Was that a little Earthquake, or am i getting dizzy?

We felt it here in Cincy.  It felt like I had a few too many adult beverages.

Today's earthquake was cased by MTS getting the quarterly bill for all the copyrighted pictures he uses on this site.

Today's earthquake was cased by MTS getting the quarterly bill for all the copyrighted pictures he uses on this site.

 

and there goes another 13 cents to the Jim Henson Estate!

and there goes another 13 cents to the Jim Henson Estate!

originaljbw, I didn't thank you for your present!

 

 

 

I will go 80's old school on you! HA!

Wow, really pulling the dated references aren't we? Couldn't find any Clark Gable?

 

 

Put down the 1986 TV Guide and join the rest of us in the 21st century.

Wow, really pulling the dated references aren't we? Couldn't find any Clark Gable?

 

 

Put down the 1986 TV Guide and join the rest of us in the 21st century.

 

Remind me to tell you of the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke!

Yeah MTS, you should have used a Falcon Crest clip instead.

Yeah MTS, you should have used a Falcon Crest clip instead.

I loved Falcon Crest.  Network TV was so damn good back in the day!

I'm such a great mood this morning.  My VB team finally beat our arch nemesis, the Brazilians!  Thing No. 1 can now die in peace.

I can't respect a country named after a popular type of wax. You beat them down!

I can't respect a country named after a popular type of wax. You beat them down!

It  was a hard fought match.  26-24 - 22-25 - 25 22.  My arm is killing me and so are my fingers.

 

I hadn't played competitively in many many years.  Thing no 1 played in college and plays in several hard court and beach leagues in the area.  Last fall his hard court team had 3 injured players at one time, so he asked me if I would be willing to play.  So on three days notice I played.  The first game I played with the team was against "Voleibol bros sonho grupo". AKA the "brasilian dream team" They've played together for years so they run and gun 5-1 offensive.  They beat the hell out of us.  I made a s--t load of net errors 25-6, 25-4, 25-7.  They haven't lost a match in 3 years.  They are the Miami Heat of the league, partially because they are winners but mainly because they're very arrogant winners.

 

During my first season our team finished in 4 place but during the tourney, we beat the no. 2 team and played the brasilians from the gold medal.  They beat us in three games.

 

So for summer thing 1 asked me did I want to play again and we got a couple of guys from work that played in college.  So we had a really strong team.  Those damn brasilians came with almost the same team, as they are a team ~20 friends/family and can make 2 teams if necessary.

 

Earlier this summer, one of thing 1's team makes couldnt make a beach tourney on Long Island so he asked me to play.  I hate beach volleyball, but I only played knowing those whores would be there.  and I hate their no.1 setter. I try to hit her with the ball any chance I get.  They beat us.

 

Fast forward to the hard court.  We dont play them in rounds, due to their seeding they play against weak teams and blow them out.  We play a harder schedule.  Both teams finish undefeated.  In the tourney we ranked 1 & 2 and at opposite ends of the brackets.  we both make it thru the rounds and In the first semifinal game they were almost beat by the "other" PR team and use mental toughness to come back from, 16-23 to win the third game of the match 25-23.  I was amazed.  They put on an Olympic style show to win the final 9 points.  We win our semi and meet them in the final.  Thing 1 has been playing in this league for 6 years and this his first victory against this team. 

MTS, does it prove challenging to play volleyball when you're a chunky 5'4" dude with no hops?

MTS, does it prove challenging to play volleyball when you're a chunky 5'4" dude with no hops?

 

Actually no.  You could be a setter.  one of our setters is 5'8"/5'9" and he sets right at the net so its a plus to be short from that stand point, but you have to be a defensive specialist since you cannot block.

Is it okay for me to think that friends posting on facebook that they are excited for college freshman welcome week is...wrong...when they are 27 and 28 years old?  That was nearly a decade ago for me.

 

College was the best time of my life, but damn you gotta move on at some point, move away from campus eventually, actually graduate for real, and get a job............that's not on campus.

^Damn. I am on my phone so I am not going through the hassle to find a pic but I think this post calls for Matt McConegh in Dazed and Confused.

 

"I get older, they stay the same age.oh yeah."

I almost forget we're heading into the Labor Day weekend, when I was reminded by low-flying fighter jets buzzing my Lakewood condo just now. Air show is back in town, starting with the practice runs today....

"I get older, they stay the same age.oh yeah."

Is it okay for me to think that friends posting on facebook that they are excited for college freshman welcome week is...wrong...when they are 27 and 28 years old?  That was nearly a decade ago for me.

 

College was the best time of my life, but damn you gotta move on at some point, move away from campus eventually, actually graduate for real, and get a job............that's not on campus.

