Make the most prominant black man in the world... your pet

This website, which was running ads on Facebook and probably still is, highlights why I will never get ahead in this world. I have decency. Yet I also WANT what these shameless hucksters are shilling. Gosh I should have gone into marketing. There is too much for me to spew about my hatred and sick admiration for ideas such as these, and late at night after a large dark frothy beverage keeps my argument from being as strong as I would prefer, so I'll let the "company" and its product speak for itself.

My Pet Barock

www.mypetbarock.com

You can *win* your very own piece of 1980s kitsch, and celebrate current events at the same time.

My favorite designs?

They Have Arrived

I recently became a winner (yet again) and received in the mail 100 LightScribe DVD-R discs. In case you do not know what LightScribe is, allow me to explain:

LightScribe was invented to make stolen/pirated/freely-downloaded, and then burned, movies look really good. No longer will I have to ask my date, "So, what do you want to watch?" and then ashamedly pull out my massive collection of burned DVDs for her to browse through. A massive collection of DVD movies, of which titles found in said collection are specifically good at emphasizing my own excellent taste in movies, art, and culture, should be a point of pride, not of shame.

Basic formulas:

(Really excellent movie + Burned DVD + Title of movie written in marker on DVD) x 637 discs = Shame

(Really excellent movie + Burned DVD + Title of movie beautifully etched with laser on DVD) x 637 discs = 

Deep and Satisfying Sense of Pride

See what a difference one element of a formula can make?

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: this blog is meant to be written in a tongue-in-cheek style, and does NOT indicate that the author or or any of the authors of this blog currently or previously own any illegally duplicated copyrighted materials such as motion pictures, sound records, or television shows. The authors of this blog do not condone the illegal copying of copyrighted material and do not condone or encourage such practice(s). The motion picture Alien is a copyrighted product and the above pictures of "burned" discs are provided for the purpose of illustrated the difference between LightScribe covers and other covers, and do NOT actually contain copyrighted material of any kind, Alien or otherwise. In fact, the discs are currently blank.  Thank you for reading this very important disclaimer.

PRS RF

At 15¢ per scantron, I will have to take over 330 quizzes/tests using this "clicker" before it becomes a better value than it would be for me to just use scantrons.

So glad the administration cares about my money enough to make these stupid things a required item.

Segway=Fail

Even G.O.B. never failed this miserably.

On this day in history...

On this day in the late 1980s, a man of great stature, popularity, and intellect was born (he was born with all these things from day one). His name was Joseph [Harold] Pringle.

Other figures who share this honored birthday include Elijah Wood, Nick Carter, and Joey Fatone.

If Joe were to ever have the distinction of dying on the date of his birth, he would share a "death day" with the famous King Henry VIII, who died ceremoniously of syphilis.

Baked Potatoes and Sweet Baby Ray's

Way back in the day, when I lived in the dorms at Seattle Pacific University, I went through a variety of "phases" with food. Top ramen, frozen burritos, 7-11 foods... and then potatoes. I was amazed to find that I could buy a huge-ass bag of potatoes for really cheap. Poke a few holes and throw it in the microwave, and you've got a "baked" potato.

Now, we all know that nobody eats baked potatoes because they like potatoes. People eat baked potatoes because they are an excellent material to hold up a variety of delectable condiments that would be gross and/or socially unacceptable to eat by themselves. I soon found that it was these condiments that prevented potatoes from being "the cheapest" food to eat.

I picked up a total of six ingredients to sprinkle/pour/douse my potatoes with: salt (actually I stole this from BJ), pepper (also stolen from BJ), butter, sour cream, bacon bits (which turned out to actually be soy bits flavored as bacon...), and Sweet Baby Ray's Barbecue Sauce.

The Sweet Baby Ray sauce received the most comments from my peers. Specifically, "Gross!" "Yuck!" and "That's disgusting." Little did they know (I attended a conference once on "Little Did He Know"...) that Sweet Baby Ray's was actually the savior of baked potatoes.

However, no matter how delicious, no human being can eat an entire five-pound bag of potatoes by themselves before the potatoes begin budding. Also, Sweet Baby Ray ran out before the potatoes did.

www.theboringthings.com

Yes, you read it right. The Boring Things in Life can now be found at 

www.theboringthings.com

in addition, the old url (theboringthings.blogspot.com) will work as well.

To many many more boring things! Salut! Cheers!

Look out!

Found this cool site the other day, which gives the Net Worth, Daily Pageviews, and Daily Ad Revenue of most any site you type in.

For example, blogger.com is worth $267.67 million, gets 122,222,222 page views a day, and gets $366,669.49 in ad revenue a day.

