Amazed and Freaked Out

So I'm sitting here watching the Cubs and suddenly I'm amazed and freaked out by my TV all at the same time. Probably not surprising for anyone that knows me. First, I'm literally sitting here wondering how I ever watched baseball without HD. Keep in mind that I've had HD for over a year now. So it's not like I'm back in the first month with HD where I was amazed at everything. But for the first time in months I'm once again amazed. Defects in the stitching in the jerseys are clear. All the small nuances of the infield dirt. Is that a cleat mark? Nope, just a clearly visible clump. Not the most useful things to notice, but that's what always gets me. That pile of things that I never noticed and never thought about.
The freaking out comes via the orientation of the speakers in our living room. I don't know if it's intentional on Philips' part or not, but I will often get odd reflections from the area of our front door/front window in the female-voice range. So it's like there's a woman in our vestibule talking loudly at times. And even though I know this happens quite frequently it typically gets me on high-alert. Especially at times like this when it's normally random background crowd noise from the stadium where suddenly only a specific voice starts reflecting. And it's only the higher frequency human voices that reflect. Just a fun acoustic quirk of the living room.

BLACKHAWKS WIN!! BLACKHAWKS WIN!! For the first time in a loooonnnggg time the Blackhawks have won a playoff series; beating Calgary 4-1 in game 6 last night. It was pretty great to see our young stars step up and really play well. Usually you just hope they can hold their own and lean on the veterans to get it done. For us it was the exact opposite. The vets were mainly there to be "on-ice coaches" while the kids took control of most games. And by kids, I mean kids. Our captain Toews and his line-mate and 2007-08 Rookie of the Year Patrick Kane are both only 20 years old. And the pile of young stars continues from there.

I'll close by raving about 1 of the beers we received as a part of our final beer-of-the-month pack. Abita's Jockamo IPA. It's not overly bitter but comes with a fantastic array of hop florals. I'm not sure what availablity they have around the nation, but I highly recommend that you pick up some if you see it. Even people that avoid IPAs because of the bitterness should find this quite agreeable.
And with that...PEACE!!

They Can't Drive...55!!

I've found the silver lining to my little tire incident. So today and at least tomorrow I'll be driving around on my spare tire. And since I'm fairly conscientious as to the manufacturer's instructions, I cap my speed at 55mph (tire says 50mph) when I'm on the Pike. The first little chunk is a 55mph zone so it's not a big deal. But then I get to the wide-open stretches where it's a 65mph and people love to do closer to 80mph. I be nice and stick to the right lane and just set the cruise control right at 55mph. What happens? People just start piling up right on my ass, ride me for a few miles, then decide to whip past me and give me a dirty look. For what? Obeying the proper convention by staying exclusively in the right lane and driving a very legal speed? And it's not like I'm erratically going from 80-55-80. I'm doing exactly the same speed the entire time. They just somehow think that if they ride me long enough I'll just move out of their way instead of letting them pass me. It's good times. I'd rather have my real tire, but at least this gives me some entertainment on the drive.
Speaking of entertaining, I watched a girl come flying up behind me in her Subaru Outback, decide at the last second to swerve to the middle lane, realize someone was in it after starting her move and swerve back onto the right shoulder a little bit and almost rear-end me. It's was a great scene to watch in my rear-view. Although I think I would have preferred it if she'd hit me. I highly doubt I would have lost control and would have gotten some free parts for my car and a great rental car for probably a week.

The Wheels on my Car go Flat Flat Flat

So I just had yet another problem with my right front tire. On my way to hockey, coming down an unlighted street, in a pretty steady rain, at night, I found my way into a pretty wicked pothole and blew out the tire. Didn't even see it coming. Just thought it was your average puddle and paid it no mind. Nothing beats changing a tire in the rain on a dark side-street. Fortunately I've become old hat at this kinda thing and took less than 10 minutes from the time I pulled over til the time I was pulling away.
Yes, this is the very same wheel that had the flat tire not 3 weeks ago. I'm hoping they rotated the tires so I didn't just kill the brand new tire, but who knows. And yes, this is the wheel and tire that were bent and slashed, respectively, in the infamous bumper incident in CT.
So after I take a little morning detour to DirectTire to get yet another tire fixed, I'll be calling up the town of Watertown and giving them a piece of my mind. Our roads are straight up shitty. And several have been shitty for over a year now, so it's not like this is a new phenomenon in these tough times. I'm not expecting them to pay me back (mostly because I wisely buy the road hazard package on my tires knowing I have nothing but trouble). I really just want to give them shit for not fixing the roads. Maybe hear some weak-ass excuses as to why they just can't repave the roads or even patch the giant f'n holes in a timely fashion.

