Monthly Archives: January 2012

The Date From Hell

Jan 28

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Show of hands – who here has gone on a date with someone they met online?  That’s what I thought, I’m not alone!  Ten years ago, I met many women through my Wednesday night karaoke routine.  Every Wednesday night (and some Mondays/Fridays/Saturdays), I would close the karaoke bar.  My confidence was through the roof during this phase of my life!  I mastered the art of meeting people, not just women, and striking up a conversation as if we had known each other for years.  I still count a few of those people as my friends even though I don’t get out much anymore.  But I learned that chicks dig a guy who can sing and who approaches them with confidence while making them laugh at the same time.  I learned much about the art of conversation because I met so many people each week.

I tell you all this so you can understand how unbelievably horrible my date from hell came to be.  In the Spring of 2011, I became single again.  It took me until the fall to begin looking around at all the dating sites available online.  I created a dating profile on a couple of sites and sent out a few messages.  Two things surprised me.  One, the women who sent me messages were absolutely not my type!  I’ve read that people psychologically choose people who they see as being roughly as attractive as they feel they are.  If that’s the case, then I must be extremely overweight and horribly ugly!  That was the type of woman responding to me!  The messages I would send out to the hot women went unanswered, so I assume they were at their computer saying, “what the fuck is this guy thinking?”  The second thing that surprised me was, the profiles people put up were not exactly accurate!  Shocker!  After having a phone conversation, and after one meeting for coffee, most of the people I met just ended up boring me.  I couldn’t make a connection with anyone!

And then, the date from hell entered my world.  I will call her “Lucifer” because I can’t remember her name.  We agreed to meet at a bar/restaurant about half way between our homes.  I arrived slightly early as I always do, and I sat at the bar with a view of the door.  She came in and we had the normal chit-chat for about one minute.  She then said, “I’m hungry, can we order some food?”  Well, I really wasn’t planning on spending that much time with her as I had already made up my mind in that first minute that she wasn’t someone I’m interested in.  So I responded politely with, “I hear the chicken wings are good here.”  I’m such a wimp!  She said, “I think I want some chicken fingers.”  Awesome!  Maybe we can bond over chicken!

Then things got weird.  As we waited for the chicken, she wouldn’t speak unless I asked her a direct question.  Once the question was answered, she clammed up again.  There was no, “I was born and raised on a turnip farm, and you?”  It was just, “I grew up on a turnip farm.” Silence.  Awkward pause.  ”So, a turnip farm, huh?  That must have been interesting.”  ”Yeah it was.”  Silence.  Awkward pause.  When the chicken arrived, we had that to talk about, so it was all good.  ”So, how are your chicken fingers?”  ”They’re good.”  Silence.  Awkward pause. Om nom nom nom.  Then her cell phone rang.  She couldn’t find it in her purse before it stopped ringing, but the call was from her son.  She sat there staring at her phone for a few minutes obsessing over why he would be calling her.  ”Maybe he’ll call back.  I’m sure he’ll call back if it’s important.  Did he leave a voicemail?”  ”No.  I don’t know why he called.” Silence.  Awkward pause.  ”I wonder why he called me.”  ”I’m sure he’ll call back.”

At this point, I was wishing someone would call me and tell me my apartment was on fire and I was the only person on earth who was going to be able to save the puppies in all the other apartments.  I finally just gave up and said, “Why don’t you just call him back?”  ”Oh, do you mind?  I really want to find out why he called.”  ”Please, go call him.  I’m good here.”  So she reaches into her purse and pulls out her pack of cigarettes.  I’ve dated people who smoked and I lived with a woman who smoked, but this go-around, I was making smoking a deal breaker!  ”I thought your profile said you didn’t smoke.”  ”Oh no, I smoke all the time – way too much.”  Stunned silence on my part as I watched her take her smokes and her phone out to the designated area outside the bar.  Roughly 10 minutes later, she comes back in and, without explanation, says “I think I have to go, is that okay?”  ”Oh sure, that’s fine.”  I was celebrating in my head that this night was mercifully going to end!  ”Well it was nice meeting you, thanks for dinner.”  And we’re back to stunned silence.  ”You’re welcome.”  No awkward  pause this time – she was out the door!  I sat there and started laughing.  I’m sure the bartender thought I was crazy, but I was just so happy she was gone!  I paid my tab and went home to see if there were any puppies who needed to be saved.

