crazy this girl seemed, YOUD be running too!!!

shes all like, stop backing up, i just wanna feel it, its nothing, its not sexual, you are making it sexual.

so for all you ladies out there, who want to touch a mans, well... little man, DONT do what crazy lady #1 did above. that is NOT the way to get your hands down a guys pants. all that does is make him want to call the looney bin that you happened to walk out of and report you missing.

until next time... GET OFF MY DI*K

Where did the weekend go?

2005-04-04T16:20:00.000-04:00

So i spent yet another weekend working on my buddy's house. it is coming closer and closer to being finished though, so thats pretty cool.

friday, after work, i headed home (around 3), and i was thinking to myself, "man, im really tired. maybe if i go home, take a quick 20 minute power nap, ill feel refreshed." that works, right? WRONG, i wake up, and look at the clock, and its almost 430. haha, im an idiot. why did i think i would be any less infatuated with the snooze button when i nap as opposed to when i sleep?

anyway, so i finally get to the house, and work on it til about 1230 or so, and went home and passed out.

then, saturday, we were shooting to start around 830, no big deal, i mean, i went to sleep at around 1. i should be able to wake up at 815, right? nope! haha, i love sleep!

i get there around 930, but that was after stopping by walmart to pick up some crap. speaking of walmart, when i got out, it was kinda raining a little, so i get to my car, put the crap in my trunk. sit down, start the car, look back to reverse, and i see a cart, without someone pushing it, this cart was travelling all by itself! how dare this cart travel around in the parking lot without a human companion??? not only is this cart roaming the parking lot, its coming in the direction of my car! at this same time, my phone rings, its like, what do i do? do i answer the phone (its my buddy whose house i am working on, and his phone never works. so if i miss the call, and call back, i might not know if he needed something else), on the other hand, there is a cart coming towards my car.

so i do both, i answer the phone and halfway jump out of my car at the same time, but i was too late, the cart was traveling at a higher rate of speed than i expected. i checked out the damage, but i couldnt find any.

so we work on the house all day until about 430, i go home and get ready, and we took the hour drive over to whore-lando to watch some basketball and then go out downtown.

we go to the ale house, and let me tell you, our server was an IDIOT. everything was "a second" for him.

"hey man, we are ready to order"

server - "ill be there in a second, let me drop this food off"

"can i get another beer"

server - "ill get that to you in a second"

EVERY response he had, had "a second" in it. and let me tell you, it took waaaaay longer than a second most of the time. he forgot beers we ordered on multiple occasions. so we finish up watching basketball, and head downtown. we are hitting up a couple of bars, and my buddy gets a call, a friend of his was hanging out at this place called vibe. we were at cantina, or something like that, right across the street from slingapores on wall street (for you orlandoians).

well, instead of going around to the exit, we took the liberty of hopping the 3 - 3.5 ft railing that separated the outside bar area from the street. no problem. well, i guess a few hours later, we ended up doing the same thing. except my buddy obviously didnt make it as high this time around, and ended up pretty much doing a face plant on the concrete right as 4 or 5 people walk by. i mean, maybe you had to be there to laugh about this, and well, i was there, so that is exactly what i did, i laughed so hard, it was the funniest thing that happened all night!

anyway, nothing else as exciting as that happened all night, but it was still a fun night.

and we spent sunday (well, started about 1) working on the house as well. and the good news, is we are almost done! i am maybe a little over a week away from moving now! hopefully no major obstacles come up between then and now!

keep your fingers crossed...

It's Friday...

2005-04-01T12:29:00.000-05:00

you aint got no job, you aint got shit to do!!! im gonna get you h.. errr, nevermind!

so its friday, and as tradition holds it, i met up with Fingers Of Fury for lunch at charlie and jakes for some good ole bbq.

for some reason i always call fof to make sure he has left, but always manage to show up later than him. i dont get that one at all... well, today, i called to make sure he was on his way, and sure enough, when he picked up, i hear wind from betsy's not so air-tite seals. so i thought to myself, if i leave now, i will actually get there BEFORE our traditional 1115 meeting time.

i get on my way, i am going the speed limit (yea right), ok ok ok, im doing about 65 in a 40. and im looking ahead, and what do i see??? the arms from the railroad crossing going down, while lights are flashing, and bells are ringing. im like NOOOOOOOO. so i pull up, and im the first car in the left lane, waiting to go, watching the train go by slower than the idle speed of betsy. i look over at the yellow mustang in the right lane, and there is a pretty cute chica on the phone. so i do what any guy would do, i get my "im cool" look on, and i glance over every now and then, with the "how u doin?" look. as soon as she gets off the phone, shes all over the front seat of her car doing who knows what! reaching down on the drivers side, then the passengers side. i think she was either clipping her toe nails, or cleaning out fungus between her toes...

either way, i am pulling into the parking lot when i get a text message from fof saying, "how close are you?". so while walking from the car to the building, i text back, "close" :) im so funny! lol, jk.

so anyway, we are chillin, talkin, waiting til we could be eatin. and some lady at the next table looks over, and was like, we sat here to be next to you guys. i look at fof, and im like umm, why is she talking to us??? lets just say, they were less than desireable! another point to ponder, they had a handicapped tag hanging off of their rear view mirror, and parked in the handicapped spot. yet they both walked in just fine. things that make you go, hmmmm... the only thing that i saw that couldve been close to being a disability was one was a little on the heavy side. and im exaggerating when i say a little. but is that really a disability?

my dad is disabled, he walks with a cane because the right side of his body is weak. he has problems climbing steps, and walks really slow, and pretty much cant walk without his cane. to me, THAT is a disability. parking close so you dont get winded from the walk? i dont see that as a disability, maybe im being a dick, but thats just my perspective... i mean come on, i get tired when i have to park far away, and walk all the way to wherever it is im going, but i suck it up! ;)

but back to the story, i hoped that they wouldnt talk to us again, and they didnt! they were scary! so anyway, we were talking about random things, i was explaining the ncaa tournament to him, and somehow we got to talking about blogs <-- that always seems to come up! haha

we start talking about how i havent blogged in a while, and how Blingy asked for my email, i pointed her in the right direction, and to this day, havent received an email from her. i was like, whats up with that? fof says, "what IS up with that?" and proceeds to say "i am going to call her out". im thinking to myself, hell yea, hes gonna send her an email, or comment, or something saying, yo D-to-the-izzawn, why you dissin? but no, out comes his cell phone, and he literally "called" her out.

unfortunately, it went straight to voicemail, no love from Dawn, no love at all... where IS the love D? where?

anyway, so now the countdown to the weekend begins, 2 more hours at the office, and then its off to work on the house. hopefully we can get a lot done this weekend, cuz i told my current roommate i would be out by the first week of april, and well, it is april!

in the words of Shellibells, TGIF!

in bloggage,

madhatton ;)

Selection Sunday

2005-03-14T15:37:00.000-05:00

What a great weekend... Started off with basketball, ended with basketball, and had a whole bunch of crap in between!

The ACC tournament was this weekend, in which Duke was the #3 seed. The tournament started off with Clemnson upsetting Maryland, and Virginia upsetting Miami. And of course, NC State wooped up on FS-WHO? (that one was for you Carol and Dawn) That was actually on Thursday, but who cares, we can count that as the weekend. Thursday, we went out to celebrate 2 of my friends birthdays, it was just a chill night at Fridays. Had some drinks, hung out with the crew, and eventually made it home.

Friday, there were 2 upsets, Georgia Tech beat Virginia Tech (that ones for you Christie Mae) and then NC State kicked Wake Forests booty! Friday night, went out with some friends, it was a fun night, nothing too exciting to comment about, just an all around good time...

Saturday, i worked on the house all day, cuz there is about 3 weeks til i told my roommate id be out, and probably 4 weekends worth of work left. ill let you know whenever i figure out how that is going to work out ;)

I missed the games on saturday, but GT (also for you Christie Mae) beat the #1 Tar Heels and Duke went on to beat NC State.

Then of course, Saturday night, went out, had a good time, nothing notable happened...

Now comes Sunday, the Sunday which is mentioned in the title of this post, it would be called Selection Sunday. Selection Sunday is the day when the NCAA College Basketball tournament participants are announced, placed and seeded accordingly. The NCAA committee gathers to select and place 65 men's teams and 64 women's teams that they deem worthy of an invitiation to the NCAA Men's and Women's basketball tournaments that take place in March and April.

Anyway, the ACC Championship Game was held on this day, and what a game it was. Duke came out the winner, and the ACC Champion, which has now been the outcome of the ACC tournament 6 out of the last 7 years. But dont be too sad Christie Mae, your Yellow Jackets still made it into the tourney! and you beat UNC, cant be too sad about that ;)

So by Duke winning the ACC, it pretty much knocked Wake Forest out of the number 1 seed for the NCAA tourney, and the Selection Sunday committee was kind enough to give that spot to none other than the Duke Blue Devils!

And the best part about all of this, is the Bracketology educated guess, that matched up Duke with UCF, wont be taking place. Instead, UCF will have to face UConn... great :/ not much better really.

After working on the house, since it was such a basketball weekend, i met up with some friends, and played some basketball! Now you might say, isnt it sweet that I live in florida, and got to play basketball, cuz i could be stuck in Massachusetts like Shellibells where there was like 3207590970274327 feet of snow in the past week or so... but either way, doesnt really matter, cuz we played indoors!

Then last night, I went to this new martini bar that opened up here in town, had a few different martinis, they were alright, then i had to have some captain, and then i ended off with a beer they had that was pretty good, it was called hazed and infused! lol... what a great name for a beer...

Well that about wraps up this college basketball edition of What you say??? Until next time, HOLLA BACK!

Dilemma

2005-03-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

and not the kind kelly rowland has...

so this past weekend, my alma mater, the school that sports the colors black and gold, the school whos colors i so prouldly cheer for (even though their sports teams arent the greatest), won the Atlantic Sun Tournament. which gives them an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament for the second straight years, and fourth time in school history! so i am stoked, right? kinda...

if you ever read my blog, or glance at the pictures that have been up here recently, you will notice that i have liked the Duke University Blue Devils since my brother started attending duke in the fall of 1995.

the problem that comes up is ESPN's Bracketology (even though its only a preliminary seed) has Duke a 2 seed, and ucf a 15 seed, in the same bracket.

for those of you who dont understand what this means, is ucf will most likely be playing duke in the first round of the ncaa tournament this year. how awful is that? the school i went to, is playing the school i have been following all year. i mean, come on, how much hope is there for a team who has only been to the ncaa tournament 4 times in its history, against a team who has been to the final four 9 times in the past 20 years! under a coach (coach k) who ranks 2nd ALL TIME in ncaa tournament wins. i mean, statistically, the game is already over!

so there is my dilemma...

my solution... i will cheer for ucf in the game, but when i fill out my bracket, duke will be moving on...

President's Day

2005-02-22T09:26:00.000-05:00

I love president's day! actually, i love any day that gives me a day off from work. lets see, what did i do yesterday? well, i woke up around 1230, bummed around a little bit, went to the gym, bummed around some more. it was a GREAT day! i think they need to give us more of these little paid holiday things. my roommates company didnt have the day off, so i had the house to myself the whole day, it was awesome.

the weekend went pretty well too... saturday, worked on the house some more. i got a few pics that ill post later. but we moved around some more electrical stuff, added some switches and outlets. framed in the place where the door to my bedroom is going to go, now we just have to put in a door.

gonna go work on it some more today. today i think we are focusing on the third room, which is going to be the "computer room". we have to fix up the frame for the closet, and do some electrical work in there as well. and we also have to put the insulation back up that the hurricanes caused to fall from the ceiling in my room.

its actually all moving along fairly quickly. saturday, we will be putting up all the drywall back there, and then whats left you might ask? mudding, painting, carpet, baseboards, and finishing touches. thats all i can think of, there might be more, if there is, i dont remember it...

christie & carol - i was SO going for GT to lose to FS-who on sunday... grrrrr, they were SO close!

oh yea, and of course, how could i forget?!?!? DUKE WON!!!

Movin on up! errr OUT!