In better news, it's finally Cubs opening day!! I'm sitting here watching the DVRed ESPN broadcast from earlier, so no one call me and tell me how it ends. It's just so great to have baseball back. And RCN added WGN-HD in the offseason so I'll now be able to get about 1/2 of the games in HD this year. Glorious.
And on that note, I will now get back to my chips, salsa, beers, and Cubs in HD. Cause right now that's just about all that's going well for me tonight and about all I can hope to go well for me.

I'm Starting With the Man in the Mirror

No, the title isn't meant to be a lead-in to any deep and meaningful changes I plan on making to myself. I've just had that Michael Jackson song stuck in my head for the past 15 minutes and wanted to share.
It's always funny to me the little things that I notice from living with Hayley. Most of it stems from my tendency for habits and routines. Occasionally it's from my minorly OCD things. This one occurred to me as I was telling Hayley what I wanted from the grocery store. After years of doing my own shopping and shopping only for me, I've developed specific tastes for certain items. For instance I only eat Fuji apples; preferably organic fujis. I've found a brand of bread that I like best. I've also developed short-hand on my own shopping list. (Yes, I use a list cause I've proven many many times that I'm incapable of remembering everything I want without it.) So I can just write "lunch" and I know exactly what 4 things that means. Bread, deli meat, apples, bananas. Other things I want to check out before I get them. If the peaches are good I get a few; if not I get extra apples.
So while I know all of these things it's tough to quickly pass on this knowledge to Hayley on a week to week basis. So anytime I try to make a list for her, it's full of all these weird verbal directions. Most of which she doesn't understand. "Only get peaches if they're ripe and a good weight for their size." If you don't normally buy fruit, how the hell do you know what that means? "Get either buffalo chicken or regular roast beef from the deli. Whatever you think I'd like better." Right, that's real helpful. While that is how I do it, that doesn't help her very much.
Wow, could this be any more boring? This is why I don't normally do this on a lazy Saturday afternoon. But I'm in the midst of my Blackhawks-Cubs double header on TV and figured it was a good time. Naturally the Hawks just lost to the Bruins in a tough game, so hopefully the Cubs can pick me up here.
In more car news, I noticed today that my car antenna was broken off at some point. I'm not sure exactly when. I very rarely use the FM tuner, and I still get decent reception in town without it, so it's hard to say. But it was clearly broken off, not just unscrewed. I did glue it on after I had a previous one stolen, so that's not surprising. The best I can figure is that it snapped off the other day as I was pushing a foot of wet, heavy snow off of my hood. Of course I'm hoping it met a better end than that. My best-case scenario is that it was snapped off of my car while it was sitting outside either DirectTire or Nissan and used to whip the shit out of some punk. Hopefully I'll see some jerk walking down the sidewalk with the pattern of my former antenna welted across his face. That would rule.

Follow-up to Dealership Post

So I'm sure some of you have been sitting around thinking to yourself, "But Jarod, what happened with Herb Chambers?!" I'm happy to report that Hayley was able to successfully get her registration, inspection, and corrected odometer statement without trouble. And everyone was very nice and helpful, as well. Pretty much a complete 180 from the week leading up to it. Shocking!
Now what could have possibly caused this turn-about? Seems that the corporate office of HCH has joined my readership and sent a copy of Wednesday's post over to the GM at the dealership. As I actually thought possible, I'm betting they occasionally Google their name and see what comes up. Make sure no one is trashing them without reason. Or maybe I have a fan over there and never knew it!
To me, that sort of tainted their about-face. I was impressed and glad that the GM finally got involved and people stepped up to correct the problems that salesman Ron was causing. A big part of my frustration and anger with them was the fact that even as we explained what had been going on and were getting more and more jerked around, no one else showed any urgency to help us. Not even the sales manager seemed to care at all. Hell, no one even knew who was in the building on a day-to-day basis. We waited for 10 minutes on Wednesday while they paged Ron, who wasn't even working. We then witnessed a debate as to whether or not the finance guy was there. Way to be organized and know what the hell is going on around you.
Anyways...the fact that the corporate office called and probably read them the riot act means that they probably still could give 2 shits about us and their terrible service. They did what they did because their respective bosses told them to. So while the saga is finally over, neither of us ever wants to step foot in their dealership again. And I still can't recommend that anyone goes there. I've had dealing with 5 car dealerships in my life and this was the worst experience ever. And I haven't exactly had some good ones prior to this.
Whatever. I'm sure at least one person has had the same experience at every car dealership in the country. I guess it was just our turn to take one for the team.