 

Some years back, I attended a going-away party by and for a former neighbor and sometimes friend who was moving out of town. He had always been something of a stoner along with a circle of his closest friends. It was like tuning into a soap opera after not having watched for a long time; nothing much had really changed, and it was very easy to catch up with the plot -- a bunch of middle-aged slackers still dressed pretty much as they had been in their teens/early twenties, still with the same haircuts, all gathered on a sprawling sectional sofa in a corner of the living room, passing around a joint and reminiscing about all their past parties and what drugs they did and how stoned they got. Since then I've lost touch with all of them, but I suppose the same scenario continues to repeat itself several times a year.

 

I almost forget we're heading into the Labor Day weekend, when I was reminded by low-flying fighter jets buzzing my Lakewood condo just now. Air show is back in town, starting with the practice runs today....

 

I suppose the traditional open house at the lower deck of the Detroit-Superior High Level Viaduct will take place on Saturday; I hadn't checked on it. It's a neat thing, for anyone who's never been down there.

 

 

I don't mind throwing parties and pretending like I'm in college once and awhile, but don't drink beer from kegs anymore, and our must have liquor is not 5 o'clock.  - cringe -  Remembers those days of drinking Bacardi 151 no chaser. 

 

But as rob mentioned, it's weird seeing people stuck in time. 

 

 

 

But there's one thing I haven't stopped doing since college and that's eating out.  I used to prepare some food at home, and gradually I stopped buying groceries entirely except for milk, orange juice and beer.

 

I usually just pick up some fruit from a stand or walgreens to eat on the way to work.  I'll get a bowl of oat meal, scone, or muffin at Corner Bakery Cafe in the morning.  Lunch could be anywhere, but lunch is my biggest meal of the day, so I always make sure to get some side, and I go to healthier places.  Thankfully Chicago has organic fast food restaurants.  Dinner is something light.  I might stop and eat at Whole Foods or a local grocery store that has alot of healthy prepared food and seating.  Or else I'll go to a bar since dinner at bars on weekdays is dirt cheap, of course the food isn't always the healthiest.

 

Once and awhile, I make a huge grocery run to Meijer.  I start scooping groceries off shelves like a natural disaster is about to strike.  I opt for Meijer in the burbs since buying grocieries here in downtown Chicago is expensive.  The smallest cereal boxes run about $5.90.  With milk and orange juice included, that balanced breakfast costs $2.50

 

I don't mind throwing parties and pretending like I'm in college once and awhile, but don't drink beer from kegs anymore, and our must have liquor is not 5 o'clock.  - cringe -  Remembers those days of drinking Bacardi 151 no chaser. 

 

But as rob mentioned, it's weird seeing people stuck in time. 

 

 

 

But there's one thing I haven't stopped doing since college and that's eating out.  I used to prepare some food at home, and gradually I stopped buying groceries entirely except for milk, orange juice and beer.

 

I usually just pick up some fruit from a stand or walgreens to eat on the way to work.  I'll get a bowl of oat meal, scone, or muffin at Corner Bakery Cafe in the morning.  Lunch could be anywhere, but lunch is my biggest meal of the day, so I always make sure to get some side, and I go to healthier places.  Thankfully Chicago has organic fast food restaurants.  Dinner is something light.  I might stop and eat at Whole Foods or a local grocery store that has alot of healthy prepared food and seating.  Or else I'll go to a bar since dinner at bars on weekdays is dirt cheap, of course the food isn't always the healthiest.

 

Once and awhile, I make a huge grocery run to Meijer.  I start scooping groceries off shelves like a natural disaster is about to strike.  I opt for Meijer in the burbs since buying grocieries here in downtown Chicago is expensive.  The smallest cereal boxes run about $5.90.  With milk and orange juice included, that balanced breakfast costs $2.50

 

 

I liked you..... until I saw that folgers coffee! :whip:

^ Exactly, if you're going to drink supermarket, at least go with 8 o'clock coffee. It's the coffee of guys who call meeting rooms "war rooms".

...  - cringe -  Remembers those days of drinking Bacardi 151 no chaser. 

Owwww! That stuff's not meant to be drunk straight! Or maybe drunk at all! You pour it over foods that you want to flame. Alcohol in that concentration is a powerful dessicant in contact with mucous membranes, and erodes the tissues in your throat and esophagus. Repeated use can result in hemmorage of blood vessels near the surface in those tissues.

 

 

For no more stuff than you keep in that big 'fridge, you might be able to reduce energy consumption and save on your electric bills by unplugging it and buying one of the small dorm-room sized ones. They're quieter, too, than big refrigerators with built-in air-circulating fans, icemakers, and auto-defrost cycles.

Remembers those days of drinking Bacardi 151 no chaser.

 

That was my first brush with liquor. I will surprisingly never forget that night. Three shots. Fun times.

...  - cringe -  Remembers those days of drinking Bacardi 151 no chaser. 

