Let's See What Else I Can Get Them to Do

As you may recall, I asked the CIA for a favor in my February, 2010 post. Click here for a referesher if you don't have all of my posts memorized. (Shame on you, Mom!)

Well, it seems as though The Agency picked up on my suggestion for making the United States a safer place. Click here for the full story

Congrats on a job well done and thanks for reading, you crazy spooks!

Hello?

Breaking news: The Ultra-Hip and Exclusive, Invite-Only Club of Google+ is now open to everyone! You may all begin celebrating now.

Being as cool and in-the-know as I am, I had no idea that Club Google+ had been opened to the masses. So, when I noticed I had been asked to join, I was a little excited but mostly just upset that it had taken so long for someone to invite me. I made some snide remarks on Facebook to that effect, then realized my error and tried to retract them. Not my finest performance.

Now that the dust has settled on my entrance, I'm looking around Google's cutting edge internet discotec and see...that there's no one here.

It's less like an exclusive nightclub and more like a stylish coffee bar: quiet, with sleek plastic furniture and a few people hanging around minding their own business.

I do like that it's quiet, though. I feel like Facebook has become a venue exclusively for things that I couldn't care less about all trying to get my attention at the same time.

"Come on down to FarmVille!" What? Why the hell would I want to pretend to live on a damn farm?

"Jimmy likes Bacardi!" Yeah he does.  A little too much, if we're being honest.  That's why he can't keep a job.

"Sally just got the highest score ever on Who Gives A Crap!" Good for her?

"My baby just took her first steps!" Finally.  She's 7.

So, we'll see how the Google+ thing progresses and hopefully it will be a viable alternative to Facebook someday.  But for right now, I'm casually sitting in the corner trying not to bother anyone and so is everyone else: I have a whopping 1 item on my stream in the last 3 days. Thrilling.

Dear Diary,

I can't stop looking at Scarlett Johansson's butt. It's becoming a real problem; at least for my wife.

Dear "Mad Men",

Are you doing that thing that "Lost" did where everyone loves you for some reason and I am the only one who can see you for the steaming pile of dookie that you are? Because I'm only three episodes in, but I'm really getting the feeling like you are definitely doing that thing.

Let me know.

Thanks,

PR

USA! USA! USA!

Holy crap, I love America.

We just spent a week in Belize. It was a lot of fun, we saw some really neat stuff around the coral reef down there and generally had a very relaxing time. The Belizeans we met were all very nice and friendly and the natural beauty of the place is amazing.

But it's dirty. And it's inconvenient to get to/find/buy anything. And no one is in any hurry to do anything, ever. Don't expect to "run to the store for some ______ real quick." Because no one gets anywhere quickly and the store won't have ______ when you get there.

So, if you're ever feeling exceptionally un-patriotic, go to a third world country for a week or so and see how they do things. You'll end up coming back through U.S. Customs painted red white and blue wearing nothing but an Uncle Sam wig and top hat with fireworks shooting up from your back and the National Anthem blaring out of your backside.

I Knew This Day Would Come

Shit. I am on BestBuy.com looking at washers and dryers. Not TV's, video games, DVD's, cell phones, laptops, surround sound, iPads, or digital cameras, but WASHERS and DRYERS.


The cheapest ones are almost $500. Each. $1000 for WASHERS and fucking DRYERS.


For the first time in my life, I'm going to walk into Best Buy and spend $1000 in one transaction and it will be for a WASHER and fucking DRYER!


sigh

Whoa!

Restaurant Review: BBQ Edition

I love food. It's delicious, it keeps me alive, and it gives me the energy to keep all (three) of you who read my blog entertained with my boundless wit and charm. Because I love food and food always tastes better when someone else is cooking, I tend to gravitate toward dining out options when it comes time to stuff my face. Luckily, one year ago yesterday, I married someone whose views on this subject are very similar to my own.

