iPhoner...

I'm sure that you've heard a lot about the ensuing iPhone frenzy that is about to land in Apple/AT&T stores across the land. Apple's new shiny iPhone launches tonight, which is sure to be exciting.

I spoke with a group of technologically-inclined colleagues about this event and they just CANNOT wait to pick up these new marvels of telephonic wizardry. One friend in particular went too far as to say that when she picked up her pre-order slip, she got a rather large boner in anticipation of her soon-to-arrive new iPhone.

Now how she managed to achieve THAT is just anatomically... Never mind, I really do not want to know. Some things are just better left alone and not contemplated upon.

The service plans with these things are actually not all that unreasonable. The initial cost in purchasing the iPhone isn't all that bad either, considering all that's built into it. I suspect that iPhones, much like the Wii, will be tough as hell to find for awhile. Remains to be seen, I suppose.

Anyway, if you're walking around town tonight around 6PM and see a rather cutish-looking gal who appears to be sporting major wood in her rather petite trousers, fear not. It's just my pal B with her brand new shiny iPhoner...

On Any Other Day...

Yeah, so the hopes to go see The Police in either Dallas or Houston?

Not so much.

That makes two bands on my List that I didn't get to see. If any of you need me for the next twenty-two seconds, I'm going to go sit in a corner and whine.

Damnit.

Armenia, City In The Sky...

Hard to believe that June is almost complete.

Don't feel like I've accomplished much this summer so far. A few steps forward, a few steps back so far as life is concerned. Not that I'm complaining, really. After all, no Major Drama in my life is fine with me.

The past few weeks were rather tricky between feeling like ass, attempting to craft a new demo reel to show how spiffy I think I am in regards to video editing, safeguarding the Family Compound during my parents absence (and not really doing as great at that as I probably should have, but considering how things were progressing that week, it's a miracle things turned out as well as they did. Also helped to be lucky enough that my brother & sister-in-law pitched in and helped to clean up after me, which was embarrassing on my part but another topic in itself), overzealous workload and writing long ass one-sentence-style paragraphs instead of easier to read sentences that observe accepted rules of grammar and composition.

Hey, at least I'm not typing my thoughts 1337speak-style either in iambic pentameter or in couplets. That'd be fun to break down and digest, now wouldn't it?

OMGWTFBBQ!

Someone who is usually rather annoying to me accused me of not wanting to better myself, that I was just too comfortable with my existence. According to their opinion, I would never move beyond my comfort zone and do something meaningful with my life.

Fascinating viewpoint coming from somebody who is so close-minded in so many areas of their life that it is amazing they even walk out of the house every morning. I could sit here and sling a few arrows in their direction, but in some ways I've been asking myself questions of this very nature.

I know I have, I cannot deny the truth behind that notion. I've sat here contemplating just what exactly the fuck I'm doing with my life more times than I can truly express.

I've kicked myself enough in the nuts about not following Awesome Career Opportunity A, or even considering Career Opportunity A1A2B. Whether I was too scared to attempt, or if I just wasn't thinking clearly to begin with, I'd just not bite in on that 'bait' like I should have.

Well, kids, I made a decision to pursue one particular opportunity, but it is a risky one. For the course of the next year, I shall be spending a ton of spare time attempting to edit a feature-length documentary.

I'm not exactly sure what I can discuss about it just yet. I haven't signed a NDA or anything, but I don't want to accidentally step on toes regardless.

What I can say is that this project is a risk. If it succeeds, I will have a professional film credit finally to my name, a new (sorta) editing-capable Mac computer and possibly even some monetary compensation at the successful sale of said documentary to either full-scale distribution or sale to one of the cable outlet networks.

I decided to take this step partly for the experience, but mostly because I need a challenge in my life that could either result in complete failure or an awesomely happy success story. I'm hoping for the latter, obviously.

