Sentence construction.

"The sophomore sensation accredits her agility and quick first step to her father, who used to take her to a neighborhood park all covered with cheese." - Dan Rydell, from Sports Night

Is it the park that's all covered with cheese? Or the father? And here's another question, how would the cheese help someone with their agility and quick first step?

Ah, yes. Learning from Sports Night. Voted in 1999 as the Best New Show You're Not Watching. There's plenty of learning to go around when you watch Sports Night.

if one more person

If one more person in my family asks when I'm getting married I swear I'm going to explode or something similar. Yes, I realize that technically I'm supposed to be next but my financial situation prevents me from doing so, plus I need to date someone first. I guess the better excuse would be the latter. On the bright side, more little ones are on the way. One due in September, the other in January. There are already two little ones occupying most of our attention.
Sorry, this was all brought on by the fact that I went to my friends' wedding Saturday and then my cousin's engagement party today. Ugh, I hate this kind of stuff. Why do I torture myself by going to things like this? And the sad thing is, I'll keep doing it to myself for a long, long time. Ah, crap.

The truth about superheroes.

I think this is true of every childhood comic book fan. For me, when I read comics I really believed that I could be a superhero. Kinda like mutant powers, I thought if I just waited that my super powers would kick in and I could join the ranks of the superheroes. I still think it's possible, like if my place got hit by some radiation I could get my powers. Or maybe some nuclear waste? I hear that's good for super powers, or leukemia I can't remember which one.
Still, super powers would be good. I think the world could use a superhero. I guess it's not me though.

Insomnia.

I've got to say this about insomnia, it definitely frees up more time in my day now that I'm not required to divert some of my time to sleeping. Also, I am catching on my tv shows on my dvr. Granted most of the shows on right now my dvr are repeats, but some shows are worth watching over. I've got Grey's Anatomy (two episodes on Thursday nights) and some episodes of JAG I missed when I was in Iraq. Plus, I've gotten used to watching shows with the ability to fast-forward through the commercials. Actually, we were having this discussion at the office. With the wider usage of dvrs and tivos, commercials are becoming a less effective selling tool. Although I don't think it'd be a huge hit in the pocketbooks, I think we'll see a difference. Commercials are going to change and probably be more expensive. They'll start advertising in the actual tivo boot-up or whatever, kinda like the advertising done in theatres. IN THEATRES! I thought that movies were the last sacred ground of commercials, but nope. Stupid media relations people! Oh wait... that's what I do. I'm a hypocrite, what can I say?
Rant, rant, rant.
Preview: your money at the gas station. You'll be surprised. Story at 11.

The universal constant is change.

No, this isn't a pseudo-physics rant. This one is personal. I was a military brat, I moved around the world every few years and I would meet new people and make new friends every place I went. You'd think I'd be able to cope with change, but it had the exact opposite effect on me. I hate change! Look at my life. The friends that occupy it are at a minimum of 4years, the only new people I meet are through work or the Army and not really 'friends' yet. The two people I hang out the most with are fraternity brothers, I met them back in 1998.
I don't go to bars to pick up chicks, I prefer less 'meat market' type places, or heck, a friend setup works... not really. I hate change, I don't know how I can say it any different. I can't explain it either, but I shouldn't be surprised. I mean, before buying a couch or desk, all of my things could be put in a backpack. My dvd collection resides in huge (200+) cd cases, portable dvd player, my psp, iPod, laptops, and so on. Easy for me to pickup and move, but I hate to do it. I mean it takes me so long to get used to a new city, new surroundings, new roads, shortcuts, and the like. It took me a year to get used to Cincinnati and then I moved.
I guess I'm not surprised that I like all my 'old' music, when they play Michael Jackson on the oldies radio stations, I know that I'm old. And I'll still listen to it over the majority of the crap on the airwaves today.
To anyone that reads this. I apologize if some of my words don't make sense or even sentences or thoughts. Apparently I am suffering from a case of insomnia, going on 3 or 4 days now. They say the lack of sleep plays tricks on your mind.

