This is the fifth straight day of RAIN WEATHER 2005!!!

Normally I don't mind the rain that much, but with the amount that's
been pouring on the streets, things are getting quite dangerous. 
In fact, I was driving on the freeway following about eight cars length
behind a pick up truck.  All of a sudden, he starts fish tailing
and is trying to get his truck straight.  I started breaking and
slowing down, anticipating some quick thinking on my behalf if he all
of a sudden loses control and gets into an accident with me right
behind it. Thankfully he straightened out and must have been scared to
death because he dropped his speed by 30 mph!  I passed him over.

Just going to work alone, I saw cars at the side of the freeway. 
Some are turned the opposite direction, some just pulled over with
hazard lights on, while some appeared to have been in an
accident.  Man, talk about not wanting to be driving in this
weather as it is.

Well according to the weather forecast, the rain should clear up by
Wednesday, so here's hoping that happens because I'm honestly done with
it.

On that note, my heart goes out to the tsunami victims.

Original Of The Randoms

it's the identify without people game (link)

whale jumps on top of kayaker (video)

Garfield dropped from L.A. Times?! (link)

gnod will recommend you what music you like (link)

classic frogger (flash game)

Britney Spears to be Forensic Scientist (link)

a visual look at where your tax dollars go (pic)

RC plane ballet (video)

blood alcohol level astounds doctors (link)

building your very own mech (link)

drummer prodigy (video)

anti-bullying wristband scheme backfires (link)

beer tragedy (pic)

napoleon dynamite does david letterman's top 10 (video)

aaarrgghhh oorrggghhh uuugghhhh
man, I just gave myself an 11 hour sleep day!  The past week I've
had only 4 - 5 hours of sleep, so I guess this is my revenge!
bwahahahaha, and what's funny is that I still have a minimum of five
hours until I have to go to work.  If I had a lead shift today,
I'll be ready to rush to get ready for work, but I've got none of that
now.  Well, unless they cancel the graveyard shift, oh I wish they
don't cancel the graveyard shift, puuhhhlleeezzzzeeee!!!!
Okay, time to get out of my room and live life.

Well, I finally did it.  After a couple of months
thinking about it, I went ahead and informed my supervisors that I want
to drop my lead status at work.  Part of me kinda wishes I didn't
do that, as I believe that I've been quite helpful to the team. 
The other part of me though is relieved that I don't have to worry
about the extra responsibilities that comes with being a lead.  I
still plan to be the super employee that I was, before I turned into a
lead, so I won't change much in my job.  If anything else, my
being an employee that has experience as a lead, I'll be able to help
the current lead even more than a regular employee would.  That in
itself would help the operation as well.

As for the reason I dropped by lead status... well, it's got nothing to
do with management, if that's what you are thinking.  My managers
have honestly been pretty good to me and has taken care of my
needs.  It's got nothing to do with the work either, because I
never have a problem taking charge of being a lead. Even with all the
budget cuts, and labor downsizing that I've griped about, I still took
care of business without too much hassle, so it's not that.  The reason has mostly to do with scheduling preference,
and my not being a lead assures me that my seniority as a regular
employee will guarantee that I get the shifts I want.  Sure I got
a little bit of a paycut, but the key word there is "little."  The
pay cut isn't that huge a difference compared to a regular employee, so
I honestly can live with it.

I'm good to learn that I was given an invitation to return to being
a lead in the future if I so wish it.  But for the foreseable
future, I don't think that'll be happening.  I'm happy with my
decision, and I think I really will be sticking to it.

Random Step Closer

Albert Einstein Action figure (link)

the homosexual handshake (link)

sticky note taping - wait, is that....? (link)

wushu staff fighting (video)

subservient stickman (link)

cardstacker (pics)

cigarette TV commercials before they were banned (link)

guy or gay pillowfight? (video)

life as a TechTV/G4 employee (link)

The 100 Oldest currently-registered .com domains (link)

My 1966 Batcycle (link)

chuck (flash game)

Ashlee Simpson booed at the Orange Bowl (video)

the greatest story ever told (link)

Man you'd think it was the end of the world or something... let's see...
Hard rain? check.
Lots of snow? check.
Typhoons? check.
Earthquakes? check.
Tsunami? check.
Bush in office? check. (I keed I keed)

It's a tragedy that's been going on in Asia right now really. 
Thousands of people dead or lost.  Children that have lost their
parents.  Plus some of those children that are now getting
abducted! It's just total devestation and at times it makes me wonder
if God is simply really angry with the world.  These are the times
we live in, I hope we have a future.

