I found a great Lego Star Wars movie that I thought I'd share with you. Check out the picture Chewie takes at the end... It's only a couple minutes long and pretty funny..
"Issue Date: December 20, 2005 Orders Issued To: Private Kyle Orders Issued By: Commander Kevin
You have just been issued Flight Operation Orders to fly on a mission at the Air Combat Zone Jet Fighter Entertainment Center! The details of your orders are outlined below. Your mission will include a combat skills development session and a mission briefing prior to your lfight in one of our four CF-18 Hornet combat flight simulators, during which you will engage in live head-to-head air combat action with the others on your mission!"
How freakin' awesome is that? That was written in a letter addressed to me on Christmas morning from my brother. That's what he got me for Christmas... A chance to fly a REAL fighter jet simulator! I asked him to come with me seeing as how I have two flights i can make (two by me, or one by me and someone else). I thought that was wicked-cool..
That's right! it's time for the obligatory "Christmas Goodies" post.. I'll admit that this year we saw much fewer presents than we have in previous years, but my parents have been saying (and rightfully so) that we're older now, so we dont need as much.. AND they really need to start thinking about their retirement... They could happily retire now and be able to live a comfortable life just off of my dad's pension, savings, and investments... but I can sense that they really want to make something of their retirement, so all the power to them.
I got clothes, new shoes, some nice black leather boots, and an MP3 player from my parents.. I've owned 4 MP3 players in my life, and 4 pocket pc's, and my current Pocket PC (affectionately dubbed as Judi due to the accent possessed by the GPS Navigation system is british and sounds like Judi Dench) plays MP3s and has 1gigabyte of storage space, and I really didn't think that I would use another player... so I returned it.
I was SO close to price matching one of their video cards to purchase, but first of all I couldn't find anything cheaper than my wholesaler distributers that i go to for my small business... even after price matching... so i didn't bother there. Besides, I entered a contest on Dec 23rd to win a top of the line $450 GeForce 7800 and only about 10 other applicable enterees are possible winners so i have a good chance of winning this fantastic card. I have a kick ass computer with a 10 year old video card - it's the only piece of hardware I haven't upgraded yet (I've done everything else at least twice!)...
My sister gave me a Future Shop gift certificate... I dont know why people shop at these stores.. I mean, honestly... the markup is INCREDIBLE!!! something that is 300 buckeroos at one of these big box stores is EASILY found half price somewhere else. I walked Best Buy aisle to aisle today and literally could not find one thing, even with the spare 100 bucks in my pocket from returning the mp3 player, that i would find worthwhile buying... oh well.. maybe i'll find something...
my aunt and uncle gave me a sweater - how unoriginal for them... they usually give me money or a gift certificate somewhere.. but i'm not complaining - it's a nice sweater...
and I got a bunch of new clothes.. shirts... jeans.. everything including socks and boxers...
my dad got the From the Earth to the Moon dvd box set - i'll be stealing that shortly to watch.. lol
and i also went out boxing day and bought 4 movies...
that was, I'm afraid, the extent of m Boxing Day shopping this year.. Well, that and a pack of AA batteries for my keyboard/mouse/remotes in my room. It was quite the bust, actually, in the way that i didn't buy much... Anna joined me for the tradition that many of you will know about that my brother and I have on Boxing Day.. wake up at the crack of dawn, get there early, and hit all the sales before the mob gets there.. I had a lot of fun shopping with her, but next time my dear, you will shop too!! (she didn't buy ANYTHING!) I felt like i was just carrying her along with me as i went from store to store without her doing what SHE wanted to do.... on well, she'll tell me that's all in my head and that i dont need to worry.. =P
I gave her her first Bubble Tea... she got peach flavour - and says she liked it! even the little "slugs" in the bottom... I got watermelon. Yummy! So I took her and my pink drink to meet my brother so we could leave.... on the way home, I bought something for Gizmo - it's an extension for his cage that gives him a sort of "observation deck" above his cage to look out of... I'm not sure he likes it. lol but it's still new.. maybe he'll warm up to it..
That's all for now..
