Wet box

Wait, wait, wait. Don't go jamming for the back button on your browser, this update is 100% safe for work--or is it, now that I've pointed out the double entendre in the title?

Last week, I was checking out one of my favorite sites, SlickDeals (which is now in my Links section) when I came across a deal that was too good to pass up: Call of Duty, a World War II combat game that got rave reviews from my online gaming pals, for $15, including shipping. So I ordered it, and went about my business for the next few days.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon. The package with my new game arrives, and it's too big to fit in my mailbox. It's pouring rain out--what's a postal carrier to do? Did he set the package inside the storm door to my enclosed front porch? That would be ideal--it'd stay nice and dry, plus all the unsupervised delinquent little punks in my neighborhood wouldn't be able to stare at the package and have several hours between the time the package arrives and the time I get home from work to figure out the best way to steal it. (My suggestion: walk up, grab it, calmly walk away. My house sits empty, after all, and it's not like my neighbors would give a crap--they'd just be happy the little hellspawns were messing with someone else.) But no, that would be too easy and too convenient for me. Did he leave one of those little notes on my door for me to go pick it up at the post office? Of course not--that'd keep it safe and dry, and while it wouldn't be quite so convenient, the post office is only a couple of blocks away.

No, this waste of space of a mail carrier leaves the package sitting right outside on my front steps. For anyone in the world to pick up and walk away with. In the pouring rain. I don't know if it's because I didn't leave him a Christmas bribe tip or what, but just look at the condition I found my package in when I got home from work last night.


The outer box after several hours of exposure to the rain.


The invoice. Wet through despite being wrapped in plastic.


The inner box got so wet that the bottom edges began to curl up and tear.


So wet you can easily see the water still on it.

It was bad enough that they forgot to restart my mail after my Christmas vacation (when I complained while picking up the mail, the person at the desk said that was on the carrier too), but this is ridiculous. I'm headed over there after work with these photos to complain. The only reason to be nice at all is that the game itself was shrinkwrapped and in a plastic CD case, and installed and played just fine. Nothing pisses me off more than incompetence (deliberate or not).

More computer bling

I thought the fans would be enough to stop my "media center" computer from overheating and shutting down. I was wrong.

So I went out last night on my way home from work, and I bought a new power supply. Got it home, popped it in, it worked beautifully--all systems returned to normal. But imagine my surprise when I discover a blue glow emanating from the rear of the computer. Yep, my new power supply has a blue LED to go along with the red LEDs on my fans. Without ever intending to, I've built a bling computer.

Blogger profile

I found this on Squidly, who found it on Cruft. Looked like fun.

1. What is your full name? Joel Leon Pease
2. What color pants are you wearing? Navy blue
3. What are you listening to right now? A replay of Opie and Anthony
4. What was the last thing you ate? A turkey sub from Subway with a bag of cheddar Sun Chips
5. Do you wish on stars? No
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Grey
7. How is the weather right now? Raining and 41 degrees, but the former makes the latter seem much colder.
8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Our head server admin at work
9. Do you like the person who sent this to you? I found it on a website, but I like the person whose blog it is.
10. How old are you today? 26 years, 1 month, two days
11. Favorite drink? Microbrewed beers--too many favorites to pick one, but two of my favorite breweries are Dogfish Head and Victory
12. Favorite sports? To watch, baseball and football; to play, paintball
13. Hair color? Light brown
14. Do you wear contacts? Yes
15. Siblings? Brother Matthew
16. Favorite month? May
17. Favorite food? Toss-up between Italian and Cajun
18. What was the last movie you watched? The Forgotten--in a word, forgettable.
19. Favorite day of the year? Thanksgiving
20. What do you do to vent anger? Fire my paintball gun in my basement "range"; yell at idiot drivers on the road; take it out on computer game characters
21. What was your favorite toy as a child? Game Boy
22. Summer or winter? Summer
23. Hugs or kisses? Kisses
24. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
25. Do you want your friends to email you back? Yes.
26. Who is most likely to respond? Mike R.
27. Who is least likely to respond? Matt
28. Living arrangements? A whole house all to myself
29. When was the last time you cried? When a very close long-term relationship ended unexpectedly (at least to me)
30. What is under your bed? Dust bunnies; a small baseball bat
31. Who is the friend you have had the longest? Matt (aka Faxman) and Mike R.--both have been my friends since elementary school
32. What did you do last night? Played World of Warcraft, watched Law and Order: Criminal Intent
33. Favorite smell? Dinner--whatever it may be
34. What inspires you? The chance to make the world a better or safer place--my favorite tasks at work are those involving security
35. What are you afraid of? Heights
36. Plain, buttered or salted popcorn? Buttered
37. Favorite car? Dodge Viper
38. Favorite Flower? Tulips
39. Number of keys on your key ring? 8 on the ring I always carry, 9 more on a second ring in my desk.
40. How many years at your current job? 5
41. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
42. What did you do on your last birthday? Worked, then went to a bar with a friend
43. How many states have you lived in? 3
44. Have many cities have you lived in? 4

