So I finally watched War of the Worlds last weekend. Unfortunately, it was the Tom Cruise one. Spoilers abound so don't read the rest of the post if you haven't seen it. However, I will have to warn you that it will seriously try your patience.

It could've been good. It could've been a contender. But instead they decided to pelt us with one annoyance after another. Seriously, I couldn't have written more unlikable characters.

Daughter: Hysterical little girl. The pen's out of ink! OMG everybody panic! I so badly wanted her die. Granted, I haven't been around many children while the world was under attack by aliens but I think her complete lack of even one ounce of courage was a bit over the top. At least the writers didn't completely fall into the stereotypical cliche of having her mature even a little bit at the end of the movie. Yes, she is the same annoying little girl throughout the entire movie.

Son: Stereotypical teenage boy with oodles of angst. Ooh, he gets out of the car with his headphones on and totally ignores his dad. Now that's an angry kid! And then he refuses to catch the baseball thrown by his dad. What a badass! All testosterone and no brains. I wanted him to die so much. Then bring him back to life and kill him again. What was the point of his character besides bludgeoning the audience to death with his stupidity? I was so pissed when find out he's still alive at the end.

Dad: Surprisingly the only main character that I didn't hate. He's a pretty vanilla guy with nothing particularly interesting about him. Normally that's a bad thing in a movie but it's a complement in this one. I felt really bad for him though. Not because aliens kidnapped him and blew his house up but because the aliens failed to kill his kids and he'll have to put up with their crap for the rest of his life.

Man, I'm still pissed that they wasted their opportunity to make a good film.

Stuff White People Like
As the title suggests, it's a blog about stuff white people like. Every weekday, the author reveals one thing that white people like with witty commentary. Some of my favorites: Farmer's Markets, Organic Food, Asian Chicks, Having Black Friends and Gentrification.

Stuff Asian People Like
Perhaps as a response to SWPL (maybe, maybe not, I'm too lazy to find out), Stuff Asian People Like is almost exactly the same except for Asian People instead of White People. And they post on weekends. This one is particularly interesting for me since I'm Asian and am intimately familiar with some of the stuff on here. Slurping, hoarding, buffets, home gardens, bad accents, not wearing shoes indoors... oh yeah, it's like I never moved away from home.

Holy crap... I finally saw the South Park episode where Cartman fakes having Tourette's Syndrome. My God, this is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

Dick tits!
Tampon dick shit!
Crap filled vagina!
Aw shit! Cock!
Ass! Piss in the ass! Piss coming from my ass!
Dumb shit douchebag!
Donkey boner!
Thanks everybody, suck my balls!
Titty sprinkles!

Full episode here

Friday:
My ice hockey team wins the Duluth Iceforum CC championship to cap a ridiculous 14-1 season (and that one loss was in December when I and about half the team didn't play). I played pretty well and I'm still a little sore today. No goals but I played great defense which is my role for now anyway.

Sunday:
Giants win the Super Bowl. Lots of so-called experts predicted a Pats blowout. How? It was a 3 point game when they played just a month ago. Anyway, I had multiple heart attacks in that last drive. That was absolutely nuts.... the drive that defines Eli Manning's career. I may have to purchase the DVD.

BTW, did anyone catch that Bill Belichick interview after the game on Fox? I felt uncomfortable watching that from my living room. I couldn't imagine being the dude that interviewed him. I thought Belichick was gonna strangle him.

Not! This year has sucked for me already. Let's start in chronological order:

12/30:
Somehow my flight back to Atlanta didn't suck. And the MARTA ride home didn't suck. Things are looking up!

Unfortunately, I see an announcement in the elevator and realize that I'm potentially screwed out of $500 because my homeowners insurance company failed to send out the fax that I requested earlier in December.

My cable modem sporadically fails.

12/31:
Cable sucks more today.

Annoyed that two of my better friends decide to spend their NYE with someone they know I have major issues with.

