A Red-Letter Day

Hey, you. Yeah, you. With the face. I'm talking to you.

I see you over there in the turning lane laughing. What? Is it funny that I'm rocking out to some Staind while I wait at the light? No, no it's not.

I know you sing in the car too. Don't lie. Everyone does it. Everyone. I just have the balls to do it at a red light. Which makes me better than you. Yeah, you heard me. Better than you.

So here, just for you, a steering wheel drum solo. Take it in, dude, cause I won't be here all week. The other street just got their yellow light, and I'll be heading to the next venue. Oh yeah, that's how I roll. You're just lucky I'm left-handed and can't whip out the seat belt guitar from the driver's seat.

But I'll see ya later, man. I hope the Shania Twain album you'll be singing to later is everything you'd hope it be.

I lost my cell phone. :-(

So, last night I went up to Gregson's house for a bonfire... Those are always interesting...

Actually, I quite enjoy them... I mean, there's fire, so what's not to enjoy, but the whole socializing thing is kinda neat too... ;-)

What's not to enjoy is losing your cell phone. One minute it was there, and then sometime after that one minute, it was no longer there. I had like 50 million people (OK, just George and Greene) call it like 50 million times (wait, nope, no correction here), but it went straight to voicemail each time, leading me to conclude that the phone was either turned off or destroyed. That lead me to the following possible scenarios:

• It fell out of my pocket, someone found it, turned it off so it could not be called or tracked, and then walked off with it
• It fell out of my pocket while I was cooking a marshmallow and was then subsequently consumed in the all raging fire that was later created
• It was accidentally thrown in the fire when half of the furniture was being chucked in to create the previously mentioned raging fire
• It was purposefully thrown in the fire by the same jerk that found it and didn't feel like returning it.

I give each possibility a likelihood of 60%, 20%, 10%, and 10%, respectively. Either way, though, it's gone and won't be coming back, so I am officially sad.

Luckily for me, we had an extra phone just laying around the house, so I had my number switched to it until my new phone (which is exactly the same as my old phone) shows up in the mail. Lucky for me, though, I had all my contacts saved on my computer, or I would be in big trouble right now... I wouldn't have anyone to call. :-(

Oh well... No use crying over spilt milk, right?

Easier said than done.

So it's that rough time of year when we have to get the tank inspected. It's 18 years old. Do I need to say more?

So the one problem we have every year is rust. In West Virginia, apparently your car can't have large gaping rust holes... I really don't know why, but I don't get a say in that. Now, a few years ago, my dad and I pop-riveted aluminum sheeting over the rust holes, but 3 years later only one is left intact, therefore I have a hole to patch. What did I do?

I got expanding foam sealant and sprayed it all up in the thing, then painted it with rust-colored spray paint to match the body around the hole. Very classy. Very classy indeed.

It actually did a relatively nice job.

But that brings me to today's public service announcement: If your ride is lame, please don't pimp it.

Your Scion is ugly. Your stock civic goes 0-60 in a half hour. They are not cool. They are not worth the thousands of dollars you put into new rims, that obnoxious spoiler, and your ground effects.

If you want a cool car, buy one that comes cool. I recommend the Pontiac Solstice, but if you're not into that, go for a Mustang or even an Eclipse... Whatever... A Viper if you're a high roller. Just please, I'm begging you, don't dump any more money into those disgusting Civics... Nobody likes them! Nope, not even if you get the intercooler. It's still lame. And sorry, but the flames paint job doesn't make it go any faster... Or look any faster. Why? CAUSE IT'S A CIVIC! THEY ALL LOOK RETARDED, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO TO THEM! And Scions? Don't get me started on Scions. If I wanted to ride around in a refrigerator box on wheels, I'd run to Sears and make my own. Wait, no, I just insulted refrigerator boxes. My bad.

Ahem. As a final note, it is OK to have a crappy vehicle pimped by a 3rd party, which is why I'm asking begging all of you to please submit the tank to Pimp My Ride. I'd do it myself, but then I'd look desperate (which I am, but Xzibit can't know that).

Special Topics: PSA

So if you've been paying close attention to the local news, 29th street overpass has been experiencing some, well, problems. Basically, concrete is breaking off of the haunch, which is used to provide additional support to the I-beams to prevent lateral movement. Now, if you ask the news, the bridge is falling, people are dying, and the world is coming to a bloody, painful, apocalyptic end, but if you ask the engineers, inspectors, and their wonderfully skilled co-op, we're simply loosing unreenforced parts of the bridge that aren't necessary but are nice to have. Now isn't that a little more calming?

Now this all went down last Sunday, and it greeted us Monday morning with such glee. We thought the road crew took care of it that day, but apparently they didn't do a good enough job, as Tuesday more fell and actually hit a car this time.

Uh-oh. Now it's trouble. The big boss was pretty worried about it and called in the reach-all truck from Buckhannon to do a full-on inspection of the underside. It came in on Thursday (meanwhile a detour was in place for 29th street, infuriating anyone who didn't drive the well labeled 5 hundredth of a mile), but as soon at it began to lower my interim boss over the side of the bridge, there was a loud snap. Not good. One of the bolts that locks the axle to help stabilize the rig completely stripped, leaving the whole thing, well, unstable. Not wanting to risk certain death when the truck tipped over, we brought the boom back in and sent it back down to Buckhannon for repair.

