Notes from 2010...in no particular order

Happy New Year! Here's some random year wrap up/next year predictions from me.


TV-
Lost eneded. I really liked that show alot. The first few seasons were great. Even though the last couple seasons dragged on a bit, I still liked it. I just re-watched the last episode today(DVR) and I actually enjoyed it more than the first time I saw it.
I started watching Entourage this year. Never seen it. So I watched all of the seasons on DVD and was consistently entertained. A show about 4 dudes who are friends, rip on eachother and live in Hollywood. And lots of babes too. What's not to like?
Dog the Bounty Hunter. - A guilty pleasure, yes. But good entertainment....brah.
American Chopper. - Always liked it, always will.
Palladia.- It's a channel I get with comcast. Its all concerts, videos, specials. It's awesome. It's really what MTV should be. Ive discovered many new bands from palladia.
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. - Best late night on TV. period. Classic songs like"balls in your mouth", and the Neil Young impresions. Cool games, good humor. Definetely worth watching.

Movies -
Iron Man 2. - Loved it. Iron Man is my favorite super hero ever. It wasn't quite as good as the first one, but I still dug it anyways. Good fight scenes, Mickey Rourke was cool as Whiplash, and it had War Machine. Dope.
Stepbrothers. - Awesome hilarity with Will Farrell and that other guy. Good laughs.
Gran Tourino. - Clint Eastwood makes a good film. And he has the craziest racial slurs ever.

Music -
Album of the year - Minus the Bear/OMNI. Freaking sweet. Such a great record that flows. Every song is worth listening to, and they sound good live. Check em out.
On a side note, last year's album of the year was Silversun Pickups/Swoon. Check it out too. Next year's album of the year - The new Twilight Singers album due in Feb. Already heard 2 songs from it and it sounds great.
Other noteables to check out - III/IV from Ryan Adams, Broken Bells, Jeff Klein - Death of the fox, and anything from Citizen Cope.

Other -
Tums. So much for heartburn, Tums kicks ass.
Nebraska football-Last year in the Big 12. 10-4 record. Some tough losses but they are imroving. Bring on the Big 10 next year.

Thats it for now. Peace out 2010. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

K

Helpful technology, unhelpful people

As I have worked in the retail sector for years, I understand the importance of customer service. I went into Best Buy tonight to look at computers, and found my way to the desktops. I found an HP that was on clearance, and looked beneath it to see if there were any in-stock. I saw a different HP with similar features but there was no price. So I waited for a customer service person to come and help me....and waited...and waited. I then decided to grab my phone, log onto bestbuy.com, and search for the computer. I found the price, realized it was too much, and left the store without talking to a person. Someday there will be no need for people to work in retail in a salesperson capacity.

It was faster for me to use the internet on my phone then to talk to a real person.

Someday people won't sell computers at BestBuy anymore. Computers will sell computers at BestBuy. Guess I better learn how to fix computers. Hmmm..now I wonder if they will just make more computers to fix the computers. Oh well. All humans will be gone soon and I won't have to worry about not getting service at BestBuy.

Affirmative. Binary Solo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1BdQcJ2ZYY&feature=related

Oh what a feeling....Toyota!

Sometimes you just have to be there. I get it. Sometimes you hear a story that someone thinks is hilarious, but you just don't think it's that funny. Hopefully you, one of 7 readers, will enjoy this story as much as I did when I lived it.....

So I'm at work, and I'm walking through the store, and I walk up to a couple of associates standing there talking. Alicia is staring off in to space, as if she were in deep thought...

Me - "Alicia, what are you thinking about?"

Alicia - "Jen told me the miles she has on her truck, and I'm trying to figure out the decimal point."

Me - "Oh, ok. Jen, how many miles do you have on it?"

Jen - "Two Hundred and Ten Hundred Thousand miles."

Me, looking puzzled.... - "Um... you mean Two Hundred Ten Thousand, right?"

Jen - "No, Two Hundred and Ten Hundred Thousand miles."

At this point, I had given her the chance to correct herself, and she didn't take it. Maybe she was just tired. Maybe she hadn't taken a math class in a while. Maybe she didn't see the huge grin beginning to form on my face. So me, being the nice guy, tried to give her another chance to get out of it...

Me - "Jen, that's not a real number."

Jen - "No, when I bought it from the guy, he told me that's how many miles it had on it. He had it on a farm and they drove it alot."

Me - "Well Iv'e heard of some old Toyota's getting up to a million miles, after 20 years or so, but that's about it." (At this point I'm just trying to wrap up the conversation so I can go somewhere and laugh....)

Jen - "Well he said Two Hundred and Ten Hundred Thousand miles on it."