2005-02-17T16:14:00.000-05:00

So, the roommate came back and said, well, ill take $50 off your rent. im like, yea, ok, how about, no. i told him i would be out in the beginning of april. in our verbal contract for me renting from him, he said that i had to give him a months notice for when i wanted to move out. so since i satisfied that clause, i should be able to get 100% of my security depost back, right?

that means, 100% of $0 = $0!!! sweet!!!

so i am moving in with another friend of mine, and the rent will be $150 cheaper. that is pretty sweet you might say. good bye west melbourne, hello palm bay! it sux tho, because now my hop and a skip to fridays, is going to be 2 skips, 2 hops, and a long jump (even with my long ass legs). i doubt i will be frequenting fridays less than before though, so thats a good thing, i think ;)

my drive to work is also going to be extended by about 5 minutes, maybe a little more depending on traffic. i know i know, you all are probably thinking: "5 minutes, just sleep 5 minutes less a night", i can assure you, its not that simple. if you know me, or slept with me (which if you are reading this, you havent, haha), or slept near me (this one is possible), or slept within earshot of my alarm clock (this one is also possible), you know how much i love my sleep, and how much 5 minutes means to me. those 9 minutes between snoozes, those are the best 9 minutes of my life! (excluding the 12.5 seconds it takes me to, well... nevermind)

i have had many objects thrown at my wall (from my lovely brother) from times when i dont hear my alarm, which seems to have woken up the whole house except for me. it was even like old times, when he was visiting in november, and he was sleeping on the couch, which is on the other side of one of the walls to my room, and he started banging the wall! it brought back the sweetest of memories :)

ANYWAY...

well, the house i am moving into, my friend bought it, and he has been fixing it up, and when i say fixing up, i mean tearing apart, and putting it all back together again. I guess in his case, all the kings horses and all the kings men were good enough. so the inside of the house got transformed from a 2 bedroom 1 bath, to a 1 bedroom 2 bath, and now the florida room (i think thats what its called)/patio is getting turned into 2 bedrooms and then another long room between the two bedrooms.

the room i am getting is about 12x13 ish, id say it has to be the biggest room ive had, i think. the last room i had in college was pretty big, but i dont think it was this big. anyway, the closet took out about 2 feet along almost the whole side of the room. and we decided to take the frame for the closet down, and build a new walk in closet on the outside of the room. so that makes the long room, a little less long, but its pretty cool. so now ill have a door for my room, and immediately to the left will be my walk in closet, and then my 12x13 room!

so im having some bad thoughts (and no, not those kinda bad thoughts, i dont have to mention those, because that is a given), the kind of bad thoughts that make you spend money (and no, those "given" bad thoughts dont make me spend money, i know what you are thinking!). since the dry wall isnt put up yet, i have the ability to do things like, say, wire the room for surround sound. and then buy a new tv, and a surround sound system. see what kind of bad ideas im getting!! moving into this place is supposed to be saving me money, not costing me money.

i also want a new dresser, that free one i picked up in college just isnt cutting it anymore, and my nightstand could also use an upgrade... grrr... what to do? what to do?

so anyway, the place should be pretty sweet when it is all said and done, and we have talked about having another project when the rear part of the house is completed, and i move in. i dont know if it will happen or not, but its a thought. we talked about building a bar for the long room between the two bedrooms in the back of the house. that would be pretty cool.

but anyway, i guess one of the really sweet things about this, is since ive been helping him with his house (i started helping way before i was even thinking about moving in there), is i have learned so many things that i never knew how to do before.

so you can just call me a handy man in training. its amazing how much you can accomplish when you have the right tools for the job!

Always

2005-02-14T16:14:00.000-05:00

This romeo is bleeding
But you can’t see his blood
It’s nothing but some feelings
That this old dog kicked up

It’s been raining since you left me
Now I’m drowning in the flood
You see I’ve always been a fighter
But without you I give up

Now I can’t sing a love song
Like the way it’s meant to be
Well, I guess I’m not that good anymore
But baby, that’s just me

And I will love you, baby - always
And I’ll be there forever and a day - always
I’ll be there till the stars don’t shine
Till the heavens burst and
The words don’t rhyme
And I know when I die, you’ll be on my mind
And I’ll love you - always

...

Cameron Classic

2005-02-10T09:49:00.000-05:00

how about them duke blue devils?!?!?! what a great game, i got a little nervous at the end, but duke pulled it off. isnt the ACC just great! its the best conference in the NATION.

so anyway, it was the normal tradition for ACC wednesday. took the short trip up to fridays to watch the game, what a game.

there was no exciting debates, a pretty slow night if you ask me. the best part of the night, was when this group of about 3 guys and 3 girls came into the bar, and one of the girls ordered a drink. when the bartender, jomama (name has been changed to protect the innocent), asked for her ID, the girl pulled it out, showed it to her, and said, "ill hold it". jomama thought to herself, like hell you will, she made her hand that thing over. and you know what, it was a fake, it had some kind of clear plastic sheet on top of the license, that somehow made it so it changed the bday or whatever. it was HILARIOUS. watching the girl get busted, and watching jomama do it, cuz jomama has and attitude, and doesnt take shit from anybody. turns out, the girl was 17!!! lol, jomama said, you need to go home and go to bed so you can go to school in the morning.

CLASSIC!

later on, the group had moved to a table, and i asked jomama if i could buy that girl a drink, i got denied... oh well... GO DUKE!!!

This one time...

2005-02-09T14:48:00.000-05:00

... in band camp

If you dont know, you betta axe sumbody!

And i present to you, the 1999 UCF Marching band playing one of our shows of the season (Rock Show)

If you like some good ole rock music, check it out, this selection includes:
Queen
Santana
Kansas
AND MORE...

also, performing members include: Brian, AKA Bryne, AKA Fingers Of Fury, AKA FOF on Tromobone; and Manan AKA madmanan AKA The Indian on Bass Drum

dont you think its funny that we played for the same marching band, and didnt know each other til we worked together. then again, we (the drumline) were a bunch of snobs, and only hung out with the dancers ;) and trumpet players, they were cool too! lol

All in a days work

2005-02-09T13:12:00.000-05:00

Or at least a morning...

did anyone read the jokes in that section in readers digest? i remember reading all of the joke sections in readers digest, but thats it. i would flip through all of the pages (all in a days work, humor in uniform, laughter the best medicine, there might be more).

anyway, my phone has been blowin up this mornin, phone calls from friends, coworkers, an ex (no FOF, not what (or who) you are thinking), then im on the phone, and all of a sudden im jammin to "freak-a-leek" by petey pablo (that means my cell phone is ringing). im like, wtf?!?! why did i all of a sudden become so phone-ably irresistable?

so im on the phone, and my cell is going off, i silence it, then an email pops up. microsoft outlook 2003 has this nice little feature where when you get an email, it gives you a little pop up screen that tells you you got an email, who its from, and like the first sentence or so of the email. well, this email happens to be from, none other than mr FOF. and the line says, "What are you doing for lunch today? And can I join you?"

now on any normal day, id be bout it bout it -- i mean come on how often does the chance arise to have lunch with FOF -- but not today. why you might ask? well, 1, ive been eating out way too much, spending waaay too much money. 2, im trying to eat better, seeing that ive been going to the gym and all (but i have been slackin this week, havent brought my lunch in once, have just been making mad trips to subway, lol). so i figured id call FOF after i got off the phone.

but nooooo, mr impatient-i-have-ants-in-my-pants-hurry-up-and-answer-me-or-else-i-am-going-to-die FOF emails me again, while im still on the phone. this time, it says, "Get off the phone and call me already!". I guess it might be a little strange that he knew i was on the phone. i mean, if you are calling from inside the building, it tells you when someone is on the phone, but not when the call is coming from the outside. and plus, the 2 times my phone rang while i was on the phone, i answered, and it wasnt FOF. hmm, maybe he is stalking me... who knows...

so i finally hang up the phone, and call FOF, and kindly let him know that since i was late to work, and cant stay late today, i have to work through lunch. to which he replies, i guess i better call in my order then. so i ask, like most people would, where are you going? and he doesnt tell me, im like come on, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?!?!?! so that went back and forth a few times before he finally told me. dont you hate that? when someone slightly brings up a subject, and then drops it, and to no end they wont say anything... grrr, it sux...

so i hop in my car, and speed off to subway, pick up my sub, and speed back to work. the less time i take, the better! well i come back to my desk, and notice that i have a message on my phone. so of course, i check it, and its the nice receptionist lady, who says that someone named brian called but i was on the phone, and he said to have me call him back, and that i knew the number.

so upon hearing this message, i figured it was brian aka bryne aka fingers of fury. since he already told me where he was going to pick up lunch, and that he might even go walk cain the wonder dog (aww, nice uncle FOF), i figured id hit him up on his cell phone. so i call him up, and i ask him if he called me, he said, nope. im like, you didnt call me and leave a message? he says nope. im thinking to myself, what other brian would call, and leave a message, and say, he knows the number?!?!? so i ask, you didnt call the receptionist, hes like, yea, and she said you were on the phone. im like, i was, but i just got a message from her saying someone named brian called, and said to call him, and that you knew the number. and he was like, no... oh wait, i did talk to her, im like, did you give her your name? he says, nope. im like what?!?!?! then finally he was like, oh, yes i did, i did call and give her my name. im like dayum boy, you need some more of that green tea with ginseng to help with that memory of yours.

so i thought that was a rather hilarious start to the day, dont you?

HOLLA BACK! :)

Input Please

2005-02-08T11:24:00.000-05:00

So yesterday, my roommate springs this on me. His girl that he has been seeing for a while (6 months-ish (i think)), has been having some family issues (i wont get into the details out of respect), but her lease at her apartment will be up at the end of next month. she isnt sure what she is going to be doing, and doesnt want to get stuck in another lease.

so my roommate says there is a possibility she might move in with us (he still doesnt know if he is ready for it "relationship-wise"). anyway, i really dont have much pull either way, seeing that it is my roommates house, and i pay him rent to live there, so my opinion doesnt really hold a lot of water.

here is my thing, IF this happens, she would be moving into his room, and most of her stuff would just go into storage, because supposedly this would be a "temporary situation". but seriously, once you are living with your girl, are you going to make her move out and get her own place if she ends up not moving away??? well, apparently, since it would not be affecting my living space - aka my room and my half of the computer room - my rent would not go down.

i dont see it the same way, i feel that even though my "living space" is not changing, by adding one more person to the mix (we already have my roommate, his dog, myself, and my cat), it seriously cuts down on the common space.

is it wrong of me to think my rent should go down?

anyway, i told him that it would definitely be a possibility that i would move out if i was unhappy with the situation.

Email me if you want details that im not going to share to the whole world...

Note to self

2005-02-07T14:27:00.000-05:00

Things i learned this weekend:

Naps are VERY useful friday after work when you party til the wee hours of the morning on thursday, and then woek all day friday

Eating a big steak (mmm i love a nice medium rare filet...) dinner before drinking gives you a false sense of security, and it makes you think you can down more liquor than normal

Spending your saturday cleaning so you arent totally embarrassed by your place when people come over to watch the superbowl isnt fun

Cleaning on saturday would probably go by faster if you dont stop to watch two movies that are on tv

I love migas!

