strong as a can

a shout out to my sweetheart ninja. welcome back to the realm of blogs. just click the copper boom link to the left and let your amusement begin.

this is what parents should be telling their kids about christmas: a true story of santa claus and further proof vikings kick arse. any story that involves thor and beer-making deserves a lot of attention.

my snowboard finally came in. it's soooo rad. yes i said rad. im trying to bring this word back. just like 'dame' and 'broad.'

with all the practice lately, i've become very proficient at counting cards. yet i still place the over/under for money lost in reno at $400. if you wanna see how good you are at counting, try here. when i practice i use anywhere from 5-7 hands cuz it's more realistic, but at least this one is automated.

i found the following, which is clearly referring to the lemmer (aka ahren aka ALW aka the oogler), on a strong bad email (click on the red type):

Lem has come roaring back like some type of book writing lion. The cover, the title, the fonts, the spacing, the margins, all of it: GOLD! Of particular import are his Chapter Headings including such tear jerkers as: 'My favorite pen quit working just now' and the politically charged 'I had to pay taxes AGAIN this year!' Lem has clearly entered a new stage in his career. Here's hoping it's the bonus stage.

it appears even sb himself knows about ahren's limitless potential and hatred of the t word.

i am unbelievably ready for the weekend. it's snowing and we're going boarding tomorrow. i think we are gonna do x-mas on sunday morning cuz we're flying thursday morning at like 6am. so pretty much i can't wait to leave work.

anyway, andom-ra:
-i am addicted to crosswords. i can never do enough of them. check out USA today, life section (online if don't wanna pay fiddy cent) if yur into that sorta thing.

-steve miller band's greatest hits was the cd i listened to most this week at work. feel good music. tho i think nowadays if someone "bought you a crate of papaya and waited all nite by your door," that someone would get a restraining order.

-further proof that snowboarders are awesome: a guy at the local shop told me he liked my kicks.

-when i think creepy, i think donnie stabbing the bunny-man's eyes out in donnie darko.

-for all those kate 8 fans out there, ten bucks she is sittin front row opening nite for "mona lisa smile." tho i don't know if kevin will allow himself to go with her.

newsflash. nina and i are not "cool." why? cuz we don't have one of those REI waterbottles that seem to be required by the in crowd. i see them everywhere. work, the gym, the mall. i think the fact that instead we use tuperware or a used gatorade bottle makes us cooler than cool, or as andre 3000 so eloquently puts it, "ice cold." allright, allright, allright, allright, allright, allright, allright, allright, allright, allright.

keeping with the outkast theme, a while back i mentioned the horrible selection for casino dealer attire. well i think i found a solution. if dealers were dressed like this or even like this, there's no question i would stay at the tables longer.

lastly, and contrary to popular belief, the term "stakonia" was invented to describe coffee breath. i just got a whiff of some guy's stakonia in the break room. then i threw up in my mouth.

i just came out of a meeting where someone said, "...yes it's like the old saying, 'a door is a door is a door. what falls out when you open it?'"

ummm, little help here. what the hell does that mean? and why would this saying EVER be passed on?

remember when kids used to play spin the bottle? the world's a-changin...

i like when they refer to the 17-year old "consultant for Teenage Research Unlimited." ahren, when did your company go public?

very busy at work last week. im sure my regular reader was irate about the lack of random ramblings. to atone for this egregious mistake, whenever i figure out how, i'll be posting my new comic strip to make up for it.

i heard a funny story at work the other day. apparently this guy here called in sick a while back and was really flustered when he left a message on his boss' machine. the boss says there was a lot of commotion in the background, and the guy was answering his wife intermittantly (who was talking to him at the same time) while leaving a voicemail. in the end he was like "...and so i can't come in today, and so i'll see you tomorrow. love you. bye......wait did i just....i mean....i wasn't talkin...to you....oh god." click.

naturally the boss played the message over and over again that day for everyone to hear. good times.

i really really like christmas carols. they always put me in a good mood and bring back fond childhood memories. but if anyone ever sent me 12 lords-a-leaping i would be severely disturbed.

things you don't expect to see headlined on CNN: How Monty Pyhton Changed the World.

and yesterday i saw something on CNN Money about the simpsons being sued. basically sega is suing "the simpsons" because sega made a driving game ("crazy taxi") and they think "simpsons road rage" is too similar. yes it has cars and you drive around in them. apparently sega thinks they were the first to develop this unique concept.

has there ever been a movie based on a book that was better than the book?

we saw timeline last weekend and i don't think it could've been much worse. we read the book, which i thought was pretty good (by crichton, had some quantum physics, castles and greek fire). but the flik? ugh. besides the fact that they cut out 90% of the book and changed the plot, the acting was terrible. paul walker, from such critically acclaimed films as "the fast and the furious" and its sequel, may be the worst actor to ever hit hollywood. this guy makes arnold look like, um, [insert name of really good actor here].

we also saw honey on its opening nite. you probably have no idea what honey even is. that's okay. it actually wasn't that bad, but being surrounded by 300 7th-9th grade girls was just mortifying. with that said, im sure lemmer will be in line to see it friday.

well it's friday. it's only 1pm and i need a bud can. fo' real. anyway, randomness:

-i've been listening to an oasis cd at work this week. i really like it. i feel like yur all laughing at me now.

-from a purely mathematical standpoint, craps is the best bet at a casino. bet the pass line every time and you have a 49.4% chance of winning. yes i had to figure it out for a math class last year.

-for something with such a fun sounding name, taffy sucks. its so fuckin sticky and usually comes in gross flavors like banana. bleh.

-i like the random facts on the bottom of nantucket nectars caps. ya know, like, "sam hough led the alehouse softball team to it's first league champtionship in 2002." they're much better than "drink coke. play again." nor do they promise a ping pong table.

-my sister may finally be roped into the blogging world. she read ahren's superhuman driving one and was very pleased. im looking forward to seeing at least some comments coming from the jackson hole, wyoming public library. i also told her i'd point out some really funny blogs, so if anyone has a favorite piece write the blog and date in the comments so krissi can check it out.

so last weekend was very hectic. we wound up at 5 different airports - dayton, detroit, reagan, cincinnatti, islip - in a span of 6 days. with that many flights, odds are against them all working out well. with that in mind, cincinnatti bit us in the ass. we were bumped from a flight, and had to wait 6 hours. now that's a long time - unless the argosy riverboat casino is near by.

so we hit the blackjack tables, a perfect warm up for tahoe. ever since reading bringing down the house, i have been perfecting my skills as a card counter. not that we plan on "bringing down the house" from the $10 min tables...

nina played while i sat behind her and counted. we had a very intricate method of conveying the count. "honey, bet more now" meant "deck good." "i think you should stop playing for a while" meant "deck bad." a very subtle code indeed. we played for two shoes and lost $100. when the deck was bad we had horrible cards. when the deck was good we had horrible cards. i don't think we were dealt anything over a 17 for 45 minutes. apparently im very good at my new skill.

since we always sit at the poor bastard table, we were playing with some real geniuses. of course, they were winning a lot. at one point this small asian lady to nina's left gets dealt 2 3's. dealer is showing a 7. she splits (as dealer says, "maam i'm showing a 7" aka "what the fuck are you doing?" and she proceeds anyway), gets dealt another 3 and splits them too. i almost lost my cookies. to top it off, the guy to her left is like "good play." maybe they had a code going where "good play" means "you magnificent bastard." whatever.

on a side note, who picks out the dealer outfits at casinos? the guy we had was donning a metallic purple shirt with these crazy stripes and a hideous collar. it gave me a headache everytime i looked at it.