Worst. Car Dealer. Ever.

Okay, time to vent a bit. So last week the wife buys a 2007 Honda Civic from Herb Chambers Honda here in Boston. Thursday night, to be exact. Even though they have a good reputation from people that have bought there, things were pretty bad from the start. Our salesman, Ron, was constantly dealing with other customers and/or issues while trying to sell us a car. And he either lied or was totally clueless about how the extended warranty works. But whatever, it was the right car at a good price and we shouldn't have to really deal with him much after that night. Right? Wrong. So she traded in her old car and wanted to just transfer the plates. On Friday when she picked up the car he said that they'd take care of all of it by Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. The odometer statement was also wrong, but he said they'd have that fixed by Monday. Well here we are at 9pm on Wednesday night and guess what hasn't happened. We have no registration, inspection, odometer statement, insurance, etc, etc, etc. Ron has continued to lie to us and has yet to come through on anything commitment he's made. Doesn't matter what he said he'd do and by when, none of it has happened as promised. And yes, he totally hung us out to dry tonight again. Apparently by telling my wife "stop by this evening and we'll get everything straightened out and get you your registration" means that he'll be nowhere to be found and no one else in the dealership will have any idea of what's going on. Completely normal, right? It's been the most painful experience I've ever had with a car dealership, and I had a pretty bad one with a Subaru dealer a few years back. I thought watching those morons struggle to find the right paperwork and get it submitted correctly was pretty bad. These guys at Herb Chambers have blown them out of the water.
Right now I'm doing my best to not just step in front of Hayley and let them have it. She's on the mound right now and I will respect that. Until we get the car and we're done with them. Then I'll step up and make sure they know exactly how I feel about the events that have transpired. And since we're still not done there might be yet another chapter! But if it's not done by the time I get to volleyball tomorrow evening I am going to call them and rip someone a new asshole. So they have until about 6:30pm to do what they said they'd have done days ago before I lose it. Hayley won't launch into a profanity-filled tirade because she's a good person. I am not handicapped with such restraints.

Big Bargains on Idocy

So today I decided that with all my free time during the day I'd hit Costco when no one should be there. Turns out that I'm wrong. Not only are there lots of people there at 2pm on a Friday, but it attracts a ... certain kind of person. The idiots. And the old, but that's not their fault. And instead of most situations where they slowly sneak up on you when you least expect it and most require competency, this hit me right in the parking lot. It's amazing how many people can turn the simple act of guiding a car doing 10mph and putting it between 2 parallel lines into what seems like a Mensa quiz. Waiting for spots while someone loads their shit for 10 minutes instead of just parking 10 yards further from the door. Parking at some terrible angle and thus taking up 2 spots. Driving around aimlessly at 5mph looking for some mythical spot that whisks you instantly away to the inside of the store. Pretty aggravating. And it just got worse from there. Big shopping carts, endless choices and deals and things to consider, it's all way too much. So no, 2pm on a Friday is not a good time to go to Costco.

On a quick side note, watching "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is another poor choice I've made so far today. And yet...here I am still watching it. Why? It's on, and Hayley's already in bed so I have to find quick ways to entertain myself. This is perfectly mind-numbing and can easily be done with little to no volume. I mean, this movie really is terrible. And I watch alot of terrible movies.

Quick show of hands; how many females watch the show "Two and a Half Men." Can't be many. So why are there so many commercials for feminine hygiene products and other distinctly female advertisements? I mean, really. There should be nothing more than beer and sports commercials.