To celebrate our anniversary, C and I took a trip to what has been officially named, by the Texas Legislature in 2003, as the BBQ Capital of Texas: Lockhart, Texas. (This is not a joke. Our elected representatives took time out of their busy schedule to discuss which one-horse-town most deserved this title. Thanks?) We decided that we wanted to do something different to celebrate the occasion, but since she's currently spending every waking hour studying for the bar exam, we needed to do something close to home. So, BBQ adventure it was.

It seems to me that a place must either have a whole lot of something or be really good at it to be named the "(blank) Capital of (wherever)". Since there are only four BBQ restaurants in Lockhart, I was fully expecting to have my socks knocked clean off.

Our plan was to order a small sampling at each of the four and then decide which was the best of the best. We set out in the early afternoon after fasting all morning, eager to eat our weight in smoked meats.

Upon reaching Lockhart, our adventure began at Black's. It's been owned and operated by the same family (the Black's, duh) since 1932. It was very good BBQ. We tried the brisket (of course), the turkey and some sausage. The meats all had a real nice smokey flavor and we ate much more than we probably should have at stop one of four.

As it turns out, it's good that we over-ate at the first stop since stop two was closed, (thanks for nothing, Smitty's) and stop three was out of brisket.

(insert my shocked, dismayed and disbelieving expression here)

I'm sorry...what? You ran out of brisket?!?!?!? At 7:00 pm on a Saturday? How the shit do you run out of f-ing brisket in the BBQ CAPITAL OF F-ING TEXAS before DINNER TIME?!?! Is there some sort of mesquite shortage that I haven't heard about? Are cows extinct in South Texas? How could you have possibly run out?

Maybe it's just really good and everyone got there super early and bought up the entire supply so that they could hoard it all for themselves. Maybe. But the bottom line is that we didn't stick around long enough to figure out how or why this happened. It happened and that was that. So, we left--quickly.

Being still fully stuffed with meats, we decided to venture to stop number four (fingers crossed that it was open and had food to buy), and get the food to go; that way we could sample it at our leisure.

We got to Chisholm Trail BBQ and the line was out the door for dine-in, which is usually a disheartening sight when you want to eat somewhere, but in this instance it was a great indicator that the place was open and serving food. The to-go line was empty, so we popped in, got some brisket and pork ribs and got the heck out in no time at all. Side note, the place smelled delicious.

Later that night, when the meat-sweats had subsided, we decided to take a little taste of the Chisholm Trail pork ribs (strictly for comparative purposes, of course).

Holy crap! They're delicious! They're salty and smokey; they taste a lot like bacon. It's incredible. The sauce is sweet, tangy, and a perfect compliment to the meats. OMG. We ended up eating most of our stash right there in the middle of the night, cold, straight out of the fridge, with our bare hands. Incredible. I'm not doing it justice, here, I know. You have to try it for yourself. The brisket is delicious, as well, but the ribs...I've been dreaming about the ribs...

So, in summation, there is really only one BBQ restaurant in the BBQ Capital of Texas and yet, the designation is somehow still very well deserved.

Go Rangers

I don't know if you heard, but I got a job. You probably already knew that since C called everyone we knew, updated her blog and submitted an iReport to CNN.com all before I finished the phone call in which they gave me the offer.

So now I'm at work.

Hiding.

In the bathroom.

From my computer.

Because nothing on my desk is working the way it is supposed to and IT guys are all rude little men with bad attitudes and no friends and I'm sick of begging them to fix my stuff.

Jerks.

I Know When I'm Not Wanted?

Dear Expedia.com,

Yesterday, I booked a trip through your website and I gave you my credit card number which you in turn charged for the agreed upon very large sum of money. Today, I have a question about the trip that I booked through your website for which you appropriated a very large sum of my money.

The first time I called, I was on hold for forty five minutes and then you hung up on me.

The second time I called, I was on hold for thirty five minutes and my cell phone's battery life expired before you picked up the phone.

