Kennyblog Redux

I've found an excellent way to remove a very specific type of anxiety. You know that anxious feeling you get when you find the box of vitamin tablets for pregnant women your wife (who to the best of your knowledge previous to that moment was not pregnant) left on the living room table? I strongly suggest remembering she told you her doctor told her to take them for a reason other than pregnancy.

See? That anxious feeling? Gone.

Shares in Google dropped below $495 today for the first time since August of last year. Which means that one share of Google costs about as much as a fully loaded Xbox 360.

Now, I like the idea of investing in Google, but I also really like the idea of being able to play Gears of War. So I have an important judgment to make here, about the relative value between a single share of Google and a new awesome video game console. Which is going to give me a greater return on investment, all things considered? Would a 50% return on the share of Google (a total of $250) outweigh the hours of enjoyment I would have playing Viva Pinata? Do I figure in the guilt levels I feel every time I turn on a video game system (shouldn't I be optimizing mySQL for Sean? Logging into the office? Deploying my new drupal site for this blog?).

Being an adult is difficult.

Sean sent a really good question earlier today, asking what my favorite Wu-Tang lyrics are. My response:

Oooo! Fun game. I forgot how awesome Triumph is. That whole first rhyme is so dope.

GraveDiggaz 1-800-SUICIDE:
"Six fucking devils stepped up playing brave God
Had the fucking nerve to try and enter my grave yard
I'm the Rza-rector, be my sacrifice -
Commit suicide and I'll bring you back to life"
I always like hearing. The lines aren't that great, but I really love the delivery.

I always really Method Man's lines on ODB's Dirty Dancin'
"Crazy, lurkin in the shadows, I'm shady, sheisty
Get your weight up, don't take me lightly
Blasted, dirty to the grain I be stained with the madness
It's the Meth-Tical with the Bastard"

I'm down with all of Killa Sin on RZA's La Rhumba
"Bigga what up? Yo, long time, good to see you/Look at shorty ass shakin' like the system in my vehicle"

Finally, Inspector Deck on Bring the Ruckus is unforgettable "I rip it, hardcore like porno flick bitches." Also, the Genius has some of the hardest lines in that song ("more rugged than slavemans boots"? Holy shit)

So, I was just reading some old blog posts of mine, from back when I was posting at Kennyblog the first. I ran across this post, which marked the first time I ever brought my laundry to a laundromat and left it there.

I thought it was funny, since what I wrote that day was spot on. Since that day, I have never walked into a laundromat to do my own laundry.

I want you all to listen to this, and I want you to watch it. The two actions are almost entirely different experiences.

I was sitting in a movie theater with Sean a while back, and we traded iPods for the 20 (actually, since it was Sean and I, it wasn't the 20 so much as it was the 45. Generally speaking, we're serious about our seats in the theater), and he told me to listen to it. I did, and I was blown away. I knew I had heard it before, but I didn't think for a minute that I had heard it in the late eighties. This song was fabulously ahead of its time.

I got it in my head yesterday, and since I don't have it on my iPod, I found the video on youtube. Wow, does that video change the song. When watching it, the very sound of the music changes, and becomes incredibly more dated. You're transported to 1988, thinking about 1988. But close your eyes? You're still transported to 1988, but you're thinking that this is what most music is going to be like in 10 years.

You'd be wrong of course, but I don't think Information Society existed in a world where Public Enemy sold so many record.

Wow, was it cold out this morning. Like, really cold. Like "Screw you, Al Gore you complete bullshit artist" cold. As I was waiting for the bus this morning, I seriously considered quitting my job just so I could stop waiting for the bus and go back to bed. I maintained this thought even when the bus turned the corner and I could see it coming to the bus stop. I didn't stop thinking it until the bus passed the distance threshhold where it would take less time for me to get on the bus than it would to get back into my apartment building. Really really cold.

There's this lady that has the same work schedule as me, and so we end up at the bus stop at the same time about 2 or three times a week. Big Mets fan. I can tell, because every single day, she is bedecked in Mets gear. And I'm not just talking about wearing a baseball cap and being done with it. I'm talking about shirts (often jerseys, but sometimes sweatshirts. If it's chilly she'll wear a Mets spring jacket, artfully left open to show the fact that she's wearing a Mets shirt underneath. Today she was wearing a puffy Mets winter coat), Mets gloves, and hats (for all seasons: baseball caps, woolen hats, and once I think I saw her wearing a blue and orange sheitel). She's a Mets fan and no doubt about it.