Until next time....... *fade to black*
:: Eldorado ::
Tuesday, December 27, 2005 ::
2:16:00 AM
am I foolish to think that i can earn money by doing nothing?
There are a ton of "auto surf" websites out there. Basically the idea is this. The autosurf website takes on people who buy ad space from them. Just like any other website, the more exposure these ads get to the public, the more the auto surf website will get paid.
What if you, being the owner of an auto surf website, could come up with a way to get people to your site and surf a ton of these sites each and every day? You'd up your profits, of course.. And how do you get them there? You offer them money to do it. Not enough that you'll be losing your revenue that you're getting from advertising, but enough to make the user of your site earn some money for doing nothing...
for example. The one specific one i'm talking about pays you 10% of the amount of your initial investment every day - all you have to do is surf to 20 of their advertisers in a day.
so, with this company, if you purchased $100 worth of points as an initial investment, and you surfed the 20 sites (clean, no porn or anything) you would be earning $10/day for 20 days... so at the end of it all you'd have $200 in your pocket instead of the 100 you started with...
$10/day not seem like much? What if your initial investment is $200? or $500.... if you invested $500/day... you'd be earning $50 every day for surfing these sites.. and at the end of 20 days, you would have $1000 instead of your original $500..
I signed up, and put a few dollars in to see what my progress is like..
I'll let you know in a couple weeks..... so far I've earned back 50% of what i put in in 5 days.. just as i'm supposed to.. which means 5 days from now, I'll be at 100%... and everything i do after that will be for profit...
*Until next time.......* *fade to black*
:: Eldorado ::
Saturday, December 24, 2005 ::
2:51:00 AM
there, fixed all of the errors on the layout i think.. does anyone see any more?
it's 2:51am on Christmas Eve of 2005... how did this happen? how did we come so far this year so quickly? this has easily been one of the most eventful years of my life. Things that have happened to me, off of the top of my head, in no particular order:
- I met Anna. - I got kicked out of my program. - I decided to leave residence and move back home. - I got back into my program, on a conditional basis. - I attended my brother's first wedding anniversairy. - I got kicked out of my program again. - I worked in the hospitality industry in the summer time for the first time, and really liked it. - I got Gizmo! the bestest hammie ever (pic coming soon), and my very first pet. - I started up my own quasi-business and sold about 30,000 dvd cases (it's the simple ideas, i tell ya, that are the successful ones.) - I bought my 150th dvd movie... cant remember what it was, but my collection is still growing. - I bought my very first car, a 1983 Porsche 944. It wasn't a Delorean, as previously promised.. but i assure you i will own one of those cars one day. - I learned how to drive a stick shift all on my own... without killing the car. - I attended my first night school class. - I failed my first night school class. - I attended my second nights chool class. - I failed my second night school class. - I attended my third night school class. - I passed my third night school class with an 84 (all 3 classes were different.) - I went camping for the very first time on the beach of Lake Erie. - I had my first hotdog cooked over a campfire. - Hell, i had my first campfire! - I saw the festival of lights in Niagara Falls for the first time. - I went to my first ever Christmas party with Anna to her work party.
I know i'll think of more by morning.. but that's a hell of a start...
:: Eldorado ::
Wednesday, December 21, 2005 ::
9:58:00 PM
Almost done with the corrections to the template... still working out the kinks.. i have no idea what happened.. i guess for some reason photobucket, my image hosting service, deleted one of the images that i used for the background to the tables.... all will be fixed shortly...
:: Eldorado ::
Tuesday, December 20, 2005 ::
9:04:00 PM
hmm.. there seems to be a problem with one of the image links to photobucket on my site... I'm trying to get it sorted out... do any of you see it too?
:: Eldorado ::
Tuesday, December 13, 2005 ::
1:21:00 AM
I know i've been kinda copping out with my posts as of late, but you have to admit that some (if not all) are very interesting!
If you haven't done so already, look at my diggs to the left and check out the camera store articles... there are a couple, so start from the bottom up.... they're quite entertaining..
Some things about me... I'm still looking for work, so if you have any leads on a job i'd appreciate it! lol.... I'll do anything at this point just as long as it pays enough to pay my bills (which aren't huge... just piling up because i'm out of work and have been for over 2 months..)
