“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.

“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.

Aren't neighbors great? One of the highlights of apartment living for me is the opportunity to have so many close neighbors. Where else but an apartment complex can you pay extra for the ability to share walls with someone else? Not in them thar fancy houses, no sir! I personally think that's why most mortgages are so low; you're not getting to share walls/floors/ceilings with other people! With an apartment you're paying for the privilege of living near everyone. By that logic I wonder how much it would cost to live in a sardine can.

Of course there's a downside to this shiny happy sharing world- sometimes, very rarely, you get bad neighbors. Maybe they throw wild parties and don't invite you, or hang pictures all night. Yup, just pounding away at the walls with hammers in a rhythmic fashion. Definitely hanging pictures. Whatever the case may be everyone has had them and everyone has had to deal with them. But what happens when YOU'RE the bad neighbor? I've never thought of myself as the bad neighbor. I've definitely thrown a few shindigs in my day, listened to my fair share of gangsta rap too loud at night (west side!), and certainly I've cranked the bass for the occasional testosterone-and-explosion movie fest from time to time. Despite all of that I've never once had a complaint lodged against me in all my 10 years of apartment living until last week.

It started innocently enough. A voicemail popped up on my cell Monday morning from my apartment complex letting me know that "a neighbor" had complained about noise from my apartment over the weekend. They were very helpful, even going so far as to give me a few tips and pointers on how to move my subwoofer away from the walls so to not disturb others. "It's not the actual VOLUME you understand, just the bass every now and again. Thanks for looking into it!" I'm sure it's just a random coincidence that I had finished running the wiring for my surround sound setup the day before, and had felt the need to test it a wee bit. I shrugged it off with a laugh and a mental "oops" and went about my week. "Boy", I thought. "How lucky am I to move into an apartment complex that offers surround sound hookup advice?! Who needs GeekSquad? Not me buddy! I got Mission Ridge."

Friday night rolls around and I'm deep into my latest addiction- internet pr0n. Kidding... that's my fallback addiction. I'd been squeezing in a few hours of Dragon Age: Origins between work and gym nights, so I was looking forward to an uninterrupted romp through the game. Instead I got a visit from my upstairs neighbor at 11:30 at night. Talk about immersion breaking yeah? Nothing like opening the door to a barefoot schlub wearing pajama pants and an Affliction T-shirt to get you out of the RPG mood. Maybe he should have shown up dressed as Elrond (or his daughter, rawr!) and I'd have been more receptive. Instead the conversation went more like this:

Him: "So uh, like, hey. We can sorta hear some noise from down here? We think it's the bass from your stereo. It's definitely not the volume though, no question!. You seem like a nice guy even though I just met you and..."
Me: "Hrm, that's weird. Can you hear anything like now? I mean my door and windows are open, did you hear anything outside?"
Him: "Upstairs, yeah! But not out here. Want to come listen?"
Me: "Not really. I mean, it's 11:30 at night...."
Him: "Um... right.. I mean...
Me: "Kbye!"

Understandably I was confused; what kind of magical sound could travel through the floor, walls, ceiling, and air to reach out and disturb these poor people and yet not be audible from eight feet away. Clearly witchcraft was afoot or I was being framed. Or both... those crafty witches, always out to get us techno-savy regular folks. Obviously a case of techno-envy. If it wasn't the witches then certainly this was a fluke right? To be on the safe side I lowered the bass, treble, and overall volume on the subwoofer, but apparently that wasn't enough as someone began pounding on my ceiling at 9:30 on Sunday night. Now THAT was some magical floor transitioning noise.

By Tuesday I'd found a letter on my door. Reading between the lines (and the grammar issues) its obvious that he's been complaining to the apartment complex again. I'm going to call them in the morning to see what we can do to straighten this out. Between the letter, the neighbor harassment, and reading things like this on the web, it makes me lean pretty strongly towards finding another place when my lease is up in March.

I was reading through my new favorite site The Sneeze when I came across the following article entitled "An Open Letter to My Hair". I won't lie, Steve's letter to his hair really hit a chord with me. As you can see from the picture my hair and I haven't really been on good terms since July 15th, 2006. Much like Steve and his hair, my hair and I hadn't been on the best of speaking terms for months when I made the decision to end our relationship for good. It was tearing me apart slowly but surely as I watched my hair quit trying in our relationship.

It's been three years now that we've been separated. Every now and again I try and give our relationship another shot, but each time it seemed like my hair was trying less and less. Why was I the only one?! Didn't it care anymore? I mean sure, it might be a LITTLE miffed about my constant shaving of it. I wasn't giving it room to grow but it never listened to anything I had to say. Either way it was clear that our relationship wasn't going to move forward without some outside intervention.

The only flaw in my plan was that apparently the profession of "hair therapist" is just a fancy-schmancy way of saying someone went to beauty school for four months. It was not, in fact, a fully licensed and respected member of the psychiatric community! Pretty short-sighted if you ask me. Either way, since there wasn't professional therapy available, I figured I'd try for a little over-the-counter chemical therapy instead. There are probably more websites out there dedicated to male hair restoration than to male enhancement (not that I wanted to do a hand count), and the sheer number of fake blogs and testimonials out there is enough to mislead anyone. With no other options I went with the most popular: Rogaine.