IMDB.com is worth over $50 million and takes in over $70K a day in ad revenue.

Facebook is worth over $480 million and takes in over $660,000 a day in ad revenue.

Turns out theboringthings.blogspot.com is "Not a Valid Domain." Which means it's priceless.

Great idea, or the greatest?

So many fat, lazy men have had this idea over the years... It brings tears to sandwich lovers everywhere. Kudos to the men who finally made it a reality.

From the makers of "Baconsalt" comes Baconaise!

Got a Light?

When did smoking become unfashionable? Was it the lung cancer, throat cancer, what? People used to just look so cool smoking. "Got a light?" Dean-O will give you one! And a glass of wine or a martini! So what, we have to pick? "Look cool, or save your lungs," "Have a good time, or save your liver," blah blah blah. Ignorance is bliss, to be sure.

Novelty shirts

While Joe astutely noted the scam in the idea behind "winning" for items you actually still pay (and probably overpay) for, my package came today. And it is a representation of another popular scheme: novelty shirts. You can put whatever you want on a shirt. Any color. Any design. Any type of shirt. Anything. And Facebook ads always seem to direct me to these novelty shirt sites. And I love the humorous designs. No matter how juvenile or self-referential or politically incorrect, I love the designs. I have very few photos of myself, so I substitute a real photo of myself on Facebook with random shirt designs. Part of this is knowing that $20 for a funny shirt plus shipping is dumb, because it takes $5-10 for a company to buy a blank shirt and iron on their design which will immediately deteriorate the moment I put this shirt in my washing machine. Yet the other thing holding me back is knowing that I should be too old to publicly wear such shirts, especially in public where even outside of school I guess I'm expected to have some degree of mature professionalism about me.

So with those two considerations, after some research, I found a shirt that was practical (I need a new sweatshirt, and this had a hood and nice warm fleece on the inside), I found a cheap deal, and I found a humorous design that I wouldn't be embarrassed (I'm actually quite proud) to wear out in public, or even put over my dress shirt in class on a school day when the building is freezing. So, I now have a new shirt, and coincidentally, the photo I took to share with you all is so utterly ridiculous, that it will become my new Facebook photo as well.

I WON!

What genius invented eBay.  A store where the person doling out the cash is a "winner". How could this NOT catch on? Who doesn't want to be a winner? You mean I can be a winner AND buy things that I want/like/need/desire???? YES! YES YOU CAN! YOU ARE A WINNER! WINNER!!! No, eBay is the winner. eBay now has your credit card number. eBay now has you convinced that by purchasing items through eBay you will become a fabulous winner everytime you spend money on that site! So spend spend spend! Spend away!

A job opening: Worst human being on the planet

A job has opened up in Seattle: Dog killer/abortionist



People with hearts need not apply.

A terrible family owned property in rural Skagit County in north Washington state, and the authorities found out about neglected and abused animals and seized over 600 dogs. 80% of the dogs are pregnant. Humane societies and shelters cannot possibly handle all the dogs and their hundreds of puppies on the way.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008665665_puppies24m.html

This leaves two options for the fate of these dogs and their puppies: euthanize the dogs and give the puppies up for adoption since no one wants to adopt old, skinny, sick, dogs, OR abortions for all the pregnant dogs and use all the resources that would be spent on the puppies on nursing the older dogs back to health, fixing them, and finding homes for them.

Either way, Skagit County is going to need some cold-hearted bastards.

Tragedy of Living

I have no money, and therefore need to work.

But I don't like to work as much as I need to work.

As soon as replicators and holodecks are invented the only thing that will occur is the manufacture of holodecks and replicators. Eventually humanity will die off as people live out their empty lives on holodecks. That's when the Borg will crush us.

Movies I Need to Watch Sometime

- Synecdoche, NY

A couple reasons I need to see this: 

   -Directed and written by Charlie Kaufman. He also wrote Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Being John Malkovich. All great movies. Synecdoche is his first venture into directing, so we'll see how he does with that. If I were to judge by the previews (a dangerous game, in my experience), it looks like he did pretty well.

   - Philip Seymour Hoffman. Is there anybody he can't play?

- Defiance

Daniel Craig, although it has taken him a while to move up from B-movies to Hollywood-grade fare, he really is a decent actor.  Also this movie is directed by Edward Zwick, who has made two decent/good movies (The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond). Also, although it's an incredibly-overdone genre, WWII movies still hold a certain appeal for me.