Me - "Well, whatever you paid for your truck, you have certainly got your money's worth!"

So I walked away, and the whole time, Alicia is still trying to figure out the decimal point.

I couldn't keep myself from laughing the rest of the day. I would think about the seriousness in her answers and I would start to grin and crack up.
Unfortunately, Jen quit, and is moving to Alaska with her boyfriend.
According to mapquest, it is 3227 miles from Englewood to Anchorage.

That would put her Toyota truck at

Two Hundred and Ten Hundred Thousand Three Thousand Two Hundred and Twenty Seven miles when she gets there....I think...

Oh what a feeling....Toyota!

My last three blog posts

My last 3 blog posts have NO comments. None at all. Throw me a friggin' bone here, people. Isn't the point of blogging to share a bunch of stupid stories with people and then have them comment on said stupid stories? Do my stories need to get stupider? More stupid? Stupid-endous? Stupidtacular? I feel like they are getting stupider by the second... I can feel the stupid.

Fun stuff from Jury Duty

So it was a couple of weeks ago that I went to jury duty. Iv'e pretty much told everyone about the facts of the case and how it turned out. So I'm going to post a few things that I thought were interesting about the whole experience.

Some interesting names of people in my jury pool:
Quintas
Robota (yes, as in "domo arigato, Mrs. Robota, domo domo....)
And Melinda, the baliff.

The jury sits in a slightly raised seating area, on the side of the courtroom. There are two rows of chairs, with a small wall separating the jury seating area from the courtroom floor. I found it highly amusing that someone had carved graffiti on the inside of that wall from the jury seats! Someone had been so bored during a trial that they pulled out their car keys and started carving on the wall! (There are no pocket knives or any sharp objects allowed into the building so I figure they did it with car keys.)

Our judge was an older man, who had come out of retirement to help with the case overload in Arapahoe county. (Talk about an overload, the case I was on was already 2 years old....) He was a very astute judge, who was spot on with the information on the case and was very sharp. I did find it amusing though that it looked like he was asleep during most of the trial. He would lean back in his chair, and look out through the bottom of his eyelids through his glasses. Just when I was convinced he would start snoring, one of the lawyers would object to something and he would instantly take care of it.

Couple of things I learned:
The state does provide enough coffee for everyone. (In both the jury selection room and in the actual jurors deliberation room)
They do NOT provide food. (muffins, doughnuts, etc.)
Your job is required by law to pay you for at least 3 days worth of jury duty. After that, the government will pay you $50 dollars a day....I'm still waiting for my $50 check!

Castlewood Canyon

So I live on the Southeast end of the Denver Metro area. I really liked it when I lived on the west side of town, becuase I was close to the foothills and plenty of good hiking. But, I don't, so I either have to drive accross town, or find somewhere near me to hike. I have heard of a place called Castlewood Canyon, which is near Parker. (about 15 miles from my place.)

So last weekend I took a drive there to check it out. The closer I got to the park, I realized that it is far enough out of town and is down inside a nice canyon with pine trees and cool rock formations. As I drove up to the gate, I rolled down my window to pay my entry fee (its a state park, which was kind of a downer...) and the Ranger at the gate had a bullsnake wrapped around her neck! I said" Hi! How much do I owe?" She said "6 dollars." I said, "Ok, do you know you have a snake around your neck?" She laughed and said"Yes, this is Sid. He's super nice." I quickly said goodbye to the Ranger and Sid and drove in to find a parking space.

I found a spot near one of the trails and just started to walk. It was a 4 mile loop so I figured that was perfect for what I wanted to do. The trail was nice, relatively unkept (which was nice) and had plenty of shade with the big pine trees. The trail wrapped down into the canyon, and ran away from Parker Road. It actually went far enough so I couldn't hear the traffic and was really starting to have a nice outdoor experience. It's about at this point, that I something caught my eye, so I stopped to take a look....it was a deer leg just off the trail. Now, I have seen carcases of animals before and they don't really bother me. But what really caught my attention, was that this particular leg was completely cleaned of all meat. Stripped raw. And, the rest of the deer body wasn't anywhere nearby..... so something had taken this leg and dragged it over by the trail to eat it...

If there was any doubt that I was actually having a good outdoor experience, it was now gone. I continued hiking for a couple more miles and then came back. I didn't see any wild life except for birds and squirrels. But the hike was nice, the views were great and Sid was a nice snake. I will definetely head over there again.

Slacking

Yes I'm slacking with the blogs. Yes I went hiking at Castlewood Canyon this last weekend and want to post about it. Yes Iv'e been through two days of jury duty and want to post about it. No I'm not going to do it now. Thanks.