I now had a great story to tell people.  One of the people I told was the next person I met online.  This one was someone I thought was too hot to respond, but she did.  After a week of e-mails and a two hour long phone call, we went on a date.  We met at the bar next door to Go Bananas.  I sat at the bar with a view to the door.  She came in and she was even prettier in person than the one picture she posted online.  We chatted for a few minutes, and then we went over to the comedy club.  She sat down and picked up the limited food menu they had and said, “I think I want some chicken fingers.”  If she could have kept a straight face, I would have believed her.  I saw just a hint of a smile as she waited for my response and then it hit me – I told her that story among the many things we talked about on our week of e-mails and two-hour phone call and she remembered it and used it against me!  I’m going to marry that woman!  No, really, I am!  This woman is Alana, and the only way I can get her to read my blog is if I mention her!  I put her at the end, so now she has been forced to read a story she’s already heard.  It took me a while, but now we’re even for the chicken finger joke!

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My Blood is Awesome!

Jan 21

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I recently updated my life insurance – wait, don’t go away!  Keep reading!

I have considered this for quite a while, so actually doing it was an accomplishment!  The whole process can be unnerving to say the least.  The first step is the application where I try to remember what I lied about on my last application.  My dad died of cancer at the age of 57.  My oldest brother died from his second heart attack at the age of 57.  My mom died from complications resulting from years of being type 2 diabetic.  My oldest brother was also type 2.  Genetically speaking, I’m a dead man walking!  The only logical thing to do is to lie on the application.  ”Has anyone in your family had cancer, diabetes, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome, restless leg syndrome, or who is a chronic masturbator?”    Nope!  Especially not that last one – no one in my family!  Okay, define “chronic.”

The next step is the health screening.  They scheduled a home visit where someone would come and take my blood, weigh me, measure me, and ask all the same questions the application asked me about my health!  The agent warned me that I should not consume alcohol for at least 72 hours before the test.  I stupidly scheduled the test on the Tuesday after a 3-day weekend.  That would mean no alcohol all weekend!  I chose to reschedule for a Friday morning.  I could handle that.  They sent a dude instead of a hot nurse, so that was disappointing.  His first words were, “Has anyone told you that you look like House?”  I said, “Only everyone.”  He took my blood, weighed me (giving me a generous 5 pound reduction for the sweatpants and t-shirt I was wearing) and confirmed my height.  Then he asked the questions.  For some reason, I decided to answer honestly!  Son of a bitch!  Well, I left off the oldest brother history, but everything else was the truth.  My blood better be awesome because my family history is deficient!

So I waited for about a month for them to mail the blood work to me.  It was like Christmas morning when it arrived!  Everything was in the expected range.  My Gamma Glutamyltransferase (Google it) was outstanding!  My good cholesterol was very good, but my bad cholesterol was better!  You should have seen my urine!  It was a balmy 98 degrees and it was everything you want your urine to be.  I started strutting around the house saying, “My blood is awesome, my blood is awesome!  My pee is perfect, my pee is perfect!”  Alana flipped me off – victory is mine!

I bought my last policy 20 years ago.  I planned it to have a level premium that would last until I turned 60.  I’m currently 50 years old and this policy will last me until I’m 80.  My real financial plan is to be killed by a jealous husband when I’m 79 years old.  If my kids still need a windfall from my life insurance when they’re in their 50s, then I failed them a long time ago.  On the other hand, I plan to live forever so it’s kind of a waste of money to buy life insurance!

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What’s SOPA All About?

Jan 18

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I wish I could take credit for writing this, so I’ll just have to be content with the fact that my son wrote it.  Don’t just read it – do something to stop SOPA and PIPA!  Little by little, the US Government has taken away our rights and freedoms by pretending to give us “safety” or because “we know what’s best for you.”  Thomas Jefferson put it best - ”The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small élite”  Keep giving up your rights and the country that you and your ancestors thrived under will not be there for your children and grandchildren!

Enjoy!

What’s SOPA All About?

by Nick Whittenburg on Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 9:26am

Hey there. I figure many of you lost your daily time-wasters from this SOPA blackout thing, so I’m inviting you to learn a little bit about what’s happening and why it’s important. Yeah, it’s long, but it’s easy to read, it’ll take less than 10 minutes, and I think you’ll have a much better understanding of why people are upset and how this affects all of us – not just us nerds working in the industry. I’m not here to preach and I’m certainly not starting a political argument; rather, I’d simply enjoy knowing that I helped some friends understand why this matters.