I got the coolant flushed in my car this week... I figured running just water in my radiator was a bad idea when the temps started falling below freezing.. ALL i need right now is a blown cooling system to add to my bills..
I also got the sound diagnosed in my car... the rear left wheel was making an awful sound. The stub axle in the wheel has teeth that connect to a hole in the wheel hub.. both parts had those teeth ground out so when the stub axle spun, it just spun in place and didn't turn the wheel... I found all needed parts online and I'm going to go over to my old highschool sometime this week or next to see if it would be alright if i used their garage for a day.. they've got a car hoist that i can use which would be much better than fiddling around with the car on jackstands in my driveway in the nipple-hardening cold....
I'll be heading to a wrecker in scarborough sometime this week or next because apparently they have an early Porsche 944 (early means between '83 and '85.5 - the design changed slightly half way through '85) that is just ripe for the pickings... if i could find the parts that i need at a wrecker - I'll be home free... not only will removing the parts needed from the car be good practice if i intend on doing the install on my own car, but it will also save me a lot of dough...
I went to Anna's company Christmas party this past Sunday... Unfortunately though I had to leave early to catch a bus (downside of owning a car that is currently 1-wheel-drive in snowy weather)... Next year I'll hopefully stay for the whole bit! the people I met were fantastic.. really outspoken and easy to talk to... I cant wait for next year!
Ok, so that's my little excuse for making this post... I've posted somethign about me, and now on to something funny I read on the internet. The following was a letter written by a gentleman who constantly got the spark plugs stolen off of his motorcycle by a local crackhead.... and hell, any story with a crackhead is a great story, i dont care who you are... This was posted on www.craigslist.org - a california-based posting site where users can post anything from thigns for sale, rooms for rent, personal messages, and even "personal services"... this guy decided to write a letter to the crackhead... so here it is, titled "Hey, Crackhead"...
Hey, Crackhead... Date: Sat Mar 27 15:36:01 2004
Yes, you. You sick fucker. On Wednesday morning I emerged from my girlfriend's building by U.N. Plaza to find that you had sawed the tops off both the sparkplugs on my motorcycle. At the time, I had no idea why anyone would do that. Other than the sparkplugs, the bike was untouched. Some kind of bizarre vandalism? A fraternity prank gone awry? I had no idea. All I knew is that I looked like a huge douchebag riding the Muni to work in a padded motorcycle jacket and helmet.
Because the bike was immobilized I got a $35 street sweeping ticket that night. Thursday I had it towed to the shop ($45) where they replaced the sparkplugs and the boots ($50 including labor). They explained to me that "people" - I use the term loosely here - like you break off the tops of spark plugs and use the porcelain tubes to smoke crack. As an engineer and former MacGyver fan, in a way I think this is kind of cool. But then I remember that I just paid $100 for YOUR crackpipes, and I get angry again.
Crackhead, it was really good to have my bike back though. I rode home from the shop with a couple of spare sparkplugs and a smile on my face. I figured the next time I parked at my girlfriend's place overnight I would have to buy some crackpipes and tape them to my bike as a peace offering. Overall, I wasn't that upset. Despite having to ride the bus for three days and dropping a hundred bones at the shop, I had gained some fascinating knowledge, a new set of sparkplugs, and a pretty funny anecdote about how fucked up you are, and how our paths once crossed briefly in the night.
But you couldn't just let sleeping dogs lie, could you Crackhead. You couldn't just stay in on Friday, watch Letterman through the window of a home electronics store and then call it a night. You couldn't rest on your laurels. Two porcelain sparkplug crackpipes just wasn't enough for you, was it Crackhead? You just had to come back for more.
