I was listening to a local radio station yesterday on my hour-and-forty-five-minute commute (to go 14 miles) and they have this feature called “Random Thursday” where they play different callers asking questions they don’t know the answer to or weird thoughts they’re having. I think today is “Random Friday” on the blog because there are a lot of disconnected thoughts I have that I haven’t gotten out here yet.

This is why I can’t work at home too well: My cat thinks she’s a parrot.

I forgot to mention it, but this past weekend (I think it was this past weekend) Jenn and I were going into the Winter Hawks game when, passing through the turnstyle, Jenn nailed herself in the nuts. Not that she has nuts, but if she did, she’d have hit them. I had to laugh, but I’m sure it hurt pretty bad. Took a couple of days to get over.

Earlier this week the Christmas gifts my boss ordered for us from the UK arrived.

He ordered a bunch of mugs, so the company just grabbed each mug in its own styrofoam packaging block and taped all the blocks together. No box, just tape. Spare no expense on the packaging, right? Amazing what the post office allows through. (We ended up playing a sort of white elephant game with the mugs, where the first person picks up a mug, then the second person either gets a mug or steals the one from the first person, and so on. It was a lot of fun. I ended up with a mug that says, “Please do not use the Internet. It affects my MP3 downloading.”

Last night Jenn, my dad, and I went to Mickey Finn’s to participate in Mr. Bill’s Traveling Trivia Show. My friend Susan works at the show sometimes (tallying up scores and whatnot) and has been badgering me to go, so we did.

The show is sort of like a group game of Trivial Pursuit. You form teams, pick a name (we were the S.W.A.T. Team), and answer three questions at a time. After something like 18 questions, you get some raffle tickets (based on how many your team got right) that could win you free t-shirts, gift certificates, etc.

Our team kicked ass. I mean, we were always right up in the top few teams. We each had our specialties - I know movies and music, Jenn knows TV, and my dad knows history and geography. Well, sort of. See, Dad flubbed the only WWII question we had, so I don’t know that we can really count on him to come through. Where did I go wrong with that guy? Heh.

About halfway through, Susan’s friend Sharon joined our team. Sharon’s cool and has this job where she gets to travel to all these cool and exotic places on the company dime. I think that would be pretty cool… for a while. Not sure I could get used to the whole jet lag thing, or losing so much time on an airplane (date lines and all). She had some interesting stories, though, and came through in the pinch with some correct question answers (*cough*Dad*cough*).

That said, as many questions as we answered correctly, not a single one of our raffle tickets was drawn. I seriously think every single team except ours won something. At first I blamed it on the fact that I was the one going up to get our raffle tickets, but then I sent Jenn up to get a set and we still didn’t win. Now I’m convinced that there’s some sort of CSI-esque spray that they’d coat the tickets in so our tickets would glow and they’d know which tickets not to draw.

Slept like crap last night. I think it was the mega-onion-burger and onion rings I had for dinner, followed by the mountain of bread pudding with rum sauce for dessert. I was too hot in the blankets, too cold out of them. Heartburn all night. Woke up twice to pee. I have no idea what was going on.

I woke up this morning and my right eye is half swollen shut and hurts like hell. I don’t know what’s up with that, either. One of the guys in the office suggested that I may have slept on it wrong. How do you sleep wrong on your eye?

I noticed in the shower this morning that we desperately need some Drano. By the end of the shower I was ankle deep in soapy disgusting drainwater. Then it occurred to me that I’ve been noticing this same thing for like a week now and just never remember long enough to write down the word “Drano” on the shopping list. I’m really hoping I remember to get some between now and tomorrow morning. Every morning it happens, and every morning I’m disgusted anew. Sort of like living in an unhygienic version of Groundhog Day.

Watching the news this morning and noticed that this reporter on there always does stories where, rather than acutally have any interesting video footage, he’ll actually aim the camera at his computer while he surfs sites about his story or reads email from viewers. Story about the airport? Cool! Stand outside the airport with the news van and point the camera at the airport’s web site. Information about a new health care bill? Great! Aim the camera at the email feedback inbox and read viewer thoughts. Where did this guy learn journalism?

I’m not sure why I think this, but for some reason I feel like I need some Snoop Dogg albums.

My dad’s stoked for the Survivor All-Star show coming up. I’m interested, too, but I’m not sure as much as he is. Dad still wants to try out for Survivor. Heh.

Okay, last thing: I had this weird dream last night that I went to the Estacada Timber Bowl and, rather than being a park, it was more of a natural history exhibit. They had this life-size reproduction of a scene in a cave (and the cave was the size of an airplane hangar) where prehistoric man had greeted visitors from Mars around a huge bonfire. I don’t remember too much, but I do remember the audio-animatronics being used were of excellent quality. After looking at that for a while, I went through the cave and at the other end was a giant plantation-style house where they were having an estate sale. I want to say I bought an antique phonograph, but I can’t really recall. Just about the time I was leaving the sale, I woke up.

Damn, my eye hurts.

UPDATE: This category is now “gists.”

I’ve added another new category - Code Snippets - for little pieces of code I come across or use that I think might be helpful to folks. Not really Geek Moments, not really Tech Support. Sorry to the casual readers who don’t care about code. I don’t really have anywhere else to publish this stuff, so everyone gets to see it.

Lockergnome finally posted my security column rebuttal. Day late and a dollar short, but we’ll take it.

There’s an interesting article in the Willamette Week local newspaper conjecturing on why Oregonians are so fat. I’ve actually wondered that myself - why aren’t I motivated to do something about these ridiculous “love handles” or the gut that continually generates the need for newer, larger pants?

Of all of the ideas they bring up, I think the weather is probably the most accurate reason we’re fat… at least, that’s how it is for me. Who wants to go riding your bike in the drizzle? Who wants to do anything when it’s pouring down outside? With an average of only 68 non-rain days per year, it’s no wonder.

They also mention that fatty foods are much more affordable than healthy foods. I’ll agree with that, too. I was just mentioning the other day that it’d be nice if you could go up to McDonald’s or something and get a healthy meal for $3 instead of filling up on deep fried fat.

Maybe I should move somewhere sunny. I wonder if I’d be more motivated to exercise. Then again, I also wonder if I’m just inherently lazy and should accept that for what it is.

I tried to get a picture of this asswipe, but it was too dark out.

I think I was just about killed today on my way in to work. Everything was going swimmingly when I pulled up to the stoplight at SW 4th and Caruthers. I was the third car in line. When the light turned green I started moving through the intersection, and when I was just about through it, this asshole in a silver Volkswagen cuts right in front of me, not only changing lanes in an intersection without signaling, but trying to fit a full car in a half car’s length. I slammed on the brakes and the horn, swerving to avoid getting my front passenger fender taken clean off and the guy (I assume it was a guy, but I couldn’t see) continued without even noticing. He (she/it/whatever) came close to running me head-on into a concrete dividing wall.

Like I said, after recovering from this feat of ridiculousness, I caught up with the car but wasn’t able to get a picture because it was too dark. His/her license plate was ZPR 448, though. Normally I wouldn’t post something like that, but when you’re as reckless as that, you deserve it.

Sometimes I wish I was an undercover cop so I could pull these assholes over. I mean, seriously, folks, if you can’t think ahead enough to know you need to be in a particular lane, at least wait until someone lets you in. Accept the consequences of your stupidity if no one does and get on somewhere else. Next time, maybe you’ll remember to get in line like everyone else.