I mention it today because, as I was waiting for the bus, crying crystalline tears from the cold, I buried my face in my wifes neck (partially because I love her, but mostly to draw some warmth from her core). As I looked down, I saw our Mets fan, standing next to us, with a pair of tennis shoes. On which she had glued little Mets logos on the side. She is now my favorite person in the city.

Why does freaking Gawker have to be the website that not only tells me that the Westminster Dog Show has come and gone, but also gets to be the one that shows me the cutest freaking dog in the universe? I'm clearly not hitting up CO enough.

UPDATE:
Holy Freaking Crap

On the rare occasions I get to (have to?) meet people, I'm never very good at actually maintaining a conversation. I can get through the basic "Hi, what's your name, what do you do" sort of small talk, but after that I generally want to talk about Smalltalk. And very few people ever want to continue that discussion.

I do, however, have the openers down pretty well. One of my standard conversational techniques is to be self-deprecating in the name of humor. So many of the conversations go something like:

Me: Hi! My name's Ken. What's yours?

Other Person: Blahblahblah. What do you do for a living, Ken?

Me: Oh - I'm a software developer and project manager for a major financial news firm.

Other Person: Oh. That's cool.

Me: I don't know that 'cool' is really the right word. Interesting, perhaps. But not 'cool.'

Other Person: polite laugh

I was reminded of this standard interchange when doing some data analysis for aforementioned financial news firm. I was looking at the number of users who had some particular setting in their account, which had four possibilities. The first set of data I got included all of the user records that were in the database, including deleted or changed records. From that data, I got the relative percentage across each setting. But that wasn't accurate enough, so I got a more realistic set of data, which only contained actual current users. And though the raw numbers changed significantly, the relative percentages only moved in the 2nd decimal!

Upon noticing this, I said: Wow! Statistics are so cool! And then thought about it for a minute.

I went to visit my brother in Savannah this past weekend. Really good times. Got play with my niece, chat with my sister-in-law, eat ribs. And play XBox. Lots of Xbox playing. Definitely stayed up until 2am every night after everyone went to bed, playing Gears of War and Assassins Creed. The former was fun, but not that much different than any other type of game like that. The latter, however, was awesome. Definitely made me realize that (a) I really want an XBox and (b) if I get one, I will probably never leave the house again. Serious potential for badness.

Whenever you finish a major mission in Assassins Creed, you get a new ability (throw knives, tackle, etc). This kind of reminds me of the changes that have been occurring in my life recently. In addition to visiting my brother this weekend, I also turned 30 (happy birthday kennyb!). And, as you probably know, I got married in October. Honestly, neither of those things changed my life significantly (yet, anyway). But it *does* open up new abilities. Being married, for some reason, gives you the ability to provide people advice on things that you have no business giving advice. Being 30 gives me the special ability of having my balls busted by my (mostly sub-30) friends in new and exciting ways.

Anyway, this post isn't about that. It's about a box of Altoids I just opened up. The other day (Allison gets upset with me when I use that phrase, since she believes that it means "a couple of days or so ago." I disagree with this, since if I wanted a phrase that meant "a couple of days or so ago" I would say something to the effect of "a couple of days or so ago," or possibly "a couple of days ago, or so." To me "the other day" means some other day, potentially years back) I was chatting with Allison about how Altoids just aren't as curiously strong as I remember them being. I've been eating them fairly regularly these days, and I can do two at once without even blinking. Back in the day, if I were to try to do that, it would burn a sweet smelling hole (not often I get to type *that* phrase) through my toungue. This box brought me back to my childhood, like it was a sugar cookie (how's that for a literary reference? Oddly enough, hanging out with my niece this weekend also brought me back to my childhood. This makes sense, since her name is Madeline).

This is relevant, because it was the first time I pulled a "Back in the day" reminiscence since I turned thirty. This sort of thing is totally de rigeur for gentlemen of my age, so you best get used to it.

I was in the shower humming Layla earlier today, and I wondered what the song would be like if it was called "Leah" instead. I came up with this as a visual cue.

Original image here.

Everyone's second favorite Alltooflat blogger, Sean Collins, has had his first piece for the Onion News Network posted online. W00t!

New Auto Security System Will Not Allow Car To Start If Driver Is Nick Nolte

I helped Sean get his start in news parody, with ATF's original feature, All Too Factual

UPDATE: Since I'm a lazy man, and don't actually read the emails that I get from my best friends, I didn't notice that Sean didn't actually write the Nick Nolte thing. But keep an eye out for the news banner on the bottom about Colonial Williamsburg: 100% Seanie!