Ever wondered how a barcode works? The bars and spaces are read by a laser that convert those spaces to 0s and 1s through a process of. . . I would explain it, but it might take too much of your precious blog reading time. Instead, look at this site: barcodeart.com.
Not only are barcodes explained, but some really fun tricks are done as well. My favorite is the barcode clock. The barcode changes as the time changes.
Along with geeky barcode things, there is a link to this crazy youtube video. I’m secretly jealous that I didn’t have the time or money (in clocks and a wicked electric bill) to do this first.
Sure, you won’t ever have to sit on your feet to see over the monster in front of you, the seats sort of recline if you push really hard, and the arm rest can disappear making that moment with your special someone all the more special. That doesn’t equal quality movie experience, though.
When I’m at a movie, I want to feel like the screen is so big that the actors might eat me. I want to feel like I’m looking up at this fantastic screen with larger than life everything. I want to hear that roll and flicker of the film reel in the back. There’s a reason I pay $8+. I want the whole movie theatre experience and stadium seating theatres just don’t cut it.
I’m deeply in love with the little theatre about 15 minutes away because it’s plain old movie theatre seating with stationary arm rests and an inclined floor. The screen takes up the entire wall and when watching a movie, it feels majestic. Okay, cheesy word, but I’m sure you know what I mean.
I wish these theatres could stay open forever, but sadly, the bigger stadium theatres are just crushing them. I would take the flat seats over stadium any day! Go out to a movie at one of theses and tell me you don’t love it.
Support these theatres! Keep them alive! I don’t know if I could continue to see movies if they all disappeared.
I can’t sleep so I’ve been watching random things on youtube and I ran into this video, which I’m sure you guys might find enjoyable if not amazing.
I think it’s a cool thing to watch because I’m a video game geek. (Even if you’re not, I guarantee you won’t be able to look away!) This is sheer insanity! Kinda’ shows that there are people who have waaaay to much time on their hands. In this video the person sinks the sound effects to a song for 11 minutes long!
P.S. I attempted to translate the Japanese title 組曲『ニコニコ動画』 グランドフィナーレ 全自動マリオVer 【STEREO】Kimikyoku Nikoniko Douga Gurando Finaare Senjidou Mario (in case you can’t see the characters)
And I think it’s Musical Suite: [Smile Animation] Grand Finale Totally Automatic Mario Ver. But, seriously, don’t take my word for it. My Japanese really sucks!
Today I volunteered for the San Diego County Blood Bank by helping with one of their blood-mobiles. A local salon was giving free shampoo and styles to everyone who showed up to give blood.
In between checking in the donors, I was reading Brendan Halpin’s It Takes a Worried Man. This is an amazing book about a man who’s wife is dying of cancer that you have to find and read, but right now I don’t want to distract from my point. In the book, he explains how the treatments for many diseases cause the body to stop producing blood. His wife required a steady supply of blood for the last few months of her life and he got to see first hand how giving blood paid off. “I feel, karmically speaking, that adding blood to the supply is a good and noble way to honor her fight against the disease.”
Maybe giving blood is so common that people easily forget how impacting and important it really is. Come on guys! Set up to the plate, put away your excuses, and donate blood! You don’t need to contribute money and it only takes half an hour. They give you a cool t-shirt, juice, food, and tons of free stuff. The stuff shouldn’t be the incentive, though. It’s amazing to think that anyone out there can be an integral part of saving or even just sustaining a life.
JDM Salon is having another blood drive in a few months where again, the brave and generous donors will get a free shampoo and hair style. Come to this or start your own event. Set up a tent, spread the word, get someone to donate coffee, baked goods, a live band, anything. It can be really fun. All day donors can share their blood-giving stories and blue arm bands.
Brave that one little needle poke so that the people who are suffering much more than a silly needle can be helped. As my free t-shirt proclaims, “Do it for the donut.”