One more thing about TV

OK, I've rambled a lot about TV. It's not JUST because it's a major part of my life, but because it is a measure of how far we've come as people.
Watch the old Star Trek, with Kirk, Spock, and Bones, and you'll notice that they couldn't even show man-nipple. Also, swearing was way censored, even things like 'damn' was considered naughty. (Sorry, I just wanted to say naughty.)
Here's where I can speak from actual experience, the 80's. Remember the shows like, The A Team, Knight Rider, or Miami Vice? Have you noticed that no one dies in those shows? Or if they did, it was very vague like a wide-angle shot of a lone ship in the harbor blowing up. Also, those hour long shows were 52-54 minutes long. Today, you get to see a corpsified body with a puddle of blood. And these shows are 42 minutes long, at best! Plus there's cussing and partial nudity. I understand the need to make things more 'realistic' but is it better?
I don't even want to start on these so-called "reality" tv shows on.
Back to the ranting.
Actually, that's pretty much it at this point.
There's more where this came from, but it's 2am and I'm going to pretend to sleep or something similar. Probably pop in Sports Night (another canned show which I'm very fond of).

Dead Like Me

I'm not being all morbid, but instead referring to a great TV show recently cancelled. When I first read about it, I wasn't that interested in the show. But when I watched it on cable, I was hooked. The basic storyline was about a 18-year old girl, named George that recently died and is now a grim reaper. She takes people's souls before they die, trapped between being alive and dead, and since she's still kind of alive she has to pay bills, and all that fun stuff. Of course George is having a tough time dealing with being undead, and her family is having even a tougher time dealing with their loss.
Since the show was on Showtime there was cussing, which I think makes things more 'realistic' and the whole idea that grim reapers are walking among us. That a simple brush with a stranger at the grocery store could 'pop' our souls is interesting. I'd like that special power, the ability to remove someone's soul before they died.
What pisses me off more than the fact that the show was cancelled was what replaced it. Kristie Alley's Fat Actress. What the hell is that all about? It sounded too much the Anna Nicole Smith show, which by the way I saw one episode and actually vomitted.
It was a good show, you should watch it. It is addictive.

Physics - Cosmology.

Hubble. Not the big telescope.

Back in the days of Columbus, people thought that the world was flat! We know better now, but imagine yourself in those days. You believed that the Earth was flat because that was the limit of your experience.
For years, people believed that the Earth was the center of the solar system. It wasn't until Copernicus' theory that the sun was the center of the solar system did we think otherwise. It was Copernicus' theory and Galileo proving it that changed our thinking.
Now let's expanding our brains for a second, think big. Bigger. BIGGER! The universe, now that's big. It wasn't until 20th century did we even think our views of the universe were wrong. Even Einstein had the wrong impression, which was why he included the cosmological constant in this equations. Everyone (or nearly) thought that the universe was static, I mean, it was huge and it couldn't be moving that much. Surely not enough to throw a wrench into our equations.
Hubble started out by looking up at the stars in sky, he saw farther into the universe than anyone had looked before. In fact, he saw other galaxies. So he started keeping track of them, position, size, and brightness. He saw in his data that the stars he was looking at were red-shifted which were consistent with the distance they were. This proved that they were moving away from us.
OK, let's pause the history lesson for a second. Light comes in 'waves.' There are different wavelengths, different colors. We've probably all done it in elementary school, where we held up a prism to the sun a looked at the rainbow it produced on the ground. Well, if you were curious like me, you twisted it back and forth; the colors would stretch out until it snapped back when the prism side was turned. Red-shifting just meant that the light was moving away, whereas blue-shifting meant it was coming closer.
Back to Hubble. So this idea that galaxies were moving away from us was a revolutionary idea, just like a round Earth or a solar system rotating around the sun. Yet, the proof was there in his notes. This shattered the scientific community, because up until this point, the smartest people in the world thought that universe was static, or stationary.
Not just because the fact that they were moving away from us, but the other implications that came with it. If something is moving away from us, you walk it backwards in time that meant that it was closer to us, keep walking backwards and evidentually you get back to us. We all know that two objects can occupy the space at the same time. (You can try this with your hands, the best you can do is have one on top of the other. Now press the top one into the bottom one, still not occupying the same space at the same time, but they are occupying less space total.) So, uh-oh, at one point we're pressing together very tightly. Which would be fine, but how did we split up? Something must've caused it to expand... perhaps some sort of BIG BANG!
Whoa. Who would've thought of that? The expanding universe supports the Big Bang Theory, we're living proof, and you can look into the sky and see it. Yet, it isn't fully accepted by religion that believes that God basically willed everything into being. And I'll talk more about this subject later.

Road rage.