- Johnny Got His Gun (1971)

I got about halfway through this movie before, and then I just couldn't take it. I need to go back with a renewed sense of resilience and watch the rest of it. It really is a horrifically heavy story, but one that I do want to finish. Plus how can I say no to a movie in which Donald Sutherland doesn't completely suck?

- Lady Vengeance and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance

Although I'm usually not a huge fan of Asian cinema, I was highly impressed by Korean director Chan-wook Park's Oldboy, and so I do want to finish "the vengeance trilogy." To watch subtitled films, however, I really need a time when I can just sit and watch the movie, rather than just watching it in the background or without my complete attention.

- The Warriors and The Lost Boys

Sure, these are both old, cheesy action flicks, but they've also achieved something of a "cult classic" status, which makes them worthy of adding to my list of "have-seen"s.

- Goodbye Lenin!

I've heard a lot of great things about this movie, but just never bothered to watch it. I have it waiting for me on a DVD, I just need to get around to it.

- The Royal Tenenbaums

Amazingly I still haven't seen this Wes Anderson classic. Again, waiting on a DVD.

There are of course many more but I'm tired of writing now.

Cartoons?

I love cartoons as a cure for boredom.

I have a bunch of 1990s X-Men and Batman cartoons saved on my hard drive for casual viewing when the mood strikes. I have all the 1980s Transformer cartoons, but I have yet to watch them. I wish I had all the 1990s Spider-Man cartoons.

Something about the 1980s and 1990s brought out the best in animation. Cartoons had deeper, longer storylines, quality voice acting, and real suspense.

Yes I have the Simpsons, the Boondocks, and Robot Chicken, but there's something about taking classic superheroes and toys and bringing them to life that just can't be beat.

This looks like it may take the best of the 1990s cartoon and the live action films and may be worth checking out for X-Men fans:

Jade-Lianna Peters

"I remember the first time I ever had Welch's grape juice. I think I was five. Now I drink it nice and slow - that way I never miss the taste. Mmmmm grapey."

That was, apparently, child commercial "star" Jade-Lianna Peters. She is now the voice-acting star of Nick Jr.'s "Ni Hao, Kai-lan". I couldn't find any actual pictures of her on the Interwebz or, shockingly, even the original video on google or YouTube. So I am stuck with simply posting this small picture of the cartoon character she voice-acts in "Ni Hao, Kai-lan" and a video spoof by an Asian child comedian of Welch's white grape juice ads (entitled, "Wongs White Rice Milk").

The Final Word.

"Yes, you could take Dr. Gardner's PSY 763 as PSY 699 if Dr. Gardner had a section of PSY 699. As it stands, only Dr. Deborah Davis has a section of PSY 699, and the chair, Dr. Foilette, is not willing to open another section of 699 just so one undergraduate student can take it."

I don't even care at this point. It's OVER. I'm NOT taking Dr. Gardner's graduate seminar. The END. Capice?

On the bright (very bright, actually) side that means I don't need to read the 30+ journal articles assigned for Gardner's seminar this week. Hoo-ray. Which allows more time for me to watch "Weeds." Having almost blown through the first two seasons in three days, I need to start downloading season three otherwise there will be a (*dun dun DUN!*) GAP of time when the show will not be available to me. Also some other FX show I need to download and watch. However, with THAT show I will condition myself to do biology homework during the show so as to make it all that much less of a waste of time.

*picture is Dr. Gardner's textbook.

Snub!

Unbelievable. After crafting a film to be praised for a complicated, deep, and culturally relevant story, beautiful and unbeforeseen photography, tremendous performances by high caliber actors, a pounding and moving soundtrack, and arguably one of the greatest action films ever (because it was so much more than an action film), Chris Nolan and The Dark Knight were not nominated for best picture or best director. Unbelievable. Return of the King, but not The Dark Knight?

Mmmmm Grapey!

Who invented grape soda? Was grape juice not enough? Let's not only pack it full of sugar, let's carbonate it as well! Soda jerk. Yeah. A jerk. To be sure. Jerk. Organic my ass!

Here's the Problem

When I have a TV show available to watch, and it's actually good, there's really nothing to stop me from watching episode after episode, even if that may be a huge waste of time.

Plus Mary-Louise Parker is quite the mil... attractive person.

Winner!

I entered a contest for free BluRays from a DVD news site called TheDigitalBits.com and I in fact won something, for the first time ever. Yet my entry entitled me to various possible prizes, and I did not in fact win any BluRays, nor anything even resembling a BluRay. I won a statue (some may say it is rather a "statuette," though it most certainly is NOT a "figurine"). I am actually quite pleased and it now resides over my mantle. I have a nice digital camera, but it is out in the car, and I am relaxed right here. So, more on this developing story to come if I decide to put my shoes back on tonight.