The third time I called, I was on hold for fifty eight minutes and then you hung up on me.

Normally, I can take a hint; but you in your case, I'll make an exception. I'm going to keep calling and calling and listening to your gut-wrenching hold music for as long as it takes for me to get through and when/if you finally answer my phone call, I'll have one more question for you: Why do you even have a phone number? You've made it clear that you would prefer that I not bother you via telephone, so why not just take that option off of the table? You'd be happier and I wouldn't have to listen to your nauseating hold music; everyone wins!

Think about it.

Sincerely,

The Guy Who Is About To Take Advantage Of Your 24 Hour Penalty-Free Cancellation Policy And Then Give My Money To The First Of Your Competitors To Answer The Phone When I Call Them

Perspective

I remember the cover of Time magazine in 1993 that said, "the information super highway will change your life," like it was yesterday. Hell, it practically was yesterday.

Soon, I was listening to that ethereal BEEP...GROWL...GROWL...WHIIIIINE...GROWLGROWL....BEEEEEEEEEEEEP..."WELCOME! YOU'VE GOT MAIL!" and the next thing you know, I'm all up in some chatrooms doing whatever the hell it was you were supposed to do in there. You paid by the minute in those days and there were only about five webpages in the entire world, so chatting was about all you could do. Unless you had the holy grail of computer gadgets: the scanner. If you were lucky enough to have one of these massively expensive and clunky boxes, you could take your crappy film photographs and convert them into even crappier grainy, digital photographs that you could then email to your chatmates. That is, if you wanted to wait three hours for each tiny snapshot to upload. And it all worked through the phone line, which was a real problem in the event of in incoming call or some sort of emergency, as the phone line for phone purposes was completely disabled.

I only bring all of this up because I think it is very easy to forget how far we've come and how fast we've gotten to where we are in terms of our technological advancements. In light of what was considered to be the "future" in 1993, we've surpassed every prediction of what life would be like "in the future" and we've done it in ways that we couldn't even have conceived of back then. Currently, the internet is provided to my computer wirelessly through the air. The AIR. No wires, no phone line, no cables or carrier pigeons, just air. My cell phone takes pictures in as high a resolution as my digital camera and can send those pictures via email almost instantly to anyone in the world. From the cell phone. A device no bigger than a deck of cards does all the things that an entire deskload of equipment could barely accomplish, with the help of a phone line, back in 1993 and then some.

And while we're on the subject, I got my first cell phone in 1996 which was large by today's standards but still portable. However, I remember the earlier incarnation that was bolted into the frame of my mom's car and relied on the substantial electrical production of the car's battery to operate. All it did was make phone calls, and it didn't even do that very well. Today, even the largest phones can fit in your pocket and weigh so little that you forget that it's there and sit on it a couple of times a day.

My point is that it is important to remember that the technology that we are becoming increasingly dependent on is still in its infancy and therefore cannot be expected to always do the things that we are asking it to do without some occasional bugs, errors and/or mishaps. We need to exercise patience when using these devices as they are absolute marvels of electrical engineering and technological advancement that we now, less than 20 years after their inception, take for granted as ubiquitous instruments of our daily lives.

Keeping all of this in mind, I am now a little embarrassed by the fact that my phone is on the floor in pieces because I threw it on the ground because the GPS program didn't determine my location as quickly as I would have liked while I was trying to use the phone to check email, send a text message, watch a movie, call my mom and order a pizza all at the same time--while driving. In retrospect, it seems like the phone's sluggish performance may not have been completely the device's fault...

That's Right, I AM an Austinite!

C and I went hiking in the park, kayaking on the lake and exclusively go to bars with patios now. Bye bye Dallas, we'll be sure to visit sometime...maybe.

But even with all this Austin outdoorsyness, one thing stands out among all others as my favorite reason to be back. No, I haven't found a job yet. Stop changing the subject.

