Yeah, that’s right. Screw drinking sodas anymore. I’ve gotten rather hooked on sobe’s Green Tea lately, to be perfectly honest. Ok, so it’s not green tea like most of you might be thinking, but it’s still green tea…. and it’s a shitload better than any form of soda I could possibly put in my body. Regardless, I tried to drink a 12oz can of Dr Pepper tonight and literally could not finish the stupid thing. It made me feel icky and actually gave me somewhat of a headache. I’m not really sure what the big deal is because the Sobe green tea doesn’t have THAT much less sugar… and it still has caffeine. Both products use high fructose corn syrup to sweeten as well. Regardless, drinking the Dr Pepper was needless to say an unpleasant experience. As a quick comparison, a 12oz can of Dr Pepper has 150 calories and 40g carbs (all sugars) while Sobe Green Tea has 135 calories and 35g carbs in the same 12oz. Perhaps it was the added caffeine in the Dr Pepper? I’m not really sure what it could have been but I never get any sort of yucky feeling from the green tea. Alas, I’m sticking to the tea. I tried the “Lean” version of the green tea with no sugar (substituted with sucralose [aka Splenda]) and was by no means impressed with the taste. I guess I just can’t handle Splenda yet. Maybe someday I’ll be able to handle it but as of now I’m calling it vile and unbearable.
Archive for March, 2006
Yeah, I know I’ve been slacking these past few days and all. I’ve been busting my ass working 50+ hours a week so I haven’t really had that much time to focus my energy on a new blog post. Big fucking deal. I worked 55 hrs last week and I had 48 hrs of work in with one day left to go, so I’ll end up with somewhere between 56-58 hrs this week as well. Talk about crazy. At least my check will be a pretty good one. Anyway, here’s a pretty sweet ass video I found of some kickass soccer (football for you non-Americans out there) plays. These guys have some seriously insane footwork skills. I’m jealous. 
Well, I guess that’s all relative but I’ve definitely been working more than a normal person would. I worked 55 hrs last week and it looks as though I’m on pace to do it yet again. People have been calling out sick or whatever more often than ever lately and I’m not sure what the deal is. Either way, last Monday I worked midnight til 9:45am then came back in about 6 and worked til 9:45am again. Then I worked 28 hours in the following days to total right at 55 hrs. This week, same deal. Midnight til 10am, then back at work at 5:15pm and I have to work til at least 8am, though I’ll end up staying longer. At the rate I’m going, I’ll actually bring home $1000 this paycheck. Thankfully the only major bill I have to pay is my cellphone. Hopefully I don’t have any other random unexpected expenses pop up this check. If not, I’m thinking I might buy a used PS2 for shits & giggles. They seem to be pretty cheap on ebay from what I can tell. I’d really like to find a slimline one since they’re a ton smaller and better looking… plus they include the network adapter. Sounds like a plan to me.
Outside of that, I’m thinking I’m going to start saving to build a nice commuter bike so I don’t have to keep beating the shit out of my $2500 Fuji. I’ve been looking at flat-bar road bikes that I can put a rack and panniers on… fatter tires would be a plus as well. I’ve already got the bike, rack and panniers all picked out for the most part. Looks like I’m going to be shelling out about $1000 yet again *sigh*. However, I think this bike should stand up to the beating I give it a whole lot better than the Fuji road bike and be quite a bit lighter than the mountain bike I have. We’ll see how this pans out, though.
This video is from the 1950’s and apparently was distributed to schools and whatnot as education on what to do if the atomic bomb gets dropped… "If you see the flash, duck and cover". Let me be the first to say, if you see the flash the only thing ducking and covering is going to do is allow you to kiss your ass goodbye. An atomic bomb will literally vaporize anything within a pretty good radius of ground zero and utterly demolish anything within several miles. Still an amusing video to watch!
As I said before, I’ll try to post a video each day that I find incredibly funny or just plain crazy. Well, today’s video comes from the “just plain crazy” category for sure. Basically it’s a dude in Portugal on a Hayabusa on some highway who hits 320km/h. Now for those of you not on the up and up about conversions, that translates to 198mph. 198mph on a motorcycle is just plain fucking nuts if you ask me. I don’t even know that I’d feel safe at that speed in a car (not that there are many that will do that sort of speed anyway), but on a MOTORCYCLE? fuck no! Anyway, here’s the video courtesy of google video yet again.
I’ve decided I’m going to start posting a “video of the day” type thing every morning while I’m bored at work. Sometimes I might post two or three, but I’ll normally make a point to make it one. Today’s video is called “Karaoke for the deaf”. While it’s not as funny as the ipecac video I posted the other day, this one’s still kinda cute.