In other news, I'm attempting to edit a new project which, if successful, may land myself in future contracts with the director that I will be working with. Said contracts pay out $1,000+ for a week's work. Dear deus, please don't let me fuck this up.

Two big long-term moves. Not so stagnant, now am I, Obnoxious Nosy Person?

Now to find myself a new place and restart the "comfortable" part of my life... Heh.

Uniform Foxtrot India Bravo...

Hello, my name is 905 and I'm a TotalFarker.

After browsing Fark the other day, I learned that Fark's founder, Drew Curtis, was going to be in town to sign books and grab a few beers with any interested Austin area Farkers afterward.

Having nothing pressing to do, I headed down to the locally owned Bookpeople, which was hosting the book signing. I felt a bit of a fanboy at first. After all, I've been on Fark for four years now. Fark introduced me to a ton of happy Internet funtime goodness over the years.

Then, Drew simply walks in without any fanfare or real buildup. Just, "hey, how's it going?"

First off, he's hilarious. Hardly what you'd expect in an author or in someone who runs an "Internet Phenomenon" such as Fark. He told stories, answered every question under the sun and then, when he was finished, told all of us that we can all go out for beer at this bar down the street.

The poor picture (I need to fix my eyes, damnit...) is at the book signing. Drew signed my book, "Robert/905: UFIB! - Drew Curtis." I was a little slow on the uptake because I had thought at first, "Isn't that supposed to be UFIA (in reference to an oft used hilarious phrase on Fark which stands for 'Unsolicited Finger In the Anus')?" before realizing it stood for "Unsolicited Finger In The Book."

Ahhh, Drew, I see what you did there...

We all met for drinks, which was a shock for me since I'm not the social butterfly type usually. Going to go meet for drinks with a bunch of perfect strangers isn't usually indexed in my Operationial Guidelines.

Still, it was a hoot and/or holler. I had a chance to meet a bunch of Farkers/Farkettes who run the social spectrum between IT computing geniuses to ex-high-school-football-hero-selling-insurance guy. I also had a beer with Drew himself and we chatted about random Photoshop contests, Wil Wheaton and how the new Transformers movie is doomed to suck.

A quite worthy outing indeed!

A Visit To El Tourista Spectacularrrrrr...

Went down to San Antonio to visit friends who were in from out of town.

Now, the thing that gives me the red ass is when you've actually lived somewhere and people who haven't refuse to listen to the voice of reason.

Take for example... The Riverwalk.

I know where to eat and where to not go. For example, you do not go to the first food stop on the river simply because you are starving wicked hungry and MUST eat and have a margarita first.

Against my better counsel, that's exactly what happened. The service was atrocious, the food was WAAAAY overpriced and the topper was the band. Get this, they had a pretty reasonable lineup. The guitar player was good, the drummer was good, the bass/vocalist was good. The guy playing the synthesizer? He sucked the life out of the whole band.

First off, his keyboard was way too loud.
Secondly, he liked to get overly creative. I don't care how much of a musical genius you think you are, NO ONE thinks that inserting the shower drama music from Psycho into a country music love song is EVER a good idea.

After that, we stopped into Durty Nelly's which is fairly decent. Kind of a grimy Irish-piano-bar-pub kind of feel to it. We drank nicely before retreating back to my friends' hotel room.

Soon, hunger struck again and they had the urge to get food. My suggestion was IHOP, since I knew the near-downtown location well enough to know that it was a good late night suggestion.

They, however, decided to go against my counsel and chose Denny's instead.

Having had TWO bad experiences with Denny's (in two other locations), I was for damn sure not going to eat there. But being overruled, we went anyways.

For background on the past incidents:

1) Denny's incident #1 - My brother found chewing gum in his food. No, I am NOT making that up.
2) Denny's incident #2 - I ordered a hamburger and was treated to a burger that was cooked on the outside but frozen solid on the inside.

Those, plus the fact that the lighting in Denny's gives their food this ungodly yellow hue, reasons give me pause alone.