It’s less than a week before my summer classes and I’ve been doing the random. I went swimming until the weather in California forgot it was California and a tornado watch happened. This brought about the rain which prompted me to sit on my butt, enjoy the pitter-patter of the rain and bring out a sweater to wear (YES! It’s sweater weather!)
While sitting on my butt I decided to spend hours on doing what I like most- being productive unproductive. What does that mean exactly you ask? Well it means instead of reading ahead for my classes or doing some sit-ups to counteract the munchies I’ve caught from visiting my parents I’ve used my precious time to do other things such as: going on sites like Etsy.com or ebay, read a blog or two or 10 and watch all the seasons so Arrested Development-I forgot Zack Braff was a never-nude.
Everything was copacetic til I was on ebay searching for Flight of the Conchords tickets in Los Angeles. I knew that it was going to be expensive, last time I checked a pair was going for around $300, but nothing prepared me for the prices I saw today. All the “buy now” tickets are going for around $700 and at that price most of the sellers AREN’T offering free shipping! Those shits! Honestly, someone is even brazen enough to have a” buy now” at $1,100. His/her message to the buyer (if there is one foolish enough to buy it) is:
“These are awesome seats that I am sadly selling – I have to go out of town for business now. I had bought them through a service and am just trying to recoup my money – hopefully these go to some worthy individuals that love FOTC.”
LIKE THEY GIVE A TOSS THAT A FOTC FAN BUYS IT!
It’s like…SERIOUSLY…are you sending those tickets in an envelope made of gold, encrusted with diamonds and delivered by a person who going to offer some kind of sexual favor?
Oh, no?
THEN WTF, WHY $1,100?!
FOTC fans are mostly college students that buy cup-o-noodles with the 5 bucks they got from their $150 psych book during their school’s book buy back ripoff session or young people that live in studio apartments and use their beds as couches or at least a barrier to pretend the kitchen is not your bedroom.
With those discouraging ticket prices I’m just going to have to enjoy my FOTC DVD and youtube videos because there is no way I’m shelling out hundreds compared to ticketmaster’s $32+ whatever handling fees.
CLICK HERE to see FOTC tickets at an outrageous price.
and I leave you with FOTC “Ladies of the World” music video.
One of the things I hate doing the most is tipping. Not cow tipping, but money tipping. (STOP glaring at me, I do not tip cows) Not only do you have to pay (sometimes) a ridiculous amount of money for your food, but you also have to give an extra 15% to the person who served it to you. (BTW who sets the percentages and keeps raising them because I want to slap that person) I think this is a ridiculous concept! Let me remind you, servers already GET A PAYCHECK. They get a standard rate for their services. When you tip, you are giving extra money to them that you technically don’t have to!
Please stop your whining. I know someone reading this right now is saying “But they have to constantly get your drink and bring out your food.” While this is true, let’s inspect some other jobs. People in retail stores (Macy’s, FYE, Ruehl, Target) have to deal with customers all day. They look for the products that customers want, they have to ring it up, desensitize it and package it up for you. They need to clean up the store and deal with a wide variety of customers, some nice, some mean and sometimes weird/creepy/perverted ones. But do you tip them? NO. I bet your reasoning is, “But that’s their job.” Well, EXACTLY! It’s a server’s job to serve; it’s in their freaking NAME.
This leads me to my point. In the past couple of months, I have been changing my perspective. I’ve been tipping properly and complaining about it less. I started to feel bad that perhaps my server was taking care of 5 tables with an average of 4 people in it, but Carrie from CPK has reverted me back to not wanting to tip at all. Everything with my meal was going well, until the check came. I paid in cash and was expecting my change, but she never came back to the table. I sat there thinking, “Maybe she’s very busy.” Nope. She stared at out table and was probably thinking, “Why aren’t they leaving?” I wasn’t leaving because I wanted my change!