I don’t really ever buy CD’s because I don’t really have any good reason to do so. After all, I use my computer and my portable MP3 player to listen to music so having a CD doesn’t really do me much good and is more trouble than it’s worth to rip it into mp3 or wma format to listen to it on my mp3 player. I also have a subscription to Rhapsody to Go so I can just download anything out of their catalog of songs and copy them to my player. I pay a monthly fee and have access to something like 1.5 million songs that I can copy to my player as much as I want as many times a month as I want. It’s kinda nice because I have this problem where I end up getting bored of a CD after a week or so. With Rhapsody if I get bored of a CD I can delete it and copy something else over to replace it and not have to feel bad about having spent $18 on a CD I listened to 8 times. Regardless, the one CD I finally did decide to buy was "DE9: Transitions" by Richie Hawtin. It was $18.99 but surprisingly worth every penny of it. It not only comes with a CD but also a DVD with tons of bonus material. The CD includes a 74 minute mix, while the DVD includes the 94 minute mix in its original form along with a couple videos and an interview as well. The best part about the 94 minute mix is that not only is it available in a standard stereo format, it’s also available in dolby digital 5.1 and even 256kbps mp3 format to listen to on a portable player. The DVD is actually the entire reason I bought it since first of all, I like that he includes the mix in mp3 format with no DRM or anything of that nature and second of all he included the Dobly 5.1 mix, which sounds amazing on my home theater system. Truthfully I haven’t even bothered with the CD yet since I don’t really have any good reason to do so.
Frankly, I’d like to see more artists include an mp3 version of their music with their releases since mp3 players are becoming so popular. I’d probably buy more CD’s if they did. Of course the RIAA doesn’t want that to happen since mp3’s are easy to re-distribute illegally, thus taking money out of their pockets. Hell, as it is they’re trying to further regulate online music stores since they allow people to buy songs individually instead of making them pay $18 for the full CD even though there’s only one good song on the whole stupid thing. Hey, maybe if the artists actually put more than two or three good songs on a CD and took up the rest of the space with crap filler songs more people would actually buy CD’s instead of downloading them illegally or buying single songs online!
Regardless, the mix in question is absolutely amazing. Granted, you have to be into techno to really enjoy it but it’s still by far one of the best I’ve heard in recent memory. Basically what he’s done is cobbled together bunches of samples from a large number of songs into a 94 minute mix instead of actually playing consecutive complete songs. Whereas normal DJ’s will use two turntables or CDDJ’s, he uses turntables to an extent but also uses software such as Scratch Live & Ableton Live to more or less remix songs on the fly and weave them together in ways never before possible. If you watch the DVD it actually gives a visual representation as to what tracks are playing at the moment and when they come in and out of the mix. Oftentimes he’ll have 5 or 6 tracks laid on top of one another fading various ones in and out of the mix and even re-using several at various points along the mix. It’s quite the interesting listen and probably one of my favorite techno/electronic CD’s/releases/mixes I own. Definitely worth the money if you’re into that sort of music.
That’s the sound a .50 caliber Desert Eagle makes when fired. I found this out first-hand Saturday at the shooting range. My bud Sam decided to rent one because he’s always wanted to fire one and never really had the opportunity to do so… and since it’s only $5 to rent plus your ammo, we figured we might as well. Mind you I wasn’t about to fire that goddamn thing but it was certainly fun watching HIM shoot it. Mind you, he’s 450+ lbs and pretty strong so it wasn’t as much of a problem for him as it would have been for me (being 140 and all). Regardless he still ended up taking a step back when he fired it just from the sheer recoil of the gun. After he got more used to it, it still caused him to visibly rock backwards when fired. The worst thing of all was how ridiculously unreliable the gun was. Out of 20 shells, the gun jammed or otherwise failed to eject the shell probably 12 out of those times. A 60% misfire rate is far from appealing in my book. By comparison, he has a 9mm Glock 19 that has had probably 1000 rounds through it and he just had his first failure to eject this weekend. Amusingly, we also got a Walther P22 and a box of ammo for it and plinked off 100 rounds. It was quite fun but the gun literally feels like a toy gun or one of those guns you shoot when playing the arcade game "Time Crisis". Not much in the way of recoil, that’s for sure. Hell, it was so weak that even my girlfriend shot it! After firing about 20 rounds through the P22 I decided to step up and shoot his Glock. It’s quite a bit heavier, for starters… plus the recoil is quite a bit more noticeable but certainly not unmanageable. Needless to say it was pretty fun… we’ll probably go back next weekend and rent an MP5 and blow through some rounds.
Man drinks ipecac… hilarity ensues
I swear I haven’t laughed that hard in a REALLY long time. Seriously… Then again I have a warped sense of humor so that figures that I would find it so funny. Regardless, some dude for some show somewhere (none of which is told in the video) pays a guy to drink ipecac. What happens afterwards may very well be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen posted on the web. Wow.. just wow!
Digital Chosunilbo (English Edition) : Daily News in English About Korea
LG Philips apparently has a 100 inch LCD TV ready for production… Currently the largest is 82″ (made by Samsung but not available for purchase), which is still pretty damn big. Frankly, I don’t quite know what one would do with such a big TV but I’ll admit it’d be damn cool to have one. Panasonic has a 103″ plasma display announced as well but LCD is generally considered to be the better technology despite it not being available in sizes quite as large as plasma. Regardless, I’ll never own such a large TV because a) I simply won’t be able to afford it.. and b) I really don’t watch enough TV to justify such a purchase even if I could afford it. If nothing else, I’m hoping that it will at the very least drive down prices on more normal-sized LCD TV’s (30-40 inches) to a point where the average consumer can afford them. As it stands, LG appears to be turning out some of the best LCD panels around. I have an LG 19″ LCD monitor for my computer and all of the Apple Cinema displays are based on LG-Philips panels. HP’s widescreen LCD’s are also based on LG panels. I’m sure there are a few more that are using their panels but those are just the major players that have been using LG.
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