This is a complex issue that I’m about to boil down to its simplest form. If you’d like more technical information, it’s already widely available. Google it while you can.

In A Nutshell

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) are new pieces of legislation targeting the very real and troublesome issue of online piracy. This has been talked about for some time, and copyright owners already have the means to pursue shutdowns on illegal content. If you want to see what they’re already capable of, go to atdhe.net, a site previously used to stream live American Football games.

What makes SOPA/PIPA different is that they aren’t designed to bring down the illegal content, but rather they’re designed to block the “facilitation” of accessing the content. In other words, censoring links, ads, and entire domains (anything .com, .org, .net, and the like). If you’re not going to read this whole thing, here’s the best way I can break it down:

  • If you’re a romantic: This will censor our one truly free & open medium.
  • If you’re a cynic: This will put the Web in the hands of people who make decisions with their wallets.
  • If you’re a student: This will make launching a new career in relevant industries far more difficult and costly.
  • If you’re a businessperson: This will destroy the Internet‘s current status as a vital economic tool.
  • If you’re a developer: LOL SUCKS BRO

What It Might Do

Unfortunately, the way these have been written is so broad and uninformed that there is no way this will go into law without being abused. The average age of Senators and Representatives are 60 and 55 respectively, and primarily come from backgrounds in law and lower-level politics. Young people – how useful do you think a technology guide written by your parents & grandparents would be? Congress is applying provisions and regulations on an industry of which they have very little understanding. Sorry Dad, but your generation has no place in regulating the Web. None at all.

Here’s a bullet list of situations that are possible (others say probable, others yet say guaranteed) due to the technical ignorance of the authors:

  • The US Government (Attorney General’s office, specifically) will be able to blacklist entire domains, meaning they can authoritatively decide that no one can link to ‘Site A’ at all, ever, regardless of whether or not the individual links lead to any copyright-infringing content. If you’re not in favor of censorship, this should piss you off.
  • Sites like Google, Reddit, Facebook, and virtually anything with user-generated content will be forced to spend extremely valuable development time implementing new back-end techniques to ensure these links aren’t showing up on their sites. If you’re not in favor of hindering valuable American businesses, this should piss you off.
  • Major copyright owners like MPAA and RIAA, known for sueing working-class families for hundreds of millions of dollars over trivial downloads, will also be able to get in on the action of serving court orders. They’ve taken advantage of every flaw in copyright regulation, and they’ll do the same with Internet regulation. If you’re not in favor of corporations abusing flawed policy, this should piss you off.
  • New startups will have significantly more initial overhead (explained below), crippling the power of the Web as a business tool. If you’re against dragging down one of a small handful of succeeding industries in an otherwise bleak economy, this should piss you off.

What It Will Do

The most romantic notion about living in the Internet age is that it’s a truly free & open global medium. Any message can be communicated to the entire world. As soon as you allow our politicians to have any measure of control over it, the whole system becomes susceptible to lobbying and before long decisions are being made based on the weight of their wallets over our rights and best interests. We’ve seen it in plenty of other industries, and now they’re coming for the Web.

The Internet has also revolutionized commerce in nearly every modern industry. You don’t need a big music label to release your debut album. You don’t need Hollywood for millions of people to see your film. You don’t need a single physical store to sell your products across the world. This global connection is the reason why we see companies grow from a garage to a multi-billion-dollar corporation. The Web provides us with an accessible, low-cost, universal way of entering virtually any market.

This is very much in danger under the provisions of SOPA/PIPA. New startups couldn’t simply build a site and start making money. Instead, they’d be forced to implement costly censorship techniques, and pay exorbitantly for legal counsel that shouldn’t be necessary. This prevents the Web from being the business outlet that it currently is, and that myself and countless other young professionals in a struggling economy are banking on having a career in. One day I want to make my creative services available all on my own – if something like this is made law, I’ll likely end up doing so outside of the US.

What It Won’t Do

Here’s the real kicker: this will do virtually nothing to stop piracy. This system of blocking and censoring is one than can be easily circumvented by those who know what they’re doing. Hell, even if they block a domain entirely, I can still access the site with nothing but the IP address. I’ll spare you the more technical details – again, if you’d like to know more, Google it. But this is one thing I’m 100% on – supporters are promoting it as protection for American intellectual property, yet it provides none. This is what really infuriates me, as it will get the typical “This is for ‘murica, greatest country in the world” spin and instantly convince the lowest common denominator that it’s in their best interest.