Total time expired: 29 hours

UPDATE: I have a lower quality digital camera right here in my desk drawer, which actually has pictures of said statue on the memory card. I have a built in memory card reader on my CPU. BUT... the picture quality is not what I would like, and the camera is in my desk drawer, which is right below my keyboard yet it takes some degree of effort to open said drawer, remove said camera, take said camera out of its case, open the card slot, and remove said card. And then I'd have to reach all the way down to the CPU... The news? Not any closer to happening, going to collapse and watch Hardball and see if Chris Matthews' spittle can actually come through the screen. I need to start a countdown for this as well, but on the day Chris Matthews or his saliva touches me, there will be no need for a clock, because the whole world will know when I go nuclear on his white Irish ass (I know... "That's what she said. Or he said.")

UPDATE: I'm out of bed, back at the computer, but now it's too cold to go outside. Dinner time, then grading papers. My statue is pointing his lifeless finger at me accusingly, angry that his vestige has yet to grace the face of this here interweb, but I care not, for it is cold and I am still lazy.

UPDATE: Almost to 4 hours, and I'm full from dinner and happily grading, so it looks like the clock will continue to run. If I watch the statue long enough it looks as if it is slightly moving and I can hear it very softly hiss "Bagginssssssssssss..."

UPDATE: I have a package in the mail, and it has a tracking number. I may also take a picture of this package (I'll be wearing the item) when and if it ever arrives, to accompany the forthcoming picture to accompany this post. Please play along with me to track my package:

Use this tracking number @ USPS.com 420983599101805213907225811142

UPDATE:Now the wait will have to continue until tonight when I get home from work, and we'll see if I can remember to grab my camera as I enter the house, because we all well know once I'm inside and comfy, there's no coming back out to the car. Wish me luck, and perhaps one the clock strikes "24" I'll post the picture in honor of Jack Bauer's ceremonious return.

UPDATE: Just got home, time for dinner. I do in fact have a camera in my possession, but I need some food and drink before I have the strength to push the button and then transfer the image to my computer. I'm going to savor these final hours...

FINAL UPDATE: So it came down to 29 hours total. And here he is, the one and only thing I have ever won. I like to think he keeps the bad dreams away (though he didn't last Saturday). Now I just need a name for him...

Stars n' Stripes

Dollar Tree brand orange cola. "Stars 'n Stripes". Really patriotic. AND comes in a 3-liter bottle. How can Joe the Student go wrong with this patriotic bargain?

And yet, ever hearing whispers of "waste my dollar store... waste my dollar store..."

I concede. There is no hint of fruit of any kind (not even oranges) in this orange soda.

It makes a grown man cry...

Graduate Specials and Undergraduates!

"You may not register for any graduate courses as an undergraduate."

"You may not register for any 700-level graduate courses as a graduate special."

"You may register for 500 and 600-level graduate courses as an undergraduate with instructor approval, but not for 700-level courses." 

"You may register for all levels of graduate courses as a graduate special, but you are too late to change your registration from undergraduate to graduate special."

I'm just glad everyone knows what they're talking about. Wait... no they don't.

Two Quarters and a Nickel

Two quarters and one nickel. That's what I have sitting on my desk (among other, less mundane things). The quarters are dated 2004 and 2008, while the nickel is dated 1971.

What happened in 2004? I'll tell you what happened: in 2004, North Korea banned mobile phones. That was just one of MANY of the exciting events of 2004. Most believe this move was motivated by the fact that mobile phones are often used for the insidious task of communication, but they are incorrect. Mobile phones were in fact banned in order to stifle the growth of mobile phone advertisements. After multiple riots involving the burning of effigies resembling the Verizon "can you hear me now" glasses guy, the ban was put into place merely to keep the peace. If you don't believe me look it up. 

In 2008, Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines merged, forming the largest commercial carrier in the world. Oh and some black guy was elected president of the U.S.

In 1971, radio and television advertisements for cigarettes were banned. Now you may be thinking, "Surely this terrible intrusion on our first amendment rights has been overturned!" Oh really? Ask yourself: what was the last ad you heard on radio or saw on television for cigarettes?

Who's in charge of the banana stand?

Mr. G.W. Bush had his secondary title "the decider." "Mr. Manager" is Mr. B.H. Obama's secondary title. It suggests that he will not only decide, but decide and execute his decisions prudently, and have some form of "management" over his administration and the government, without having the dictatorial stick up his butt style of W. and his crew. Tomorrow at 9:15am PST there will be a new man in charge of the banana stand.