Update: the movie just added a 67 Mustang fastback, almost my dream car. Right now I'm ignoring the fact that they dropped a Skyline engine in it and transformed it from a shell to a show-worthy race car in what couldn't have been more than a day and just enjoying it. What I wouldn't give to hear a tricked-out 289 with straight pipes under the hood instead.

Yeah, that's enough rambling for 1 night.
PEACE!!

"Game Changing Play" misnomer

Anyone that's been watching as much of the college bowl season as I have will have surely seen the promos for the Pontiac "Game Changing Play" contest. They list 5 plays to vote on and the popular winner wins. Here's my problem with it; all 5 plays were Touchdowns in the final seconds to win games. So while technically those plays changed the game in the sense that the game was decidedly different after the play, they're really game winning plays. Game changing plays are plays that happen in the middle of a game to dramatically shift the momentum. Usually no one scores on the play, but sometimes it's a pick-6, punt return, or huge offensive play. But it's not in the final seconds of a game; it's in the middle. Thus, you have both game winning and game changing plays.
But, understandably, true game changing plays are far less dramatic. It could be something as simple as a really big hit by a defender that turns a game around. That isn't nearly as media friendly as a miraculous TD pass to win a game as time expires.

I'm sure many of you have heard me complain about the companies in the world that have managed to reach into my brain and steal my unpublished ideas for their own benefit. Like how George Foreman made serious cash on my idea of using the top of a toaster oven to toast bread while I'm cooking a chicken breast in it. Tostitos has managed to do it again. As Hayley constantly kids me about, I have a tendancy to create elaborate imaginary scenarios after coming up with a humorous observation. I won't go into any examples right now, mostly cause I can't think of any. So in the commercial you see a guy standing in the chip aisle looking at bags of Tostitos scoops while we hear his internal dialog. After determining that the chips are like food luggage, he then creates a situation where he has an imaginary conversation with an imaginary person about his "food luggage". Normally I'd just see it as a funny commercial. But after having Hayley kid me about my little habit so much and make me hyper-aware of it, I can know clearly see that They have stolen my ideas once again. Who are "They"? I'm not real sure. But someone is clearly tapping into my inner thoughts and using them for profit without sharing a dime with me. Are they using satelites? Maybe they implanted a transmitter into my body during my last surgery which can tap into my brain signals and relay them to a transmission tower. I'm not sure. But what I am sure about is that I need to start sending them false thoughts. Throw them off in directions they don't want to be in. Like...hamburger earmuffs!

My new full-time job

I know, I know. It's been even longer this time than normal. But I have a good excuse! For those that don't know (which is probably 90% of you since I'm apparently very bad at informing people of stuff), I got laid-off from Teradyne back in mid-November. After surviving some 15 or so lay offs, including 2 earlier in 2008, I finally ended up on the wrong project at the wrong time. So instead of spending a few hours a week trying to look for a better job and having to make up excuses as to what I'm doing on interview trips, TER is now paying me to stay home and do it full time! And as a bonus, I have plenty of time to work on projects around the house and goof off every day.
However, while it didn't really bother me at first, turns out it did. While I wanted to leave anyways, it's a bit insulting to have a company that's leeching money so quickly to tell you you're not good enough to work for them any more. Especially with some of the jerks that got kept (No, not you, Tom)! I know that this wasn't a performance-based layoff, but it still hurt. Couple that with the fact that no one is hiring in December this year, and it sucked. Tough to keep your head up when you can't even get interviews anywhere.
But like a Christmas gift from the universe, things seem to finally be turning around. Got a couple interviews and know of a few things that should be opening up in January/February. Not sure if anything is going to end up being the job I'm looking for, but at least things are happening finally.

In brighter news, we're well in the heart of bowl season. I'm watching Northwestern take on Mizzou right now. Not a power-house match up here, but it's been a pretty good game. And because Northwestern is not only a fellow BigTen school, but also the home-town college for me, I have a vested interest in the game.
And with bowl season comes my week+ of horrible eating. For dinner tonight I've so far had 8 buffalo wings, a bowl of New York Cheddar and Herb Kettle Cooked potato chips (no that isn't unnecessary detail!), and now I'm eating chips and salsa. And a "few" beers. And tomorrow I have 3 more excuses to keep doing it! Not until 4pm, so I'll have to be productive in the morning and afternoon.

