I was about one mile away from arriving at work, and 20 minutes from my
start time, when I realized that my bag that contained my uniform was
left at my girlfriend's house.  At that point, I knew for a fact
that I was NOT going to drive back, because that would just take too
long for me to get back. 

So basically, this is what I normally need....
1) employee I.D. card
2) employee nametag
3) uniform : Shirt
4) uniform : pants
5) black colored belt
6) white under shirt

Out of all that, I only had my employee I.D. card and ... that's
it! 

Now, there is some hope to my situation. I am able to get
clean loaner uniforms, and I can purchase a new nametag.  The
problem though is time.  I won't be able to go to the two areas to
get the things I need, get dressed, and make it on time.  It's
just not going to happen. 

But I didn't need to do all that afterall, because in my locker was
already a newly put uniform!  I put that on and just didn't bother
with a white under shirt (I figured it wouldn't be too
noticeable).  But I needed a black colored belt too, which luckily
my own personal belt is that color I need.  So all that was really
left is a nametag, which I was able to borrow from a co-worker. 
That night, I went by the name "Ron." I got all I needed, and I got to
my location with two minutes to spare.

*phew* talk about being lucky.

The Randomnator

the new $200 bill by Bush? (article)

defend yourself old school style (article)

the 12 engrish commandments (picture)

I hate tailgaters (picture)

ohmigod, a Star Wars wedding (pictures)

wait...star wars themed bachelor parties too? (pictures)

the Toyota Corolla lives! (message post)

having fun with Howard Johnson's sign (message post)

now that's a MAN's hamburger (message post)

what is 1 + 5? (mind game)

...he fights for Nintendo (video)

I don't need subtitles! (video)

ahh, the difference 2 1/2 hours makes to a day.  Starting this
week, my work schedule will be fluctuating a bit, and probably more so
in the weeks to come.  Instead of my usual start time at 7pm, I
started at 9:30pm.  For some of you, that's probably not a good
thing, but for me it's perfect!  I've had that start time a year
or so ago, and I did miss it.  The reason why I feel this way is
because it gives me so much more time to do in the day.  In fact,
it makes the day feel like it's two days in one.  I wake up at
12:30pm, leave for work at 8:30pm, then I'm back home by 6:15am. The
best part about having 8 hours to myself before I have to go to work is
that I get to spend more time doing my hobbies / chores, play with my
dog, but more importantly I actually get a chance to see my girlfriend
before work, and even have dinner with her.
yup, I missed this kinda work day.

Well it's officially the first day that my brother moved out to his new
home.  He now lives about 40 miles (or more) away from me and my
parents.  It's actually getting to be kinda sad.  With my
oldest brother and my older brother gone, it's just myself that hasn't
moved out yet.  I'm honestly not in a hurry to move out, although
I wouldn't mind to. 

My parents on the other hand has never given an opinion on what it will
be like for them to just have the house to themselves (once I move
out).  Because of work and my life with my girlfriend, I'm not
really at home that often as it is, and makes me wonder how my parents
feel about the whole thing.  I'm pretty sure that they are okay
about us all moving out, but I'm also sure that they are a little sad as
well.  When I do move out (whenever that is), I'll be sure to try
and visit them at least once a week at the minimum. 

To my brother that just moved out, Good luck and take care!

Muggy and hot, muggy and hot, that's what work was all about.  I
swear, with the weather the way it was, I really wasn't in the mood to
be at work. I was ready to just pass out and go to sleep, and I worked
from 7PM - 2:30AM!  I can't imagine how it was in the morning /
afternoon. So basically, I wasn't in the happy happy joy joy mood at
work, but I did my job and nothing was compromised.... much.  The
budget cuts at work are really starting to affect my operation. 
The less people means, the less help to our "guests."  There was
even one complaint that was directly the result of the fact that we
didn't have enough staffing.  *sigh* well what can we do ey?

Since my girls up north, it's now up to me to spend even more time with
our dog than usual.  Normally I usually only spend a couple of
hours the most with her, but today was different.

At first I was just hanging out with her for almost two hours, reading
some magazines, while she just roams around in the yard and
garage.  I left her for about two hours and then came back to give
her a walk for an hour.

