Yep, I had fun last night… First of all Sam, Adam and I went to Hooters and grabbed some food and watched some of the bikini contest on TV. Admired the titties and ass a bit too, of course… oh yeah, and the bikes in the parking lot (it was bike night). Afterwards we decided to go to the Red Iguana again. I didn’t get very drunk, just enough to feel pretty good. There were tons and tons of hot girls there, of course. We took tons of pictures this time… Last time we got there and were like “FUCK, we should have brought the camera!” Well, this time we actually remembered the camera and ended up with some pretty good pictures. The only shitty thing is that I won’t be able to go back anymore because I’m actually going to be working midnight - 8am with weekends off. Oh well, at least I’ll get to go out on weekends for a change now (starting in July).
Archive for June, 2005
here’s one opinion on the matter
Grokster Ruling Delights Entertainment Industry
Basically the supreme court ruled that in fact peer-to-peer filesharing networks can be sued if the users on them are sharing illegal files. Supposedly, they can only be sued if the networks in question have not taken any measures to stop people from sharing illegal files and are basically “promoting its use for copyright infringement”. Seems to me that the MPAA and RIAA are losing money out the ass and trying everything imagineable to recover some of their lost assets. Well, here’s a tip…. how about having artists put out CD’s that are more than just one or two decent songs and 12 songs of worthless filler bullshit? Sorry, but I’m not paying $17 for a CD that has two good songs on it. Not to mention I don’t even own a CD player anymore. I’d have no problem purchasing music if the music was actually worth purchasing. Granted, some online music stores have started to crop up now that actually allow you to purchase just one or two songs off a given CD but the big problem there is that there is still a decent portion of music that isn’t available digitally. Not only that, there’s restrictions on some of the music (mostly the “subscription” type) that says you can only use it on a certain number of PC’s, can’t burn it to CD if you want, etc. Also, if I’m going to purchase music online, I’d prefer it to be in something like FLAC because it’s completely lossless and true CD quality stuff. As it is, Yahoo offers the best quality @ 192kbps WMA. I did purchase one track off Yahoo Music for $0.79 because it was a great song and an artist I really liked. Also, it was the only way I could transfer it to my portable mp3 player. However, it still says it is “protected content” in the license info screen. I bought the music, why is it protected and from what is it protected? Am I not free to use do as I please with the song? As such, I think that’s still the issue with purchasing music online. It’s still not as “free” as buying a CD. Also, what if your hard drive crashes? You have to buy all your music all over again if you haven’t managed to back it all up. Ouch!
So today I decided I’d just go riding around until I didn’t feel like riding anymore… 46.95 miles later, I finally came home mostly due to the impending thunderstorms. It just kept randomly raining off and on and it looked as though it was going to storm pretty hard core so I decided to cut it short of 50 miles for the day. I’m not a big fan of riding my new bike in the rain unless I absolutely have to, either. My total riding time was just over 3 hrs even though I was gone for nearly 8 hours. I ended up stopping for food twice, random rest stops because my ass hurt and a few other stops at the bike shops and whatnot. I still think before this summer is out I’d like to get a century (100 miles) in. My only problem is that I’m not really sure my ass can take it. Then again, today I was wearing my least comfortable and most annoying shorts. As it stands, I’m at 560 miles this month with a few days left to go. My initial goal was 500 miles this month and once I realized I would have no trouble with that, I was shooting for 600. Looks as though I should do just fine getting that as well. Maybe next month I’ll hit 700! 
I’d really like to do a 1000 mile month but I’m not really sure I can pull that off. That’s averaging over 30 miles per day! Who knows… we’ll see how it goes by the end of summer. After all, I’m going to start working 3a-11a starting next month so I’ll actually have more time to ride. Given that schedule, I’ll actually be able to ride either before or after work… or both. On top of that I’ll have weekends off, which will rock.