Now I'm sure everyone is reading this and wondering what I got for Christmas. I am the center of y'all's universe for crap sake! While there were many awesome gifts, the cornerstone of this year's crop is Rock Band 2 for our Wii. Unfortunately I haven't quite rocked out here at home. The drums are being UPS'ed as we speak, and I had a job interview this afternoon. I pretty much knew that there was a non-zero chance of me calling to reschedule the interview if I started rocking out today. So instead I'll just wait until Hayley goes to bed shortly and set it all up. Seems to be the perfect activity to try and do quietly while getting drunk. Am I right, people?!!

So until next time I'll just be sitting here at home living off of my fairly generous severance package and unemployment insurance. Have fun at work suckers!

Man vs Survivorman

Most people are at least aware of the 2 major survival shows on televsion; "Survivorman" and "Man vs. Wild". Many of those have watched at least an episode or 2 of either of them. Most of you that read this are also aware that my father and I do a remote wilderness camping trip in Canada every summer for 2 weeks. So you'd think that I'd be over-joyed that there are 2 shows that could be covering some important skills for us. But in the words of the immortal Lee Corso: "Not so fast!!"
Let me quickly get the non-viewers up to speed, while also prepping for where this is going. Survivorman is done by Les Stroud. He takes a few cameras and a couple basic things like a Leatherman tool and heads to remote areas around the globe with the intention of surviving for 7 days. Essentially he's mimicking the infamous "worst case scenario" of any trip to a remote locale. But he's out there all alone with his cameras and no help. "Man vs. Wild" is done by Bear Grylls. Bear takes a camera crew with him to remote locations and does incredible stunts and has wild adventures for a day or 2.
In 2004 when I first saw the trailer for Survivorman I was pysched. Here was a survival expert heading to a similar area and a similar time to when we do our camping trips. And it lived up to it's billing. I picked up quite a few little tricks we could use in the event of an accident. How to start fires correctly with just bark and sticks, what types of things you can eat, how to correctly set up shelter, etc. But the best part to me was that it was realistic. He's not doing anything you wouldn't really do if you were in a life-and-death situation. Namely, no unnecessary risks.
Bear does his show in the exact opposite way. While he's also trying to survive an extreme situation, he does non-stop risky things to create drama. Some things he does are good, but it's not realistic overall. But when you have a camera crew following you around and you're only out for 1 or 2 days you can do that. I know, Les apparently has a crew nearby that he checks in with every day, but they do not intervene in anyway during his week.
We've been very fortunate to have never gotten into any bad situations, although not without some pretty close calls. And there's only so much you can do to avoid that. What you can do is listen to the ranger when you go in and do what they tell you to. (Quick primer: We go into the Quetico Park. You stop at 1 of 6 entry stations to pay your fees and check-in and get some quick updates. What are the water levels like, any new dangers, accidents, fires, etc. We've then proceeded to go 7 days without seeing another human being on some trips. Typically it's 2 or 3 days b/t sightings, and even then it's typically just the glint of the sun off a canoe on the other side of the lake.) And yes, people that don't follow basic safety instructions don't always come back. ~4 years ago a guy drowned not 2 miles from where we typically camp. So I do know that if Bear actually tried to do most of things he does in a real survive situation he wouldn't last long. There are times when extreme measures are required, but certainly not on day 1 or 2. Climbing a rocky waterfall instead of hiking for an hour to get around it? Wreckless and stupid. Swimming under a log jam of unknown size in a canyon? Also stupid. These are the types of stunts that get people killed. When you're out there all alone a badly sprained ankle could be all it takes. Or a deep cut. A concussion. Any number of seemingly small injuries suddenly become a situation. And with all the dangers we face on our trips, that's what scares us most. Bears, violent thunderstorms, high winds, all have nothing on a simple sprain or infection.
In short, anyone that does outdoor activities should take the time to watch at least a few episodes of Survivorman. While the specific situation may not apply every time, the skills he uses are typically the same. Stay dry, stay warm, find food and water. The more ways you know how to do those things, the better your odds of survival are.