What Do You Want Me To Do?

Look, I know as well as anyone that sometimes it’s just easier to pretend like something won’t affect you and ignore it. I do it all the time. I’m not a political activist for much of anything, and I’ve certainly never cared this much about legislation before. Maybe it’s getting older, maybe I’m selfish, maybe I’m just frustrated that this could even be considered a solution by the leaders of my nation. But I can’t sit back and watch this one happen, and I hope you won’t either.

I’m not going to send you to a bunch of sites and sources, you’re going to see plenty of that today. If you visit Wikipedia, you’ll get your representative’s contact info, and if you click the black bar over the Google logo, you can sign a petition. It will feel futile, but it’s pretty much all we have.

If you’re mad, stay mad, because the bill will be revised again and again until we forget it was even a thing and then they’ll sneak it right past us. They’ve already tried to kill the hype of the protest by announcing SOPA was shelved, even though the main sponsor has since said that work will continue on it in February. This isn’t going to happen soon, but it’s going to happen eventually if we don’t pay attention. And then you’ll just have to come with me to Australia or some shit.

Thanks for reading. If you have questions, ask away. I’ll be working from home today (a luxury I can afford thanks to the Web as it exists today) but I’ll hop on here afterwards to answer anything I’m qualified to.

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Acquaintances, Friends & Fans

Jan 14

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Facebook recently gave us the opportunity to classify our friends as either “Acquaintances,” “Friends,” or “Close Friends.”  I quickly took advantage of that and classified most of my high school classmates as “Acquaintances” (my apologies to anyone on that list who actually reads my blog – let me know who you are and I’ll reconsider).  What that accomplished was a much cleaner news feed as I was no longer receiving updates from people to whom I haven’t spoken since 1979 (and to whom the phrase “to whom” is completely foreign)!  Sure, we “friended” each other when that was the cool thing to do, but there is just no way I can fake being interested in the lives of their children, their church, or their job.  I really should just purge the friends list rather than lowering their status to “Acquaintances.”  On the other side of that coin is, which of my friends put ME in the “Acquaintances” list?  You arrogant bastards!!!

I know many of them “Acquaintanced” me because many of them remember me as I was in high school.  I was kind of nerdy, popular only with other nerds, and somewhat shy at times.  I never became comfortable with the walk through the cafeteria when it was time to find a seat.  I usually sat with the same group of people, and they all sat with their own groups of people.  Now many of those “other” people have ended up on my friends list.  I can’t imagine, 30 years later, that they suddenly care about what I have to say.  I say if we are mutual “Acquaintances” (that’s the first time I spelled that word correctly without the benefit of spell check in this post!), that we just agree to part ways and unfriend each other.  What do you say?

Let’s not forget the Facebook suggestion of people you may know.  They keep suggesting I become friends with people just because other friends on my list are their friends!  If you’re an “Acquaintance” and you’re friends with someone I really didn’t like in high school, and that person hasn’t friended me yet, chances are we will never be Facebook Acquaintances!  The main example is Greg Fulton.  He was a complete dick to me from the 7th grade on.  Now I’m sure he’s matured since then, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.  Facebook has been suggesting I “friend” him for a few years now.  Therefore, he has been on Facebook for a few years seeing the suggestion that he “friend” me.  Neither of us has clicked  the “add friend” button and we’re both okay with that!  It’s much more honest to not friend someone you don’t like than it is to friend them just because everyone else has already friended them!