After that walk, I let her loose in the yard. All of a sudden she
starts barking like crazy and runs towards the fence in the back that
separates the yard from the hill.  I thought she was just barking
at bunnies, but all of a sudden this big Coyote head pops up in front
of her!  I ran towards them yelling at my dog to step back. 
The coyote sees me and makes a run for it too. Everything was okay, but
damn, that wasn't something I expected to see.

So I left her yet again.  Went to go eat at an Indonesian
restaurant with Peter.  Went to the mall to "maybe" catch a
movie.  We didn't.  Tried the "buy three manga / graphic
novels and get one free: deal at borders, but I couldn't find a fourth
one that I wanted so that fell through for me.  Went home, watched
TV, played a little bit of video games, and then I went back to see my
dog.

It was about 12:30am at night already, but my girl wants me to make
sure our dog goes pee at around 4am.  The reason for that is
normally she gets to do that around 7:30am when my girl let's her
out.  But since she's not here, my dog's going to have to hold it
in longer, unless I let her go pee sooner. 

So for about four hours, I had to keep myself occupied while I
accompany her.  I did bring my laptop, so I ended up watching "The
girl next door" which I enjoyed.  I saw the movie and all the special features,
and by the end of that, it was already a little past 3am.  I think
my dog was a little confused, because normally at that time, the garage
lights would be closed and she should be asleep....but she's not
because I'm there.  Actually she did try to go to sleep, but I
would occasionally make some noise that would wake her up.  In
fact, one time I made some noise, and her first reaction when waking up
was to bark like crazy.  I think her eyes were still closed when
she did that too. 

By 4am, I got her out to pee, then I went home.  That's it.

Labor day weekend and my girl's going to be up in San Francisco. 
So I finally got some free time with my friends, but it looks like they
might be busy...maybe...don't know yet.  I still have to work
Sunday & Monday, so it's not really much of a Holiday weekend for
me.  Anyways...

I went to visit my dog at my girl's, and it turns out that her car was
a little too close to the garage door.  So when I opened it and
heard a crunching sound, I knew that the door wasn't going back
down.  Luckily, only her front license plate got scratched a bit,
and nothing much else.  But I still can't put the garage door
down.  Me not wanting access inside her house when noone is there,
I had to literally sit outside by the garage door to guard it, while I
wait for my girl to return from work.  I waited a little over an
hour, but hey, at least I had the company of my dog.  Which is
another thing too, since I originally wanted to take my dog for a walk,
but then I can't very well leave the garage unguarded.  Since the
garage door is open, my dog automatically thinks that she is going for
a walk, so she would give me this "so, are we going yet" look
throughout the hour waiting. That was humorous and sad at the same
time.  Me and my girl took her for a nice walk later on.

I went to Denny's with my girl, her co-worker, and cousins.  The
booth right across from us had a family that had female twins.  I
don't normally see twins, so I was like "woah, it's twins."  I
whispered this to my girl, and she says that they're not, they just
look somewhat similar.  I rolled my eyes, and tried to convince
her that they are indeed twins.  We got a third opinion from her
cousin and he also says they are twins.....because they ARE.  They
were actually quite pretty, their glasses were even the same design, they
had the same nice build, and their hair were long but flows slightly
different between the two.  They were Pinays too in fact, and they
were like the Philippines' answer to Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen, but
prettier.  They were prettier, I would definitely choose them over
the Olsens.  I also found them to be quite distracting and
couldn't help but stare at them very often, comparing their looks to
each other, which is stupid since they are identical twins (plus they
be pretty, so that kinda gets me to stare).  I think they even
noticed me staring at them, which is a little embarassing of me to do (but I guess I'm a freak 
).  Twins are either used to
people staring at them, or they just get really annoyed. 
Fortunately, nothing violent came out of it.  My girlfriend even
suggested we try and take a picture of them with a digital camera, but
I said that'll be a rude thing to do, so I nonchalantly decided to take
pictures of us instead..... well.... I tried to get a shot of them in
the background of our shot of ourselves, but that didn't work out as
planned.

