Eh! Wot?

No time for a post this week due to my new obsession of playing Island Life on Facebook. Don’t be a hater: instead, have a new freebie image for wallpaper goodness. It’s a blue/green version of my 365 Project shot for today (seen here). I was pretty lazy tonight and didn’t make happy desktop sizes- but it should be big enough at 6MB for you to make it fit your resolutions. Enjoy!

Click here to download. You probably wanna right-click save as.

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“Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.” -Ayn Rand

photo credit: dougtone

I suspected that moving cross country would involve tons of new and exciting experiences for me, not the least of which would be able to see the sky for more than 5 minutes continuously. For those of you not familiar with Mobile, AL it rains a lot. How much do I mean by “a lot?” you ask? There’s used ark lots every few miles and the day after I flew out it began raining and did so every single day for the next 22 days. I wish I could act shocked but this is actually pretty common.

As a side result of growing up in a city that could pass for Atlantis to the ancient Greeks, I feel my driving skills (especially in this stuff called “weather”) are pretty respectable. I’m not talking stunt car driving here; I think I’m somewhere halfway between that level and the level that every male over the age of 16 thinks he is. Pretty aight in other words yeah? Despite my ninja-like reflexes and cool demeanor under pressure, it still took me about three months to learn the unwritten rules of driving in San Diego. In an effort to save visitors some time and frustration in the future I’ve compiled my wisdom here. Without further ado, the 10 Rules to Driving in San Diego

1. All Mercedes are driven by women and all BMWs are driven by men. This is an important thing to know because Mercedes will run you off the road Mad Max style, whereas BMWs will drive faster than you no matter what.

*exception: Older model Mercedes can be driven by men and older model BMWs can be driven by women. My theory is that men have to buy their wife new car and get stuck with her old Merc, or they buy themselves a new car and foist their old one off on the wife. Interestingly enough this theory has its roots in geeks and new computer systems.



Old men and luxury cars? Napping on the freeway!

2. Always follow an Audi when speeding. Every Audi owner in existence drives 10-15 mph over the speed limit and thinks he’s an Indy car superstar.
3. The closer you get to LA, the faster you will drive. LA has its own speed-gravity well that will make you drive faster. The exception to this is of course rushhour(s) which is from 4am to 3:50am every day.
4. If you see other lanes moving faster than yours DO NOT change lanes, I can’t emphasis this enough. Everyone else sees it just like you and they’re all going to jump into it making it the new slow lane. Stay where you are and your turn to be the fast lane will come. Then everyone will want in YOUR lane (just stay outta mine).
5. Wrecks will ruin your commute, period. It doesn’t matter that it’s just a fender bender in the carpool lane because all traffic will be stopped at least 5 miles before it and possibly after it. Even longer if there’s flashing lights.
6. The carpool lane. Oh, the carpool lane. Where else do we spend millions of dollars to build something that most people never get to use? Probably 5% of people use it regularly, and any time one starts, ends, or there’s a wreck, it completely @#$@# up the flow of traffic for the other 95% of us. Hoorah.
7. Weather. Hoooly crap weather. San Diegians are great with sunshine and fog and cloudiness. They are not so great with rain. In their defense it’s pretty hard to be a good driver in conditions that you see maybe twice in your life. Coupled on top of that is the fun fact that on the whole, San Diego doesn’t have storm drains. The ground doesn’t absorb it either; the roadside is so tough that rainwater runs back on the road in an effort to find somewhere soft to hide. Since it doesn’t rain that often the rainwater picks up the layer of oil and emissions on the road and the freeway is now a ghetto recreation of the Icecapades with two ton death machines with squealing tires instead of highly trained singing dancers.


Hey I know, let's reenact Footloose!

8. Every Prius you see (and there are plenty) will attempt to cut you off. No question. Just be ready for it and don’t expect the blinker.
9. Blinkers are optional, but highly advisable. If you cut someone off with your blinker on they’ll wave and smile politely like they intended for you to get over. If you don’t use a blinker and try this you get flipped the bird.
10. The best lane to pass in is the upcoming exit lane, especially if it’s an exit only lane. By far these are the least populated lanes on the freeway making them ideal for quick acceleration and maximum anger-inducing in your fellow drivers.
11. Pedestrians have the right-of-way no matter what. This was a bit of an adjustment for me personally since the Alabama law states “on a crosswalk” at the end. Not so much here- people feel perfectly safe crossing parking lots while playing hopscotch or say, trying to perform handstands, and have no fear of getting hit by a car. By comparison bicyclists do not enjoy the same immunity and are supposed to be treated like any other vehicle. It’s always fun to slam on your breaks and watch an obnoxious cyclist go flying over your trunk and hood.


Hahah..wait, that's not funny.

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commute, driving, san diego

“Success is 99 percent failure.” -Soichiro Honda quotes (Japanese Honda Motor Company Founder, b.1906)

photo credit: craigemorsels

If the average American is anything like me you can’t avoid the recent deluge of Asian influence in our culture. By recent I mean the last 5 years or so, and by Asian I mean Japanese. I figure the average American likes to generalize like I do but just incase I got real specific for you non-average haters out there.

It’s not that I dislike Japan or its culture or its people. Nothing against any of that whatsoever. It’s just that the land of Japan is so damn scary. If the Internet and popular media is to believed, Japan is full of ghosts, evil witches that enslave your parents, random rampaging monsters, and sentient tentacles that do things to you that require a doll and a psychologist to explain (no I am not linking to that).