So a little update about the dog we found.  Apparently, the owner
of the dog IS looking for him!  My girlfriend saw a flier by the
mail box, with the description of the dog, a phone number, and the
doggie's name ("Buddy").  My girl called up the number but no one
was home, so she left a message saying that Buddy is now in an Animal
Shelter. They haven't called her back yet.  My girl also told me
that apparently, when you lose your pet and it ends up in the shelter,
there is an actual fine that you have to pay.  Well, maybe next
time the owners would make sure that Buddy has a collar if he is just
going to wander off, or at least get him a chip.

My girlfriend was walking our pet doggie, and she noticed that there
was a stray dog (or a runaway) following them.  It was a large
brown dog that looked like a golden retriever.  He seemed friendly
enough, so my girlfriend let him sniff our dog and such, but our doggie
seemed annoyed (she always acts too proud to be sniffed). 
Anyways, my girl noticed that the dog kept following them, all the way
home.  Being that my girl loves dogs, she felt sorry for the poor
thing and brought out a bowl of water through the side gate.  But
when she did that, the dog quickly dashed into her backyard. 
Since her mom would not allow her to keep more than one dog at her
home, there was no way she would be able to keep him.  Which is
unfortunate since the dog is soo cute and well behaved.  The dog
seemed domesticated because he follows the commands of sit and shake
rather well.  He is a really well behaved cute dog, and we soooo
wanted to just keep him.  I also believe that our own dog was
feeling jealous, which was kinda cute to watch as well.

My girlfriend calls Animal control and tells them that she has a stray
dog that they'll need to pick up.  They said they would pick him
up in a couple of hours, but they never showed.  It turned out
that since we live in the far west corner of our county, we can't
request another county's animal control for help, and had to call our
own.  So we did that, but they told us that they won't be able to
go by until the next day.  I told my girlfriend that we should
take him there ourselves.

So we took him there, and sure enough it starts to rain, so we're happy
we got him indoors. We also found out that he didn't have a chip
inside, so who knows who the owner is.  I suppose it's for the
best as well, because there's a patch around his neck that looked like
they tied his collar around him too tight.  Maybe he was abused,
so it may be for the best that he gets a new owner (I wish it was us
though).  So we said our goodbyes and went on our way thinking if
there was some way we could have kept him.  We are planning to
follow up on what happens to him for the next week or two, and will
also take a look at the website to see if he gets put up for adoption
or is sectioned off in the lost and found category. We pray he will be
alright.

http://animalcontrol.co.la.ca.us/html/Main1.htm (Baldwin Park shelter)

Crumbs From Your Random

Make Firefox Faster (link)

when rock stars were kids (pics)

toboggan jump (flash game)

the Tampon dolls (link)

elephant playing soccer (video)

flame warriors (link)

cheerleader toss (video + game)

Iron Chef - the game (flash game)

TV cream's top 100 toys (link)

the nintendo tatoo (link)

woman stiffs family after winning lottery (link)

the Elvis water cup (link)

worst Christmas gift ever (link)

supermodels like meat? (video)

So, I had a nice New Year's eve and day.  I went to my brother's
place for New Year's eve and I stayed mostly local for New Year's
Day.  This is the first time I got to spend quality time with my
family for the Holiday, because after six years, I was actually given
them off.  Thank you scheduling!

For the lottery, I was able to get the Mega number and one additional
number.  But when I turned it in to the register to redeem my
winnings, I was supposedly only entitled $1.  At first I was
confused, because I thought for sure that the mega plus another match
earns you $2.  Admitedly, I didn't know the actual numbers because
it was my girlfriend that just informed me about it, but she too got
confused and questioned her memory.  Later on we found out that we
should have gotten that $2 afterall.  Oh well, it's too late
now.  Oddly enough though, we played one of those scratcher
lotteries, and we won $4.  So I guess that somewhat balances
things out.

I bought a new Tennis racket and tried it out in the evening with my
aunt and cousin.  I've got to say, for whatever reason, I was
playing better than I normally do.  I didn't think a certain kind
of racket should matter, but there you go.

I also recently finished Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time, and boy
was it a great game that deserves all the praise that it got. 
Since I already owned PoP : Warrior Within, I went ahead and continued
on to play that.  Man, I've got to say that I'm disappointed so
far.  There's too much fighting now (the new fight mechanics are
pretty cool though), there's less puzzles so far compared to the first
one, and there's just such an over emphasis on the fact that this game
is rated M for mature, compared to the rated T for teens that the first
one had.  I still want to play it though, because I want to know
what happens to the Prince, but I'm not as compelled to be addicted to
it like I was to the first one.

Karaoke!  Me and my cousin ended up singing Karaoke all night long, and boy are our throats tired.  But it was fun.