The World's Biggest Stage ...

Now that it's over, I feel its the best time to finally write about the World Cup. I had a great time watching it. I loved watching the cup about as much as any American really could. Thats not meant to sell myself or the American team short, I meant it as honestly as possible, I loved watching it. There were some great games. It certainly has more international intrigue for me than does the other sporting event separated by a four-year period, the Olympics. Under no other conditions would a scoreless tie between the Netherlands and Argentina be worth watching. Something about a single sport drawing so many people in is more inspiring than countries fielding teams or individuals in multiple events, some of which they are flawless at, the Norwegians and their ski-jumping, others they have no possible reality of competing in, the Kenyans and their ski-jumping.

My one complaint about the Cup however is the officiating. Not terribly suprising coming from an American fan having watched the USA-Italy game. The officiating, coupled with all the diving on the field made it a hard tournament to watch for me. Knowing that a player's acting skills could affect the outcome of the game should he sell a foul well enough to get a free or penalty kick. The diving was ludicrous especially when contrasted by one paticular foul I saw in a game between the Ukraine, and I believe Switzerland in the Round of 16. The Ukrainian player had the ball near the opposing goal line when he was fouled hard, but stayed on his feet with the ball and attempted to continue the play before it was whistled dead and a free kick awarded. He got his kick without having to sell it. If the players played honestly like that, I think it would've been an even better tournament without all the controversy over the officiating.

My other complaint is the American audience ... or lack thereof. I was in the box office at the movie theater not more than a few hours after the completion of the Germany-Argentina quarterfinal game. Two kids walked up to buy tickets, each wearing replica jerseys of the German national team. My knowledge, freshly reinforced by the game I had just watched, allowed me to recognize the numbers on the jerseys to be those of Ballack and Klose. While processing their tranaction, I asked if they had caught the game this morning. They asked "What game?", I replied "The Germany World Cup game.". "Oh, no. What happened?", "Um, Germany won on PKs" ... "PKs?" they asked. "Penalty kicks ... 4 to 2. It was a good game." ... "Cool. I knew they'd beat Italy". They walked away, hopefully shamed for being outed as the posers they were.

Some come on back, World Cup. I had a great time, even if I got very little sleep, often getting up at 5am to catch games in the first round. I'd do it all over again.

Barely Legal ...

Well, last night was my first time driving the Taurus with it's less-than-funtional lighting for a significant difference in front of a cop. I was driving away from work, to Emily's house. I missed the turn that would have gotten me there the fastest, so I decided to take the next quickest route which is a road I normally never drive. Not 5 seconds after making my turn onto Country Club Road or Willakenzie whichever it is, I realize the car behind me has a light bar and looks menacing. I place a call to Emily to let her know that should I get pulled over I'll be a little late.

I'm feeling confident for some reason. So long as I don't let my foot slip from off the brake pedal, I should be fine. Sure the high-mounted brake light would be running the whole time, something that would look a little out of the ordinary, but I didn't think it would be that note worthy to the cop. And should I mess up and get pulled over, I think I'll be able to talke my way out of a ticket with my intelligent voice and promises to get it fixed. Oh, and I'm white. I forget how long Country Club Rd. is. It seems to last forever. I get to an intersection, the light is red, no change in the brake lights. If this cop is paying attention, he's not too worried. I realize I should've hopped in the left turn lane, but I don't know the road well, and my daytime running lights aren't exactly as bright as the regular lights, so I didn't really even see the lane lines and I'm a little nervous as it is. Add to that the fact that I've got no rearview mirror that would otherwise keep the cop's light bar in my periferal vision so I'm having to continually check my sideview mirrors to see if he's going to light me up.

The light turns green and I pull away, no change in the brake lights, still on full force. The cop follows. I curl around under the Ferry Street bridge heading towards the intersection with Centennial/MLK. I know now to hop in the left turn lane as I need to get myself back to Coburg road. I hit the turn signal and pull over into my lane rather abruptly. Nothing like playing it cool, right? The cop pulls over into the right turn lane and peels off in the opposite direction down MLK. My turn light turns green and I leave the cop in the distance as I'm headed away from him. Evidently my foot never slipped off the brake pedal leaving my posterior in the dark. The car actually was running a little rough by the end of the whole ordeal, I must've been hammering on that brake pedal. I survived that brush with the law, but who knows about the future. Stupid Taurus.