Computer bling

I never intended to add bling to my computer, especially not the one I keep in the living room. After all, its primary function is to upmix my TV's audio into 5.1 surround, and its secondary function is to play music and DVDs. And it spends most of its time enclosed in an armoire with the doors closed. But when I went to the local CompUSA to buy a fan, the CompUSA brand black case fan was actually a dollar more expensive than the red LED Antec fan...so what choice did I have? I have a bling'd-out computer--completely unintentionally!

New site feature

OK, by this point, it's not that new any more, but I want to point it out anyway. Sometimes I'll read, see, or hear something so exceptional that I'll want to dedicate a post to talk about it. But I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of music, and watch a lot of movies, so I've added a new section called "Recent Experiences" to showcase my recent entertainment choices. I'll still talk about them when they're really good or really bad (or so bad they're good), but there'll be a lot of things ending up in that lil' sidebar that won't get any other mention on the site.

Something special in the air...

Flight attendant sentenced for giving Xanax to crying baby

To paraphrase the great Chris Rock, "I ain't sayin' he shoulda done it...but I understand." There's nothing more annoying than a screaming baby on a long plane ride, but at least the mother in this case was trying to get a bottle together and get the kid to shut it.

Ah, winter...

...how I hate it so.

No, that's not the reason I haven't updated in LITERALLY two weeks (I believe that's my longest interval between entries since I opened this thing)--that has to do with a "security related incident" we've been going through at work that's consumed most of my life. That and World of Warcraft have been pretty much all I've done for the past couple weeks, and that just isn't blog-worthy material.

I live right in the middle of last weekend's Northeast snowstorm, and managed to come through it OK. It's not that I'm lucky to be alive--it's that I'm lucky to not be in jail for killing someone. My hatred of humanity reaches new levels during wintertime. It wasn't too bad when I went into the office on Saturday--I got in and out before the snow started in earnest. Of course there was nowhere to park on the street when I got back (I live in a townhouse, so there aren't any garages on my block), so I had to park in the alley behind my house. No big deal--I prefer to park out front, but I do park out back from time to time. Of course, by the time I went to work on Monday morning, the unplowed alley had snowdrifts over a foot deep, and it took my poor little Cavalier almost twenty minutes to get to the end.

As I go around the corner and past the front of my house, of course half the people on the block have their parking spaces "reserved" with lawn chairs and the like (despite the fact that we're not supposed to do that--they only send out five flyers every winter)...but when I really lose it is when I see that someone has put a pair of those foldup "chairs-in-a-bag" in the space in front of MY FREAKING HOUSE! Only the fact that I was running very late kept me from stopping the car right there and chucking them over the roof or into the nearest snowbank.

The worst was when I got home from work on Monday night. I parked it on the street, across the street from my house, and not in someone else's illegally reserved parking space. I hadn't been in an hour when there's a knock on my door, with some douchebag kid from across the street wanting me to pull my car up some so his girlfriend can park because "she has to go to work tomorrow morning". At this point, I should have said "So do I", and slammed the door in his stupid face. But no, for some reason, I was feeling like a nice guy, so I go out into the cold and pull up as far as I can without knocking over the lawn chair, but it's still not far enough for her to squeeze her little Mitusbishi in behind me. I open my car door, point to the lawn chair to indicate that's as far up as I can go, when Douchey McFag points up ahead of me a little bit and says "There's a space you can go". How I managed to calmly and simply put my car where he was pointing instead of jumping out of my car and beating the stupid out of him while yelling "THEN WHY THE F DIDN'T SHE JUST PARK THERE?!?!" is a complete mystery to me, and a testament to my self-restraint.

Wake me up when it's springtime.

Happy birthday to me!

Yesterday, that is. I'm officially closer to 30 than 20 now, and that's pretty depressing when I think about it that way. I think I'll stick with my original plan to have an annual "Cake-and-Presents Day" from now until I'm old enough to start collecting social security--that way, I should be able to stay 25 for another thirty years or so.

All kidding aside, it was actually the best weekday birthday I've had in a while. My friend Mike R. came down from Reading last night, so we went out for dinner and a couple of brews. He even bought me a birthday shot of Jack Daniel's--good stuff!