Sweep your room AFTER you feed your cat, because she is a slob when she eats (actually, i knew this one, but i guess i forgot)

Its great knowing people at Fridays, because your hour wait turns into 25 mins

Its great knowing people at Fridays, because your rum and coke, that is very weak when made by the service bar in the kitchen, can be walked up to the bar, and topped off with more rum -- free of charge :)

Its awkward meeting a guy (who seemed like a really cool guy) and his wife when you go out to dinner with a whole bunch of people for someones birthday, and later when the husnand leaves to pick up the kids (of course i get volunteered to be her ride) you find out this bitch is a cheating slut (and no, i wasnt involved in the cheating, id like to think that i am better than that, i would not KNOWINGLY be involved in a situation like that)

If a girl you are hanging out with, is drinking malibu bay breezes, and you dont want her drinking anymore, you can order a malibu bay breeze minus the malibu, and she wont know the difference (you can even say malibu BRAY breeze when ordering and the bartender still knows what you are talking about)

I hate ungrateful people -- i ended up taking 4 people home that night, which is a tight squeeze in my car, especially since its hard to fit ONE person behind me, let alone one and a half... anyway, the car included me (aka - driver, owner of the car, ill play whatever fucking music i want to play when im driving your ass home out of the goodness of my heart, the birthday girl, her cousin, her friend (aka the slut), and her friends sister (aka turn that rap music down, i need to scream at my sister because she is a cheating whore) <-- yea, that was my saturday night

if i EVER cheat on my spouse, i will not HALF ASS it with an ugly unsuccessful person, if im going to do something like that, im going to go all out (i wouldnt do that though, but IF)

trying to get tortilla chips an hour before the superbowl is a BAD IDEA

asking mom to make her bean dip for my friends and i at my superbowl party, GREAT IDEA!!! thanks mom! :)

hosting a superbowl party, BAD IDEA, cuz then you gotta clean up when you are drunk, and that just cant turn out good -- i left in a hurry for work this morning, so i wont see the real damage til later

all in all, very interesting weekend...

I am a "DO-er"

2005-02-03T09:39:00.000-05:00

before last night, i cant remember when the last time i was in an actual debate with someone about a subject.

last night i went to fridays, which is kind of like cheers for me. one of those places where everyone knows your name! you see, fridays is a hop skip and a jump, well... scratch that, a hop and a skip (i have long legs).

not only is fridays so close, i went to high school with one of the bartenders, and a few servers, so everytime i go in there, more and more people know me. and the service couldnt be better :)

so my friends and i go to fridays from time to time, actually, you could say we frequent that place. it is our starting point for almost any night out. and we probably go out anywhere from 3 - 6 nights a week, lol...

well last night i went there to watch duke play wake forest, which they lost, which makes me sad, because duke is not supposed to lose, they are supposed to be the most awesomest team in the world. but no, they have to suck and lose to wake forest. which makes it their second ACC loss, which probably will take them out of 1st place in the ACC, not that any of you care, but i do.

so there i was with my buddy mike (name has been changed for sake of anonymity (is that a word?)), knockin back some of the fine drinks that the best bartenders ever make and watch the game, tru... tru... while we are there, a few lady friends show up, and i tell them one of them can have my seat as soon as i eat my quesadillas, i am such the gentleman.

we were sitting at the corner of the bar, which this bar is laid out in a square, with the bartenders on the inside. how they get in and out, i have NO idea. its magic i tell you, magic! there were these two mid-to-late 30s gentlemen sitting at the corner adjacent to us, and they dont say a word to us. but when we get up, and let the ladies sit down (by the way, while i was eating, ms. bartender lady yelled at me and mike (once again, name has been changed) for not giving up our seats...) all of a sudden, these guys start talking. funny how that works, isnt it?

well, it didnt matter, we are more into the game/drinking then anything else, so we think nothing of it. everynow and then, i listen in to catch up on what the ladies and the old men :) have been talking about. they were talking about the college that one of the ladies was going to be going to in the fall (just for clarification, i am not hanging out with high school chicas, she is in community college right now). all of a sudden, i hear the guys telling her, that there are 3 professions where you can be successful: becoming a doctor, mortgage broker (which one of them was), or a real estate agent.

this is when mike and i chimed in... im like WHOA... wtf, so you are saying that engineers arent successful. and they were like, how many engineers do you know that make 6 digits... first off, i was like, money has NO bearing on success, and second, there are plenty of engineers that make over 6 digits. and they are arguing that engineers are just do-ers, and the do what they are told, and they live within strict guidelines, bla bla bla... basically, they are knocking my profession yo! and any job you have, no matter what field, you are going to live within guidelines, unless you are running your own business, then you MAKE the guidelines.

well, my buddy mike is getting all heated, and he has MIS and finance degrees, but he works with a lot of engineers, so he is defending my side. but these guys are making arguments like, when you ask an engineer what he does, he says "im an engineer". yea... 1 - i dont do ONE thing, unlike mortgage brokers who take information from realtors, and send it to banks, and vice versa. yea, thats a real tough job... you are saving the world, one home loan at a time. and who designed that fancy schmancy computer that you are using? not a fucking real estate agent! 2 - if you really wanted an engineer to explain what they do, it would take them more than a sentence to do so, so sure, if you have an hour to sit down to talk to an engineer, maybe then we can explain to you what we do, even so, your dumbass isnt going to understand a word of what we are talking about, so whats the point really? 3 - i asked the guy that said the "im an engineer" statement, and you know what he said? "im a mortgage broker" can we say hipocrit?

these guys are arguing that engineers are a dime a dozen, bla bla bla, and we go after them and their slack ass jobs, one was a mortgage broker, and the other was a computer security analyst, or some shit like that. and when we start calling their bluff, they start back-pedalling and saying, oh we were just telling your friend what majors are... bla bla bla

ok mr mid life crisis, ill tell you how we can measure success sans money. while you were too busy to notice who was sitting next to you til some boobs popped in your face, my engineering ass can multitask. which means i can watch my basketball game, drink my drink, and listen to what your dumb ass is talking about... you are 35, divorced, and never get to see your kids, and you are telling this young girl what it takes to be successful??? why dont you open your eyes and see that you failed at marraige, so now you dont get to see your kids, so of course you are going to say money is the only real way to measure success. because you sure as hell arent succeeding at the game called "life" (no offense to people that are divorced, but when this guy is attacking my profession, i am going to attack him...)

so after we finish calling them out, they kind of start apologizing, oh we didnt mean engineers arent successful. what the fuck do you mean thats not what you meant? you SAID, engineering is not a successful field. so pretty much they start going back on everything they said, because they knew they were wrong, and they started an argument (ahem, DEBATE) with the wrong fucking people.

you know what you old sick fucks? take your middle age asses, and go hit on girls that werent just born when you were already driving and in high school...

ps - FOF just told me i was, and i quote an "Indian Do-Boy"... bryne, dont start with me, because i WILL finish! :)

Money doesnt matter...

2005-02-01T17:17:00.001-05:00

yea right...

you know how they say as long as you enjoy what you do, it doesnt matter what you make? to what point does that actually take effect? is there like a threshold that you go below, the fun-to-money ratio ceases to exist?

the reason i say this, is because one thing i think i could do, would love to do, and probably would do well... is teach. i think i would make a damn good teacher. i love kids, i dont get frustrated when i am explaining things (i dont think), and i love interacting with people. but the pay sucks, and worse, it doesnt get better very quickly at all. i mean, seriously, how do teachers do it? i would love to know their secret...

and on top of the crappy pay, we as parents (i am saying that like i am a parent, lol), expect our kids teachers to turn our kids into a genius so our kid can grow up and make lots of money and be successful (money has no bearing on success). how can we expect that out of them?

anyway, so i guess the teaching thing never really took priority because of the money. which is for the wrong reason i guess, but oh well.

so why am i bringing all of this up? there is this shop by walmart, called smoothies n tan, or something to that effect. i stop there whenever i leave the gym and have to go directly to walmart, because i read it is important to eat (or get a protien shake) shortly after working out. thats when you say to your muscles, "chew on this" :)

i go into this shop yesterday, and i realize, DAMN it must be fun to work at this place. you have all these hot girls coming in to get tans, hot girls working there, music pumpin out of the bose system that is connected to this tv so you can see the videos as well. so last time i went there, i ordered a strawberry-protien banana smoothie, with peanut butter, mmmmmmm i love peanut butter. and the guy gave me a weird face, started making it, i guess he thought the combination was weird. well, he suggested that next time i try chocolate-protien peanut butter smoothie with a few nilla wafers. so i had that last night, and it was good (you might say).

anyway, the whole point of this, is wow, it would be pretty sweet, to sit back there, make smoothies, listen to some jammin music, check out hot girls, work with hot girls, and just chill when you arent making smoothies! but something tells me the pay isnt that great...

cuba gooding jr said it the best... "SHOW ME THE MONAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY"

Polite Ways to Tell Someone His Zipper is Unzipped!

2005-01-31T13:08:00.000-05:00

10. The cucumber has left the salad.
9. Quasimodo needs to go back in the tower and tend to his bells.
8 You need to bring your tray table to the upright and locked position.
7. Paging Mr. Johnson... Paging Mr. Johnson.
6. Elvis is leaving the building.
5. The Buick is not all the way in the garage.
4. Our next guest is someone who needs no introduction.
3. You've got a security breach at Los Pantalones.
2. Men may be From Mars...but I can see something that rhymes with Venus.
1. I always knew you were crazy, but now I can see your nuts

extra! extra! read all about it!

2005-01-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

sundaes... well i guess thats not the way you spell the plural version of the DAY sunday. what would it be? sundays? who knows...

anyway, i remember growing up, sunday would be the day that my parents got the newspaper. this was the only day they got the paper, so i would wake up to my dad, chillin, reading the newspaper, mom cooking some pancakes, or something else delicious... mmmm

wait, scratch that, it wasnt me waking up, it was me being WOKEN up! lol... i guess i loved to sleep back then too. well, i know all i would want to read from the paper, was the comics, because what kid cares about current events? come to think of it, if you hand me a newspaper, i think id still flip to the comics first.

when i was growing up, sundays were pretty productive days. you see, sunday was the day all of the indian kids in the community would get together, and learn gujurati (my parents language). it was called gujurati school... for some reason, i was always excited to go somewhere, where the title of the event included the word SCHOOL. can you believe that??? i know i know, shame on me. but i was excited, not for the school part, but because i would get to go hang out with a whole bunch of friends, and all of my closest friends, were in my class. and the best part, was after, of course, we would play football, or basketball or whatever young kids do... smoke crack, shoot up some heroin, lol, jk... we will stick with the baskteball and football. im not sure what age gujurati school ended at, but i dont think we did it past jr high...

and when i was in college, sundays were productive days as well. sundays would be full of homework, or meetings for my fraternity. and then of course, after the meetings we would end up at applebees, or fridays, or chilis, or bennigans, or unos... so thats pretty productive too, right?

i guess what im getting at, is now that i am out of high school, and out of college, stuck here in the REAL world. with no homework, no gujurati school, no fraternity, sundays are just a day to sit around and do nothing. i literally did nothing all day yesterday.

i woke up around 1130, bummed around for a while, watched anchorman (which is a hilarious movie!!!), screwed around on my computer for a while, watched some more tv, screwed around on my computer some more. and thats pretty much what my whole day consisted of. why am i so lazy on sundays??? i have no idea! of course in the evening, i went to fridays to watch duke woop up on virginia tech, so if there are any hokie fans out there. playing in cameron sucks in the first place, but playing in cameron, the game after duke loses in cameron, is not something you look forward to ;) and then i went and played some pool...

but back to lazday, short for lazy day. i could have... err... scratch that... SHOULD have, cleaned my room, done some laundry, shooooot, i shouldve even washed my car. i couldve even read the book that has been sitting on my night stand untouched for about 3 weeks (or longer)... did i do any of that? nope, i did not.

well, one thing that wasnt neglected, was my baby girl, she got all the attention she could have asked for, AND MORE! :)

so thats all about my non-exiting sunday, and just remember - i love lamp

Current Mood

2005-01-20T15:40:00.000-05:00

This about sums up my mood at the moment... well, for the most part anyway. id say its about 89.9% accurate :)

NELLY LYRICS

"Over And Over"(feat. Tim McGraw)

Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
And I can’t keep picturing you with him
And it hurts so bad, yeah
Cause it’s all in my head
I think about it over and over again
I replay it over and over again
And I can’t take it yeah I can’t shake it
Nooo

I can’t wait to see you
Want to see if you still got that look in your eyes
That one you had for me before we said our goodbyes
And it’s a shame that we got to spend our time
Being mad about the same things
Over and over again
About the same things
Over and over again
Ohh
But I think she’s leaving
Ooh man she’s leaving
I don’t know what else to do
(I Can’t go on not loving you)

Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
And I can’t keep picturing you with him
And it hurts so bad, yeah
Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
I replay it over and over again yeah
And I can’t take it yeah I can’t shake it
Nooo

I remember the day you left
I remember the last breath you took right in front of me
When you said that u would leave
I was too damn stubborn to try to stop you or say anything
But I see clearly now
And this choice I made keep playing in my head
Over and over again
Playing my head
Over and over again
Ohh

I think she’s leaving
Ooh man she’s leaving
I don’t know what else to do
(I Can’t go on not loving you)

Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
And I can’t keep picturing you with him
And it hurts so bad, yeah
Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
I replay it over and over again
And I can’t take it I can’t shake it
Nooo

(Now that I’ve realized that I’m going down
From all this pain you’ve put me through
Every time I close my eyes I lock it down oh
I can’t go on not loving you)

Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
And I can’t keep picturing you with him
And it hurts so bad, yeah
Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
I replay it over and over again
And I can’t take it I can’t shake it
Nooo

Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
And I can’t keep picturing you with him
And it hurts so bad, yeah
Cause its all in my head
I think about it over and over again
I replay it over and over again
And I can’t take it I can’t shake it
Nooo

Over and Over again
Over and Over again
Cause it’s all in my head

Im a Soul Man...

