Category Archives: Personal stuff

Am I Too Angry?

Here we go again:

So I’m driving back from the supermarket.  I come to an intersection.  I get in the far right lane.  The light is red.  On the other side of the intersection, roughly 2-3 car lengths down,  there is a bus parked in the far right lane.  The Volvo next to me starts to do that rev-the-engine-to-start-fast-off-the-line-so-the-guy-next-to-me-can’t-get-in-front-of-me-because-there’s-a-bus-over-there-in-his-lane rock back and forth.  Whatever.  So there is some traffic behind him and I know if I don’t beat him off the line I’ll be stuck for awhile.  So he’s rocking, light goes green, of course I beat him off the line and with more than enough space (I’m really not just painting this in a light that makes me look good, I really had plenty of space to get into his lane), I merge to the left because of the aforementioned bus.  Now this dude in his Volvo starts to hardcore tailgate me.  So I tap my brakes to back him off.  He backs off, but then right back on me.  So now I slow down to roughly 15-20 mph.  He backs off.  We pass another intersection and I’m about a half block from my turn into my apartment.  I get into the right lane and slow down a lot because it’s a pretty sharp turn into the lane to my apartment.  Now here’s where I admit I pulled a bit of a childish thing, but I turned and stared at the guy as he passed while I was slowing down to turn.  It’s important to know I had my blinker on in a proper distance to let people know I was turning in.  The Volvo passed me and about two car lengths down the guy stops short of the traffic, turns in his seat and is flipping me the bird.  I mean the guy looks late 30s, rolling the family Volvo wagon.  I can see he’s yelling too.  Emotions get the better of me and I eschew my turn and pull up next to him (he’s still stopped short of the traffic ahead of him to flip me off).  I stare him down hard and flip him off as well.  I had no traffic ahead of me so I kept going, albeit slowly, flipping him off, made a turn and then went back to my place.

So I ask you, Am I Too Angry?

New feature: Am I Too Angry?

So with a fair amount of frequency things happen to me that tend to annoy me to the point of anger.  Some are just absurd.  Some are legit.  And, admittedly, some are just me being ornery.  So when things happen, I’ll post the story and put up a poll and you tell me, Am I Too Angry?

Here is the first installment (second and third installments will be posted shortly):

A few weeks ago I was leaving work after a long day.  I was crossing the street in the crosswalk.  I saw this black Mercedez barreling down the street.  He had a stop sign, so I turned and crossed the street again (standard intersection, four way stop signs).  Rather than slow down because there was a pedestrian in the street, the guy sped up to try to pull a rolling “stop” and keep through the intersection instead of stopping at the stop sign and letting pedestrians go.  So I had to literally jump back to keep from getting hit by this car.  The guy did his rolling stop.  As he passed I slapped the back of his car (rear fender) hard with an open palm.  I continued to cross the street.  When I got to the sidewalk I looked back and saw that the Mercedez stopped in the middle of the intersection and the guy was yelling at me through his window.  I didn’t hear what he was saying because I was listening to my iPhone.  But he was yelling, so I yelled back “What?!  Fuck off man, there was a stop sign, I was fucking in the street!”  Of course I threw my hands up in the “What? You want some?” pose.  He fucking got out of his car.  Older white guy, probably early to mid 40s.  He was yelling some more.  I yelled back “Fuck you man!”  Turned and kept walking.  I was about a half block to the subway and was praying that he’d turn around and come yell at me some more so I could unload some vitriol on him.  So I ask you: Am I Too Angry?

Don’t know if miniature schnauzer is even an option

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Jack Russell Terrier

The Artist

You, my friend, are an artiste! Fuelled by a hounding sense of creativity and an untameable desire to express yourself, you see the world through rose-colored glasses one day and then wrestle the curtains closed and turn off the lights so you can ponder life the next. Your dog-eared journal is filled with brilliant ideas about rescuing the universe, yet you have trouble training your noggin on any one of them for any significant amount of time. Your originality occasionally manifests itself as performance art, and you love showing off your amazing athletic abilities in front of an audience. When it comes to taking on the leader of the pack, you’re not afraid to sink your teeth in – and won’t loosen your grip until you’ve gotten your point across.

Marathons

I’m one of those people who are ambivalent about marathons.  It’s something I’d like to do, but it’s not one of those “I have to do once in my lifetime” type things.  And honestly, the thought of running for like 4-5 hours straight is troublesome.  I’d have to have the perfect mix on my iPod, no skipping required.  Of course with a lot of marathons “banning” them, who knows.  At any rate, here’s a list of marathons to run in 2008 courtesy of Runner’s World, via AOL Body.

Marathons to Run in 2008.

I don’t know if I can mentally reconcile a marathon sponsored by PF Chang’s.

But I’d definitely run in (my namesake) marathon: Eugene Marathon.

Need help achieving your goals?

Put some money on it.

Coming soon a website (StickK) that lets you do it.  Set a goal, if you don’t achieve you pay a set amount (payment to go to charity).  The example they give is weight loss.  Regardless of what the goal is, this is perfect for me.  I’m at my best, most disciplined self when something’s actually on the line.  And my money is a pretty good motivating factor.  In any money based competition (e.g. recently had a bet with some buddies who could lose the most weight in a month, $50/head into the pool, winner takes all… yes I won, I CRUSHED), I get as much satisfaction from keeping my money as I do from getting the winning money.