We also watched Elisabeth Rohm's final episode of Law and Order. I personally never liked the actress (too wooden) or the character (too liberal/"soft"), so I was glad to see her go. I won't spoil anything here (I know at least one Loyal Reader won't get to see the episode for a while), but while I liked the way they got rid of her, I thought the "bombshell shocker" was shark-tastic. Not that I'm going to stop watching, though. The rest of the episode was great.

Still haven't gotten around to uploading my New Year's party pictures yet. Probably won't until next week, at which time I'll probably forget about them again.

Jack's Back

I just got done watching the season premiere of 24, and so far, it looks like this season is going to be a good one. They've turned over almost the entire cast (only Kiefer Sutherland and the actress who played Chloe in Day 3 are back), and for the most part, that's a good thing. The only possible exception is the ultra-hot Elisha Cuthbert, and while she was quite nice to look at, three seasons of The Wacky Adventures of Kim Bauer was quite enough, thank you very much. The new cast members seem quite able so far, especially mid-level villain Nestor Serrano, one of my favorite character actors from Bad Boys and numerous Law and Order appearances.

Hours 1 and 2 ran tonight, with 3 and 4 running back to back tomorrow night at 8, before the show settles into its regular Monday night 9 PM time slot. My advice to people who haven't watched the show in the past is usually along the lines of "Forget it, unless you rent the DVDs and start from the beginning, you'll have no idea what the hell is going on." But the cast turnover is giving new viewers a chance to enjoy this season, even if they've never seen the show before. There are some references to past seasons, but only in passing. Of course, you'll still want to watch the first two episodes you've missed, and while I'd never advocate doing anything illegal...*coughBitTorrentcough*...you may want to persuade a friend with Tivo or a VCR to let you watch the episodes you missed tonight. This is action/drama on network TV that's better than most theater releases in the genre. No comic relief, no reduction of the dramatic tension, ever, any time. This show will grab you by the yambag and hold you there for the full hour--by the time Hour 2 ended, I was up off the couch standing inches from my TV screen, and I already can't wait for tomorrow's show. I just don't know how I'm going to make it through after that--I'll have to wait seven whole days for the next hour.

*Disclaimer: I've been a drooling, slavering fanboy of this show since episode 1 back in 2001. Just in case you couldn't tell.

Cooking with The Beast 1.9.04

Nothing to warm your bones on a cold winter night like a good Cajun dish--I whipped up some jambalaya tonight. It goes great with cornbread (southern style) or a loaf of crusty French bread (the better to soak up the soup portion). Best of all, add a beer, and you've got a great meal to go along with the NFL playoffs. When I'm by myself, I usually just chop everything "up on the fly", but when I'm planning to cook it for company, I usually "pre-chop" everything the night before or the morning of and store it (covered) in the fridge. My recipe calls for habanero peppers--those are really spicy. Those less hardcore can use cayenne or even jalapeno peppers. And dried works just as well as fresh--just make sure to adjust your quantity to your own taste.

Beast's Jambalaya

4 tablespoons olive oil
Emeril's Essence creole seasoning, to taste
12 ounces shrimp
1 1/4 pounds chicken breasts, cut into chunks
13 ounces andouille sausage, cut into chunks
1 medium onion, finely chopped
12 ounces tomatoes, finely chopped
6 ounces Habanero chiles, finely chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
3 bay leaves
1 1/2 tablespoons dried thyme
6 cups water
2 cups rice
3 tablespoons dried parsley

1. Prepare the meat ingredients, then prepare the onion, tomatoes, and habanero peppers.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large pot or Dutch oven. Add the chicken and shrimp; season with Essence to taste. Add the sausage and brown the meats, about 4 minutes.

3. Add the water, tomatoes, habanero peppers, onions, garlic, and thyme. Bring to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.

4. Add rice and return to a boil. Cover pot and cook for 20-30 minutes, until rice is done.

5. Remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Bon appetit!

Props to Schumer

To steal a phrase from Kornheiser and Wilbon, I'd like to give some "dap" to Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY). While some of the Democrats in Congress attempted to block the certification of the 2004 presidential election results, Schumer, refused to do so, saying, in part, "My view is that you don't hold up the election unless there is concrete, real evidence of fraud. I haven't seen that." Here's a guy who gets it, at least on this issue.

True tech support tale 1.7.05

I don't usually bring my work onto this blog, but this one was just too funny to leave off. Names omitted to protect the innocent.

One of our users asked me to come over and help set up her new Palm--she couldn't seem to get the software installed. When I arrived, the CD wouldn't read, so as standard operating procedure dictates, I removed it, and inspected it for scratches. And I found them. Lots of them. From where the user had written her name on the read side with a ballpoint pen.

Luckily for her, Palm software is easily available off the web.