Yeah… wtf is up with this idiotic weather. It’s 85 degrees and can’t seem to decide if it wants to rain or not. Humid as all holy fuck, which is annoying. I wish it would just rain for a couple hours to get rid of the stupid clouds and the humidity. As long as I’m not in it when it’s raining, it’s all good. Admittedly, riding in 90 degree heat and rain would be quite fun…. as long as it stopped raining at some point while it was still sunny so I could dry out. I’m off the next two days so I’m going to make a point of putting in 30+ miles one of those days. Maybe both, who knows? Hopefully we’ll be dead at work tonight because I really don’t feel like having to work hard. Not that my job is that hard even if we DO get busy.
Amusingly, our local buses have been free for the past 3 days (including today) because the air pollution has reached a certain level and is worse than normal. Knoxville has started a new thing where if air pollution levels are above a certain level, all KAT buses are free. They have an “orange alert” and a “red alert”. I don’t believe we’ve had any red alert days yet, but we’ve had 3 or 4 orange alert days. I think It’s a pretty cool idea except that it’s not publicized enough and the buses really weren’t any more busy than I would normally see them on any given day. As a matter of fact, most of the people I saw getting on were surprised to find out that the buses were fare-free. I think people in general are just too dependent on their cars to ever give them up for any reason. Even if gas was $5-6 a gallon, people would still drive everywhere by themselves and not carpool or ride the bus… or walk.. or cycle.. whatever. It’s kind of sad, really… but hey, it’s their own stupidity for spending that much fucking money in gas. I’d like to see the government do this commercial… Person gets in their car, puts the key in the ignition… camera zooms to the ignition… person turns the key and the engine fires to life… announcer comes on and says “everytime you do this you’re SUPPORTING TERRORISM!” Either that or show someone pumping gas and do vaguely the same thing. Considering a large portion of our oil comes from the middle east. However, I’ve read various places that we actually get a large portion of our oil from Venezuela, followed closely by Saudi Arabia and the other middle eastern countries. Russia actually produces more oil than any other country in the world, but I can’t realistically see us getting large quantities of oil from them anytime soon. 
Alas, we’ll pretty much always rely mostly on foreign oil since America just can’t produce enough oil to satisfy our needs.
no, nothing about christ himself… I’m just thinking “christ I must be nuts”. If I wasn’t so sleepy and ready to go to bed, I’d go for a morning ride. You know, go put in 15-20 miles or something. It’s like 70 degrees outside and a little humid but it’d still be nice riding weather. However, sleep calls so I think that’s a much more prudent idea. Especially since we’re supposed to get intermittent rain showers today and for the next 9 days straight. Blah, time for bed. Nothing of interest to post at the moment.
Nothing really of importance to report at the moment, I guess… I did get my new handlebars and I absolutely love them. Now that I have the shorter stem, the bike fits better and my right elbow no longer aches like a motherfucker at the end of a ride. I didn’t really want to wrap the bars with bar tape; I wanted to leave them bare. Problem is, the cable routing isn’t internal so the cables would not only be visible, but so would the electrical tape I used to keep the cables in the grooves. Gayness. The bar is carbon fiber and carbon fiber is dead sexy. Hence my desire to not tape the bars and cover that up!
So on Thursday night I was coming home from work, riding up Broadway. I look and I see like 8 police cars pulled off onto a side street and wonder what in the FUCK so many cops were doing in one spot. Turns out that a car had somehow ended up on its top. I have absolutely no clue how it happened since the side road in question is fairly wide and didn’t have anything I would consider hazardous. There were also no other cars in the vicinity. Sometimes I wonder about people… sheesh!
Musically, I’ve taken a liking to Lacuna Coil of late. They’re a goth-rock sort of band from Italy that have actually been around for a good while but didn’t really become popular until their single “Heaven’s a Lie” started getting some airplay. The lead singer is a female and I believe the rest of the band is male. The lead singer has a great voice and is wicked hot to say the least. I guess you could compare them to Evanescence but in my opinion Evanescence sucks and Amy Lee’s voice really gets on my fucking nerves. Not so for Lacuna Coil. Alas, their CD “Comalies” appears to be pretty good from what I’ve heard on their fan station on Yahoo Music.