In case she’s forgotten, the general rule is, unless the customer specifies, “keep the change,” COME BACK WITH THE CHANGE. I know the money left was almost equal to the proper tip, (it was actually higher by $2, which means I over tipped, which means I’m pissed), but it’s good manners to come back with a person’s money. Here’s a real tip for you Carrie, don’t take liberties with a customer’s money, give it back and allow them to tip you.
(btw I know you’re thinking $2 isn’t a lot, but it’s the principle of the thing!)
[Such a George Costanza moment.]
If I could tip like Dick from 3rd Rock, I wouldn’t have a problem with the whole concept.
So you’ve got a job! You work the job for a month and realize that it’s not quite what you intended. Let’s just say, there’s a reason that job was still open. (Not to belittle your own accomplishments and qualifications.) Fearing that you might be trapped at this dead end, life-sucking job for all eternity, you decide to chuck it. I QUIT!
It’s not that easy. I recently gave my two weeks notice to my job. I am a department head in a large forensic lab, or at least I will be until this Friday. Quitting was the hardest part of my job so far. This isn’t saying goodbye to the Dairy Queen. This is quitting a full time, salary paying job, where you have to have a formally written letter and exit interviews.
Life-After-College Lesson: Upper management makes or breaks a company. While they promise their support, they always let their own authority supercede. In my case, everyone was encouraged to take their orders from HR and our company bosses rather than their direct boss, me. With no stable authority and new responsibilities being shoved off on just me, I knew that it was the end. With authority and responsibility comes obligation– obligation to stick with a job that’s providing your income and screwing you over at the same time.
You’ve got to cut the cord, folks. I don’t care how much money you are making or how great of people you work with. You’ll never go far with a company that doesn’t take care of it’s employees. If you think they don’t take care of you now, wait until you ask for a recommendation. You’ll never get anything out of this kind of job, not money, not experience, and definitely not respect.
Loyalty is really important in the working field. Having a company train you and teach you, only to loose you to a higher paying position is a risk that good companies don’t always take. A company that takes care of it’s employees even when they are interns or entry-level will be the kind of company that is still taking care of their employees 10 years down the line. Saying goodbye is harder the deeper you get into the company and the more time they’ve invested in you, the more they’ll want in return.
I’m lucky to have learn this first-hand so quickly. I hope for everyone else that this step is avoided. Choose wisely and don’t be afraid to make a clean break when the company’s true colors have been revealed.
Douglas Coupland is best known for his book jPod and while I haven’t read the popular book, I doubt I will. I’m not being harsh; I’m being honest.
The Gum Thief started out with such promise. A forty-something man with a quite downhill life is working at Staples where he meets a young twenty-something girl. The two of them write back and forth to each other about life philosophies and woes. The first forty pages had me laughing out loud and agreeing with the main character’s cynical and depressing view of society. As the book crept on, I was still enjoying it because I thought I was waiting for something to happen. Here’s where my idea of a good modern novel and Coupland’s depart.
If nothing major would have happened in the book, I still would have given it more than one little lightning bolt. Modern stories, whether they be books, movies or poetry, have a spirit (if you could call it that) of apathy. People with less than satisfactory lives are introduced to us under the pretense that there is much change in store, yet because of the character’s flaws no change occurs or the change is not the saving grace
the character anticipated. The Gum Thief was a cop out.
I don’t mind spoiling the ending (because it was lame), but if you plan on reading, I would skip down to the next paragraph. Coupland ends his book with the most cliche of all modern novels. The depressed and distraught twenty-something attempts to take her life. Though it didn’t kill the character, it killed the book.
If you’d like to read it, go ahead. It will give you a few laughs and make you want to remember some of the lines, but it’s not the ‘great book’ you were hoping for.
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Sure, you won’t ever have to sit on your feet to see over the monster in front of you, the seats sort of recline if you push really hard, and the arm rest can disappear making that moment with your special someone all the more special. That doesn’t equal quality movie experience, though.
I had bought them through a service and am just trying to recoup my money – hopefully these go to some worthy individuals that love FOTC.”