Well I finally did it, I traded off several of my xbox games for some
pre-orders that I wanted (Fable, X-Men Legends, DOA Ultimate).  I
pretty much traded off used / budget titles that I originally bought
for cheap ($15 - $30), that I don't intend on playing much again. 
They are Crimson Skies, Hunter The Reckoning Redeemer (the first one is
better anyways), Indiana Jones, and Burnout2 (part 3 comes out on
Tuesday).  All four of those gave me $39 of credit.  I
originally paid about $90 - $100 for those four combined, so I lost a
little over half.  Oh well, don't care.

The biggest trade I made though is my copy of Steel Batallion. 
That's the game where you have a whole huge 40+ button controller, that
comes complete with foot pedals as well.  I bought it used a year
and a half ago for $170, and I surprisingly got $120 for it. 
That's not bad at all, as I expected to get less than that.  As
much as a collector's item it is, I had to trade it because I can't
even pass that one mission, and it's more or less taking up space in my
room.  I mean, just look at this thing...

This pic doesn't show the foot pedals though.

What was pretty cool was that even though my three preorder games rang
up to $164 (with tax), and my trades gave me credit of $159, I didn't
have to pay that $5 difference.  Didn't ask why that is, all I was
told that I "used up the whole credit" and "you're all done."  Oh
well, my gain.

p.s. on a side note, while I'm on the subject about gaming, I found this article about Halo 2 humorous

randomized!

Make your own Paperformers (link)

yo gurl, whussup? (animated gif)

the fall season schedule (link)

get the arrow to the star (flash game)

Real time statistics (link)

Friends tease because they like you (video)

toogle - ascii image search engine (link)

What did happen at the Pentagon on 9/11? (flash)

Batman strikes again! (link)

pixel field (flash game)

what happens if....? (link)

It's that time for Britney Spears (picture)

So MTV's Video Music Awards
took place just this past Sunday.  I did not see it live, but I
did record it on tape and have just recently finished watching the whole
thing.  For the most part, my reaction is ...eehhh....

The first thing that's really apparent is that there is no host this
year. For the most part it worked, because the host usually just gets
tossed to the side anyways.  There was also a huge push for people
to be aware that they should vote at this coming U.S. Presidential
election.  "Vote or Die!" was more or less the motto of the
show.  oh yeah, it's in Florida instead of New York this year too.

These are my other reactions to the show...

"wow, a huge rap and hip hop atmosphere"

"nooo Doug Robb of Hoobastank can't even sing "The Reason" properly! and that's their song."

"I like that they are pushing people to vote, but the majority of MTV viewer's
can't. Did they even have to whore out the Kerry daughters and the Bush
daughters for the show though?"

"cool, they have The Darkness nominated for something. But who are we kidding, U.S. MTV kids aren't going to vote for them."

"aahh, it's Mandy Moore, looking as beautiful as
ever...but...but...she's been paired up with Marilyn Manson? and he's
joking about "riding in on Mandy" and having kids with her? aarrgghh,
my head's going to explode!"

"no Bruce Willis, do NOT "lean back." no no no, I told you not to! It's
those damn Terror Squad's fault. Stupid stupid dance move."

"so that's Kanye West ey?  oh look, he brought out Chaka Khan.  Do kids today even know who she is?"

"cool, Alicia Keys has Stevie Wonder perform with her.  Just like
Chaka Khan, it's too bad the kiddies probably don't even know who he
is."

"That duet with Christina Aguilera and Nelly was pretty damn
cool.  oohh, I just love the way Christina does her sexy strut of
a walk."

"The Polyphonic Spree just looks so out of place at the VMA"

"Paris Hilton, why do you look pretty to me?"

"oh yeah, bring in the gold medal winning girls of the Olympics. 
Swimming, Volley Ball, and Gymnastics....wait, didn't they JUST finish
the Olympic ceremonies?  What are they doing in Florida
already?  haha, Carly Patterson is just as short as that teen
chick JoJo (who was presenting them)."

"Linkin Park win's the viewer's choice awards?  Cool, they're
definitely going to have staying power until the future. But is it just
me or are a couple of them looking a little bit on the chubby side?"

"The final performance by Outkast was most excellent. Speaking about
Outkast, "Hey Ya!" winning best MTV after it's been released for about
a year now, is pretty cool in itself."