Sharing is caring

Sharing gameplay between couples.  This is an article about a woman who shared a character with her boyfriend.  Only to find that he played without her when she went out of town.  And how annoyed it made her initially.

I’ve read similar articles about Netflix.  Where people are watching a series or have their queue of movies they want to see, one half of the couple is unavailable or whatever, and the other goes on without.  It’s an interesting thing.  Which is why I don’t share my stuff with the girlfriend.  She can have her own profile/queue/character.  I’m more than willing to do things together (game, watch movies/tv series), but you have to have your own stuff.  Even if you also have “joint” things.  Haha, same goes for bank accounts!

I want this

Dog cam.

This isn’t the first doggie cam.  And there’s a tutorial floating around the internet (a few actually) that show how to make one (though they cost about the same as this).  Or you could just buy a spy camera and attach it to your pet’s collar.

It’d be interesting just to see what Monty does all day.  If you see a new link to “Monty’s Flickr” in my header links, you know I broke down.

My latest obsession

So a friend of mine decided to buy a DSLR for a now aborted trip to Peru. This spiked my ancient, yet rarely touched on, desire to take up some sort of photography. Even if just better snapshots of my social life (of which there is little to speak). And of course as I’m wont to do, I went a bit overboard. Because let’s be honest here, I go big or I don’t go at all. I probably could’ve accomplished 100% of what I wanted with a nicer P&S camera. And don’t get me wrong, while there’s nothing wrong with it beyond a cracked viewfinder (but LCD works fine), I do want to replace my P&S with something smaller and more portable (which isn’t to say my current P&S isn’t tiny). Regardless, I decided to curb my “go big” desire and limit myself to an entry level DSLR.

This of course led to my standard research as much as you can til the decision has been distilled to the last bit and choose. Of course I thankfully also had at my disposal my good friend AYN, who’s something of an excellent amateur photographer. So I grilled him too. I checked out DPReview.com; I checked out photo.net; hell I checked out the notoriously stupid user reviews at Cnet and Amazon. I read random reviews culled from Google searches.

I narrowed my choices to the Canon 400d (or XTi as it’s known here; so I guess I should’ve reversed the names, but whatevs), the new Nikon D40 (and then RIGHT before I made my decision Nikon dropped the D40x which made it that much harder to choose), the Nikon D50. This pretty much kept my initial gear, including a lens because as I was to learn kit lenses are shit, under $1k. After all the research and much soul searching, the differences in tech and features was not all that different. There wasn’t one thing that made the one stand out above the others (save that the D40 was “only” 6MP). So it was a hand test. Went to some stores and handled the cameras.

Now to many people, the newest entry DSLRs are tiny. They will be unbalanced with bigger, badder-ass lenses. This wasn’t a true concern of mine as I doubt I’d ever get to the level where I was going to use real bad-ass glass. And (not to imply anything about the rest of my anatomy) I have somewhat short fingers (though a normal sized palm). So while the D50 was a close contender, I settled on the 400d. It just felt right in my hands. Though it is a tiny camera.

Upon recommendation, I got a prime lens instead of the crap kit lens (which I would’ve gotten if it made the kit less than $10 more, which I’ve seen happend). AYN suggested a Canon 50mm/1.8. It is highly recommended as a starter lens (along with a Sigma 30mm/1.4). The 50 is a great lens that is UBER affordable. Of course since I “skimped” on the camera I opted for the Canon 50/1.4 (with USM), which is more expensive of course.

So I was set. Body + glass = completion. Then of course ancillary costs. I bought a bag (a Crumpler 4 million dollar home). I bought another case so I could toss my camera in my regular bag (a Zing neoprene cover). I bought a tripod (Manfrotto/Bogen 190xProB) and head (M/B 322RC2). I bought a tripod strap (M/B lightweight strap). I bought 2 high capacity non-OEM batteries. I also got a Hoya Super HMC Pro 1 UV filter and a Canon lens hood.  And while I don’t need it because I still need to develop my photographic eye and just learn to shoot, I want another lens (something wide, Canon 28mm/2.8 (non-USM) is my current choice because it’s cheap cheap cheap. Though the Canon 28/1.8 USM is nice too, but more than double the price or the Canon 20/2.8 USM or perhaps more “grail” the L, Canon 24/1.4L USM). So it adds up.

I also picked up on the recommendation of AYN, Understanding Exposure. A great book about photography.

I was going to write this post to explain my decision making process. But that’s highly individual and I’m not the most normal person when it comes to things like this. So this post is basically a list of what I ended up getting. Recap (links in the post man!):

Canon XTi/400d
Canon 50/1.4
Hoya Super HMC Pro 1 UV filter
Canon ES71II Lens Hood
Manfrotto-Bogen 322RCR, 190xProB, lightweight strap
Crumpler 4 million dollar home
Zing neoprene case
High capacity non-OEM batteries
Understanding Exposure