Being a long-time suburbanite, I still find it
difficult to answer the question "where do you live". You see, you
can't really give a straight answer when you live in the suburbs. I live in a
fairly big town too, which, for the sake of this post, I will dub J-Town. In
J-Town, we have three different zip codes. Just saying I live in J-Town is not
sufficient for most nosy characters. Oh really, where in J-Town? Oh, you know.
My house is just off of a little cul-de-sac, in between two other houses. If
you went down the road a little ways, there's a delightful little playground. I
also live near some, um... trees. I'm down the road from, y'know, a grocery
store. Oh, there's also an Exxon station. That's probably the closest landmark.
You can't really say where you live near, because it doesn't give a proper
context. Saying "I live twenty minutes from the J-Town Mall" can be
subjective to traffic in the area (which is rather lousy in my neck of the woods),
how sluggish of a driver the individual is, and which direction they may be
driving. The suburbs are generally displaced from everything in the real world,
so you simply cannot clearly answer the "where do you live" question.
I suppose I could answer with my subdivision's name, but this can often be
misleading. My subdivision is called "Riverside Estates"; however,
the nearest river is several miles away, and these houses are hardly estates.
My favorite subdivision name, while I'm on the subject, would have to be one in
South Carolina called "Forest Acres", where the tallest tree in the
area was hardly taller than I was. I guess I will just have to answer this
question the same way I answer so many other questions. "Shut up."

If you read my blog fairly often, you probably
know that I am vehemently opposed to those damned "security" stickers
that are put on the outside of CDs and DVDs. They are worthless. I can only
think of one purpose they may serve, and even that is a stretch. I guess it
precludes theft by increasing the time it takes to open the case, wherein a
store clerk can helpfully kick the guy out of the store. This idea, however, is
not realistic since the thief could easily leave the store with the case itself
(in a lead box, of course, so as not to set off the inventory control alarm). Most
cases are covered in plastic wrap anyway, so the loud crinkling noise should be
enough of a clue to tip of observant clerks. The worst part is when you take
them off and you damage the case itself. I'm very anal, so I can't just cut a
slit in the sticker to open the case then leave it on. The reason I mention all
of this is because I have finally run across a meaningful compromise. I
recently purchased a new Jim Croce CD, and it had your basic plastic wrap on
it. Inside the wrap, instead of a sticker, they had it vacuum sealed in some
more plastic! So, to be clear, there was your basic plastic outer wrap and a
shrink-wrapped inner layer. I still had a difficult time getting it off (I
ended up using my car key), but it still left my case unscathed. It's still
exceptionally pointless, but at least there is less I have to gripe about. The
only logical solution now is to use this shrink-wrap technology and have the
security sticker wrapper guy shot in the street.

Rather busy again today, so all I have to offer is a YouTube video. This is quite possibly one of the most addicting songs you'll ever hear.

Dango dango dango dango
Dango daikazoku!
//shoots self in head

So I finally broke down and set up a Facebook account. No real reason for it, it was just on a whim. I don't really know anyone who uses it, so I made it just to see what was so special about it. So far, I found nothing special about it. I suppose it's mostly because I'm not a social person. Whatever. One of my coworkers has a Facebook account, as I've found out, so I suppose he could be considered my first "friend". I just can't see how people can burn hours on this kind of website.

I just wanted to thank
everyone who wished me well whilst I was sick. I think I'm over the worst of it
now. All that remains is a forever stuffy nose and a dry, loud cough that just
won't go away. It's starting to bother the neighbors. Getting a cold is just a
dreadful experience. You always know the moment you catch one, and the feeling
of dread doesn't improve the situation. You are just sitting at home, or at
work in my case, when your throat starts to get scratchy and you start
coughing. That's it. You're through. You know it. Your co-workers know it. Your
family knows it. The armed guards around your quarantine know it. You have
caught a cold, and are in for about a week of hell. Frankly, I don't care too
much about the coughing, sneezing, weakness, headaches, full body aches, heat,
and erectile dysfunction. The worst part about a cold is having every person
you know ask you what kind of drugs you are taking. Just to set the records
straight, I don't like taking medicine. Medicine is the wussy's way out. Taking
medicine is like admitting that you are not strong enough to take a cold like a
man. I must be the only one on the planet that understands this concept,
because every day I was sick I was hounded by people asking whether I took some
medicine, or at least a cough drop. There are even people out there who refer
to cough drops as "lozenges". Calling them lozenges is a major faux
pas, in my book. Nobody but advertisers and doctors refer to them as lozenges.
I digress...
At least when you are sick, you have a valid excuse to stay
at home all day in your pajamas. That's the only redeeming quality of those
pesky little viruses. Most of the time I spent lying in bed watching TV with
the covers pulled up. Fortunately, MythBusters was on, and I got to learn some
valuable lessons that will last with me for a long time ("so whole-fat
milk would be the best way to diffuse some of that spicy Indian cooking?
Fascinating." *cough cough hack*). I ultimately did take some medicine
after the second night without sleep. I was about to beat my head with
two-by-four until I lost conscious when my dad reminded me (for the hundredth
time) that we had some NyQuil. I finally succumbed and slugged down the
required amount. A shot glass would have been a nice touch, but I just used the
supplied measuring cup.
I'm still not at one-hundred percent, but I'm pretty
much functional. It was probably just a cold, not the flu, but it still wasn't
very entertaining. There's only so much chicken soup a man can take in a week,
and I'm pretty sure I crossed that threshold.

