Month: August 2013

Track 05 – Don’t Speak

Back in the day I used to participate in CD swaps. You would mail CD mixes, usually with a theme, to an individual who would then mail you back one of theirs. It was a good way to get introduced to different music. I’ve kept some of mine that I mailed out and even a few I was given.

While looking for some empty CD disc cases to put another copy of Orphan Black DVDs* into I stumbled onto one of mine labeled “Quintessential Burn.” Unlike the rest of my burned CDs it had no label on the disc or the case it resided in. I could listen to every song and create a playlist for the disc, but I always used CD Text when doing these burns, so why couldn’t I read it right off the CD. Winamp doesn’t support CD Text, Windows Media Player doesn’t either natively, but at least there is a plugin for doing it.

Anyway, if I can find ’em, I’ll see about posting a video of each tune that I considered of or pertaining to the most perfect embodiment of a CD mix in December 2004. First up is track number 5, No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak.”

Tuesday Update

Shiny

The team car of the Purple Whales from the End Zone Entourage Fantasy Football League got its annual preseason wash and wax on Sunday afternoon. The NFL season starts in 3 weeks and then there won’t be any time on Sunday afternoons for that sort of thing.

I haven’t read the Jack Reacher novel Killing Floor before because I would have definitely remembered it. It is set in the fictional town of Margrave, Georgia which is described as about an hour south of Atlanta, but at one point our hero travels to Augusta to search for a missing character that figures big in the plot. The author has obliviously never been to Augusta and did minimal research, because from his description I wouldn’t have recognized the town. This I would have remembered…

My suspicions were correct on the purpose of the clear lucite sign holders. This morning my bathroom appropriate magazine ads were gone and were replaced with those same First Responders recruitment posters. The plant nurse will be holding informational meeting on joining the few the proud towards the end of next week. If those flyers are still up at the beginning of next month I think I’ll replace them with some U.S. Armed Force posters.

Jack Reacher

KillingFloorWe were in the book store on Saturday looking for some summer reading and I was so desperate to find something I would enjoy that I picked up a Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor.

I have read all the Jack Reacher books and chew through them like I used to with Robert B Paker’s Spenser novels. Because I was sure I has already read this book I kept waiting for the moment when I would go go, “Oh yeah.” But I’m now more than half way through and that moment hasn’t come. Did I miss this book in the series or is it because it was written in 1997 that I’ve completely forgotten it? I’m thinking I just missed it, but the light of recognition may still go off in the next couple hundred pages.

This is a reprint of the very first Jack Reacher book and it has a new introduction by the author Lee Child that tells how he came to write and why he chose the genre, an anti-hero and how he came to name his protagonist. It also has a new round yellow circle on the front cover that reads “See Jack Reacher now in his first major motion picture.”

The introduction adds nothing new if you have visited the Lee Child’s web site, so what I really wanted was what he was thinking about with the much smaller Tom Cruise playing his 6’5″, 250 pound creation. I have heard that he publicly said he was happy with Cruise in the role. I recently had an opportunity to watch the movie and passed on it just because I knew I couldn’t be so charitable.

Mock Mock

This evening for the heck of it I did a couple of fantasy football mock drafts online at ESPN. It didn’t have any real practical purpose because we are doing our draft live and in person with people in a room, but it was kind of fun anyway.

After the top 3 or 4 purpose picks I like to get players that will be on teams that I will be able to see play on Sunday. Because Atlanta and or Carolina are pretty much guaranteed to be televised locally, players from those two teams, plus Tampa Bay and New Orleans make up about half my roster.

    Draft #1 Draft #2
Round# Pick# Player Pos Player Pos
1 (5) Arian Foster RB Doug Martin RB
2 (20) Peyton Manning QB Drew Brees QB
3 (29) Darren McFadden RB Demaryius Thomas WR
4 (44) Marques Colston WR Rob Gronkowski TE
5 (53) Danny Amendola WR Mike Wallace WR
6 (68) Ahmad Bradshaw RB Ahmad Bradshaw RB
7 (77) Vernon Davis TE Greg Jennings WR
8 (92) Mike Williams WR DeAngelo Williams RB
9 (101) Texans D/ST 49ers D/ST
10 (116) Jermichael Finley TE Malcom Floyd WR
11 (125) Jonathan Stewart RB Jacquizz Rodgers RB
12 (140) Matt Bryant K Brandon Pettigrew TE
13 (149) Brandon Pettigrew TE Justin Tucker K
14 (164) Josh Freeman QB Josh Freeman QB
15 (173) Mike Tolbert RB Mike Tolbert RB
16 (188) Darrius Heyward-Bey WR Robert Woods WR

I’m Insulted

Early this week they put clear lucite sign holders on every single table in the cafeteria. Inside each one is a flyer calling for volunteers to sign up to be a First Responder. Every one in Maintenance is already trained to do this, but they are looking for a few more good (wo)men. They also put one on each of the six tables in what management refers to as the break area out front or what everyone else calls the smoking area.

For the last couple of days they have been putting up wall mount versions in every restroom. There is one on the wall just above every urinal and one on the inside of each stall door. I figured they were going to fill them with more of the please be a First Responder sheets, but they remained empty. Until this morning.

The ones in the Men’s Room out in the Turned Parts Department, near where my cubical is, had advertisements in them this AM. One of the urinals had a Viagra ad over it, while the other had one for Vesicare and each stall had an Ex-Lax ad, one vintage and very modern.

Once word got out about them, people were going in just to look, conversations ensued as to whether they were for real or was someone just having fun. Seriously, how could it have been anything but a joke. I know sales are slow right now, but would the Valve Store really try and make up some of that money by selling ads on restroom walls?

I’m insulted that no one asked me if I had anything to do with it…

Not A Sonata

Hyundai and The Walking Dead have teamed up to let you create your own post zombie apocalypse mode of transportation. No Sonatas though, just Velosters, Santa Fes or Elantras.

Not a Sonata

The Walking Dead Chopshop.

Close, But Not Exactly Right

Last night we went out for dinner at Ruby Tuesday where we both opted to try something from their special summer menu. Donna chose the Bourbon Salmon with spaghetti squash and grilled green beans. I went for the Caribbean Chicken and instead of my usual salad and potato I chose the grilled green beans as well and broccoli. When dinner was served I received green beans and mashed taters. Maybe the waiter heard me mentally contemplate the potatoes before saying broccoli, but, hey, I like mashed potatoes, so I ate them.

For this morning’s breakfast at DD we ordered the usual. My coffee with muffin and Donna’s hot chocolate with two wake-up wraps, one ham, one bacon. The first three items we get at the register and then have to wait a bit for the wraps to cook. When I say usual it is so usual that they usually get Donna’s wraps going when they see the car pull up in front of the store. When they called out the wrap order I thought I heard them say, “Sausage wrap and ham wrap.” When Donna pulled them out of the bag, turns out I heard right. Hey, up until a couple months ago she used to order that combo, so maybe they just misremembered.

In both cases we didn’t complain, except amongst ourselves, because sometimes it’s just not worth the hassle.