2005-01-11T10:07:00.000-05:00

You Are a Prophet Soul

You are a gentle soul, with good intentions toward everyone.
Selfless and kind, you have great faith in people.
Sometimes this faith can lead to disappoinment in the long run.
No matter what, you deal with everything in a calm and balanced way.

You are a good interpreter, very sensitive, intuitive, caring, and gentle.
Concerned about the world, you are good at predicting people's feelings.
A seeker of wisdom, you are a life long learner looking for purpose and meaning.
You are a great thinker and communicator, but not necessarily a doer.

Souls you are most compatible with: Bright Star Soul and Dreaming Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

Southeastern Honda...

2005-01-07T13:48:00.000-05:00

... can kiss my ass!

Send all hate mail and prank phone calls to:
Southeastern Honda
3125 Dixie Hwy NE
Palm Bay, FL 32905
321-984-4224

so, i needed to get some warranty work done on my car, and for those of you who dont know what kind of car i have:

i drive a 2003 honda accord coupe v6 6-speed :)

enough pictures already... hehe

so anyway, back to needing warranty work done. to fully understand what needs to be done to my car, you are going to do an exercise for me, now it might look dumb to your coworkers, or spouses, or children, or parents, or animals, but do it anyway!

take one hand, lets just say right hand, and make an upside down U with it (so your thumb is parallel to the rest of your fingers, and all of your fingers are pointing down).

with your left hand, make a shark fin.

ok, the shark fin is the window, and the upside down U is the rubber that the window rolls up into. so for this to happen correctly, the shark fin must raise into the upside down U.

lets all try this, shark fin, goes inbetween the U, and all the fingers from the shark fin, should match up with fingers from the U, except the thumb. got it? k

so the problem is, part of the rubber (U), is getting closed into the window (shark fin), meaning the seal is not being created correctly.

yes, only someone as nitpicking as me would notice something as small as this, but you know what, ive been nitpicking since ive had the car, and i will do so as long as it is in warranty.

so anyway, my original appt with Southeastern Honda, was the day after zoeys emergency vet visit. so yea, i called Southeastern Honda that morning, and cancelled the appt, because i needed sleep yo...

well, it was rescheduled for yesterday. now the one good thing about the dealership, is they have a van, that takes people to work after you drop your car off at the dealership, and picks you up from work (or where ever it is that you are)when your car is done. i showed up at the dealership right after the van had just left on a run, i was like CRAP!!! that sux...

so i drop off my car, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, for about an hour or so until the van gets back, and finally the van takes me to work. and ive taken my car to the dealership probably 3 or 4 times since ive had it for oil changes and warranty work and such. so the van guy knows me by now, i think a 6'7 indian is hard to forget, dont you? hehe, so anyway, the guy is always askin me about how coaching basketball is going and what not, and i kindly remind him that im not doing that this year, but the guy is cool anyway.

i finally get to work about 945 yesterday, so wasted almost 2 hours of my workday, no big deal... at least my car will get fixed, and then i wont have to worry about it anymore. right? WRONG!

about an hour later, those bastards at Southeastern Honda called me back, only to tell me that they have the wrong parts. can you explain to me how the f*ck you order the wrong parts??? you have my VIN. and there is only one rubber strip thingy around the windows, seeing that both of them have to be replaced, how the F*CK can you order the wrong part???? if you are unaware of what a VIN is, it stands for Vehicle Identification Number. it tells the dealership the make, model, color... well, pretty much everything about your car, so if they have to order a part for it, they can get the correct part. it is also used for other reasons, like when the order recalls, they are normally associated with certain VINs, because consecutive VINs mean the cars were made after one another. meaning if car XXXXXXXXXXX1 has a problem, chances are XXXXXXXXXXX2 will have the same problem.

anyway, the point is, they ordered the wrong part. then, the guy says, if you leave the car with us overnight, i will overnight the parts, and we will put them on your car tomorrow. im like, ummmm, no... i need my car. then the guy was like, well then we will have the parts on tuesday.

im like, WTF?!?!?! why does it matter whether you keep my car or not in order for you to get the parts tomorrow? well, apparently they are booked solid, so the only way they can get me in tomorrow is if they keep my car.

so does that make any sense to you guys? cuz it made no sense to me either. whether you keep my car or not, you are still booked solid. and that still doesnt answer my question as to why you can only overnight it if you keep my car. if you are booked solid tomorrow, then overnight it, and ill bring my car in on saturday. and it seemed as nothing i would say, would go through this guys thick skull. so finally im like, forget it... im picking up my car, call me when you get the parts... jerks...

then, on top off all of that, i get a call from the cool van guy later in the day, saying my car was done, and he could come pick me up if need be. do these people not communicate with each other? i mean, come on, i ALREADY HAD my car.

sometimes, i just wish the laws didnt apply to me, so i could shoot someone for being stupid, or something like that. lol...

EVEN MORE pics from india...

2005-01-05T15:31:00.000-05:00

well, not really from india, these were on the plane flying back from Frankfurt to Atlanta... enjoy!

A few MORE pics from india...

2005-01-05T13:28:00.000-05:00

A few pics from india...

2004-12-30T15:38:00.000-05:00

My Baby Girl... IS SICK :(

2004-12-30T13:50:00.000-05:00

dont eat anything during or directly after reading this post ;)

i get home last night from hanging out with some family friends that are in town for the holidays. i brush my teeth, i lay down in bed, and all of a sudden, i hear this awful hacking. i turn on the lights, and zoey is hunched over, barfing her guts out on the floor.

no big deal, so there is ONE good thing about tile floors ;)

i clean up the mess, and head back to bed. once again, zoey starts making that awful noise, but i notice she is right by my shoes, so i jump up, grab my shoes and let her do her deed.

when i clean it up this time, i notice some kind of diarrhea crap hanging off her ass and the bottom of her tail. so i take her in the bathroom, put her in the tub, hold her down, and wash that booty so its nice and clean. the whole time, she is having a ball, playing with the water, and the bubbles... oh wait, no, it would be nice if that was the case. no, i was wrestling with her to keep her down...

finally, shes so fresh and so clean, and she jumps out of the tub, runs behind the toilet, and squirts some more. and you think cat shit stinks, cat diarrhea is TEN times worse! i thought i was going to pass out from the fumes. so i clean it up, and she pukes again.

so now im a little worried, i call an emergency vet, and decide to take her in. so i stuff her wet booty (i didnt get a chance to dry her) into a "pet taxi", and off we go to the emergency vet clinic. i get there, and the lady was scary, and she had a mullet, and she was telling zoey everything was going to be ok. that was nice...

so we get in the room, and the lady sticks a whole bunch of crap up zoeys crapper, thermometers, something to get a stool sample, and says she is going to get the doctor and he would be in.

i waited soooooo long, and i was the only f'ing person there! so im holding a wet zoey down, so she doesnt run away, but she is all freaked out about being on a cold table, and being wet, and not being able to run and hide in the coolest hiding spot she can find!

finally, the doctor comes in, and instead of telling me whats wrong with her, he tells me whats NOT wrong with her... she DOESNT have a temperature, she DOESNT have any intestinal parasites (her shit was clean!), she looks healthy. so he concluded that either she ate something she didnt agree with, or there was a change in her food that screwed with her system... now, her food did change, when i went to india, and when i got back, but ive been back for almost 3 weeks now...

anyway, all that set me back $171 (it was $70 pretty much just to walk in the door), emergency vets charge out the ass... you know why? cuz they can!!!

well, no water for zoey for 12 hours, no food for 24, and she gets to take this anti-diarrhea pill once a day for like 5 days. which, i have to drive back to the vet, cuz i left the pill bottle there when i left.

so i get home, and i am about to pass out, when, yes ladies and gentlemen, she pukes again... so i clean it up, lay back down, but i left the lights on, so i could keep better tabs on her. she looked so miserable, she was just stting upright, staring into the nothingness, looking like she wanted to say, "daddy, i feel like shit!" so finally, she got up on the bed, and was laying awkwardly by my feet, i think she didnt want to get comfortable until she knew she wasnt going to throw up anymore.

so i halfass go to sleep, its now about 6am... after about 30 - 45 minutes, zoey curls up in between my legs like her normal self, and i drift a little further into sleep. then, about 20 minutes later, my alarm goes off :(

you see, i was supposed to take my car to the dealership to get some warranty work done, but that wasnt about to happen. so i called them, rescheduled, and fell back asleep til about 9 or so. then i had to get ready, and meet some coworkers at work, and then we drove to a funeral.

well, after the funeral, youd think i would just go home and pass out, seeing that i didnt sleep well last night. well, i cant... you see, i used up all my vacation when i went to india, so i barely have enough to cover the 3 - 4 hours i missed this morning... so here i am, tired, worried, and at work...

Just Plain Mean...

2004-12-29T14:26:00.000-05:00

So, here is manan... chillin... AT WORK :(

anyway, so im here at work, and its pretty empty here this week. you see, most people were smart, and saved vacation to take the week between christmas and new years off. but noooo, my dumbass used all my vacation to go to india. what was i thinking?

well, i went out with some friends monday night. my friend, lets call him G, and i went to boston market for dinner. mmmm, boston market... anyway, it was pretty funny, we are sitting there ordering our food, and one of the boston marketonians (whatever you call people that work there), came out of the kitchen with a pan of mashed potatoes, and he yelled MASHED POTATOES while he was walking up to put them down in front of the sneeze glass (you know, the glass you look through to point out what food you want, and if you sneeze, it doesnt get on the food, hence, sneeze glass)... im like, wtf??? was he trying to inform the whole world that mashed potatoes were now available? so g and i are eating our delicous chicken, when my pocket starts vibrating all of a sudden. then out of nowhere, the vibrating stops, and we are suddenly bouning to the tune of petey pablo - freek a leek. this is when i realize that my phone is ringing ;)

i pick up the phone, and my friend S, says she is hanging out with D, C, and H if i want to meet up with them. so i tell them that we have some stuff to take care of at G's house, and then we will meet up with them. we go to g's place, and took care of some computer crap that we had to take care of... actually, it didnt work, but oh well. anyway, his parents showed up before we were going to leave, and we started to talk to them. g told his mom, hey, we came up with a new nickname for manan, we call him periscope, or up periscope... his mom looks at him with a questioned look and he says, because he's tall, and can see really well. lol, anyway, it was funny, guess you had to be there.

anyway, his mom says we are stupid, and mean to each other, and need to find better things to do. so i agreed, and said, yea, we should probably be out doing drugs or something instead of making up stupid names for each other, right? she disagreed... i thought it was a good idea.

so we go to chili's to meet up with the ladies, have some drinks, and end up going to this bar called tapps, where we continued the process of getting totally, umm, well... drunk, lol...

while we are at tapps, S asks me, what are you doing on wednesday. i tell her that i have the fortunate situation of being able to work on wednesday. she asks, can you get off? or call in sick? the answer is yes of course, as long as i make up the time by FRIDAY!!! lets see, that means i would have to work 16 hours on thursday, since friday is a holiday... yea... NO :( well, the reason she was asking, is because the ladies were all going to busch gardens today. you know, roller coasters and all that good stuff. and dont forget BEER SCHOOL!!! so i respectfully decline the invitation to go to busch gardens... did i mention it wouldve been free? because D works for Anheuser Busch (St Louis, MO).

so not only do i get to work today, i get to not go to busch gardens, and i get to not do it for free!! <-- i dont think that makes any sense.

well, i am sitting here at work, and decide to be a nice friend, and send the ladies a text message saying i hope that they are having fun at busch gardens. i get a text back from C saying she didnt go because she was sick :( sorry C :(

anyway, my phone starts vibrating on my desk, i pick it up, and who is it? S... i pick up the phone, and S starts telling me how much fun they are having, and how they are looking at hippo's, and how the hippo's have really weird looking "pee-pees". ahh, gotta love my peops... and their dirty ass minds! :) so S continued rubbing in the fact that they are having so much fun, and that i should have skipped work to go with them.

so right before hanging up, S says, have fun at work! yea, thanks... im at work, hardly anyone else is at work, and im supposed to have fun, when i could be at busch gardens? thanks!

and then, just a few seconds ago, S sends me a text saying they are going to beer school at 445, and i leave now, i can still make it!

so mean, so very mean...