Owwww! That stuff's not meant to be drunk straight! Or maybe drunk at all! You pour it over foods that you want to flame. Alcohol in that concentration is a powerful dessicant in contact with mucous membranes, and erodes the tissues in your throat and esophagus. Repeated use can result in hemmorage of blood vessels near the surface in those tissues.

 

 

For no more stuff than you keep in that big 'fridge, you might be able to reduce energy consumption and save on your electric bills by unplugging it and buying one of the small dorm-room sized ones. They're quieter, too, than big refrigerators with built-in air-circulating fans, icemakers, and auto-defrost cycles.

 

Good idea, Robert. Another way to save would be to get milk jugs filled with water and and use them to fill the voids of your fridge. They'll help the fridge hold its temperature without running all the time.

 

 

I liked you..... until I saw that folgers coffee! :whip:

 

Even better is the folgers container is from 2007.  I haven't opened it since 2009 since I drink coffee at work or go to a coffee shop, usually Intelligentsia or Corner Bakery.  I didn't drink Folgers but I saw it on sale dirt cheap at Meijer way back.  I remember my mom was pissed since she had just shipped me a batch from here:

 

http://www.frankenmuthcoffeeroasters.com/origin-coffees.htm

 

Really great stuff.

 

 

 

It's okay MTS, I'm the dark spot on Oak Street

I'm generally pretty annoyed when a few of my buddies who are high-end/collectible sneaker enthusiasts start geeking out about some shoes.  However, this evening is an exception.

 

http://www.nicekicks.com/2011/09/is-nike-taking-us-back-to-the-future/

 

 

Drunken moose ends up stuck in Swedish apple tree

By Per Nyberg, CNN

September 9, 2011 -- Updated 0108 GMT (0908 HKT)

 

(CNN) -- It was a dark, windy and rainy night when Per Johansson returned from work to his home in Saro just south of Gothenburg, Sweden.

"It was raining really bad. In the wind I heard something screaming with a very dark voice," Johansson told CNN. "At first I wondered if it was the crazy neighbors, but then I heard it again and went and checked. I saw something really big up in a tree in my neighbors' yard and it was a moose. It must have been drunk after eating fermented apples and as it was reaching out for more fruit it must have slipped and fallen into the tree."

 

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/09/08/sweden.drunken.moose/index.html

I don't understand why people aren't embarrassed by their own ignorance. A lady in my office just told one of our coworkers that she never realized there was more than one plane on 9/11 till she watched some TV special over the weekend. I could excuse being that ignorant, the day itself was confusing and a lot of people didn't want to watch the news because it was depressing, but why would you admit in public to being that uninformed? Now everyone within earshot knows you're an idiot. (To be honest we all knew before, but now we have further evidence.)

Ignorant people are clueless about more than just individual events. Usually they don't pay attention to the details of anything going on around them, and that includes the things they need to pay attention to in order to internalize social conventions. They're clueless of their own ignorance, and clueless of the low regard in which non-ignorant people hold ignorance, so mostly they're incapable of embarrassment. If someone tries to apprise them of their ignorance they don't get embarrassed; they just get angry at being "picked on."

^Good insight.

It seems a lot of people are actually proud of their ignorance. On many Mommy boards I'm on, when someone posts something that's not about Wal-mart or whatever, people are just like nope, never heard of it, never used it, never saw it. Again and again. And I mean things like who the president of Iran is or the aforementioned 9/11 example. I see it every day.

Ignorant people are clueless about more than just individual events. Usually they don't pay attention to the details of anything going on around them, and that includes the things they need to pay attention to in order to internalize social conventions. They're clueless of their own ignorance, and clueless of the low regard in which non-ignorant people hold ignorance, so mostly they're incapable of embarrassment. If someone tries to apprise them of their ignorance they don't get embarrassed; they just get angry at being "picked on."

Amen!

It seems a lot of people are actually proud of their ignorance. On many Mommy boards I'm on, when someone posts something that's not about Wal-mart or whatever, people are just like nope, never heard of it, never used it, never saw it. Again and again. And I mean things like who the president of Iran is or the aforementioned 9/11 example. I see it every day.

 

It's not necessary to know any facts in order to have strongly-held and unwavering opinions! There are plenty of people on Cable TV and in local pulpits who can tell you everything you need to know and what to think. At work I often overheard enlightening conversations about what people learned on Sunday from their pastors.

 

Example: Our paper money was redesigned with colored inks as an excuse to issue all new bills with patterns of metallic threads embedded in them so that government agents in airplanes with special sensors can identify houses where people are hoarding large amounts of currency.

 

The mullahs don't have a corner on rabble-rousing exhortations.