Speaking of which, Yahoo Music has definitely been worth my $7 a month, that’s for sure. There’s some stuff that Rhapsody has that they don’t and vice versa. The thing is, it’s $3 a month cheaper than the basic Rhapsody subscription and allows you to transfer the music they offer to a compatible device. Rhapsody charges something like $15/mo for this capability. I don’t have a compatible device yet, but once I can manage to stop spending money on my bike I’ll probably buy one. Deciding which one to buy is kinda tough, but I think I’m going to go with the new Iriver H10. It’s actually been upgraded to 6GB of storage, which is plenty of music for my needs. Sure it’d be nice to be able to hold my entire mp3 collection in one player and carry it with me everywhere I go, but I don’t really need that capability. It’s not like I couldn’t just plug it into my computer and sync over some new music whenever I feel the need. I do that now with my Rio and it only holds 1.5GB of stuff. Heck, I don’t change music on it very often at all. Most of the stuff I have on it has been on it since I got it! Anyway, I’m going to bed. I’ve rambled enough.
So yeah, I managed to get shitfaced two nights in a row… something I almost never ever do! Monday night, Steve came over and we drank Red Bull with Bacardi O rum for awhile then switched to Red Bull + Black Cherry Effen vodka. I ended up drinking about 6 in total and was pretty drunk, but not ridiculously so.. Steve had a couple girls come over for a little bit… both of them hotter than all holy shit, but not terribly talkative and they didn’t stay long. 
Even so, I had a pretty good time… There was a kickass set on bassdrive.com by the Philly Element crew. They absolutely tore it the fuck up and played some of the most badass tracks I’ve heard in forever. They apparently were recording it, so they’re going to post it for download on their website. I’ll be downloading it once they do, that’s for sure.
Tuesday night was even more fun… after riding about 15 miles or so from my house to sam’s house, we ended up talking Dwight into taking us to the Red Iguana for 10 cent Tuesday. Well, we end up going and having a really great time. I wasn’t even too into the idea of going at first but I figured hey why not. I ended up drinking jager all night long and getting pretty smashed. One of the bartenders kept calling me “babydoll” . She was hot, so I didn’t mind it too much. She’s one of those overly-friendly types, I guess. Works great for being a bartender, obviously. I had something like 4 or 5 shots of jager and like 5 Nazi Cokes. They were making them hella strong, probably because I was tipping $2 per drink. Dwight ended up scoring with some Darcy chick that night…. I didn’t score with anyone, but then again I didn’t even talk to anyone so I guess that would kinda hurt my chances of scoring any numbers, eh? Anyway, we’ve decided that as long as I’m off on Tuesdays we’ll continue to go.
This badass 350Z hits almost 200mph on this long straight desert road… then manages to crash… that would seriously have to suck balls… Here’s the link, it’s 14MB so if you’re on dialup you might not want to bother. But yeah, 200mph and then crashing? No thanks! At any rate, I’m going to try and start adding more stuff to the gallery as I come across it. I have tons of bandwidth I’m just not using so I might as well put it to good use. 
So yeah, I installed a new spam-preventing plugin since I seem to be getting so much comment spam on my blog lately. Spam comments never actually show up because they go into a moderation queue for me to approve or delete, but it’s still a pain having to do it daily and wipe out 100 or so comments. So now I’ve managed to find this automated spam killer kinda thing that hopefully will work better. However, if you comment and it doesn’t show up immediately, it’ll show up after I see it and approve it.
Ok, so Bush has decided to spend tons of government money to fund a sex education program that only pushes abstinence… doesn’t teach anything else like safe sex and such. Just teaches kids that they shouldn’t be fucking and blah blah blah. Not a great idea, but hey whatever. Well, the campaign is called “Abstinence Only”, but they forgot to secure the domain name. Someone else decided to buy the domain name and have a little bit of fun with it. So yeah… click here Abstinence Only and be prepared to laugh. I know I sure as fuck did.
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