The INDIAN went to INDIA

2004-12-23T13:56:00.000-05:00

and he's back to talk about it! i dont even know where to begin, so forgive me if this jumps all over the place. and cece, this is for you, thank you for kindly reminding me to blog!

it all started a month and a day ago, when my brother dropped me off at good ole melbourne internation airport. gave him a quick handshake -> hug (you know, where you shake the persons hand (in the cool "we must be part of some club way") and then pull them into a one handed hug (cant be two handed because one hand is still shaking)). i walked into the airport, and did something i have never in my life done before, and no i didnt tell the security people that i had a bomb! i walked up to delta's first class/business elite counter. why??? you might ask... because i travelled in STYLE!!! :)

as some of you may know, i have a problem with heights, IM TOO DAMN TALL. and there is no way i was about to travel to india (about a 30 hour trip (about 22 hours of flying)) being all cramped into my seat and stuff... so my mom was nice enough to give me skymiles, so i could upgrade my ticket, and it was SWEET you might say.

i flew from melbourne to atlanta, and that plane wasnt that big, so the first class wasnt that impressive, i was still kinda cramped. atlanta was when travelling in style began! i went to the international terminal, and made my way to the international business class lounge. which is where i got myself a free beer, and some free food, and sat myself down in front of the free tv, and chilled for a while. then i moved to a more isolate part of the lounge so i could read one of the 3.5 books i read in the 22 days i was gone.

i dont remember the last book i read that wasnt for school, or work, but i know its been more than 5 years, and i forgot how much fun reading can actually be. the first book i read was the da vinci code (by dan brown). this was an increadible book, with all these twists and turns in the plot, and all this mystery, and word games. the book was definitely a page turner, and if you havent read it, i recommend that you do.

while i was there reading, there was this lady, i couldnt quite place her accent, but she asked me to watch her stuff for a little bit. is it just me, or is that something you just DONT do at an airport, especially nowadays. ask some total stranger (im sure people look at me and wonder whether i am a terrorist or not) to watch your stuff! so i did my good deed, watched her stuff, and then when she came back, i decided to go wait at the gate for my flight.

so i boarded my plane (zone 1 baby! - which means i got to board before everyone in zone 2, 3, 4, 5, ...) and holy crap was i surprised when i sat down in my seat, and my 6'7 self could not extend my feet far enough to touch the seat in front of me. this was something i had never experienced before in a plane, normally my knees are diggind into the seat in front of me, and im so uncomfortable that its not even funny!

as soon as i sit down, the flight attendant comes and introduces herself, lets me know that she will be pampering me and kissing my ass for the next 9.5 hours and then offers me some champagne. so while all the normal people are boarding the plane, i am sipping on my champagne, with my feet sprawled out into the next county, while perusing my menu CHOICES for my meals :) yes, i said choices!

so we finally lifted off, and then they handed out some mixed nuts, and i also had some beer. i swear, these people did everything for you but wipe your ass, and the only reason they didnt do that is because they couldnt fit in the bathroom with you!

after the nuts, they brought hot towels, to wipe your hands, or face, or ass, who knows, so i wiped everything, lol! haha... then they put down a nice place mat, and brought my 18 course meal... you get a salad, the meal, fruit, cheese and crackers, and a sundae! and with the sundae, you get a choice of caramel, or hot chocolate... i was like, can i have both, the lady was like, "you want 2 sundaes?" im like, uhh, no, put them both in one! hehe...

the food was incredible! and everything is real, real plates, real bowls, real glasses, real forks, real spoons, and... plastic butter knives. can someone explain that to me? because i think i can do more damage with a real fork than with a real butter knife. i dont get it!

well, i arrived in paris, and made my way to their business lounge, which wasnt as nice as the one in atlanta, but it was still pretty sweet. more free food and such. the next flight was about 10 hours, from paris, to my final destination, mumbai, india.

when i landed in india, i was waiting in the immigration line, and decided to send texts to like a million people telling them i was in india (of course the texts were like $.50 each). i think i sent about $70 worth of text messages the whole time i was in india. when i made it through immigration, i went to get my bags, which for some reason, my bags always took FOREVER to come out from behind the baggage claim walls. so i put my 3 70 pound bags on a cart, and headed off to customs. you see, since i went business class, i was allowed to have 3 bags, as opposed to the 2 your are normally allowed. so my mom decided, that i would get 1 bag for my stuff, and 2 bags were for things she wanted to bring to india to give to people there.

needless to say, whenever anyone asked me about my bags, you know, the normal, did you pack your bags... bla bla bla... i had to lie about it everytime! because i didnt pack 2 of my bags! 2 of my bags were packed for me, and i had pretty much no clue what was in them! lol... ok, so i looked through them once so i had an idea, but still, you know what i mean...

so i got to customs, and this guy started giving me a hard time, because i had 3 bags just for me. 3 bags for 1 person == suspicious i guess. anyway, i insisted that it was mostly clothes, all mine, and there was nothing new, and he finally let me go.

i make my way out of the airport, where 2 of my cousins were waiting for me, along with their wives, and my mom.

so, since this wasnt my first trip to india, (ive been about 6 or 7 times) this trip didnt involve a whole lot of "site-seeing". it was mostly visiting with relatives, and hanging out with my cousins and such. it was definitely a good time.

the last time i went to india, was 7 years ago, so i had grown about 5 inches or so since my last trip. everyone was surprised as to how tall i was, even though theyve heard about how tall i am for about the past 3 years or so. its odd because, most indians (even asians for that matter) are short, so me being 6'7 is definitely odd. my dads side of the family is kinda tall, but my tallest cousin is 6'

so i ate a crap load of indian food, spicy indian food at that, and it was good! very good! we did take a 5 day trip to this town called mahableshwar, its in the mountains, and we stayed at this "hill station" -- its kinda like a resort i guess. it was cooooold up in the mountains, brrrrrrrr.... while at the hill station, we spent time with cousins, ate lots of food, ate fresh strawberries, ate fresh strawberry ice cream, played games, played table tennis, went horseback riding, went out on a lake, ate some more food, shopped in the market, shopped in the market some more. we had 11 people there when we started on the trip (my immediate family (brother & parents), my 2 cousins, their respective wives, and their respective kids (1 kid each), and my aunt), and 3 more family members showed up later. so we had 5 rooms.

mahableshwar was about a 5 - 6 hour drive from mumbai...

back in mumbai, along with visiting relatives, we did a lot of shopping as well, and i swear, i dont want to shop in india anymore. they dont have clothes for tall people :( unless you get it custom made, which i did. i had a pair of pants made, 3 pimp shirts, and a suit. i also had a customary indian outfit made, called a (now this is just how you pronounce it, i dont know if there is a correct way to spell it in english) chorny jubba. i wore it at this prayer ceremony that we had, and im also going to wear it at this wedding i am going to in april.

so the first week was pretty uneventful, visiting relatives, doing some light shopping and such. the second week we were in mahableshwar for a good part of the week, and the third week, we had ceremonies, and parties, and shopping, and so much crap that it went by so fast!

i also got a new pair of contacts! even though i dont wear glasses, i got colored contacts (blue) with no prescription. my cousins wife is an eye doctor, so she got them for me! thank you sheila bhabi!!! (bhabi means sister-in-law)... we dont really do the whole cousin thing there, so my cousin, is either my brother or sister, so my cousins kid is my neice or nephew, or my cousins wife would be my bhabi. so there arent any 2nd cousins and all that crap.

anyway, india is very different from anything you would probably be expecting. there is a large amount of poor people, that literally live in shacks on the side of the road. its not uncommon to drive through a poor part of town, and see people relieving themselves on the side of the road. there is so much pollution, that it makes big cities in the US seem like intensive care units.

the traffic in india is horrible, there is no order to the traffic at all. even IF there are lines painted on the road, no one follows them, it is so chaotic, its not even funny. its like everyman for themselves! you have people cutting you off, pedestrians running out in front of traffic, and what do you do about it? slow down... lol. not to mention animals, like cows, and dogs and stuff, running the roads and shit. the horn is used so widely there, but its not for the same reason as its used here. here, you blow your horn when you are pissed at someone about something. there you use your horn every 5 seconds, to let someone else know that you exist, and your vehicle is more than just a figment of their imagination.

another thing that we arent used to here, is most people have servants there, cooks too! so you dont do a damn thing. i never once made a bed, or cleaned up my crap in my bathroom, or did my laundry, or folded any clothes, or picked up my plate from the table, or did any dishes, or got my own shoes out from where all the shoes were, or ... well, i didnt do a damn thing.

well, my 3 weeks passed fairly quickly, and it was time for me to make my way back to the good old united states of america! so this is where business class helped me out again. mumbai's international airport is CRAZY. there are mad lines going into the airport, mad lines at the security checkpoints, mad lines at the check in desks... there are lines everywhere. well, i got to have a nice little usher to take me past the line to get into the airport, past the first security checkpoint, directly to delta's security, and then straight to the delta check-in counter. it was sweet, i skipped about 30-40 minutes worth of lines!

on the way back, i went through frankfurt. the business lounge there was comparable to atlanta's, it was sweet. i even took a shower while i was there! free food, free drinks, and what not... i spent 6 hours there, most of the time reading my 4th book.

the 2nd book i read was called into thin air by john (or was it jon?) krauker. it was about this big disaster that involved multiple guided expeditions that went up mt everest in 1996. it was a pretty depressing book, but it was good.

then i read angels and demons (by dan brown), which was the prequel to the da vinci code. this was another great read! and i would suggest reading it first to anyone who hasnt read either the da vinci code, or angels and demons. either way though, another good book.

and the 4th book that i started in india, and im still reading it now, is called deception point (also by dan brown :) -- see a trend? lol)

anyway, had another nice business flight, to atlanta... with about an hour left on that flight, my nose turned on like a firehose thats trying to put out the flames that were burning down a ucf apartment complex... (lol) and my head started hurting, and i felt all congested and shit... that sucked...

so i get to atlanta, and go through immigration, while trying not to drip snot everywhere, and made my way to the baggage claim. see, whether you have a connecting flight or not, you have to get your bags, and go through customs, and then RECHECK your bags... talk about pain in the ass! so once again, my bags took FOREVER to come out. i rushed to customs, because my layover in atl was really short. got through customs, checked my bags back in, and the lady assured me that delta would take care of my bags! i rushed to the gate, and got there as they were boarding zone 5. sucked... so i got on the plane, my seat was in the first row, but of course, there was no overhead bin space... so i walked halfway through the plane, before i found space for my shit, put it up, and walked back... took some tylenol allergy that i had picked up on the way to the gate, and we were off.

i made it back to melbourne, but unfortunately, after waiting for all of the bags to come through the baggage claim, only 1 of my 3 bags made it to melbourne from customs in atlanta. but my other 2 came on the next flight, and were delivered to my house by 1130 that night. of course i was already out with my friends having a welcome back beer!

and then, the next day, i was back at work! why? because i love my job! :) or because i was out of vacation, i cant remember which... hehe

i got back on a tuesday, was back at work wednesday, picked up zoey from orlando on friday, and had been completely unpacked my sunday. and im finally on a somewhat normal sleep schedule.

i threw off some of my coworkers, because my first day back at work, i actually showed up a little BEFORE 8am... which is unheard of for manan! :)

anyway, im glad to be back, my first meal back was taco bell! but im proud to say ive been back for a week and a half, and ive only had taco bell twice! i am trying to eat a little better, we will see how long that lasts!

and since i have no vacation, ill be at work throughout the holidays! so while you are all drinking eggnog, and celebrating with your families, remember about manan, sitting at work, while his parents are in india, and his brother is in budapest, and he is typing away on his keyboard, hoping the day will go by a little faster, so he can go home and celebrate christmas with his baby girl (aka - zoey)...

my baby girl...