You Win Again PCs, ... Apple, You're Worthless ....

Absolutely worthless. And I don't want to hear any argument on this one. The other night, I laid down to go to sleep and decided I wanted a little bit of music playing. I dropped an Umphrey's McGee CD in my computer, the only player I've got that works right now, and opened up iTunes. I've had iTunes for some time, and it really does hold all of my music that I don't keep on discs, I really never even open up Windows Media Player unless I'm watching a video.

I hit play and lay down. The song starts playing but hardly is it a smooth, seamless stream of audio. The music skips every single second, on the second. A little glitch that interupts the music. This can't be. I'd listened to this particular disc not long before and knew that it wasn't scratched. I get up, and close iTunes and try WMP. A perfect, flawless stream of audio emits from my headphones, and this was one great concert. I was listening so intently to the immaculate aural tones that I didn't actually fall asleep for some time.

So whats the deal, Apple? Is it just that you don't like burned CDs, or are you really that bad? My guess is the latter. I can't foresee a time in the near future where my computer is really going to fail. I have no problems other than the fact that my RAM is ludicrously miniscule, but that is an easy and not terribly costly fix. Beyond that, my present roommate builds PCs and has been itching to build me a custom one as soon as we hit on a unique and functional case for one. The current idea we're tossing around is to build it inside the mini fridge that I've got. That little brown one. So long as we don't compromise the cooolant system or the insulation, there would never be an issue of over-heating. Moisture might be an issue, and I'm not exactly sure that we are skillful enough to mod the thing without compromising the integrity of the insulation. We're thinking about it.

GARRRR!!!! (Whimper) ...

You'd think after sustaining one toenail-threatening stubbing, I'd move the toolbox from under my bed, where it is oh so slightliy out of sight, but no, I had to leave it there and run into that bastard again. I took a picture of my pinky toe after the first run in, the only stubbing I'm aware of to date that actually involved bleeding, but I'll refrain from posting it. For one, with my digital camera down for the count, I had to take it with the celly, and it's also a little gruesome. And two, who really wants to see a bloody toe?

One Hell of a Car ...

Well, I'm not entirely sure that the Taurus will break 200,000 miles now that I've had enough time in Eugene to analyze my driving habits. I last filled up my gas tank on Tuesday, June 6. Thats right, the same 6.6.06 that nobody freaked out about. Since then, I've accumulated a mere 70 miles on the odomoeter. 70 miles in the last 17 days. Thats an average of 4 miles a day.

I had previously estimated that in 6 months time, I may break the 200k mark, but the new calculation suggests otherwise. The Taurus is presently sitting on about 193,000 miles. Those remaining 7000 miles, at 4 miles a day would take me 1750 days or about 4 years and 9 months. If I'm still driving the Taurus in almost 5 years, I'd consider that a bad thing. The car really needs replacing. Seriously.

I would drive more, but I am presently restricted from driving during half of the day. Which half? The nightime half of the day. I guess it's not dark a full 12 hours a day, but I can't drive when it's dark ... or at least I shouldn't. Why? The headlights inexplicably don't work, but it's not that simple. The daytime running lights work and the highbeams work so I know I've got power and functional bulbs. However when I switch the lights into the "on" position, nothing comes out the front though I have tail lights. If I turn it back off, the daytime lights come on, but that means I have no operational tail lights. This renders the back of my vehicle invisible to drivers behind me. I'm pretty sure this is something the coppers wouldn't care for.