Let me stop here and explain something to the ladies. For many men, there's a certain amount of shame involved when your hair starts to go. It's worse if it starts young; mine started around the age of 25. It's also VERY hard to pull off the receding hairline look unless you're Jason Statham or Mr. Clean. As the foremost champion of the slogan "Bald is beautiful!" it almost felt like betrayal when I ordered my four month supply of Rogaine.

Fast forward 5-7 business days for ground shipping and my Rogaine arrived. It sat on my bathroom counter for a week as I wavered back and forth. Use it, and possibly get my sexified hair back? Not use it, and stay true to my legions of "Bald is Beautiful" followers? Decisions! It didn't help that I would have to stop shaving my head for four months to test its effectiveness, and if it DID work, I couldn't quit using it: any new hair growth will fall out if you stop. You thought service plans were the best way for companies to get your money for nothing? No sir. Rogaine is probably the best scam, evar. If it works. Which it says it does on 85% of men! But if I let my hair grow, people would know that I was balding as it grew out! What good is having hair if EVERYONE saw your bald spots for the last four months?! What a crock! I should just send this back with a nasty letter regarding their slowass product.

...or buy lots of hats. "Hrmm. Yeah. Hats. That's the ticket.", I said to myself. "No one would ever think it suspicious that I was chrome-domed, then wore hats for four months, then BAM! I got better hair than Zach Braff. A foolproof plan.

So there you have it. Today was day 1 of the great Rogaine experiment. I'll try to take pictures once a week or so and update the progress. I won't say I'll keep it up forever, but I'm definitely willing to try the four month supply. You happy kids at home can follow along and see how magically Rogaine will help my hair and I become reunited.

So here's my head, pretty similar to the first shot 3 years ago huh? A little tanner sure, but no photoshop here, nosir! All natural iPhone pics only. The last time I shaved my head was yesterday, so we're looking at 24 hours worth of stubble (natural, not Rogaine). Stay tuned for updates!

PS: Was the pun in my title awesome or what? Get it? Folly? Follicles? You know what? Screw you people. That's funny.

Ants in the pants? ANTS IN THE PANTS?! YOU SONOFABITCH! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GET ME THE RED MEGAMAN YOU CHEAP PIECE OF CRAP I HATE YOU! -Cartman (Damien, 1998)

My very first exposure to SouthPark so many years ago was this episode; Damien the son of Satan comes to earth to herald he arrival of Satan. It also happens to be Cartman's birthday. This episode and "Pinkeye" were on a VHS tape that was a birthday present from my sister Theresa. I think this particular tape was given to me sometime in 2000... yeah, I got on the SouthPark bandwagon kinda late.

Let me start by saying I'm not normally a light sleeper. Certain things (my cat, gym trips, hurricanes) have changed that for the worse. You would think I should sleep better with a cat constantly walking on me but somehow, that's just not the case. Last night I had another issue: ants. That's them in the picture up there.

You know that state of sleep, right as your about to fall asleep? Where you always think you're about to roll off the bed and you jerk, waking yourself up? Yeah, that one. I couldn't manage to get past that because every time I'd doze off, I'd feel like something was ever so slightly brushing against me. My arms. My head. My leg. I'd swipe at it and doze back off, only to have it happen again. I finally stumbled out of bed at 3am and turned on the light. Sure enough I hadn't been dreaming something was definitely touching me. Ants were crawling all over my comforter and me and I had been swatting them in my sleep. I can't begin to describe the level of "freak the fuck out" that hit my sleep addled brain at 3am in the morning.

Now I don't have anything against insects in general, but anything that bites pretty much gets nuclear winter declared inside my house. I got pushed into a fire ant bed as a kid and had too many "lawn mower meets ant hill" incidents while growing up to be nice to ants. Luckily California ants don't seem to bite much, and are generally just looking for water. Call me an ant racist, but I smashed all the ones I could see (black ants on a dark wood bed half asleep at 3am!), threw my comforter in the corner, and dragged my mattress, pillow, and a blanket off to sleep on the floor. I've only been here 10 days and had my own bed for the last 4 days and now somehow I'm back to sleeping on the floor. I was just drifting back off to sleep (Wifecat curled up at my side of course) when I heard the little voice in the back of my mind say the Cartman quote. I managed to scare the cat into finding somewhere else to sleep by laughing my ass off.

I'm coming back from work with Raid though. No mercy!

I'd give up on all this church business. I mean lets face it, it's more of a racket than the mafia, and I don't think that the message is getting out in an unadulterated form. When you rely on people to get your message out, it's going to come out wrong. We're flawed. Accept it.

Instead, I think God should consider Chinese fortune cookies. Think about it. Everyone eats Chinese food; everyone opens and reads the fortune. Right there, 100% market saturation. You can't beat that with any modern advertising campaign. What's the first thing you do upon reading the fortune? You either:

1. You add "in bed" to the end. Can't do that with most Proverbs, no sir. Fortunes > Psalms too. "The Lord is my shephard, I shall not want .... in bed. Well, maybe that trick works with the Bible too.
2. You try to mangle the fortune to be about you, so that you can show it off to all your friends how uncannily accurate it is.

Huh. Maybe God already tried the fortune cookie thing after all, and someone just compiled them all into the Bible. That would explain a lot.

But where did all the lucky numbers go?