Things change. Wait...what?!

Dear Just Born Inc,

I have been noticing for a bit now that your company, Just Born, has started to infiltrate a childhood favorite candy of mine. Mike and Ike candies. I can't help but notice that things have been changing with the classic candies. For as long as I can remember these delicious candies were packaged in boxes. Now they come in plastic bags? Does this make sense? Since when is plastic the NEW safe-for-the-environment material? Plus, it is SO much cooler to get a BOX of candies than to get a BAG of candies. Also, what is the deal with, like, four hundred different kinds of Mike and Ike candies? Mike and Ike were in a green box and they were pink, red, orange, green, and yellow. Of course, we had the option of enjoying Jolly Joes which were all purple ones, but now it is like a frick'n carnival of flavors and colors. Mike and Ike candies are ONLY to be in a green box and ONLY to be the previously mentioned colors.

I would like to think that after your company brought the planet the devil of sweet treats that you would learn to NOT mess these things up. Yes, I am talking about the one, the only...Peeps. Peeps are horrid. Peeps are the devil. However, you somehow managed to make them worse. Peeps started out as just an Easter item. Coming in the shape of birds, either pink or yellow. Now, suddenly, we are seeing bunnies come hopping down the aisles of our local stores. But did you stop there? Oh no. You had to bring these sugar coated sugar puffs to other holidays. Sugary trees grew all around stores during the Christmas season (which, by the way comes earlier and earlier every year MUCH to my disdain), puffy four leaf clovers sprouted up around St. Patrick's Day (ummm...beer please...NOT sugar coated sugar puffs), and even red, white, and blue marshmallow flags taunt me as I walk around during the 4th of July. The point is: you have taken something that I only had to deal with ONCE a year and now...I have to look at these horrors pretty much all year long.

Enough is enough.

Stop it. Just stop it. Please, bring back boxes of Mike and Ike candies. Stop messing with the delicious memories of these candies by adding every stupid flavor you come up with. (lemonade blends should be liquid...not gummy enough to get stuck in your teeth for hours of enjoyment) Make sure that IF you decide to have some flavor other than the classics...you call them something else entirely. Something like Jolly Joes or Snapple Fruities or something equally ridiculous. Just stop messing with my candy.

And stop making peeps.

Sincerely,

~t

Take me out to the black...

I like imagining things. I really do. I like making things up in my mind and creating things from those imganings. It passes the time and makes me feel a bit more free when I am trapped in the cube here at work, driving in traffic, or sometimes when I am just in a foul mood.

This is part of the reason that I am enjoying the time I am spending with some of my friends playing a little role playing game (RPG) based in the world of the Joss Whedon cancelled TV series, Firefly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series) For those of you familiar, please read on. For those of you not familiar...STOP...go find this TV series on DVD and watch it...completely...non-stop...and then you should continue reading. (really? cowboy/smugglers in space and you HAVEN'T seen this yet? come on!)

So yes, we have tried to get together every week and play a little and it has been very fun. Lots of great characters and dedication to those characters (even if it means getting in a lot of fights with your own crew). So far we have killed a lot of folks and even turned a little bit of a profit. Our game master is one of my favorites and his imagination is something to be reckoned with, as I am sure we will find out soon enough.

Another thing I have been imagining a lot about lately is escaping on another adventure. I recently got to run away to Colorado, land of mountains and trees and lakes and snow and cool air and delicious food, but now I have the itch again. Duluth may be in the cards before the snow happens. On the other hand, I have never seen Duluth in the snow, so it could be pretty awesome...but colder.

Oh, also...I went to Wendy's the other night and was immediately asked if I would be interested in a fresh, tastey Baconator. I declined.

Indoor rainstorms

Day two in the...what do the kids call it?...blogosphere? Whatever.

Last night I had rehearsal for the new improv troupe that I am going to try and start up. We are called Delusions of Grandeur (DoG for short) and we already have a show booked. Pretty sweet, huh? It will take place the first Friday of every month which puts this show on the 3rd of October at 7pm at this place: http://www.janinescoffeehouse.com/

It should be a lot of fun. In fact, that is idea behind this group, just have a good time with improv. I still would like to do some more stuff with T-Rex Force or Man Secret or whatever the other group I am in is called, but things are a bit busy for some of the members of that group.

Okay. Well, I am sure that was boring for everyone to read. On to the REAL story of this morning.

While I was outside rehearsing with DoG, one of my room mates came out of the basement saying that we had a leak and that water was going everywhere. At first I didn't pay too much attention since I was in the middle of a scene, but as time went on and more and more of my room mates ran downstairs, I decided that I should probably go and take a look at what was happening. I excused myself and made my way into the basement. I as came down the stairs, I looked to the right where all three of my room mates were scrambling to grab buckets and any other containers they could in order to catch the water that was pouring through the floorboards in the basement. At the same time, water was leaking on the outside of the house were the hose was at, so I ran out to shut it off. I came back and noticed that this water was coming from directly below the tub where a guest was taking a shower. Now, lately we have had the distinct pleasure of showering in some standing water because of a slow drain. While this is a little gross, it is only mildly inconvenient...until now. I am assuming that the tub filling up with water and the drain was so plugged that the water found its way along the bottom of the tub and then start pouring out through the floor in the basement. This meant that it was time for me, as the handyman, to clean out the drain of the tub. I began to take apart the plumbing of the drain sequence and found the block. Now, I wish I could describe to you all what I found in there, but there are a couple of reasons I can't: #1 I am not a very good writer #2 There are no human words that would describe the abominations that I pulled out of that place. By the end of the night our tub was draining much more quickly and hopefully we won't be having any water raining down into the basement.