Doesn't everyone play peekaboo with the undead?

Sure, I hear what you’re saying. That’s all make believe right? Keep in mind that even if it is, SOMEONE thought it up. Do you want to meet the people who think this stuff up?!

Aside from the frightening imagination of Japanese people, there’s the threat of the islands native flora and fauna. It’s not a wonder that the average Japanese imagination is so out there when reality is filled with things like this:

The Aokigahara Forest. Also known as the Sea of Trees, apparently it’s the world’s third most popular suicide spot and ranks #6 on Cracked.com’s Creepiest Places on Earth list. More than 500 people have died in this forest since the 1950s. Urg.

Giant Wood Spiders. I don’t like to think of myself as a pansy, but these spiders are omfgholyshit horrible. Don’t believe me? As a member of the golden orb family of spiders (due to the color of their silk) guys have the strongest spider web of any spider. How strong? Uh..it’s not uncommon for birds to be stuck in their webs. And then eaten. We have similar spiders in the US, smaller versions commonly called garden or banana spiders. What makes the Japanese ones worse? Well, besides being 6-8inches in size they’re considered lucky if seen in the daylight, so you don’t see people disturbing them even if their giant 2-4 foot webs are stretched over a sidewalk or path. I wonder how many Japanese children vanished before they learned to respect these giant killers. The spiders probably blame it on the Aokigahara Forest.

Honey have you seen the kids lately?

Last on the list is the Japanese Hornet. The wikipedia article does a fantastic job of summing up why these hornets are the devil incarnate, but in case you’re too lazy to click it let me sum it up for you:

• Masato Ono, an entomologist at Tamagawa University near Tokyo, described the sensation of being stung as feeling “like a hot nail being driven into his leg.”
• Each year in Japan, the human death toll caused by Asian giant hornet stings exceeds that of all other venomous and non-venomous wild animals combined, including wild bears and venomous snakes.
• The venom contains at least eight distinct chemicals, some of which damage tissue, some of which cause pain, and at least one which has an odor that attracts more hornets to the victim.
• An allergic human stung by the giant hornet may die from an allergic reaction to the venom, but the venom contains a neurotoxin called mandaratoxin[5] which can be lethal even to people who are not allergic if the dose is sufficient.
• Like all hornets it has a barbless stinger, allowing it to sting repeatedly.

YOU argue with him.

And if you really want to lose your shit, here’s a video of 30 Japanese hornets taking out an entire hive of honey bees to eat their babies. Yes only the babies. It’s like some twisted insect version of 300 meets “A Modest Proposal“.



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anime, death, hornets, insects, japan, manga, spiders, travel

Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. ~Yoda


photo credit: carolyntiry

A lot of people don’t like to make New Year’s resolutions for a variety of reasons. I’d like to think that I’ve heard every excuse there is at this point but people continually find new ways to surprise me. The two most common (to date) that I’ve heard are:

1. “Oh, I don’t need a reason to make goals, I have them year-round.”
2. “People never stick to resolutions anyway so why bother.”

There’s a whole slew of ways to argue these points, but for me it just isn’t worth it. While I agree with the first statement in principle, New Years and its associated traditions provide a logical, easily remembered point in time to set goals for yourself for the coming year. If you’re committed enough to not need such a landmark date that’s great, but I’ll stick with what works for me.

In years past I never bothered setting goals for myself. Sometimes (infrequently) New Years was a good time to look over what happened to me in the last year and try to figure out what went wrong. The past two years were the first times I tried setting concrete goals for myself and it worked out pretty well. I think that where this practice fails for a lot of folks is that they don’t set concrete enough goals. If you don’t know your goal, how can you judge your progress or success / failure?

Now without further pontificating- my goals for 2010.

Fitness

• I want to maintain a 30-31 inch waist.
• Make it to the gym 4 days a week at least every other week, if not every week.
• Reduce my bodyfat. My scale currently says I’m at ~8-9%, but I wonder how accurate that is. That might be true overall, but most of my bodyfat is concentrated around the ‘ole waistline. Needs to even out!
• Be able to squat 160lbs, bench press 180lbs, and do 100 pushups. Not necessarily all of these back to back

Hobbies

• Read at least 3 books a month (or 36 books for the year) with at least half being non-fiction. I’m great at tearing through fiction but I’m slow on the nonfic.
• Draw more. I haven’t actively sketched anything in years, and the LA Ink marathon I watched while fighting off the deadly ninja sinus virus ..thing rekindled the creative urge in me. I haven’t decided what I’m going to draw yet but I want to have at least four finished pieces by the end of the year.
• Photography. I definitely want to take more pictures, and I’ve started on that by joining the 365 Project. It’s not a competition- you just take a picture every day and post it. I also want to enter at least two photo contests this year.
• San Diego Exploration. At least once a month, try something new around town. This includes hiking.

Self Improvement

• Learn a foreign language. This is one of my failed goals from last year, sadly. Logically enough I’m starting with Latin American Spanish since it’s the second most popular language here. I’d also like to be able to talk to the nice smiling people who run the 24 hour burrito drive thru near my house.
• Add a new technical skill / certification. I’m leaning strongly toward PHP here due to my increasing Wordpress involvement. Currently I’m more of a talented amateur hacker at it than anything else.

So thems my goals for the year. The fitness ones should be a breeze, the hobby ones a bit harder, and I think that the self improvement ones will be the hardest of all.

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2010 goals, gaming, gym, hiking, new years, pictures, san diego