2004-11-17T14:57:00.000-05:00

i miss my baby girl, she is in good hands while i take my trip to india. but the only way it worked out was for me to drop her off before i went to texas on friday. so here i am, 5 days later, and i miss my zoey!!!

no one is attacking my feet in the middle of the night, or following me around the house like the puppy she thinks she is... or just running around like a little brat all throughout the house finding anything and everything to play with.

i present to you... zoey!

Southwest... Stop Searching. Start Traveling.

2004-11-16T16:31:00.000-05:00

So this past weekend, i took a trip to austin, texas to visit my brother. it was a pretty fun weekend, i got to hang out with my brother which i get to do about as often as the red sox win the world series. ok, so maybe a little more often then that!

anyway, friday when i got there we hit up Los Comales (thanks Cece!), and pics will be posted soon... the food there was pretty damn good. when we walked in, im like, this place must not be very popular, because we were the ONLY people there! we decided to eat there anyway, even though it resembled a ghost town. because im sure texas is full of those! (yea, i DID just mess with texas!) anyway, we ordered some XX (Dos Equis), not to be confused with XXX (which came later that night, lol... jk). i mean come on, we are at a mexican restaurant, it just wouldnt be right ordering a bud light ;)

so we enjoyed our meal and made our way back to his place which is a skip hop and a jump from downtown austin. i find it funny that he points things out (like the capitol building (is that what that is?)) everytime im there! ive probably been to austin at LEAST once a year since he has been there, so that puts me at about 5 or 6 times. and during one of those trips, we even went to the capitol building and even did one of those tours. so you think id know which building was the capitol building! (yea, i hope you are reading this!) another thing he does everytime i am there, is he trys to "sell" austin to me, which is all good and well, but it doesnt really need selling. yes, it is more fun than boring old melbourne, florida...

ANYWAY, so we were chilling at his place, which had a lot of new furniture since the last time i had been there, because one roommate had moved out and another had moved in, and anyone who has had roommates come and go knows, furniture does it at the same rate. i get a phone call from a friend of mine who had this dilemma. you see, the week before i was hanging with my friend M (yes, the same one from tailgating), and C (a girl he hangs with) tells him he gets "mean" when he takes tequila shots. so this same friday that i am in austin, M and C were attending a wedding together, so i had told M that i would call him at 9, when he would be at the reception, to remind him to take a tequila shot. of course C didnt like that idea... :) well, i guess i understood it differently than he did, because in this phone call, he says, which 9 o clock are WE doing the shots in? see, i was in texas, which is one hour behind where we live in florida. but i was confused, we? i said, what do you mean we? i was gonna call you so YOU could take a shot, not WE! he said, whats the point of that? so i guess i gave into taking a tequila shot. the thing is, i HATE tequila with a passion, 3 words... 21st birthday. anyway, we decided to split timezones, and do it at 830 my time, and 930 his time. we ended up not doing it, because he didnt answer his phone when he called, but he later informed me that he did more than just one tequila shot!

so my bro and i head to this end of the year party for the ultimate frisbee team he plays on. throughout the years of me going to texas, and going to sarasota, fl twice for nationals (the most recent time being 2 weeks ago), i have gotten to know most of the people on the team who have been there throughout the years. obviously there are some new faces, but thats a given. so at this past trip to sarasota, i got 2 nicknames... you see, their team is all about nicknames, in this season alone, my brother picked up 3 nicknames (one more informal one in sarasota). his name is meetesh, and i guess his teammates find him to be metro-sexual, so they call him meetro. well, that somehow turned into meetrosion. so there are 2, the third is kind of funny too. i guess he always answers his phone, and always knows whats going on, so someone started calling him switchboard. lol... but when we were in sarasota, i was chillin in the condo, and someone walked in and said, yo, wheres john mee-tesh? i thought that was rather funny... anyway, so on to my nicknames. my brother is 6'2 or 6'3, and i am 6'7. well, when i walked up to the team upon arrival to sarasota, someone blurted out, is that "little meet"? and that kinda stuck for the weekend. after a while, i guess someone got tired of calling me little meet, since im not little compared to him, so someone else started calling me giant meet. so there were my 2 nicknames given to me in the matter of a day.

well, they were giving shout outs to everyone, and as each person was mentioned, they had to take a shot of don juan tequila (something like $50 for this small ass bottle). anyway, it got to the point where someone says, now this is going to be the biggest shot of the night. im thinking, it must be for one of the captains of the team or something, they continue with, this shot goes out to meet and little meet. i was pretty shocked, i mean the only people taking shots were people on the team, so i felt pretty honored to be able to take a shot of the $50 tequila! well, my brother ended up taking a few more shots, one for a teammate who wasnt there, and one because he is going to budapest for 6 months. and on top of that, we were drinking beer the whole night. i have to say, i think this is one of the few times that i have seen my brother "drunk"! i have had drinks with him before, but if i remember correctly, this weekend, and the weekend in june when we were in new york were the only times ive ever seen him drunk. so i stopped drinking a while before we left, and i was the responsible brother, and drove us home safely! of course with a pit-stop at taco cabana!

saturday was a chill day, we bummed around the house til 2, went and had some lunch at manuels (another mexican place, the weekend was full of mexican food with a splash of sushi). then we took care of some business, and just hung out around the town all day. after that we went to happy hour sushi, which was a great deal. we spent $24 for both of us to eat enough sushi to be full. granted we probably wouldve had more if lunch wasnt so late, but still, it was rather inexpensive, and it was good at that!

after that we went to the mall for a bit, you know, to pick up some high school chics, and then off to see a movie. we ended up seeing birth, because some people were supposed to meet us, and then cancelled at the last minute, but we were at the movie theater at the exact time to see that movie, so thats what we saw. even though i tried to tell him that i wouldve rather seen saw again, even though i already saw saw, because its one of those movies you dont mind seeing more than once. ANYWAY, we saw birth, with nicole kidman, it sucked, it was horrible, i wanted to poke my eye out and roll it down to the bottom of the theater... blah

after the movie, we headed to slick willies to play some pool, where i mentioned to my brother that i was going to kick his ass... but i have to say, my A game was NOT there that night. i won 2 out of 5 i believe, and one was by him losing, not me winning... it was pretty interesting though, they were hardcore about checking my ID at this place, the girl took it to the manager, and he looked at it for a while to make sure my florida ID was valid in texas! or something like that.

so, the next morning, we head to taco xpress to have migas (mmmmm, migas, more mexican food). and then i was off to the airport...

so this is the part i have been wanting to blog about since sunday night, i just hadnt had the chance. so for those of you who havent flown southwest, you have A seat on the plane, just not a specific seat. so when you check in, you are issued an A, B, or C which tells you which group you board with. well, southwest started this nifty online check-in the day of your flight. so when we got home from playing pool late saturday night, i checked in online, and got an A! when i got to the airport, i went to the end of the A line, which put me about 12 people back. finally we started boarding. i guess there were already some people on the plane from the previous flight, who were continuing on to the next destination, the home of mickey mouse, yup, thats right, orlando florida. or maybe they were continuing on from orlando, to ft lauderdale florida... who knows... who cares really. so i am walking back, and i get to the exit row, and there are 2 empty seats, or thats at least what it seemed like until i got a closer look. there were actually only one and a half empty seats... the lady sitting by the window was taking up a seat and a half. yes ladies and gentlemen, if i wouldve tried to put the armrest down, it wouldnt have gone down. so i take the aisle seat, leaving the half a seat unoccupied. not that i have anything against fat people, ill get to my anger later, right now we are on laughter. so when i take my seat, i notice this lady is trying to kick this big bag under the seat in front of her, and i can tell, thats just not going to happen. but she tries and tries, and then gets up, tries to stand on the bag, sits back down, kicks it some more. with all of this kicking and standing, youd think the bag wouldve moved just a little, right? NOPE, not an inch. it was pretty funny watching her try to do that. well, while she tried vigorously a flight attendant walked by, and said, maam, thats not going to fit under there, you will have to put that in an overhead bin. so the lady proceeds to say, ok, but you are going to have to help me with that. the flight attendant, of course, without hesitation, takes the rather large bag, while the lady starts explaining that it fit under the seat before. the attendant says, not on one of OUR flights it didnt. anyway, he puts the bag away, and continues on. anywhere else on the plane, i wouldve thought nothing of it, but i was pissed. i was LIVID. i was thinking to myself, are you fucking kidding me? lady, we are in a fucking exit row for petes sake. how the hell are you going to help people if the need arises, if you cant even put your own damn bag in the overhead bin on your own? well, what are the chances that if a plane crashes, that the people in the exit row, let alone anyone, would be alive? who knows... but thats not the point. if they are going to have rules that state no one under the age of 15 can sit in an exit row, then old fat people who break a sweat trying to kick their bag under a seat, and who cant put their own bag in an overhead bin should NOT be allowed to sit in an exit row either. i felt like yelling to the whole plane that if anything happened, go to any other exit than this one, because the werent going to get help over here!

a few minutes later, a gentleman walks up, and says to the lady (i dont know why he directed it at her seeing that he had to look past me to look at her, but i didnt care anyway) if anyone was sitting in the seat. she says, you are. im thinking, geez man, there are other seats on this flight, and you pick the half a seat between old fat lady and 6'7 me??? smart move... so now, not only am i pissed because if we do crash, and we are still alive, that i am going to be busting double duty to help people out (not that i wouldnt do that anyway, but its not the point, its principle). so now im cramped... grrr...

well, the guy puts down a to go box under the seat in front of him, to save it and enjoy later on the flight i can only assume. the lady blurts out, i hope you dont plan on eating that later, because it might not all get to your mouth. i was like, holy shit?!?!! did i just hear that? no lady, i think youve had enough, really... lol... now she wants to steal this poor mans food. i was kinda glad he was between her and myself now, because i wouldnt want her knawing off one of my arms cuz she got hungry.

it comes time for the flight attendants to do their little seat belt, oxygen mask thing... and then the SAME guy that helped the lady with the bag, comes back to the exit row, and explains to us that we must be over the age of 15, and be able to help people in case of an emergency. im thinking to myself, what and IDIOT this guy is, less than 5 minutes ago, he is putting a bag away for this lady sitting in the exit row because she cant do it for herself, and now he is making sure we will be able to help people in an emergency... does he not put 2 and 2 together like i did? is he really that dumb that he doesnt realize this lady isnt going to be able to help herself if something happens? what fucking idiots... why do people have to be so stupid sometimes?

anyway, fortunately, we make it safely to orlando, and i get off that plane, and away from the people that disguisted me earlier. oh yea, side note, i feel bad for the lady who was sitting in front of me whos whole coke was spilled on her by a little girl that was running up and down the aisle. the lady's shorts were stained, and her seat was SOAKED!!