I'm watching quite a few series this season, so I thought
I'd give you my thoughts on some of them. They are listed by priority, highest
to lowest.

Myself ; Yourself
(genre: romance / drama)

While the past few episodes seemed very shallow, this last episode I saw (eight) got very deep. You
had a few characters doing this and that, but there was nothing that made you reenact
Keanu Reeves' famous, "whoa." That all changed with the revelation of Nanaka's
"issues". Albeit sudden, I loved this new story change and can't wait
to see where it goes from here.

Minami-ke
(genre: comedy)

This is one of the funniest series I have ever seen. It is
very similar to Azumanga Daioh, in that it is a group of girls doing normal
things in funny ways. I'm sorry if I blaspheme, but I would even go so far as
to say this anime is better than Azumanga Daioh. It's funnier, I like the
characters better, and it just seems so much cuter. Minami-ke is made of win
and only just lost out to Myself ; Yourself for the number one slot.

Kimi-kiss ~ pure rouge
(genre: romance / drama)
I don't know whether the producer for this anime was a
genius or just lazy. You see, instead of just one romantic coupling in the series,
you are given three. In one, you have two shy and quiet bookworms who like each
other and are struggling past the awkwardness between them. In the second, you have a
girl trying to break the brick-face defence of an aloof jazz player. In  the third, you have a love triangle between
an otherwise boring guy, a female soccer (football, to you English readers)
player, and an emotionless genius chick (moé-splosion!). It may seem difficult
to follow, but Kimi-kiss manages to balance out all of the relationships to
make it work very well.

Clannad
(genre: romance / comedy)

While this KyoAni series is gold and I'm greatly enjoying
it, it just seems to lack something that Kanon had (specifically Mai, but I
digress...). Nevertheless, this show is entertaining. Essentially, this one guy
goes around and fixes a bunch of girl issues. Hilarity ensues.

ef - a tale of memories
(genre: drama)
This anime is very, how you say, avant-garde. It has a
unique art style that really doesn't do anything for the story but be visually
distracting, but I suppose that's what the producer was going for. It is
essentially two stories mixed into one. One is the romance(?) budding between a
book-worm guy and a girl with a 13-hour memory named Chihiro (remember
her?). It also follows the far more troubling love-triangle between a
teenage manga-ka, an over-zealous childhood friend, and a divorce-damaged
stalker. This last episode (eight) seemed a little creepy, so I hope that whole mess
gets patched up and it moves on to something a little more light-hearted.

Da Capo II
(genre: romance / comedy)

When you have the kokuhaku in the first episode, you should
be ready for a mediocre series. This one basically entails the quiet romance
between the two main characters, and then the protagonist's interactions with
several other girls in the series (no, not like that, you gutter-minds). I'm
sure this series will get deeper as it goes on, but at the current time, it
seems rather drab.

It was a slow day at work yesterday...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is the day when Americans all over America get together with family and friends in an orgy of gluttony.

And today, of all days, I am bedridden with the flu. Lucky me.

*Post title not actually, in a literal sense,
true.
You never really hear when the president gets a
cold. I mean, I'm sure he has them. Everyone gets a cold now and then. I don't
understand why the media doesn't jump on this sort of thing. They jump on every
other little thing the president does ("President Bush seen not wearing
matching socks"), but it's only the major conditions that relate to his
health. I suppose the problem is that a headline like "The President Comes
Down with the Sniffles" doesn't have much pizzazz. Also, there are
probably far better things to report on a slow news day ("Scientists
astounded by Bat Boy's fraternal twin, Cat Boy"). Should the need ever arise;
I'm sure they can spin it all out of proportion. "President Bush shows
signs of weakness after sleeping an extra hour with a high fever." With a
story like that people would probably riot in the streets, stocks would fall,
Democrats would take over congress, and Opec would change the oil pricing
currency to rubles (actually, I think most of these things have or will happen,
regardless). Could you imagine if he got a cold at some important international
conference? It happened to President Bush's father, President Bush, when he was
in Japan, so it should only follow that President Bush (the son) gets sick
again. I'm thinking maybe during the Middle East peace talks in Annapolis in a
few days, he should just vomit in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's lap, or maybe blow a phlegm
ball into an American flag handkerchief every few minutes. I'm sure it would
make a great ring tone.

While I realize that the anime internet community is abuzz
with the latest in the Comcast/Odex/BitTorrent debacle, I don't feel any need
to report on it. If it concerns you, you can look into it yourself. There are
far more qualified people to explain it. I'm just glad it has mostly blown over by now. Ah, it's always fun to see American contractors make mistakes on international soil. That's all I have to say about that.

On a more important topic, I want to consider
eternity. My thoughts on the topic came on the heels of a particularly slow day
in the office. I believe the initial seed was "uguu... every minute feels
like a quarter of an eternity." Now, if you took a quarter of eternity, it
would still be an eternity, right? Except it would be a smaller eternity. Specifically,
it's an eternity divided by four. So by getting a quarter of an eternity, you
are now left with three spare eternities. They are still eternities, however,
so they are not technically smaller. You just have your initial eternity and
three other eternities. They should be smaller, but they are still equal
eternities. Suppose, instead, that you are given all of the numbers to infinity
(for the sake of orderliness, lets say that they are all in order and lined in
a row). What would you have if you took out from those infinite numbers all of
the Fibonacci numbers? You would still have two infinities, but this time they
are not technically equal. The Fibonacci infinity should be smaller than the
original infinity, or even the secondary infinity. However, they are still
infinite, so they should remain equal. It was at about this point that I
decided to shoot myself in the head.