Well, we had the opportunity to sit in a filthy booth in a filthy restaurant surrounded by prostitutes, schizophrenics and drunken louts. I thought I was safe getting the ice cream and brownie (after much urging by my friends to eat something), but the frequent ensuing trips to the Little Loggers' Room for a short while thereafter proved that my hypothesis was thoroughly disproved.

So, next time someone says "hey, let's get us some tasty Denny's" to me, they're getting a salmon to the face.

But, the visit was fun and we still managed a good time, which was really the important thing! Yaaay!

Forget It, I'm On Un-vacation...

It's been an interesting week.

Starting off, I had an ear infection that really pissed me the fuck off royally. (We're off to a good start with today's blog, aren't we?)

Since I'm poor and doctors cost money, I tried to do the best I could to stave off the eventual visit to my friendly health care professional. I tried cleansing my ears with OTC products, drinking lots of fluids and attempting to eat decently and finally resorted to letting my friend set my head on fire.

Yep, you read that right. Basically, you roll a few sheets of newspaper into a conical shape, stick the small end of the paper cone in your earhole and then you sets tha' other end on FIRES!

The basic principle is that the fire will suck air and waxy buildup out of your ear, since fire, by it's very nature, sucks. Believe it or not... It actually worked. For awhile. Yay, home remedies.

The dizziness abated and I was fine for a bit before it started coming back a few days later and I knew damned well I'd have to go to the doctor.

So, quite honestly, I wasn't a lot of fun for awhile. Hard time working, didn't feel like doing much around the house or online, so I think it could be said that I was a little crotchety.

Now, I'm back at work, feeling pretty much 98.6.

It's good to have you back again...

Eat Like You Want To - 2

R's Orange Julius, The Smoothie of Emperors

1/2 Can of Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice (That's 6 Ounces of FCOJ there, Mortimer.)
1 Cup of Milk
1 Cup of Water
1/2 Cup of Sugar
1 TBSP of Vanilla Extract (Or less if it tastes too Milli Vanilli for ya.)
10 to 12 Ice Cubes

Put all ingredients into blender and blend for no less than 60 seconds. Pour into a glass and prepare yourself for divine smoothie celebration happy fun time!

Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform, Already...

Hurricanes, John Wayne, Islamic Radical Terrorism, Jesus, Mohammad, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Every Kid Is Special, Hip Hop, France...

I'm sick of it. Is there nothing in this world that we can talk about?

...Illegal Immigration, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Race, 2008, Obama, Guiliani, Fred Thompson, 2010 Olympics, Go Strategies, Hugo Chavez, Venezuela, Holocaust, William Howard Taft...

Don't you get it? I'm tired. I want more out of this life than the same repetitive bullshit that is being spoonfed to us. Is there anyone even listening to me?

...Global Warming, Global Cooling, Gore For President, American Idol, American Idiot, Fast Food, Fat Ass, New York City, Category Five Nanny State, Gun Show...

Hello? Anyone up there at all? Anyone there?

...Dance Into The Fire, Bombs Away, Bin Laden, Hitler, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, SUV, Climate Change Nightmare, Paris Hilton, Tupac, Francois Mitterrand, Body Bags, Meltdown, Cold War, Putin, Carbon Footprint, Ben Bernacki, D.C., Microsoft...

The Sounds Of Hooves, A Requiem For The Post iPod Dream...

Wonko mentioned this interview in his blog the other day by posting a short video clip of the D5 chat with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

It's a good hour and a half of rollicking computer chatting fun! Much to the surprise of many, they manage to keep the discussion light hearted, almost chummy at times. This is of course almost anathema to the PC/Mac supporters who typically view one another with a grudging distrust in regards to their system of choice.

If you are interested in hearing the entire broadcast (or downloading the video version), click here. The pod/videocasts require iTunes to download, but Apple is offering these up for free.