so my friend picks me up from the airport, and takes me to my car, which i then drive to target to pick up the new emimen cd (which i got a tip that target was selling for $9.98!) and then drove the hour home to melbourne. by that time, the migas had worn off, and i was hungry, so where did i stop to end the weekend of mexican food (and sushi)? taco bell of course! my home away from home :)

tailgating

2004-11-08T16:22:00.000-05:00

so my buddies (M & T) and i went to tailgate at the ucf game this saturday. the weekend started off friday, where after work i went to the bank to pay for a safe deposit box that my parents have there. you see, i have all these extra responsibilities because my parents are out of the country right now. so i get to do things like pay their bills, and check their mail, and make sure their house is still standing. its funny, because i talked to my mom one time, and she said, so, how is the house, and i was like, what house??? even though she knew i was joking, she couldnt hang up until i said the house was ok, so i just kept saying what house? then finally i told her i sold it and blew all the money. :)

anyway, i was supposed to ask the bank people why the bill was more than last year. the lady proceeded to tell me that they raised their prices, bla bla bla. then she was like, let me look at the account. then shes like, hmm, well, your parents dont even have a checking account with us, so this should be more expensive than it says, but since that is what it says, thats all we will take. so there mom, thats why its more expensive :)

well, my buddy M told me earlier in the day that he would be working on his house, so i stopped by there, and told him i could help him out, but had to go home and change and what not. so he tasked me with getting some light bulbs, and some beer. you know, the essentials for working on a house. so i go home, change, go to walmart, because where else can you get light bulbs AND beer in the same stop? so i am walking down the light bulb ailse, and out of nowhere, i run into a friend i have not seen since high school, and he was strollin this baby around in his cart. and he was like, yup, this ones mine. i was like wow, he was cute though, his baby didnt look bad either ;) lol, jk... so we caught up a little bit, he was telling me all about some friends that i hadnt seen in a while, so that was pretty cool.

well, i get to the check out area, and i get in the 20 item or less lane that had the hot cashier. but then i noticed, there was another 20 item or less lane, with an old lady cashier, so i was like, hmmm, decisions, decisions... on one hand, i have a hot cashier, but the line was like 3 people deep, or old cashier, with no line. i figured i had kept my buddy waiting long enough, so i chose the shorter route. little did i know, not only was this lady old, but she was STUPID!!! so stupid, so so so stupid... so she is ringing up the light bulbs, and then i hold out my ID, and she says, oh, is this for the beer? im like, no lady, its so you know im old enough to own a light fixture for which these bulbs are going to go into... geez, so she is like, ok, you are under 27, so i have to put your birthdate into the computer. i am like, ok, no problem. so i watch what she is doing, the computer spits out a question: "is the purchaser older than 27?", she puts YES. i am like, ok, whatever, thats cool. anyway, she is like, oh, i wasnt supposed to do that, so she takes the beer off the list, and tries again, yet it doesnt ask her for any age this time. so she takes it off, and puts it on AGAIN. i am like, look lady, i already proved im over 21, gimme my beer so i can be out! instead, she is like, hold on, and she goes to get a manager. i am like, WTF!?! so the moral of the story is, GO TO THE HOT CASHIER, NO MATTER HOW LONG THE LINE IS!!!

anyway, so i work on my buddies house with him. a few hours have passed, and we realized, we finished almost the whole 18 pack by ourselves, and hadnt had any food, so we called a night, picked up some taco bell (mmmmmmmm) and ate it. after that, i go home to shower, cuz we are supposed to meet T up at fridays, well, i get out of the shower, and i see there is a message from M saying he was tired and going to bed. which normally would be a very unacceptable thing for a friday night, but he had to work in the morning before we went tailgating, so we accepted his excuse. anyway, i meet T up at fridays, and cant stop yawning for the life of me, after all, i had been out til 2 the night before, worked all day, and then worked on a house for a few hours. so i was beat. i called it a night after one beer, went home, and passed out.

we met at my place at 11 in the morning, and off we were, to tailgate at the ucf game. we are about 20 minutes til our destination, in the drive that should be about an hour and 15 mins, but took about 2 because we had to stop for beer, and mcdonalds... my buddy M is like, whoa, did you see that? T and i are like, wtf are you talking about, he is like, you didnt see that fly across the road? we are like see what fly across the road? he says, i dont know, it was a shingle or something... T and i are like, umm... ok... whatever you say, just go back to drinking your... umm... "water". so like 2 seconds later, he is like guys, check that out, and he is pointing into the sky. reluctantly, we looked... what did we see????

there was a smiley in the sky!!! hehe

anyway, we make it to the tailgate safe and sound. well, being that it was homecoming, reaching the tailgate at 1245 - 1ish, was a little late for a 6 o clock game. so we are trying to find parking, when we notice a side entrance to a lot was unattended, and the orange tape had fallen down, so we hopped the curb, and pulled quickly into one of the 2 spots left in that lot. and let the party begin! so we drank, and drank, and dkfn adf, ngd ig apoid poi adf until we were stupid drunk! :)

i went and met up with some friends of mine from college, and drank some more with them. and it was just fun times. well, the game started, and we didnt even go into the game. we drank some more, and decided we were going to go get some food. so we go to the alehouse, and have some dinner. i dont even remember most of the time at the alehouse, i just remember drinking a lot of water, and my chicken sandwich burning the roof of my mouth until the last bite... after that, we left, and headed to M's friends place. we get there, and just chill for a bit, on the couches. the plan was to hang out for a while, relax, and sober up a little, so that we can go downtown at night, and get drunk. hehe, i dont see a pattern, do you?

anyway, we were so messed up, that we didnt end up going out, we pretty much just passed out for the rest of the night.

so we wake up in the morning, hit up the cheesecake factory, and go to the mall cuz M had to shop for some clothes for a wedding he was going to. then we hit the road for the hour and a half trip home (the mall was further than the stadium). we were all sooooo tired from the day before. T and i start falling asleep, and mike is like, man im tired. so we pass a gas station, and im like, why dont you stop and get some coffee, or something? M is like, naaaaah, ill be good. im like, ok. well i was sitting in the front seat, and i was trying my best to stay awake, but it wasnt happening. next thing i know, i feel us slowing down, and feel bumps... i look up, and we are going off of the side of the road, and there is a car moving into the intersection in front of us. i was like HOLY SHIT )*(#{"%TQIN (ET){ "OKGDJOADOGHD()# TY)EJPIGNEG(#G

well, i guess i missed the part, where M said he was turning around to get coffee, but when you get woken up, to a vehicle slowing down and going off a road and a car kinda coming in front of you, you think bad things... in reality, the car was coming to a stop, not moving, and we were just taking a uturn, but still, it managed to scare the crap outta me...

we stop at the gas station, get some caffiene, and hit the road. T and i were wide awake for the rest of the trip :)

finally, we pull into my neighborhood, and there was this boy (age estimate 14-16) and girl, about the same age, sitting on the back of a car, but the boy was wearing some kind of animal outfit, i dont know what the hell it was, some kinda lion costume or something. wasnt halloween last sunday?

tis a sad day

2004-11-05T15:26:00.000-05:00

so here we are, on friday november 5, 2004, and there is an hour and a half left in the workday. that is an hour and a half i have left to work with fingersoffury. today, we took the last walk to the convenient store to get some sweet tea, we had our last lunch at charlie and jakes, we watched "the end of the world" for the last time, we had cake for FOF for the last time.

you know, i was a little late today, and he didnt even say "welcome to practice". whats up with that? the last opportunity you have to say that, you pass? i mean, yes, i was late because i was picking up sour patch kids for some jerk, but nonetheless, i was late...

well, over the last 2 weeks or so, ive gone from trying to give you advice so you could make the best decision for yourself (remember, its not personal, its business!), to giving you a really hard time about a decision that i had agreed was probably the best one for you. well, i just wanted to say, it was just that, i was just giving you a hard time, nothing more.

its definitely not going to be the same around here without you, and now i bet people are going to think they can come to me about UML stuff... we will see about that one. maybe if i screw up bad enough, they will think im not capable, and then i wont have to do it ;)

make sure you enjoy your week off before you start this next chapter in the whirlwind adventures into the life and mind of FOF - brought to you in lightning fast finger action.

you know, through this blog i have matured from a reader, to a anonymous commenter, to a commenter... all because of your blog! so thank you for introducing this experience to me.

anyway, i was also joking when i said i wouldnt call you if we played basketball, you know i want to see your cracker knudy-booty (<-- thats how you spell it!!!) on the court.

well, i guess thats about it, all thats left to say is enjoy your new job, and hopefully they will appreciate you as much as we do here.

peace

What did you have for lunch?

2004-11-04T10:05:00.001-05:00

so me going to fridays, is like norm, or cliff, or dr frasier going to cheers. you see, i went to high school with a girl that is one of the bartenders there, so just by knowing her, my friends and i have come to know most of the other bartenders. because of that, fridays tends to be the starting point of most of our nights. meet at fridays, and then end up drinking there for a while, and then going elsewhere.

well, on tuesday, election day, some friends and i went up to fridays for some drinks. of course, the election coverage was on tv, i was about sick of watching it too, but thats a different story. so we were cracking jokes about it, like one of my friends walked outside, and when he came back, he was like, whats the score of the game? anyway, so we are getting our drink on at fridays, watching the election coverage, when we decided to go to a local pool hall. well, originally it was just going to be one friend of mine, and then the other decided to go.

well, one friend was riding with me, and one had his own car, when we walked out into the parking lot, the one with the car was like, you are going to have to follow me there. you see, he is driving with a suspended license. not only is he driving with a suspended license, but he is drinking and driving with a suspended license! what a smart kid, lol... well anyway, funny story, he had just gone to talk to his lawyer earlier in the day because he has a court date dealing with his suspended license. well, apparently, one day a less drunk person than him was driving his car, and someone else was in the front seat, and my friend was in the back. so, they get pulled over, and the cop lady is a total bitch. she proceeds to give them BOTH tickets for driving on a suspended license. can someone, ANYONE tell me how 2 people can be driving with a suspended license, in ONE car? yea, i might not be the brightest person in the world, but that doesnt make sense to me either. ANYWAY, i guess i got a little side tracked there. so i have to follow him, so that way a cop doesnt get behind him and run his tags.

we get to poolies, we are playing pool, and listenin to the band that plays there every now and then, we are just having a good time. nothing can ruin our good time. at least not mine! i was kicking ass at pool, i swear, my pool game is so inconsistent! one day ill suck, and one day ill be awesome. finally, we decide its about time to call it a night, and we are walking out to our cars, which are parked right next to each other. i walk up to my car, press the little unlock button as i am walking up, reach for the door, and then i almost slipped as i was getting in my car. i thought to myself, well that wouldve sucked!!! so i think nothing of it, sit in my car, and im like, damn... whats that smell, wait, that smells kinda like throw up, but i didnt throw up, what the f..??? i look down, and there is throw up all over my floor mat. i had slipped in throw up that was outside my car... so someone decided, it would be a good idea, to blow chunks, in between two cars, where neither of the cars were theirs. wtf??? throw up next to your own damn car. so my night automatically went from fun, to suck! so i get out of my car, im so pissed! i take out my floor mat, and im walking around the building carrying my floor mat (people must have thought i was retarded or something) looking for a water spicket, so i can wash this damn crap off my floor mat. i find one, wash off my floor mat, and do a tom cruise from mission impossible to get into my car so i dont step in that crap again! my poor floormat, this is the same floor mat that has had dog shit on it. i think it is time to retire this floormat... and get a new one. but seriously, what the fuck was this person thinking??? throwing up next to MY car? do you not have your own car you can throw up next to? or how about the bushes that were in front of my car?

so now that you have that nice thought in your mind, whats for lunch?

What did you have for lunch?