This morning, a scant fifteen hours after I rode it out of the shop, I found my motorcycle violated once again. This time you only took the right one - maybe you were having an off night. At least this time I had a spare sparkplug and the tools to fix it - or so I thought - having ordered a 73-piece toolset from SEARS.com last week. But no, the sparkplug socket in my new toolset was for American sparkplugs. So I had to go down to the neighborhood Ace hardware. They had an 18mm socket that would fit over my sparkplug, but it was for a 1/2" drive ratchet. My toolkit only has 1/4" and 3/8" ratchets. So I had to buy a 1/2" ratchet along with the socket. Even though the clerk took pity on me and gave me the senior citizen discount (I'm 25) it still cost me $22 all told. Now, you might say that I should have just gotten a 3/8"-to-1/2" drive adaptor instead of springing for the whole ratchet. And to that I say "Shut the hell up, Crackhead, I'm not finished. And besides, I was eventually going to buy a 1/2" ratchet anyway so it's probably not worth it to take it back now."
OK, now I'm rambling. But the point is, Crackhead, that you have done me wrong. Now, I get that you love crack. That is totally understandable. I've heard it is really fun, at first, and quite addictive. What I don't understand is,
YOU ARE A CRACKHEAD. WHY DON'T YOU OWN A CRACKPIPE?
I am an engineer. Do you ever see me shaking down bums in the Loin for a calculator and sliderule? No, you don't. Because engineering is the main thing I do, I went and bought myself a calculator. The main thing you do is crack. How do you get by without a crackpipe? The other crackheads must clown on you non-stop. I mean, the fucking saw you used to saw off my sparkplugs is probably worth five or ten bucks. Why not sell or trade it for a crackpipe? You really haven't put much thought into this, have you?
Please, Crackhead, please don't tell me you sold your crackpipe to buy crack. Even a stupid crackhead such as yourself couldn't possibly be that stupid.
I've decided that taping crackpipes to my motorcycle would be tantamount to appeasement. You have crossed a line, Crackhead - specifically California Street. You have come onto my own street and you have desecrated that which I hold dear. You have stolen from me, and you have caused me to spend the last half hour writing this post instead of engineering shit, and it is concievable, if not likely, that my boss could find out about this and fire me. I am hella pissed at you dude.
Here are my options as I see them:
1. Write a note saying that I have coated both of my sparkplugs in rat poison and tape it to my bike at night. You can thank Tim for that one, it was his idea.
2. Don't write a note, but just coat both sparkplugs in rat poison. This is probably closer to a punishment that would fit your despicable crime. I'm sure this is super illegal and shit, but it's not like anyone is going to miss you, Crackhead. Don't fool yourself.
3. Wait in an alley near my bike armed with my new stainless steel mirror-finish Ace Professional brand 1/2" drive socket wrench, my 18mm sparkplug socket, and my searing rage. It's pretty heavy and well balanced. I am not a large man, but I am angry.
In conclusion, Crackhead, why don't you just do both of us a favor and buy yourself a crackpipe? It will both enhance your crack smoking experience and save me a lot of time and felony assault charges. Think about it.
Sincerely, Matt
*** If you are not the Crackhead that took my sparkplugs, please disregard this posting ***
Is that not gold? I love it..... anyway, time for bed....
Until next time....... *fade to black*
:: Eldorado ::
Tuesday, December 06, 2005 ::
1:14:00 AM
I love www.digg.com. It brings me great stories like this one:
What they did was scanned every centerfold within those 10 years, took every single bit of each photo, and digitally averaged that bit with the corrosponding bit of all of the other centerfolds.... then recompiled all of the averages to create one photo.... cool stuff!
HOHOHO! Until next time....... *fade to black*
:: Eldorado ::
Thursday, December 01, 2005 ::
2:52:00 PM
The term "hacking" is applied when you use something in a new way that it wasn't intended to be used. You've heard of "computer hacking". What about Global Hacking?
That's right - a team of people have devised a way to "hack" the planet earth to reduce global warming. Check it out! It's actually quite an interesting read....
This was a story that I Dugg as you can see to the left, and I think you should do it too.
Click the link, wait for the flash animation at the top of the page with the ribbon to stop drawing, and click where you live... after you've done that then click on the reason you went to the site. After you do this, it will have made a donation of $1.00 for you to AIDS research. It doesn't cost you anything but about 60 seconds and 3 clicks.... Go do it people - their goal is $100,000.
Thursday, December 29, 2005 ::
3:59:00 PM