I go out for dinner before heading to a bar and I gotta crap real bad after eating. The restaurant's bathroom isn't looking so hot so I take a quick trip home to poop and get my coat which I foolish left at home earlier. I turn on the bathroom lights and both light bulbs blow at the same time. I'm poopin' with the dim closet and shower lights.

Auburn wins. I root against the SEC every chance I get.

1/1:
Barely healed emotional wounds get unexpectedly poked and prodded. Not happy about this.

Georgia wins.

Cable barely works at all now.

1/2:
I wake up early and can't fall back asleep.

I decide to get an early start on my day. My very needy cat recognizes that I'm back to my work schedule and is not happy. She pees on my bed in protest.

I yell at my cat and throw everything (except the cat) into the washer. Washer makes loud racket during the spin cycle because the load is unbalanced. I did manage to fix my cable modem during this time though.

I go outside. It's damn cold.

I get to work. I haven't worked in like two and a half weeks.

Lunchtime. Everyone decides to go to Fuddrucker's. I don't really like Fuddrucker's. It's not that the food is bad but it's not a great value and it's not gonna help me drop a few pounds.

I call up my insurance company. I'm almost definitely screwed out of $500.

I go to Target after work. Strangely, my car doesn't respond to any of the remote buttons. I use the key to open the door and the alarm blares loudly. There's like four people around and I feel like a dumbass.

From Target, I head across the street to Costco to pick up a few items. They don't have any regular incandescent bulbs for the bathroom light that I don't really have much faith in right now. I decide to take a chance on pricier compact fluorescents. I'll be really pissed if these blow too. However, I did find that they finally have frozen jumbo shrimp.

I get home all ready to make spicy seafood soup and I didn't have as many scallops as I thought. Screw it, it's a Michelina's night for me.

I pop in the new light bulbs. Not as bright as I had hoped. I guess I can deal with that.

Happy 2008!

Lastings Milledge traded to the Nationals for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider? WTF? What a fucktarded trade. I give up on the Mets. I solemnly swear to never attend another Mets game until Omar is gone. Fire Omar! Douchebag. Watch Milledge torch the Mets for the next 10 years. Jesus, what an asshole. I need to sever my twenty something year tie with the Mets and find a new team to root for. Christ.

So I'm off all week because I need to burn an assload of vacation days and I can't carry over and I spend a good portion of it recovering from this crazy ass cold I got from one of my little cousins or from someone on the airplane. This kinda sucks. I'm also doing the every Wednesday off thing for November and December. And then I'm off the last two weeks of the year. Basically, I'm working eight days in December.

Speaking of my cold... I visited the folks in NJ over Thanksgiving weekend. That was the worst flying experience I can recall. Much worse than the time I got stuck in Orlando overnight because Newark was closed due to a blizzard because at least that time I was all comfy in the airport and then the somewhat comfy off-airport La Quinta or whatever it was.

The departing flight to Newark sat on the tarmac for 90 freaking minutes. Luckily I napped for most of it but I was pretty pissed when I woke with all sweaty, with nasty morning breath and feeling pretty damn claustrophobic in my tiny little seat, to the captain telling us we'll be delayed potentially another two hours. Yes, two more fucking hours in this crappy airplane. Hurray. Then this asshole behind me whips out his cellphone and proceeds to call everyone in his company. Dude, just give it up. You ain't getting any work done by talking on the phone. Asshat. Luckily, it was only another 30 minutes or so before we took off. Ridiculous.

The flight back to Atlanta was much worse. I woke up Saturday with a god awful sore throat and knew I was in deep crap. I felt like ass on Sunday and managed to get a couple of hours of sleep in before my flight. I ate some food (turkey soup) and took a Sudafed to cut down on the congestion. So then I've been watching the football game in the waiting area for about half an hour, wishing I could just die and sleep for a few days, when the gate agent announces that take-off is delayed for an hour due to poor visibility in Atlanta. Fuck it all to hell! Luckily I stuffed a pocket full of tissues before I left so I'm prepared to wait it out in misery. But tissue or no tissue, I was a little self-conscious about vigorously blowing my nose in a packed waiting area full of strangers. I mean, damn, that's kinda gross. So I sat there for basically two hours dabbing the wet drippings off my nose. Slightly less gross I guess but pretty damn miserable.