Earlier during the week, in a different area of the basement (thankfully) I had completed the new Star Wars: Force Unleashed game for Xbox 360. All in all, I really enjoyed it. I'm glad I bought it because I am already starting to play through it again for a second time. The story is pretty good and does a great job of expanding and adding pieces of Episodes 4, 5, and 6 in the Star Wars saga. The voice acting is top notch and the 'acting' done by the characters in the game is actually quite good. The graphics are pretty great and the new physics engines that are used are pretty incredible. You can tell that if the game makers had more time and money that they would have used the engines on pretty much everything in the game, but right now only most of the things in the game have it applied to them. This means that while I blow through set of GIANT steel doors, I can't blow over a tiny tree. However, the items and places that DO have these engines applied to them are just awesome. Just plain awesome. Bending girders, throwing TIE fighters, blowing threw those doors I mentioned before, ripping apart metal cages, shattering glass, and using force lightning on mouse droids makes you feel like the coolest, most powerful, evil person in the world...but really, that droid had it coming.

Also, on the horizon for games, Fallout 3 comes out on October 28th. I can't really get started on talking about this game because I am already too excited for my own good for it, so why make it worse for myself by talking about it here? Just know it will be just incredible.

You know, I can't really think of anything else to say at this point and glancing back at what this has been so far today, it looks kind of boring. But hey, I am sure I will write something interesting at some point, right? I guess if you are still reading this after all of that, congrats to you. I should buy you a drink or perhaps share an appetizer with you sometime. I would like that very much.

Have a nice day and a good weekend if I don't have a chance to write during the weekend.

(oh, and don't let me forget to mention something about the RPG that I am participating in right now, the next time I write)

Heeeeeerrrre we gooooo....

Ok. I'm gonna give this a shot. It seems interesting and who knows, it may be fun too. Heck, I don't know if anyone will read it or, if they do, if it will be at all entertaining because I am not the greatest writer ever. We will see though. Please comment all you would like. I am always looking for something to read while I am at work.

And that is where I start. My work.

It's lame. I sit at a computer all day, I think a lot about things that are not work related, and I spend a lot of time on the internet. The internet part is odd because, as I have explained to some of my friends, I did not have the internet (for real) until I went BACK to college in 2004. When I was in school in Iowa, we didn't have the internet. Yeah, I know that makes me sound like an old man talking about this new fangled information carrying magic tube device, but it is true...we didn't have it! Now, feel free to insert any and all Iowa related jokes here. In fact, take a few shots at my age if you care to. I mean, this blog should be fun for everyone, right? Anyway, having the internet at my fingertips is a bit odd. I don't really know what to do with it all. I basically read the same things everyday and check the same comics everyday. All in all, the internet can be interesting, but mostly a waste of time. A friend of mine once had a great hypothosis that the internet, for as time saving its email and what is, actually ends up wasting MORE time than if we didn't have it. I tend to agree. However, if it weren't for the internet, I wouldn't be doing this blog, I wouldn't be able to quickly email my friends about events, I wouldn't know how to make a 3-D dinosaur cake, and I wouldn't be able to chat with any of my friends on Gmail Chat. (Gmail Chat has been a lifesaver and the only reason I am able to survive my days here at the office.) The other thing that has helped pass the time is listening to the radio online. Oddly enough, I spend most of my day listening to sports radio KFAN 1130am. This is odd because...I am not really a huge sports fan. Now, I LOVE hockey. I mean, hockey, to me, is really the best thing about cold. (Well, that a blankets and movie watching and hot drinks (hot apple blast!) and sledding) I like to watch hockey, I like to play hockey, and I really like living in the State of Hockey, Minnesota. Spreaking of hockey, my favorite team is the Minnesota Wild and I recently had the wonderful chance to be their first ever mascot. It did not work out in the end, but I made it all the way to the last round of only 6 people. 6 all the way down from 60 isn't bad. In the end, I should have spent more time skating on the ice for the audition rather than just playing with the kids they had there. Oh well, it was a mistake and I can't change that now. Back to listening to online radio. Long story short...they have recently blocked ALL radio stations at work. All. Seriously, do they REALLY need us to be mindless robots at work? I mean, I am still going to listen to something at work, but now I am going to do it with even MORE hatred for them in my heart than before.

Here is one more example of why I hate where I work:

My supervisor recently sat down with me to tell me that this job wasn't important enough to me. Now this is true, but she then told me that this job needed to be my life. .... Really?! My life? How sad is that? Well, I will tell you; it's pretty frick'n sad.

Wow...on a compLETEly different note: my friend just messaged me and told me that "the U of I calendar of events in the handbook handed out to thousands of students has a Black History Month Lunch and Learn.only in the handbook it is printed: Black History Month Lynch and Learn". Whoops.

Obviously this post will be longer than the normal post because I am getting you all caught up with what is up. I am sure this isn't necessary, but you never know who will start to randomly read these sorts of things. I hope you come back again. Have a nice day.