Example: Our paper money was redesigned with colored inks as an excuse to issue all new bills with patterns of metallic threads embedded in them so that government agents in airplanes with special sensors can identify houses where people are hoarding large amounts of currency.

 

 

 

Wow.....

 

Yep, the more people I meet, the more I love my cats.

I made Eggs Benedict for breakfast. Woot!

I made Eggs Benedict for breakfast. Woot!

Show off.

KJP - Avert your eyes!!!!

 

I'm in the Gulf of Mexico on a new pipelay vessel, and we are going to tie into this rig. 

KJP - Avert your eyes!!!!

 

I'm in the Gulf of Mexico on a new pipelay vessel, and we are going to tie into this rig. 

 

I think all oil rigs should be staffed by a rag tag bunch of misfits, who just might be the best d@mned deep sea oil drillers in the world...

 

http://www.whatwasthere.com/browse.aspx#!/ll/41.4966773986816,-81.6900863647461/id/7564/info/sv/

 

Google streetview mash up with historical pictures. Custom made for UO geeks. You can also fade the historic picture to ghost it over the current picture.

KJP - Avert your eyes!!!!

 

I'm in the Gulf of Mexico on a new pipelay vessel, and we are going to tie into this rig. 

 

 

I think all oil rigs should be staffed by a rag tag bunch of misfits, who just might be the best d@mned deep sea oil drillers in the world...

 

Someone already drilled, baby drilled.  Im just making a conduit, baby, a conduit

 

DRILL DRILL DRILL!!!!!!!

http://www.whatwasthere.com/browse.aspx#!/ll/41.4966773986816,-81.6900863647461/id/7564/info/sv/

 

Google streetview mash up with historical pictures. Custom made for UO geeks. You can also fade the historic picture to ghost it over the current picture.

 

There's disaster photos in there as well. 

whatwashere is my favorite website now.

 

 

My neighborhood looked terrible back then, but at least the building stock was better.  I can't believe the prada store was once a greasy burger joint.  That's hilarious.  The old Barney's looks like it was some shady roadside diner.  MTS would be horrified.

My neighborhood looked terrible back then, but at least the building stock was better.  I can't believe the prada store was once a greasy burger joint.  That's hilarious.  The old Barney's looks like it was some shady roadside diner.  MTS would be horrified.

 

...near north side of Chicago?  Yeah that place is probably unrecognizable for old timers...

 

 

Wasnt that a line from Sissy Spacek in Coal Miners Daughter:

 

"Ah may be ignernt but ah aint dumb?"

 

True enough: iIgnorant doesn't necessarily mean dumb.    But people who deliberatly are cool about being ignorant are probably dumb, too.

 

 

My neighborhood looked terrible back then, but at least the building stock was better.  I can't believe the prada store was once a greasy burger joint.  That's hilarious.  The old Barney's looks like it was some shady roadside diner.  MTS would be horrified.

 

...near north side of Chicago?  Yeah that place is probably unrecognizable for old timers...

 

Yeah Oak And Rush.  Tons of topless places, bars, and greaspit diners.  Lots of neon, grime, and rundown buildings too.  I would love to take a trip back then to see it.  At that time, my building was operating as a residential hotel in the middle of it all.  It looks like the neighborhood had shifted in the 80's, but the real work came in the 90's when some new residential towers went up.  Finally, a few older lowrises got gentrified up and some nice places opened in them....but it wasn't enough.  The real estate was too valuable and they were destroyed and replaced with tall buildings.

 

 

On the way to the pharmacy, I just saw a Crosley Station Wagon going down the street! I think it was about a '51. It was baby blue with white trim, and it looked very nice and was purring right along, keeping up with the traffic. I think that's the first Crosley I've seen on the street, not at a car show or museum, in about fifty years. The original smart car!

My neighborhood looked terrible back then, but at least the building stock was better.  I can't believe the prada store was once a greasy burger joint.  That's hilarious.  The old Barney's looks like it was some shady roadside diner.  MTS would be horrified.

 

...near north side of Chicago?  Yeah that place is probably unrecognizable for old timers...

 

Yeah Oak And Rush.  Tons of topless places, bars, and greaspit diners.  Lots of neon, grime, and rundown buildings too.  I would love to take a trip back then to see it.  At that time, my building was operating as a residential hotel in the middle of it all.  It looks like the neighborhood had shifted in the 80's, but the real work came in the 90's when some new residential towers went up.  Finally, a few older lowrises got gentrified up and some nice places opened in them....but it wasn't enough.  The real estate was too valuable and they were destroyed and replaced with tall buildings.

 

 

 

lol that was the hottest area in chicago in the 80's. the alex keaton yuppie era party zone.

 

Bummer. As someone who is in denial and that the 80s never ended, this doesn't help me......

 

http://www.cleveland.com/music/index.ssf/2011/09/rem_is_calling_it_quits_as_a_b.html