One of the things I hate is bad driving. For example, if you are driving along in the far left lane you see a sign that says, "Left Lane Ends. Merge Right" you keep going forward. Then you see everyone ahead of you merge right, you keep going forward. Then there is a big lighted arrow sign pointing to the right, you keep going forward. It's not until you get to the orange cones and the lane gets kind of narrow that you slow down and try to merge right. That is bad driving. I know that you took and past a test, but you know that doesn't mean much to me. Retards take a test too that proves that they are retarded. It's not rocket science, but driving does require a basic understanding of the road and a little attention.
Me, though, I like to live dangerously. For example, I will be in the lane to the right of that person and force that person to come to a dead stop or to accelerate faster than me. It's fun, try it some time, and when they look over, just smile back at them. That'll piss them off.

I rage on the road. And I like it.

Ted.

My life is so disappointing, I'm disappointed that I know this fact too, but it gives me hope. Hope that I can change it, but I won't. I won't change it that is, I sort of like it the way it is.

I always thought that my life would be a sitcom, strange situations and jokes. Sadly, my life has not been like the life I see on TV. I will grant that it is probably because I spend so much time in front of brain-rotting device, but that's no excuse.

One of my favorite TV shows is "How I Met Your Mother." And not just because its Bob Saget doing the narration, but its the life of 5 20-something friends dealing with love and life. Going through things that I go through. Me, I'm Ted. A hopeless romantic in the dog-eat-dog world of dating. Of course there's no Robin in my life right now, but a minor detail.

Just call me Ted.

Einstein

We all know about Einstein, the whole E = mc2 thing. What is less known is that his Theory of Relativity and Special Theory of Relativity opened the doorway to quantum physics, and what is even less known is Einstein hated the idea of quantum physics. His famous quote "God does not throw dice" is great.
Personnally, I think that quantum physics is too unformed to be considered a science. It's based on the principle of the unknown and "you can't know." That sounds like laziness to me, or if you just answered, "It's magic!" Which is not really magic, but optical illusions and mind distraction.
For me, unlocking the secrets of quantum physics would be like unlocking the secrets of alchemy back in the day. Of course I am having to brush up on my higher math skills I never had, which is slowing down the process.

It's been a good day

Overall it's been a good day. I got paid for the month (I wish I got more) early, supposed to be paid on the 15th (don't ask why) which is a Saturday so we'd get paid on Friday but it's Thursday so that's good. I was low on gas in the car, and this is what made it overall good, usually the price of gas is +$3, but today it was $2.80. The lines weren't too long and it only took me a few minutes to fuel up. There was also free food in the lobby, some sort of get to know the other businesses in the building or something day. Didn't have to buy lunch.
I guess money is the root of all evil, and today I actually made some; the proof is in my bank account, waiting for the check to clear.

Good evening from...

Sports Night is one of my all-time favorite shows. I'll be the first one to admit that when this show aired back in 1998, I didn't watch it. There were plenty of reasons why I didn't watch it, but there are no excuses and I apologize. Well, first, I had misunderstood the premise behind the show, which was a tv show about what goes on behind producing a live tv show. I thought it might be some sort of reality tv or whatever. Secondly, this show aired on ABC, the 'family' programming based channel. I was in college, I wanted laugh outloud shows like South Park. Most importantly, in conjunction with running on ABC, it ran on Thursday nights in primetime which was called "Must See TV!" on NBC, going up against powerhouses such as 'Friends' and 'Fraiser.'
Sports Night wasn't in-your-face funny, in fact you'll miss a lot of the jokes in the episode the first couple of times through. I had to have the captions on to get the jokes. There's a lot of intellectual stuff going on throughout the episode; for example, in almost every episode someone corrects someone else's grammar, pronounication, or spelling.
I miss the fact that there are no more new Sports Night episodes and there probably never will be. Joshua Malina was on 'The West Wing' (which by the way was created by Aaron Sorkin, the creator of Sports Night). Peter Krause is being successful in 'Six Feet Under' on HBO. And probably the most famous Sports Night alum is Felicity Huffman, star in 'Deseperate Housewives' also on ABC. Of course the guest star list goes on for a few hours.
Somewhere in each episode is the line, "Good evening from New York City,"

1st of many

Well, hopefully this will be my first post of very many. I think that a public format for my thoughts is a good idea. Maybe not, I could get in a lot of trouble with the NSA but I guess that could be fun too. I've never been in trouble with them before. Wait, no, I have. My bad. In my defense though, nothing ever came of it.
I tend to speak my mind which can be a bad thing, but I need an outlet otherwise things could get bad. When I say bad, I mean 'up in the tower with a high-power rifle' bad.
I'll post more but first, I have to go win some money at poker from my friends.