How do I fix this situation? When forced to drive at night, which does happen since I often work closing shifts, I have to keep a foot on the brake pedal so that the brake lights are illuminated, simulating tail lights. I can turn the headlights into the "on" position so the tail lights are on and then hold the highbeams lever. And I do have to hold it. Normally there is the option of setting and forgetting the highbeams, a "stay on" mode, as well as pulling on the lever to flash them. However nothing comes out the front when I put the lever in the "stay on" mode so I have to hold the lever in the flash position. This hampers my actual control of the steering wheel and signaling for a turn. I'm sure that riding the brakes while trying to drive at full speed will only wear down the brakes sooner, and I'm sure hurts my gas milage causing me to burn more gas than otherwise necessary.

Some other problems with the Taurus:

- I no longer have a stereo in there since it drained my battery to the point that the car wouldn't start. Instead of removing the player, I just disconected the fuse it runs on.

- That same fuse also deactivates the dash lights. The same dash lights that aren't operable anyway since they only turn on when the headlights are on. But remember, I don't drive with the headlights on, I drive in daytime running lights mode.

- That same fuse also deactivates the clock. Not a huge deal, but looking down at the celly is a little more tedious.

- That same fuse also deactivates the side view mirrors so that you can't readjust them with the levers inside. You can still manually push the mirrors, but you shouldn't have to. Man has moved beyond such uncivilized activities.

- The rearview mirror is presently detached from the window. This only happened in the last week. The story I like to tell is that Emily ripped it off in a fit of rage, but the true story is she ripped it off while driving the Taurus. She was practicing driving it since she was going to borrow it while I borrowed hers to drive to Portland, a journey the Taurus wouldn't make. We got in, her in the drivers seat, she adjusted the seat, and went to adjust the mirror, and with no exceptional pressure put on it, it popped off the glass in her hands.

- The gas gauge only reads at 3/4 full even when full. This way, you don't know how full the gas tank really is. The best thing to do is to go off the tripodometer and fill when you get to around 225 miles from the last fill-up. However ...

- The tripodometer sometimes gets stuck on 9.9 miles. Or 99.9 miles. And who knows how long ago that actually happened? I'm then forced to go off the gas gauge. When it reaches empty, I figure there's a 1/4 tank left and I might as well fill it.

- A/C doesn't work.

- Defroster doesn't work.

- Heater doesn't work.

- Oil leak ... a considerable one. I roll with a case of oil in the car at all times.

- Gear shift selector doesn't show the proper gear. When you're in drive, it appears that you're in neutral. You have to count spots down to drive. 1 ... 2 ... 3 and you're in drive.

I'm sure there's more, but I've become accustomed to them so I don't even think of them anymore. I'll update you should I recall any more.

Slave to the Traffic Light ...

Well, I had been one of the strongest forces in the "off to the dump" camp, but now I am entirely reliant on the vehicle that I had left for dead at the parents house. Neglected for 8 months whilst "free-loading" in a downtown apartment only a few blocks from my place of employment, I had no need to drive, but these days the old family wagon is my sole means of transport since I'll be damned if I walk the mile to work. Maybe it's more than that. I'll watch the odometer on the drive tonight.

About that odometer, it's closing in on quite a milestone. 200k is not too far off. Driving at my current pace, I might break it in 6 months. Of course my vanity is pushing me to dump the Taurus as soon as possible and upgrade, but my wallet, or more accurately my piss-poor hourly wage is holding me back.

By the way, it does not look this good. This picture is a few years old, just after it had been washed. It's current state is somewhat dirtier. I'll try to grab the pictures from the parents, but after 8 months of neglect, it was so covered in brown stuff that it looked camoflauged. I washed it after getting it running again, but it was hardly a perfect job.

So Much Drinking ...

Within so little time.

4 Sessions. The newer "micro" from Full Sail in the exact same stubby, ugly bottle as Red Stripe.
2 Wild Turkey's and Pepsi. Tasty is as tasty does.
1 Irish Cream and Chocolate milk. A yummy addition to the drinking line-up. And presumably more fattening than some of the others. Milk'll do that.

All in approximately 5 episodes of season 1 of Arrested Development. Nothing like watching AD with a newbie. But then who hasn't seen any AD yet? A fuckin' newb. That's who.