Calcium Carbonate (500mg)

Did you know that if you were to consume the entire 150 count bottle of generic SoundBody "Calcium Antacid" pills you would get 6,000% of your daily value of calcium AND consume only 750 calories? Oh it's true.

In fact, I'm gonna market that.

100 calcium pills (downed with 16 fluid ounces of water), three times a day = 1500 calories and 12,000% of your daily allotment of calcium. Not only will your bones be incredibly dense, but you will lose weight AND quite possibly develop kidney stones which you can pass in penitence for your sins.

I call the High Carb(onate) Diet.

On a side note, one of the best names for a generic brand of medicine I've ever seen was called "Healthy Accent."  What does that even mean? How can your accent be healthy? And also, is a healthy accent considered sexy? If so, do I need to consume Healthy Accent to obtain said healthy accent, or will any generic and/or brand name medicine do just fine?

Diphenhydramine HCL

My supply of diphenhydramine HCL is dwindling. Why do I not care?, you may be uninterestedly asking yourself.  To answer your question, I will ask you a question?

Would you rather fall asleep easily and soundly yet feel the urge to also sleep all day the next day, OR

would you rather fall asleep gradually and uncomfortably, and in the morning not truly feel rested, but at the same time you're just fine with being awake all day

?

So, unless allergies decide to visit me again anytime soon, I think I will lay off the diphenhydramine HCL for quite some time.

Which is precisely why I do not care that my supply of said drug is dwindling.

On a final note, why is it that all diphenhydramine pills are pink? Is that some kind of rule, or what? What if I felt insecure in my masculinity and felt like people were questioning me for consuming pink pills? Thankfully, this will not be an issue anytime soon for at least three reasons:

1. I (as previously mentioned) will not be consuming diph hcl anytime soon.

2. I typically do not consume diph hcl in public places.

3. I feel secure enough in my masculinity to feel comfortable with consuming pink pills in public (were I to actually consume pink pills at all, and were it to be in public were I to consume them).

Weeds

I just finished watching the first two episodes of season one of Showtime's "Weeds." Not too shabby a show. It's no "Breaking Bad" but at least it's trying.

Toast Titanium sucks really bad. Why? Because it encodes avi videos into some crappy format which divides the audio and video tracks. This, naturally, ensures that when the program burns the videos the audio will inevitably get ahead of the video and you'll be left with a worthless DVD coaster of unwatchable video/audio conglomerates.

So now I am using "Burn" which simply encodes the videos into one lovely cohesive mpeg file. We'll see how it does when it comes to burning them, though.

I was going to burn the first episode of season two of Flight of the Conchords, but then I felt like it would be a waste to use a whole DVD on just one 30-minute episode. So this disc will include both that episode and the epic movie "The Fall." Unfortunately this means I will necessarily have to wait another 2 hours for "The Fall" to encode into mpeg format (using the previously-mentioned "Burn" software).

So I guess the real question now is, "Do I watch another episode of Weeds, or do I go downstairs?" Which would have to include the followup question, "What would I do downstairs, and would it necessarily be any more of a waste of time than watching another episode of Weeds?" These are the kinds of decisions that try men's souls.

Introduction to The Boring Things

Welcome to the world of the mundane. Things that you once thought were not boring, turn out to actually be boring. This blog will explore, react, counteract, and bore for hours of boring displeasure.

When there is truly nothing in life you'd rather be doing than reading this blog, you'll know that you are, indeed, very bored. And quite possibly, very boring.

I would say that I don't want to bore you with the details, but quite frankly, I do. Every boring little detail. So as I sit here, with my now-empty cup of root beer... *tangent*

Last night I drank about 16 fluid ounces of root beer and was struck with the most fantastically large stomach ache. I curled up on the floor in a fetal position for about 15 minutes, and then I went to the bathroom to attempt to vomit up whatever was bothering me. I was unsuccessful in this regard, but another five minutes laying on the bathroom floor, my face only inches away from someone's pubic hairs, my stomach settled, and I returned to playing my franchise (the Oakland Raiders) on the game Madden NFL 2006. I could have purchased Madden 2007, but 2006 was $2 cheaper, so I went with that option. My team is now in its fifth season under my management.

Anyhow, after I felt better I poured myself another glass of root beer, which I enjoyed thoroughly.

*end tangent*

So my empty cup of root beer is sitting here on my desk, just begging to be brought down to the kitchen for a washing. I will likely do this in a few minutes. I want to use up more plastic cups, but at the same time they are so small and inconvenient. I would have had to refill those little plastic cups about 5 times just to consume the amount of root beer I consumed in only two of these large non-disposable tumblers.

Until next time.