2004-11-04T10:05:00.000-05:00

Commencement

2004-11-02T11:59:00.000-05:00

its funny how when i was younger, and i heard the word commencement, i automatically thought of graduation, and how it was the end of high school. the end... little did i know, it actually meant a beginning, a start. so you are telling me all this time spent working so hard in school, was so i could start? not so i could end?

anyway, i "commenced" one more time after college, and i started my new life. although my new life wasnt so new, you see, the economy was bad when i graduated, so it was rather difficult to find a job. so my new life was exactly the same as before, just without school. i was a pizza delivery driver, with a degree!!! and i was damn proud.

time passed, i got a job, and ive been here for a little over a year and a half. Its weird how different life is outside of school. you dont get to see as many people as you did everyday when you were in school. "people watching" was one of my favorate parts of the day, i would sit there, and just watch people walk through the student union. i was watching them live their lives, and enjoying how people are so different from one another. its not as easy to people watch now that i sit at the same desk for 8 hours a day. i dont get to see my friends as often as i used to. i dont get to have as much fun as i used to, doing random, stupid, idiotic, fun things! now i am a working man, a "professional". so fun comes in different ways.

for example, at work, we have all these inside jokes, all of which i have at one point or another, let some of my friends outside of work in on, and they dont think they are anywhere near as funny as i do. i guess thats what makes them inside jokes. things like saying, "whats going on eh?", or "not bars, bawks"... or one of the many one liners that i could say that we here at work think are hilarious. we find ways to make each other laugh, ways to make the 8 hours in the day go by as painless as possible. because admit it, none of us would be working if we didnt have to. so thats what coworkers are for, they help each other get through the long workday, making sure that we all get out alive.

at the end of the week, friday to be exact, FingersOfFury will be spending his final 8 hours here. it will be the last day that he will be on the inside of our inside jokes, he will always know about our inside jokes, but whenever we come up with new ones, he will no longer be part of them. he will no longer understand. at around 3pm daily, i will no longer be able to say, "about that time eh chaps?", so that we can walk to the store on the corner to pick up some arizona SWEET tea. i will no longer be able to, throughout the day, fill him in on whats going on in my life, and tell him about my problems. im not saying i wont be able to do it at all, im just saying, it wont be as easy, i wont be able to prarie dog over his cubicle and say, "guess who called me yesterday". now that will take a phone call, or an AIM conversation, or meeting up for lunch, or some other form of communication. i will no longer be able to use windows messanger to talk to him, and try and make him guess song lyrics.

soon, the days of hearing about his life, will end, and the days of reading about his life, will begin. when you spend 40 hours a week working right next to someone, some sort of attachment is made, nothing romantic or anything, but its almost like a dependancy. when i come in late to work, i expect him to say, "welcome to practice", why? because its an inside joke. i will no longer hear that.

no longer will i be able to follow him when he goes to talk to someone, or will he follow me when i go to get some food from someone who picked it up for me. why? no reason really, we are just both nosey people, and follow each other around to see what we do all day.

i did succeed at one thing in your time here, i got you off of your bagel world diet, and got you to go out and have lunch with everyone else!

but not all of this is bad, because remember, commencement means a beginning, a start. you see, he has been given the opportunity to use the skills that he learned in school, more like the skills he excelled at in school, at a new job. and from the outside, this new job seems sweet, you might say. he gets to do embedded design, which is something he seems extremely interested in, maybe even more than surfing and snowboarding.

so i am here, writing this, to wish you good luck at your new job, good luck in your new life, good luck in your new beginning. i am wishing you good luck, knowing that you dont need it, i know you are going to succeed at your new job, and i know your boss will love you at your new job, but i am wishing you good luck anyway.

whatever you do, dont forget about staying up all night to work on UML Models while watching the blue collar comedy tour. or making those sweet style sheets, or sitting in meetings where we have no idea whats going on, or having both of us sit at one desk, with 2 computers being more cramped than a "small person" in a shoe box. or working while having a hurricane party, or going to see a movie on a lunch break, or charlie and jakes, or trying to talk with oranges in our mouths, or laughing outloud at a blog and the other person asking, what are you laughing at? or did you finish your homework? or how you dont like to sit in the front seat of my car. dont forget these things, because i for sure, wont.

you realize, that you are the only person my age here, right? and you are taking this away from me! anyway, i wish you the best in your new journey in life, in your new start, new beginning. whatever you do, dont make any new indian friends...

mk

Bad drivers...

2004-09-15T11:56:00.000-04:00

Ok, so i might not be the best driver in the world, but i consider myself a pretty good driver. i can be an aggressive driver, but that doesnt mean im not a good driver. anyway, so i am driving along babcock last night, minding my own business, in the left lane. up ahead, a car pulls onto the street into the right lane, the car next to me wouldve had to slow down a little bit, but instead of doing so, he decides to make a sudden movement into the left lane, which i am currently occupying. i slam on my brakes, swerve left (onto the median (my poor car)), and lay on the horn and yell and scream words that should not be heard by minors, and the guy is halfway over before he realizes how close he was to me and swerves back. needless to say i was PISSED. he came so close to running into me, i dont know what exactly i wouldve done if he wouldve ran into me. i am sure one of my many air bags (front driver and passenger, driver and passenger side airbags, front and rear curtain air bags) (yay for technology!) would have deployed. and well, then i wouldve called the cops on my cell phone (yay for technology!), but other than that, i dont know what i wouldve done! cuz i wouldve been mad.

all of this couldve been avoided if the one car didnt pull out in front of the car to the right of me, but it wasnt too close, the car to the right of me couldve EASILY slowed without running into the car that pulled out. but noooo, instead he chose to not slow, and not look to the left to see if there could possibly be a car next to him, because of course he is the only car on the road...

well, the one good thing i can say about the gentleman is, when i drove by him staring at him with the look of death, he did give the "im sorry" gesture, so that was appreciated. but that was way too close of a call with my baby for my not to have gotten a little hot under the collar...

one thing i forgot to mention, is thank you to the person who invented anti-lock brakes, because if my wheels wouldve locked up when i slammed on my brakes, i might not have been able to swerve out of the maniac's way (yay for technology!)

UPDATE 1 Hour Lunch

2004-09-13T16:15:00.000-04:00

So i TOTALLY forgot part of the one hour lunch story, so here it is.

at the beginning of the lunch, we asked our waitress, whatever is her name, or is it whatever her name is, or whatever... anyway, we asked her for seperate checks, which she gladly provided to us at the end of the meal. we all busted out our handy dandy credit cards and handed them away. well when she brought back our cards, and reciepts so that we could sign our lives away, alex and i noticed something that our waitress did not. she handed his card to me, and my card to alex, but bryne got the correct card. when i noticed, i kindly asked the waitress what my name was, and what alex's name was. she looks at me, and looks at the card, and calls me alex, and looks at alex and the card in front of him, and says, im sorry, i cant pronounce your name. at this point, i was thinking, MAN this is going to be fun. i say, look at him, and look at me... what do you think is wrong with this picture? and she had no clue, she was lost, like my fence when it came out of the ground during hurricane frances. once again, i say, you sure you cant pronounce HIS name? this goes on a few more times, until finally she realizes, that well, bryne and alex, are more common names than manan. and well, if you saw alex, bryne, and i sitting at a table, one would think that by seeing the name manan, that card would directly go to me... the funniest part of the whole thing was when she looked at alex and said, sorry, i cant pronounce your name, i mean other than the sunglasses tan, alex in no way looks like a foreigner, and well, i do... so needless to say, she was pretty embarrassed after that took place. *$*#*

*$*#* - events may have been falsified due to lack of memory

1 Hour Lunch

2004-09-10T13:48:00.000-04:00

in corporate america, we try to go to an establishment where you can eat food, stuff your face, and return to your desk where you love what you do (otherwise you wouldnt be there, right?).

well, todays adventure started later than normal, about 1230. which is a bit odd, seeing that we (bryne, alex (which is what we will call this person for purposes of anonimity), me) were all rather hungry earlier in the workday. like, hungry enough that i wouldnt want to be standing next to bryne, because if you are reading this, chances are, you know him, and you know his appetite. lets just say i was afraid for my life!

well, we finally decided to go to texas roadhouse, and if they were closed for lunch (which they normally are, but i think they added lunch to their daily hours due to the hurricane), we were going to hit up charlie n jakes, which is right next door. to our pleasure, texas roadhouse was open. we get our table, alex takes one side, i take the other, and bryne is left with the decision on who he wants to sit next to. i, being the nice person that i am, DO NOT slide to the inside, so bryne takes the seat next to alex. then he decides, he would enjoy gazing over at alex rather than myself, so quickly switches over to my side. or maybe i smell better, who knows...

anyway, our server comes by, and explains to us the items missing from the menu, and we can blame all of that on a certain girl named frances. we started (mainly alex and i, bryne is too much of a gentleman for this kind of behavior) giving our server a hard time from the beginning... a sign on the outside of the building mentioned a 30% discount for people working to restore our lives back to a state of normality (police, fire, medical, fpl, and other contractors). well, alex had the bright idea of saying, hey, we are contractors, but i guess we werent the right kind of contractor. you see, our contracts dont help the general public, i mean, we just do government contracting. i dont see any benefit to the everyday joe in that.

so that idea didnt work, well, i just told our server, jenny was her name, or was it jennifer, or jen, or jenni, or whatever? so i told her that we were policemen, i mean, does anyone actually question a policeman? i mean, if i get pulled over, im not about to say, can you prove that you are a police officer? <-- PC well, she did, she said, "can you prove it". i said, "yes, my car is outside", which it was, but it just wasnt a patrol car. she says "im not going outside". so that plan was foiled. anyway, we decided that we wouldnt try and be our cheap selves, and went on with our orders.

throughout our dining experience, we gave our server a hard time about, well, just about everything. finally, our checks came, and alex says, you arent going to pay that for me, jenny says, who me? no. alex then retorts, aww, i thought you liked me, and without the skip of a beat, or without a beating of your heart, or without a blink of an eye, or in the same rhythm, jennifer says, "no, i dont". as i write this, i realize more and more, it was one of those things where you just had to be there for it to be funny, so you will just have to take my word for it, it was hilarious. just imagine my sending you an IM through AIM and saying: lol or rofl or hahaha... thats how funny it was.

well, we decided that we had harrassed jen enough, and tipped her very well for being a good sport.

we hopped into my car, and rode back to the office. i know you must be wondering, can all of that excitement really fit into one hour? well, the answer is yes.

anyway, back to work like... well... like going back to work.

Away

2004-09-10T10:20:00.000-04:00

So my away message on AIM seemed to be pretty popular you might say. It said: "out like a transformer during a hurricane". I came to a screen full of messages from people laughing hysterically (well, i could only assume that is what they mean by "hahahaha" or "lol" or "rofl", but then again, you know what happens when you assume) at my away message. ok ok, so you got me there, it wasnt a screenful either, there were probably 5 - 6 messages.

[ok, and i just realized i hate using punctuation and such while typing if its not a formal document, so from now on, there will probably be a minimal amount of caps, and apostrophe's <-- woops]

so that felt kind of good, to come home to appreciation of your well thought out away message. it all started when i was about to leave to go watch the first football game of the regular season. i was thinking of what to put as my away message, and what popped into my head? out like a fat kid in dodgeball. but then i thought, you know, that one is a little over used, i need something new and exciting. and then i thought about all of the recent events that us floridians have had to go through. first charley, then frances, and now ivan the terrible has its sites lined up on tampa. you would think that with both charley and frances touching some point of the gulf of mexico, that there would be no moisture left in its wizened body for ivan to pull from, but i guess thats not how it works. also, this is probably a good indication as to why i am not a meteorologist. so thinkning of the hurricanes, and what happens during hurricanes, the imaginary (energy saving) light bulb hovering over my spiked hair turned on (with a short delay after the switch was flipped as those energy saving bulbs normally have). the away message just came to me.

so where did this blog come from, well let me tell you! yesterday, when i created my blog account i questioned my good friend bryne, "i have no idea what to blog about". well i came to work this morning with a funny story about my away message and i was telling this story to bryne, like people do when they tell stories, when he says, "thats what you should blog about". which i thought was a good idea, because here i am, blogging about my away message.

that is all for now, i hope my one reader enjoyed what i had to say, and until next time... "out like a transformer during a hurricane"

Chilling

2004-09-09T14:34:00.000-04:00

Damn, this is a sweet template, you might say! Bryne, I just had to steal it from you. Well people, I guess you can just say I was tired of commenting anonymously. So here it is, my very own blog.

Also, just as a warning, my blog will not be anywhere as near interesting as the the person who's blog I made my blog for so I could not post anonymously. Anyway, here I am, so you know what? It's time to: