More Blog Lists

I decided I wanted to identify my top 5 favorite candy. I love candy and eat it all the time. You will probably notice that my top choices are not the chocolate variety. In any case here it is:

5- Cowtails
4- Take 5
3- Twizzlers Nibs
2- Nerd Rope (and just nerds in general)
1- Spree

Honorable Mention: Twix, Caramello, Junior Mints, Shockers (formerly Shock Tarts), Sweet Tarts, Reces Pieces, Fast Break

Cowtails are good for a variety of reasons, the most important being taste. They are pretty much a fresh tiny roll of caramel creams, but not sliced up. They are fun to eat due to shape and almost guaranteed freshness which assures the eater a nice soft chewing experience. I am not the biggest fan of caramel, but for some reason I cant stop eating cowtails.

Take 5 are relatively new on the candy bar scene, so perhaps I am going out on a limb to put them in my all time top 5. But how can you not? They are absolutely delicious. Hersheys took all the 4 best candy bar ingredients (peanut butter, caramel, chocolate, peanuts) and added pretzels and was left with the best candy bar around.

Twizzlers Nibs are not to be confused with Twizzlers Bites. The bites have hollow tubes lenthwise and are a little bit bigger. They taste similiar but not quite the same. Nibs used to be its own brand i think, but maybe it was taken over by Twizzlers or something... You often can only find these Nibs in the small pack or the medium sized ($1.39) pack. The big pound bag of cherry flavored bites are good, but not as good as the Nib variety.

Nerd Ropes are made with a gummy type piece of chewy candy that is coated with Nerds, which I love even by themselves. They are just little tiny pieces of sugar but I love them. I often eat the big boxes of them at work, and have considered separating the big nerds from the small ones and selling them on ebay. How much do you think someone would pay for a box full of giant sized Nerds? I like to bite off the biggest nerds from the rope, so i can enjoy them by themselves. Then I let the small ones do their job of adding flavor and texture to the rope when I gobble it up. So good, i think I am going to go eat one now.

Spree are my all-time favorite candy. I eat them all the time and I never get tired of them. I would estimate that I could eat an entire roll of Spree in under a minute. The best part is the texture, which might seem odd of an apparent 'hard candy.' But anyone who has experienced the treat knows that you should not judge a book by its cover. The candy coating isnt nearly as difficult to break as you would think. Chewy Spree are also good, but nearly as good as the original. Plus after a few packs in a row, the tangy-ness of the chewy ones kind of gets to you. They are sold in the standard roll, the movie theatre box, the mid sized bag and also in rolls, kind of like smarties. I think I most prefer the old school style of the rolls, although the big boxes are a delcious way to watch any movie.

Thoughts?

Engineering Humor

10-12-06 Update: Sticking with the engineering theme (i love graphs) I wanted to post this figure. Notice yesterday was the highest traffic day on this site by 50%. I am not sure why... does The Bachelor commentary draw a bigger audience? I dont know, but thought it was postworthy.
It does appear that most of my readers check in while at work but not from home on the weekends...

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I think that most people don't think of me when they picture a typical engineer. They are probably correct in their assumption, however, the people that I work with are probably exactly like what they are thinking. The reason that I bring this up is because of what happened today at work.

I was in the restroom when two other coworkers entered. They actually were probably in there first, i cant remember. They conducted your typical mens bathroom chat. It is not unlike the typical conversation that occurs the night before Thanksgiving during your first year of college. You went to college and are home for the holiday weekend, so you hang out with all of your high school friends. Most likely you will encounter someone who you werent that close with during high school. The conversation goes something like this:

Hows college?
Good, what about you?
Pretty good.
Whats your major?
[major 1], whats yours?
[major 2]
cool

The mens bathroom conversation that i am speaking of is between two people who know each other but not very well. They dont talk to each other, only when in a confined space where they feel obligated [i realize this only really leaves the elevator and the bathroom.] Anyways its just small talk and nothing important. But back to today... I hear the normal talk and because we are in the transportation industy the conversation leads to the Washington Metro [the subway]. It is owned and operated (i think) by WMATA. One guy tells the other guy a story about his meeting with them today and how it was unproductive and stuff. This reminds the other guy of something he learned when he worked with WMATA a bunch of years back. Anyways, he recalls a story where on his first day someone told him what WMATA stands for. After some more analysis and hypothesizing, I hear the punchline. It means we meet and talk a lot. good one.

I'm sorry, but i didnt think words like and and a got recognition in acronyms. And I am also pretty sure that a lot is two words. Its arguable that it could have been called WMATAL or MWTL or something. I am not hating on the joke, but i didnt enjoy it nearly as much as those guys. [thinking further, maybe i am the real engineer since instead of just laughing i analyzed it and am still writing/thinking about it...]

the other thing happened only minutes later. it is not as strange as this, but exemplifies the environment in which i work. I am washing my hands, and a third guy makes the courtesy small talk with me. I respectfully engage in weak conversation while accelerating my hand washing and drying process. Anyways, eventually he asks how i have been and I reply 'pretty busy'. in our work terms that means we have a bunch of projects to work on, as compared to being pretty slow when you dont have much work to do or projects to bill your time to. anyways, after saying that i think i might have even thrown in a 'which is better than being bored' or some other equally meaningless phrase. in any case, he responds 'oh, back on the crack pipe.' he might have said 'oh, yeah not back on the crack pipe.' i couldnt even tell is he was asking or telling me. i also have no idea what it meant. i absolutely can't think of a situation where what he said makes any sense. and he chuckled as i walked out the door.

and he is one of the more normal people at work, or so i thought. there are a few people who would say this to me and i would not think anything of it. but not this guy. i have no idea what he was talking about. there is a chance i couldnt hear him since he was facing the urinal, while my urinal was flushing and the sink was running. i dont know. it doesnt really matter anyways, i could tell from his demeanor that he wasnt mad at me or anything.

i just thought those 3 minutes in the restroom painted a fairly accurate portrait of what it is like to work at an engineering firm.

want some cheese with your wine?

make sure you have the sound on when you watch this video. thanks amanda!

New TV Season

I can't believe I just wrote this...

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It’s no secret that I watch reality TV. Many of my favorite shows are reality shows. In celebration of the start of the new season on network TV, and because of my interest in reality shows, I decided that I want to write my opinion of ABC’s The Bachelor. I will assume that you, as the reader, are familiar with the show and so I will jump right in to my thoughts.

I enjoyed the first episode, in particular the segment where the ladies are first introduced to Lorenzo Borghese, this season’s bachelor. The ladies are all hot and bothered because LoBor (or sometimes just Lobo) is some kind of Italian prince. My initial thought about him is that he is a fairly reasonable guy. He seems to know what’s up, in terms of these reality dating shows. I think he is not trying to go the elimidate route, which is good for the show. While those slimy make-out-with-as-many girls as possible shows are sometimes entertaining, they are only inches away from Jerry Springer. So he seems (at least thus far) to be fairly conservative about getting close with the girls. He could have easily already gotten on 6 of the 8 remaining girls.

Anyways, the success of the season is pretty much controlled by the girls they bring in. I thought right out of the gate they were on the right track. The first girl introduced, Lisa, was my favorite from start to last. She was my favorite because she was passed by the very last girl introduced, Sadie.

On the first night LoBor had to say goodbye to about half of the girls. I am sure he was overwhelmed and thought it was difficult, but to me it seems easy. With so many different girls, it would seem to me that you would be looking for reasons to send girls home, not keep them. If someone is annoying, just send them home.

Right from the start LoBor was feeling Lisa. They shared a moment while they had a conversation away from the rest of the girls and she was in. I was somewhat annoyed by the whole ‘tree hugger’ episode, but what can you do. It’s a TV show, and there are cameras all around. As if the situation of 30 girls all trying to get 1 guy to like them in 8 hours isn’t strange enough, then throw them in front of a camera, and you can only expect so much. I have a feeling that if they shoot all the girls for the entire night, then only show the viewer a few seconds of video, they can pretty much dictate how certain people are portrayed. And I can’t blame them for doing this, as ABC’s is probably far more concerned with ratings than they are with LoBo falling in love.

So Lisa was in, and so I was only concerned with Sadie getting to the next round. Not surprisingly, she needed little effort to not go home as there were plenty of other crazy/annoying/ugly girls who had no chance of staying around. The only problem I have with the rose ceremony is that I often think he is advised or assisted with his choices. LoBo still has not eliminated Erica. I do not want to devote much more than a sentence to talking about her, but pretty much she very spoiled and so annoying. I can’t imagine that he actually is interested in her. And its like contradictory. They show clips of them totally having awkward moments and not getting along at all and he selects her for the next round. I am pretty sure this is strictly for TV. Kind of like how at least one minority always makes it into the second round even if the contestant has no interest in the girl.

I wasn’t until the second round that Sadie really stepped it up. She was on a group date and she stood out enough to get a rose before the rose ceremony. It was later revealed that she is saving herself for marriage. The other girls were making fun of her but I think that actually helps her chances. In my opinion it seems that LoBor has already narrowed it down to the three girls who got a rose prior to the ceremony. And I can’t blame him. I would have been kind of disappointed if I were him. I think he will be happy once he settles on Sadie, but overall if I were responsible for selecting 30 of the hottest, smartest, most fun, successful girls, I would like to think I could assemble a slightly better group than LoBor was given.

This entry is getting wordy and I still never made it to my commentary on all the girls. So here are a few of my other comments about this season and the contestants:

Desiree- Pretty hot, is very interested in having fun, baby. She adds baby to the end of every phrase that she says, baby. She would be fun to be friends with, but hanging out with her all the time would probably not be fun, baby. Also she seems incapable of being serious, baby.

Ellen- I am glad she went home. I never really like her (other than when she did the chicken wing during that bedroom dance party) and was annoyed with how she tried to call out Lisa. It made he look pretty pathetic and like a witch with a b.

Jeanette-she is really young and not bad looking and also a teacher. Her stock went up when they went to the beach (then again she is 23 and one of the younger contestants.) She doesn’t get much time on camera, and her face reminds me of Mandy Moore at times.

Jami- blonde from Texas. Hasn’t stood out to me but hasn’t been as bad as some of the others so she gets the rose by default.

Gina- is an ultrasound technician. I think that’s an interested job, and I am sort of curious why she chose to be called that. I would imagine that she could have called herself something more general, like physicians assistant or something like that. I was glad she got a rose, only because I disliked a few people more than her.

Agnese- it’s funny that she is still around because she doesn’t speak English. I feel fairly certain that the producers just walked around Rome for an hour before the show and asked her to be on it because she was hot. And it has worked for the most part. She has outlasted most of the other girls without actually being able to talk to LoBo very much. She is pretty hot though, and also he won’t feel bad about letting her go later on.

Erica- wishes she was Paris Hilton, thinks she is as hot as Charlize Theron and as cool as Brad Pitt in Oceans 11. She is a socialite, and I think her family is very rich. She claimed that her flight to Rome was the first time she flew coach in an airplane.

Kim- passed out from drinking 2 days in a row. Sure she was at the beach in the sun all day long. And maybe she was drinking. But so was everyone else… didn’t she know that her chances of sticking around would be greatly increased if she actually showed some interest in the bachelor? Despite her claims, has to be embarrassed with her showing.

Sarah- she dominated when they played football, but I think her courtesy rose in the first round was because she was the only minority in the group (and she was from Canada!) I did like her and wouldn’t have minded if she stuck around, but LoBor didn’t ever seem too interested.

Rosella- she was eliminated in the first round and I was pumped. She kept saying how it was destiny to be there and she was convinced she was going to win. She claimed to have sold her car to raise money to fund a new wardrobe for the trip and that turned out to be a major dagger since she was only in Rome for 8 hours. She just annoyed me for some reason. I also heard she had a kid, but I cant remember where I heard that.

Random Referrals

I saw that someone came to my blog via this page:

http://www.google.com/search?q=jamaican%20guy%20on%20starburst%20commercial&hl=en&lr=&start=20&sa=N (check the 7th webpage listed)

I guess I am glad that my page comes up as the 27th best match on Google when searching for that specific person , and also nice work by the searcher because I probably would have not even looked at results 21-30.

Originally I had the key phrase (J G on S C) in this post and was wondering if the post would move me up in the rankings on Google. Then I thought that was cheating so i removed the phrase.

Kind of I love internet searching, aka googling. I also love when people reach my site by chance after searching on a search engine for a particular topic. It seems the most popular by far is for that high school football player Pat that I commented on a few weeks ago. More than a few times per week someone stumbles upon my blog after searching for something related to him. Second place would probably be people searching for the donut establishment and smoothie discussion. Sometimes for fun I search for things I have posted about before just to see if it comes up, or more importantly, how far down I am on the list of sites.

On a side note, to prove my internet searching capabilities, recently the guy who sits next to me at work had his bike stolen from his car. Days later, after hearing the story, I found it on ebay.

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I love mustaches!

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Whats up now NYC?

Did you know?

Did you know the melody of the A-B-C song is the same as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?

credit where credit is due

Since my recent man pole post I have had some interesting discussions with various people. It seems [as Val pointed out] that the technique that you use while in the bathroom might depend on what kind of underwear that you have on. To clarify, it seems that many people are discouraged from using the zipper only because of the damage it can cause. If you have on a pair of boxers, a loose pair of undies, or no underwear at all, then you have very little from keeping your pizzle away from your zipper. This makes perfect sense to me, the seconds that you save are not worth the risk you take. If you play with fire… I actually don’t use zipper for another reason. I prefer my unit to be held in place, and for me to use the zipper I would have to stretch out my underwear. Not to mention its like a minor operation, since you have to weave your duder through the panels. That escape hatch for you piece is a good invention in theory, I just don’t find it very practical.

Anyways, this brings me to what I wanted to talk about. Flashback to September of 1991. I was a 10 year old kid entering middle school. It was the first time I had a locker, it was the first time I had the option of getting french fries everyday at lunch. It was the first time I had to change clothes to go to gym class, and it was also the first time I learned that wearing boxers got you much more locker room cred than tighty whities. So there I was, leaving my comfort zone and taking the huge step into a school where girls had boobs. I was a brief-wearing student government president of my elementary school who was learning the ropes of middle school. It took me only a day or so to master the quickchange, it was all I could do to hide my speedo-like underwear.

After mentioning it to my mom, she got me some boxers. I was pumped and no longer had to worry about wearing the nerdy tighty whities. On my first day with boxers, it was maybe 2 minutes into the first game of dodgeball when I realized that me and boxers had a problem. I had been under the impression that girls were the only ones who had to worry about bouncing private parts. I was wrong. It was probably the next day that I was back to my old ways, but I was supported and comfortable.

Since I didn’t do my own laundry, I am sure my mom noticed. I had really wanted boxers and then I dropped them just as fast. So then one day she came to me with something that I had never seen before. Far from your standard cotton panty, this was a small tight short that was made like briefs yet covered more of your area. The support of briefs with the coverage of boxers… this seemed like a good idea. I thought so then, and I still think so today. Back then I don’t think the mainstream underwear companies even made them. It would be a few more years [like midway through high school] before I started seeing other people wearing this revolutionary pair of underwear.

I just wanted to take this chance to thank my mom for discovering boxer briefs. If it weren’t for her finding them, they probably wouldn’t be anything that they are today. Underwear producers all over the world should be thanking her. Also, they got the best free advertising ever, as people are constantly trying to look at me in my undies.

Note: I wrote this post once and then while looking up a link to a page, Firefox broke and I lost what I wrote. I tried my best to recreate the post but its nothing compared to the original. I also had a link to a video about bouncing privates, but decided to remove it fearing most of my readers are at work and it would not be appropriate.

Word Of The Day

From time to time I am going to try and post words that I think everyone should know and use. Like manties (male panties) and jorts (jean shorts) the word of the day is

Manscaping - is a metrosexual term that refers to when a male performs maintenance on his body.

It is a synonym of grooming. Please spread the word.

Man Pole, I mean Man Poll

This is a survey for men. I appologize in advance to all my beautiful female readers, and want to let you know that you may still post your opinion on this controversial topic. Just know the question was intended for men.

I am curious as to how many people actually use the fly in their pants. When I am going number 1, i lower my clothing to go. I know the purpose of the zipper, and if I utilized the zipper more, I realize that I could go without undoing my belt/button/etc. In theory its a sweet concept. little trap door for going number 1. However, I dont think that very many men use only the zipper for exclusive access to that area. I hypothesize that a majority of males, like myself, open the button to their pants and stretch their clothing to go number 1 when standing. Maybe I am in the minority, I dont really know.

Updated: Is it just me

I have heard other people do this, and its appropriate that I was reminded of it in a post regarding grammar/pronounciation errors. The phrase is "might as well." I have seen others write minus well. I dont know for sure, but i think this is wrong. Has anyone else ever seen this? If so, are people using it as a shorter way of typing something? Like lol? Thats the only thing i can think of because I dont think that minus well means the same thing as "might as well." I understand that when dictated its nearly the same, but it's not a contraction. Thoughts?

The only thing I can find on the internet is this.

Is it just me...

I am wondering why some people pronounce the word across incorrectly. They add a "t" to the end of it and say acrost. I want to know why this happens. I sort of hate it. I have noticed similiar mistakes on other words, like idear instead of just idea. And I dont think its the result of an accent, its just a case of people saying the wrong thing. I also want to know if the people who say these words this way know they are doing it. And if so, is it because of how they think it is spelled? I am in the dark here, perhaps there is a good reason why people say these words differently than I do.

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I wrote a blog entry yesterday and it was real long. And by real long I mean boring and not funny. I was a little ticked off by something that happened to a guy I work with and so I wrote about it. But then I never posted it because I didnt think anyone would enjoy reading about it. The moral of the story is my friend got a parking ticket for a violation he didnt commit. After going to court, the judge ruled against him. It was pretty much his word vs. the meter monitor person who wrote the ticket. They said he was parked in the zone for longer than 2 hours. I liek justice, and I am sad to say that it was not served in this case. And to make things worse, instead of just paying the fine he also had to pay court costs and waste his vacation time at work. This might not sound like an original story (or exciting) but I get frustrated with our legal system when it fails. He is a hardworking American citizen, wrongly convicted of a crime and it makes me angry. I will stop there [you can see why i didnt post my 3 page write up of the circumstances.]

The one thing the post that never was did have was an awesome link, so I will include that here just for fun.

something that was on my mind

driving home from work yesterday there was more than an average amount of traffic. it was pretty much stop and go most of the way home along the interstate. the traffic report that i heard on the radio failed to mention any delays on this particular road so i was curious as to the cause of the delays. keep in mind that as a highway engineer i often find myself critical of roadways and their design, but more often i am frustrated by the level of driver performance that i observe.

so to get back to the traffic, it had been a few miles (i dont know, maybe 5 or so) and there was still no evidence of any incident that was causing the delay. i grew suspicious that the backup was caused by the sun. yes, you heard correctly. the big ball of fire far away in the sky was ruining my commute home.

the problem is that when it is setting it shines directly into drivers eyes headed west. i dont know what the best way to deal with this problem is. my top suggestions include sunglasses, eye black, hats or visors [which are most often built to cars]. but i find it a little bit funny how people react.

imagine, if you will, that you are driving. you enter intense sunlight and are temporarily blinded by the sun. fearful that you might hit something that you cant see, you slam on the brakes and come to an immediate stop. this is an interstate highway and the speed limit is 65 mph. now you expect the person behind you, who cant see anything, to see you and stop in time?

i am not proposing a better solution, just cracking up because everytime i see this phenomenon occur, i think to myself that those drivers think they are being safe by coming to an immediate stop with total disregard for the driver behind them who cant see a thing and is approaching them at full speed.

I love Pirates

For those of you who don't know, today is Talk Like A Pirate Day!

For more info about today:

Talk Like a Pirate Day
International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Fun links to help you celebrate the day:

t' talk like a gentleman o' fortune click here
english t' shipmate translator

Before and After Answers

Here are the answers, which are shown in white text:

easy (carne):
center field goal
sand box lunch
bed time line
pig tail light

medium (lancha a motor):
throwing copper head
butter fly paper
snow board walk
guitar tab key

difficult (acera):
flying elbow macaroni
crash Matt stairs
lamp post age
hand Bag(h) dad

Before and After

I sort of love thinking of before and after phrases like the ones used on Wheel of Fortune. See if you can solve these (the difficulty levels are in italics, followed by the name if it were made by starbucks.) To not ruin it for everyone, please post how many you got but not the answers. Wait until the end of the day tomorrow to start posting your answers. I think an expert B&A'er should get all of these in 5 minutes or less without using the internet...

easy (carne):
center - goal
sand - lunch
bed - line
pig - light

medium (lancha a motor):
throwing - head
butter - paper
snow - walk
guitar - key

difficult (acera):
flying - macaroni
crash - stairs
lamp - age
hand - dad

What ever happened to hard work?

I was reading this story on espn.com and was shocked at how dumb some people are. I am assuming his action was to try and win the starting job. I think he didn't realize that his victim would be watching it happen (and most likely doing what he could to stop the attack) and he would face criminal charges. People can be so stupid.

Monday Morning QB

1st-10 NYG34, 3:51 D. Rhodes rushed left for 6 yard loss
Timeout #1 by NYG at 03:45
2nd-16, NYG40 3:45 D. Rhodes rushed to the left for 3 yard gain
Timeout #2 by NYG at 03:38
3rd-13, NYG37 3:38 P. Manning passed to D. Clark down the middle for 14 yard gain
1st-10, NYG23 3:01 D. Rhodes rushed to the right for 6 yard gain
Timeout #3 by NYG at 02:43
2nd-4, NYG17 2:43 D. Rhodes rushed to the left for 2 yard gain
3rd-2, NYG15 2:00 J. Addai rushed to the right for no gain
4th-2, NYG15 1:16 A. Vinatieri kicked a 32-yard field goal
Indianapolis - 1:12 IND kicked off, C. Morton returned kickoff for 16 yards
1st-10, NYG23 1:12 E. Manning incomplete pass down the middle
2nd-10, NYG23 1:06 E. Manning passed to J. Shockey to the right for 12 yard gain
1st-10, NYG35 0:57 E. Manning passed to A. Toomer to the right for 16 yard gain
1st-10, IND49 0:30 NYG committed 5 yard penalty
1st-15, NYG46 0:17 E. Manning incomplete pass to the left

I do not know NFL rules, but when watching the game last night I was pretty sure the Giants botched it. After IND gets a first down at on the play at 3:38 they dont call their last timeout. I am ok with that. But then on first down the Colts run for 6 yards. The play starts at 3:01. I dont know how long a 6 yard run takes but i will assume it wasnt more than 6 seconds (since thats how long the first play listed above took). That means the first down play ended at 2:55 and they didnt take a timeout until 02:43. At which point the Colts run a second down play and then let the play clock take them to the 2 minute warning. If the Giants took their timeout immediately after the first down play, the Colts would have had to run a third down play before the 2 minute warning. Then they kick a FG on the first play after the 2:00 warning. Then the Giants get the ball back with something like 1:54 left, not 1:12.

I thought this was the case last night, but I wasnt sure. So i checked the play by play and I still think that I am correct. How are NFL coaches making these mistakes?

Weekend Recap

I went camping for the first time at Assateague Island with Morgan, Ashley and Kyle and had a great time. Then Morgan and I stopped in Salisbury and visited Kenny and Amanda. We got ice cream which was very good. From the picture, can you guess what my new favorite topping is?

Innocent until proven guilty?

I saw this in the Washington Post and I have not decided how I feel about it. Apparently a high school football stud named Pat Lazear is accused of robbing a smoothie store [doubt it was the one described here since there are so few but not for long] and was forced to finish his junior year of high school from home. Then the county had him transfer to another school where he is continuing to play football.

I understand why this is newsworthy, but I dont think that I have a problem with it. I assume that he is innocent of those charges until he has a trial and proven guilty. Until that happens, I dont see why he cant continue a normal life for his last year of high school. It says his trial begins Nov. 29, which I assume will be after the high school football season.

I do think its sort of cheap for his new school. The article indicates he is such an impact player that he immediately makes his new school a possible playoff contender. Obviously they welcome him with open arms and claim to have given him a new clean slate. But I wonder how this situation would be different if he didnt play football. I also dont know if it is standard to re-assign students to different high schools because of pending legal trials. The article quoted a coach from another county as saying that a player with this off the field trouble would never have this opportunity in his county.

I also think its strange that he is taking english through BYU and trying to graduate in December. It seems more and more like this half year of school is completely for the football and not the education. And the argument can be made that by playing football he can try and get a scholarship. And while that is true, I dont feel like his intention of going to college is to further his education as much as it is to play bigtime D-1 football. But then again, I cant blame the guy. I do respect those college programs that lost interest. I know if I were running a college program I would probably avoid student-athletes with off the field issues.

One other random note that I found especially entertaining is that he has to wear an ankle monitor at all times, even on the field.

I dont mind that he is being allowed to play, even if it is only to play football. What I do mind is that I get a sense of a lack of responsibility being taken. Young adults (in this case an athlete) want to take no responsibility for their actions. He mentions having a curfew and not being able to do what he wants and how it "sucks". Well that curfew was put in place because of his actions. I do not love that the thought of him being allowed to do whatever he wants because he is a star football player is being reinforced already. It happens to celebrities and other star athletes and its annoying. But now high school athletes are getting special treatment and being made to think that is how it is supposed to go. I think there becomes a point where everyone needs to take responsibility for what they did. Having said all that, this guy might be different. I hope he takes advantage of this opportunity and never looks back.

dunkin donuts review

i want to take a second to provide an evaluation of a product that has a catchy jingle. lunch is over... dinner seems so very far away [i might have gotten it wrong, it doesnt matter.] anyways, based on that song, and my love for blended fruit beverages , i strolled into DD after lunch a few weeks ago. it is less than a block away right outside my building. and i have always been satisfied with all of the other food choices i have had at DD so i figured why not. big mistake.

my favorite part of smoothies is the fruit combined with the blended ice. it can be a healthy refreshing delicious treat. i must confess that while smoothies are my favorite, i also very much enjoy Icee's and have been know to sip on other forms of slurpies aswell. so anyways, at double D they have three flavor options. i dont recall them exactly, but i think it was something like strawberry banana, berry, and mango. i might have made those up, but it doesnt matter. i order the strawberry banana (aka the jamaican jammer) and because it was 100 degrees outside and i was especially thirsty, i went nuts and ordered a large.

i didnt actually ask for a large. the lady taking my order mumbled something after i indicated my choice of flavor to which she responded with a mumble. i couldnt really tell what she was asking but i confess i did say yes and my guess was that she probably asked if i wanted a large. so i get a large. you'd of thought i was at seven11 because i got a gigaGulp. i see the lady grab the keg looking container and haul it towards the back of the store. she does that and scoops some red looking syrup stuff into my barrel. it looked like the fruit toppings you can get at TCBY [which i love]. but it is far from real fruit. it is actual fruit pieces but drenched in a really sweet thick juice. its good in a parfait, but not as the basis for a smoothie. so after the lady has placed this stuff into the cup, she moves right and places my treat under the ice cream machine. turns out its actually yogurt, but you get the point. now the fun part. she blends it. what?

she brings me my smoothie and i taste it. just as i thought, it tastes like what i imagine a gogurt or other kids flavored yogurt would taste like. its sweet, but almost burns your throat when you eat it because of that tangy fake fruit flavor. and there very little evidence of actual fruit pieces. and the top half of it is all runny and the bottom half is like a melted milkshake made with frozen yogurt and sans milk. and i have 63.5 more ounces to go. oh, and it was like $5.00.

i cant say it was the worst thing i have ever had, but given my expectations it was quite disappointing. i was so motivated i actually wrote DD an email and they told me they would send me a refund in the form of gift certificates. i was happy with this solution. i enjoy DD and will go back, i will just be sure not to get another smoothie. i guess i was wrong to assume that all smoothies have ice.

i could not think of anything to write about, then while watching teh redsox game i saw a DD ad and i thought i would write about my smoothie experience. it didnt turn out nearly as well as i had hoped. i waited almost a week to post and then wrote this. [gulp]

--------------------UPDATE-------------------------

I read today in the Washington Post that DD plans to add 325 stores in Washington and Baltimore. I think this is a good idea, as I myself am a little tired of seeing Starbucks dominate. I have seen a few Caribbou' s pop up and have heard good things. I can't provide much of a product comparison because I have only tasted coffee once. I have had chai latte's on multiple occasions but i wouldnt notice a difference from one place to the other. As a non-coffee drinker, i am excited for more DD's because I really enjoy their breakfast choices.

I am sure you have heard others echo my complaint about Starbucks. And that is the stupid names for the sizes. Grande (which means big i am pretty sure) is their code word for small. then tall is medium. I forgot what large is but its super annoying. what is the point in changing the names. multiple times i have been in there and ordered something and said small, medium, or large and i was corrected. it went something like this:

Me: can i get a medium chai latte?
Them: you mean a tall?
Me: is that medium?
Them: no its tall
Me: what does tall mean? i dont want something super tall. I dont want the smallest option and I dont want the biggest. i want the medium size.
Them: we have grande, tall and [insert frustrating name that i cant recall here].
Me: is grande the biggest or smallest?
Them: its shorter than tall and less grande than [annoying name]
Me: so grande, which means big, is the smallest?
Them: well its grande.

Why is it cool to take three sizes of the same thing and give them independant names? i thought names for sizes should reflect their relative size towards each other. i feel like maybe when starbucks made those sizes they didnt know they would own the entire country a few years later. i feel like perhaps they made the sizes to have some character. then they got popular but had to stick with it. plus anyone who likes coffee doesnt seem to mind, its like they want to be part of the cool people. then you have haters like me think its totally pointless. additionally, they are losing potential customers. not only do i think its meaningless and frustrating, it makes me not want to order beverages from them for fear of embaressment and also of having the same conversation that i described above.

I need to check out DD's drink menu one of these days to make sure they didnt fall into the coffee size lingo trap. I will be pissed if they start calling their 3 sizes gigantic, voluminous, and astronomical. Although, having consumed the worlds largest [not that] smoothie I think those names might be appropriate.

new gaming challenge

since nobody can beat my sheep record i thought i would put another challenge out there since it is Friday before a 3-day weekend. this guy at work claimed he got 22.078 seconds on this game. i played it a few times and got 14 and change but perhaps this afternoon i will try it again and beat his record.