So now we get on the plane. Somehow, we actually manage to take off quickly but I'm still dabbing at my wet nose and wanting to sleep but feeling super cramped in those freaking seats. Miserable, I tell you. The dude next to me is watching a movie on his iPod Touch. I have an iPod Touch. Why the hell didn't I think of that? I'm stuck trying to read my book but I can't freaking concentrate on it.

So a long hour and a half later, we start our initial descent and the pressure in my ears won't freaking equalize. Crap, I forgot that nasal congestion might cause that to happen. My ears really want to explode. So here I am, yawning desperately and holding my nose and exhaling in a fruitless attempt to clear my ears, dabbing my nose, coughing like a typhoid patient and digging through my pockets for new tissues. Everyone around me must have hated me. I know I would. All the while, the iPod Touch dude next to me (who I suspect maybe not be entirely straight, not that there's anything wrong with that) stares out the window on the other side of the aisle for like minutes at a time. Dude, how about have some damn social skills and not stare in my general direction when I'm like an inch away from you. Christ.

We finally land another half hour later and I gotta pee. Bad. Wouldn't you know it, we taxi for like ten freaking minutes while we tour the entire airport. Assholes. I finally get off the airplane and by now it's like 12:30AM and I'm unsure if MARTA is still running so I speed pee and make a bee-line for MARTA (thank god I never check luggage). Great, assholes in front me on the escalator are enjoying the scintillating ride and in no particular hurry to go anywhere so I miss the inter-terminal rail by like 10 seconds. It literally closes its door right as I step off the escalator. Now I can try to walk from Terminal A to main terminal or whatever they call but the sign says the next train is coming in a minute so that's stupid. 30 seconds later, the sign changes the ETA to 1:30 minutes? WTF?! 30 seconds later, back to 1:30. Ass! I watch it count down again for 10 or 20 seconds and, lo and behold, the train magically appears. That sign is worthless, I tell you!

A few minutes later, I arrive at the MARTA stop with Breeze card in hand and there's a sign on the door saying the last train departs at 12:45. I look at my cell phone. 12:52. Son of an ass! I'm thinking I stuck cabbing it back to town but I figure the doors still open so it couldn't hurt to go in and investigate. I tap my card and the gates open. Well, it wouldn't open if trains weren't running right? Right? Yup, I take the escalator up and there's a few dozen people waiting for the train. Phew! I get home and it's 1:15. 6.25 freaking hours to get home. Awful.

So basically, this long winded post can be summarized by saying I got screwed at every possible point of my transportation except for MARTA. Well I guess airport security was pretty quick too so that was good. And traffic was good on the NJ Turnpike so I didn't get screwed there. Whatever.

It's November which means it's time to start buying your Hannukahmaszaa gifts. Not only do I get the pleasure of agonizing about what to get for my parents but we get bombarded with these nauseating Kay Jewelers commercials every damn hour. I'd link up a Youtube video but I actually can't find one right now. Second in line of the advertisers I'd like to send to hell is the ones who creates those damn Lexus commercials where they wrap the car in a bow. Haven't seen those yet this year. Bastards.

I saw a few clips of Fox Business Channel on Youtube. They suck. Are they gonna explain what an ADR is everytime they mention one? I guess they really are going for the total newbies. The ticker is grouped by sector. Good idea on paper but retarded in practice. Plus their big name is Neil Cavuto and despite getting his start in the Carter administration, he lost all credibility by taking a wide right turn into the arms of Faux "News"...