Food. Specifically Mandola's Italian Market and Thundercloud subs. I could eat at both of these places every day for the rest of my days and never think twice about it. If I ever had to choose between paying my electricity bill and getting a meatball sub at Mandola's, I would ultimately pay the electricity bill, but only after C and I considered all of the pros and cons of the Sandwich vs Power debate. And in the end, it would be a close call.

Do your belly a favor and patronize these fine establishments if you live in and/or around the Austin area. If you do not live nearby, get in your car and drive. I'm not kidding, it's worth it. Sure, you can crash on our couch. And you can stay as long as you like, as long as you're buying our sandwiches while you're here.

You Can't Say that...Ever: Vol.9

Wife who just returned home from her 3rd straight 10 hour work day: "Why are you drinking red wine out of a coffee cup?"

Me: "I'm unemployed. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"

A lot has happened in the last few weeks and, as usual, I don't want to bore you with the mundane details of my life. However, I feel as though I should put the preceding melodrama into context.

The lovely and talented attorney that I am (as of the writing of this post) currently married to has accepted a job offer in Austin. Consequently, I resigned from IDPCA, we packed all our stuff and we moved down here over the weekend.

And now we're here. She's working long hours and I'm diligently searching for a job.

Let me clarify, I mean diligently searching for a job when I'm not:
a. watching videos of cats diving into boxes
b. running errands
b. watching movie trailers
c. shopping online for impractical things like a Vespa, plane tickets to Libya, a movie replica Thor hammer, etc.

You would think that I finally got what I always wanted. I sit around unsupervised all day with very little in the way of structure to get in the way of my constant search for amusement.

You would be wrong.

It turns out being a house-husband (A.K.A. - my ultimate dream in life) is very very dull. We don't have cable, so soap operas are out. We live in a tiny one bedroom apartment, it's just the two of us and we just moved in, so cleaning up takes all of about 3 seconds. As long as we're on one salary, I don't have the means to go shopping all day long, like some stay-at-home spouses do. So, it's just me, online job boards and Maru the Box Cat all day long.

But, it's only Day 4. Maybe it gets better. Maybe, like a lot of other things in life, you just have to ease into it.

Which explains why I am sitting on the couch drinking red wine out of a coffee mug: I'm just trying to put my full effort into it. You know, really get to the spirit of unemployed-ness. Embrace it. And also because all the dishes except the coffee mugs are in the dishwasher.

So, I'm going to give it another couple days, but if being unemployed doesn't get to be awesome pretty soon, I'm just gonna give up on my dreams and get a job.

Hahaha! Take That, Trump

Saturday night was the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, but it might have well been a roast of Donald Trump. Except that roasts are usually good-natured and intended as a sign of admiration of the recipient. In this case, it was just some good old fashioned public humiliation in the style of tarring and feathering, only without all the messy clean up afterwards.

Now, before you start getting all, "Oh, how mean. Why are they picking on this guy in front of a ballroom full of people?" please remember who we are talking about here: the granddaddy of all media whores, Donald Trump. You should NOT feel sorry for him in any way for the simple reason that he brought this attention on himself. He forced himself into a conversation in which he is grossly under qualified to participate. He is the one making outlandish remarks that are unsubstantiated by any crumb of fact or proof. In short, he has no issues with making a mockery of the American political system and the 24 hour cable news cycle when it benefits him, so why should anyone (up to and including the Leader of the Free World) shy away from using those same forces against him? The answer, of course, is that they should not.

So, thank you Mr. President and Seth Meyers for taking time out of your busy schedules to publicly pummel this bad-haired-loud-mouth-loser.






Man, I love to watch the public humiliation of a shamelessly filthy sideshow/media whore! Also, look at his face while Meyers is roasting him. He doesn't even crack a smile. What an ass. Don't take yourself so seriously, "The Donald". And if you're going to, then you should get back to doing what you do best--starring in mediocre reality TV shows (read: Fox News)--and stop trying to be a politician. Idiot.