Well, the truck made it's way back to Tridelphia today, and we finally got started on our duties. I didn't get to do any pounding (we knocked the concrete off with the best available technology: a hammer), but I did get to ride in the bucket... I used it as a very inefficient elevator. When we got to the bridge, I rode it down to the ground to begin my duties as Sweep Team Supervisor (the one guy called off again, so I was left to sweep concrete bits by myself and therefore promoted myself to supervisor), rode back up for lunch, rinse, and repeat. Let me tell you... Riding that thing, especially after it broke, was pretty darn scary. But really cool, lol. We didn't get it all done, though, so the truck will be back Thursday... I guess we'll just have to go to Coleman's... :-)

The best part is all the news crews there, though... It's amazing how they end up showing up 1-2 every time. It's like they follow each other or have tracking devices or something. I'm doing my best to get on TV, but so far I haven't done so well. You'd think someone as important as the Sweep Team Supervisor would get the first interview, but oh well. Who knows, though, so keep a lookout.

Edit: Apparently I did better than I thought. Now, although News 9 hates me, News 7 showed me some love. Oh yeah.

Oh. My. God.

I got to see Transformers tonight at a special early viewing over at the mall. And let me tell you, only one word could describe it:

Transformers.

Now, I had been psyched about this movie ever since I saw the original trailer. Transformers, along with Crash Dummies, had to of been my favorite toys growing up. I had have a crapload of those guys. Optimus Prime; all 5 constructicons, who, of course, had the power to merge into Devastator, that is until Beth stepped on his arm! (YES I STILL HOLD THAT GRUDGE! SAME GOES FOR YOU AND BATMAN, DAD!); and hoards of others... They were the best! I remember the challenge was always to see how fast you could morph them... Never could beat the TV show, lmao.

Anyway, back to the movie. It was good, but I think a lot of what held it together was my love for Transformers alongside my testosterone. All of the robots underwent serious changes from the good ol' days, and we all know Justin likes to "Stay the course." Not only were their new GM rigs (Hooray corporate sponsorships) the wrong vehicles, Optimus was no longer a flat-nosed truck and all of the robots were very complex. Now, I understand that computer imaging technology is pretty sweet nowadays, but there's no need to overdo it. The old Transformers had pretty clean lines, body panels, and the like. In the movie, they were a hodgepodge of gears and other crap. I realize that's what robots are made out of, but if you didn't see it in the cartoons or comic books and instead saw body panels, shouldn't that be what you see in the movie. And dude, what's up with Optimus's eyes / eyelids? Just weird.

Oh, and the big one: Plot continuity (Don't worry, no major spoilers). In the movie, the military guys explain that all of earth's modern technology (Cars, computers, microwaves, Mountain Dew machines, etc.) is derived from what they discovered while studying Megatron in the lab. Earlier in the movie, though, it is stated that Megatron came to earth so he could hijack all of Earth's technology with the Allspark. Let's think about this. How can he hijack our technology if we don't have any because he's not on Earth for us to study yet? Movie-ruining conundrum, eh?

Now all my hating is probably a little unjust; I just had very high expectations for this movie, so I'm sure I put it under a greater microscope than most. That said, I still think the biggest appeal for me was the simple fact that it was Transformers. The movie could have just shown them transforming a couple times and I would have probably been really stoaked.

Oh well. Once you get past my nit-picking, though, it was a good movie, so we're going to be generous. Transformers transforms and rolls out with an A-.

P.S. - Random fact: The man who voiced Optimus Prime in both the animated series and the movie, Peter Cullen, also voiced Eeyore. Maybe that's why they're both personal favorites.

Edit (7/8/07): So I found out the critical error in the plot wasn't really an error at all, as I was informed today by someone who originally saw the movie with me but has since seen it 3 more times. See, Shia is retarded and was the one who misspoke in regards to Megatron's intentions on his way to Earth, thus making it a factual error by a human in the movie and not a plot ruiner. Which makes me happy; I'd much rather Shia be a douchebag than the plot be messed up. The original rating still stands, though, as I was generous earlier: A-.

Blogger has been so kind as to add poll functionality to their blogs, so you better make sure to regularly check the sidebar to gimme your opinion on whatever I deem interesting and for results from previous polls.

Yeah, Gettysburg sucked.

No, you have no idea. Let's put things into perspective.

Beth bought some CDs to take an audio tour of the place. There's about 2 hours worth of tour on the CDs, and, factoring in driving time and looking at things, it said it would take about 4 hours. I believe Beth's tour finished in the 14^th hour. She also got sun burnt. Why? 100% serious: It would have taken away too much battlefield time to put sunscreen on. :-|

What did I do the whole time? Friday I just wandered around town seeing what I could find. I found nothing, except the library, which promised fun and excitement for Saturday, and swings, which, without a swinging buddy, is only amusing for about 15 minutes. I did go to the "Reliance Mine Saloon" and got myself a Sierra Mist, which, surprisingly, was free. Hey, I wasn't going to complain.

Saturday, during the 14 hour tour, I figured I'd just sit on the internet at the library... TILL I WAS KICKED OFF AFTER ONE HOUR! "Sorry, sir, but our policy is one hour per day." "Yeah... Well... *D-X chops*"

So that left me out on the streets for the rest of the day. I went back to the park, but again, that didn't last long. I did talk to some strangers handing out free water (Tina's very proud), but the woman started talking about history so I got out of there pretty quickly. Looked through some of the gift shops as well, but they all sold pretty much the same exact things: "Got Ghosts?" t-shirts, army men, cap guns, and tiny toy cannons. Nothing exciting.

Highlights of the trip? My mom and I went mini-golfing while dad and Beth finished off the tour; that was fun. Sunday morning we also got breakfast with some friends who live in the area; it was really nice to see them.

So two good things? I guess that's more than the zero I thought I'd have. :-/ Oh well, hopefully I'll never have to be back there again.