Which leads me to Larry Kudlow. How the hell does anyone but the rightest of right wingers stand to watch this guy? I turn the channel everytime he's on and I don't go back. Why the hell does he have Ann Coulter as a frequent guest? She's a right wing publicity whore with nothing of substance to add. What's her lefty counterpart? Al Franken? Can you imagine the Faux "News" headlines if Franken made appearances like she does? What a douche. Hey, Fox, please steal this guy from CNBC. Pretty please with an immigrant about to be deported on top?

Anyway... The Larry Kudlow Drinking Game:

1 sip every time he slams the Democrats or the liberals
1 gulp every time he praises Bush or mentions "The Greatest Story Never Told"
Finish your drink if Ann Coulter is a guest
1 shot every time he mentions free market economics
2 shots every time he praises Reagan

So I just finished watch the movie Babel. Jesus that was depressing. Yeah, it worked out ok for most of the characters but, damn, it made me want to kill myself. And 2.5 hours? Mein gott. The plot twists were too predictable except for the Japan one.

***Spoilers below***
Raise your hand if you felt creeped out watching that Japanese chick get all nekkid. Speaking of creepy... that scene of the kid jerking off. This is a fucked up movie.

Could the Mexican storyline be anymore obvious? Man, who didn't suspect that the nephew would be a total fuck-up. I would've opened up a can of whoop ass on that asshole if I was Amelia. And why didn't the border cop smell the alcohol on his breath when he first pulled up?

Did anyone else wish those annoying bus passengers get shot too? Man, I was praying the kid would somehow escape and unload on the gringos. I hope I'm not that selfish and crotchety when I get old.

The more I think about it, the more I hate this movie. The directing, acting and editing was good though so I guess it's just the writing I hated.

Oh yeah, 2.5 hours! Fuckers.

I would totally get this shirt but I can't see myself wearing it outside. That and it's green.

Ok, who didn't see this coming? The Mets sucked for like three weeks and managed to drag it out for as long as possible but it was inevitable. We freaking suck! Jesus Christ, the fucking Devil Rays deserve the playoffs more than we do.

Hey Omar, we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher! Get us about 12 of them while you're at it. Heads better roll this offseason. Totally unacceptable.

We gotta get Milledge and Gomez some damn playing time. We actually won with them in the lineup over the summer. Send Shawn Green into retirement. Alou has been great when healthy but he's not the answer for more than maybe another two years so go get something of value for him. Trade Delgado for a bag of balls. Get Maine and Smith on a training program so they don't suck wind after the all star break. Have The Jacket spend the offseason with Pelfrey and Humber. And blow up the bullpen for god's sake. Mota, Schoeneweis - gone. Heilman - give him a chance in the rotation. Wagner - put him on HGH or something. Jesus, I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be pining for Royce 'Fuckin' Ring.

Yes, that's the song by Stan Bush from the old Transformers movie. Anyway, I got my iPod Touch a couple of Friday's ago. I actually left work at noon to get the Apple store when I found it they had it in stock.

I've been yearning for a new iPod for over a year and Apple finally delivered. This thing is freaking awesome. Luckily I don't have the crappy screen issue everyone keeps bitching about. The most surprising thing is that Safari looks great despite that relatively small screen. I'm checking WSJ, Woot and playing Bejeweled when I'm bored. I've also whipped up a page to get stock quotes with AJAX refreshes.

Speaking of stock quotes, I'm pretty pissed that Apple took that out of the Touch. Hopefully the hackers figure out a way to get the missing stuff back on there. Another annoyance is the headphone jack on the bottom. Not cool. The touch comes with a little iPod stand but then you can't plug your headphones in if you place the Touch on the stand vertically. That's just stupid.

Anyway, those are my main gripes. It's not perfect but it'll do.

The Camouflage Bible!

Because my two favorite things to do are hunting and going to church. Now I can fulfill my spiritual needs while I wait for deer to enter my field of vision!

Silversun Pickups - Lazy Eye