So who makes the “Friends” list?  This list includes people I am genuinely interested in how their life is going.  It also includes people who post shit that makes me laugh.  The vast majority of my own postings are things that make me laugh, so I appreciate the effort on your part when you make me laugh.  This list also includes my kids, my family, sometimes their spouses, and sometimes their friends.  One of my proudest Facebook “friending” was when my son’s college roommate wanted to be my “friend” because he wanted to join in this game I was playing where you change one word in a movie or TV show to alter the meaning completely.  Since that time, we haven’t commented on each other’s statuses, but he remains a “friend.”  There are rules on how to remain my friend on Facebook.  Actually, there are rules about what you can do to have me remove you from my news feed:

1.  Post how much you love Jesus and how much you want me to love Jesus.
2.  Post how much you love your spouse, kids, dogs, cats, etc.  Let’s all stipulate that we love those things and not necessarily in that order.
3.  Post everything that happens to you at every waking moment.  That’s what Twitter is for and that’s why I’m not a fan of Twitter.
4.  Request my assistance in Farmville, Castleville, Mafia Wars, Bullshitville (actually, I might help you with that one if it existed), or any other game you can think of.
5. Suggest friends I should add.  I’m guessing you haven’t read the 2nd paragraph of this blog entry.
6.  Tell me how much your life sucks because you have a cold, your job sucks, you can’t sleep (“why isn’t anyone online at 3 am?”), or your precious “Mittons the Cat” just puked on your new carpet!
7.   Tell me about someone you know who needs our prayers.
8.  Post about how 18 years ago you gave birth to the most wonderful being on the face of the earth.
9.  Tell me about how 18 years ago you married the love of your life.
10. Tell me about what an asshole I am!  (Actually, that might make you enter the “Fan” Zone)

I won’t move you to “Acquaintance” if you do any of the above once or twice.  It’s the serial over-sharer who gets moved.

The final way to compartmentalize your friends list is to make people your “Close Friends.”  I prefer to call these people my “Fans.”  If I like you enough to make you a Close Friend, chances are that I see you so much in person that I don’t need to follow you on Facebook to find out what you’re doing.  I tried this on a few people when Facebook made this available.  What happened was, I was notified of every single thing this person did on Facebook!  As close as we were, I really wasn’t that interested!  So, I unchecked that box that made you my “Close Friend” and now we’re just “Friends.”  I hope you’re okay with that.  But you can still be my “Fan” if you want.  I’m okay with that.

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My Year in Review

Jan 5

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I’ve been reading a variety of year-end review websites.  You have you best in music, movies, pop culture, and most tweeted, googled, facebooked, items of interest.  There are articles on financial websites and political websites and they both agree that 2011 sucked balls!  In reality, I just kind of skimmed these reviews.  I have my own “not normal” take on 2011.  It was pretty damned awesome!

The year began in January, as it usually does.  It was the first of many dates using 11, which is my favorite number thanks to Spinal Tap. We started with 1/1/11, which in binary language translates to 23 – a prime number which indicated that 2011 would be a prime year – for geeks!  I traveled to Florida to run my first marathon, the Walt Disney World Marathon.  I finished with a time of 4:50.  I also spent a few “snow days” with my new girlfriend, if you know what I mean!

In February, the Packers beat the Steelers making me a Packers fan in the process.  I’m not saying I became a bandwagon fan.  I’m saying any team that beats the Steelers is a team I like!

March is my birthday month and, this year, I turned 50.  My brothers, Doug, Carl and Mark took me to Las Vegas for my birthday.  They paid for my plane ticket and the hotel room and they bought enough alcohol to kill the liver of an elephant!  My first night home, and the first night in five nights that I drank nothing, included waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat!  I swore off drinking until the next weekend.  I’ll never do that again – until I do!

In April, three billion people watched Prince William marry Kate Middleton -  A million people line the streets, half a million gather in front of Buckingham Palace, and two billion tune in via television or computer to see Kate Middleton marry Prince William.  I may have been the only person who couldn’t care less about this “event.”  The only way I became remotely interested was all the talk about what a great ass Pippa Middleton has.  In the interest of journalistic integrity, I went online to compare and contrast the Middleton sisters’ asses.  It’s too close to call, so the investigation continues.

Speaking of using the internet for its God made purpose, May was the month of discovering a couple of sexual deviants.  The news of the killing of Osama Bin Laden was quickly overshadowed by the news of his hidden porn stash!  Then, later in the month, Dominique Strauss-Kahn,  head of the International Monetary Fund was arrested for sexually assaulting a maid at a Manhattan hotel.  It was a great month for Twitter and Facebook!  Also in May, I ran my second marathon, the Flying Pig Marathon with a time of 4:40.

June continued May’s trend of outing famous people.  US Representative Anthony Weiner showed his wiener schnitzel, and John Edwards was indicted for using campaign funds to conceal his mistress and their love child.  This was a fantastic month for The Daily Show!

July was uneventful.  I spent a week in Aruba with my girlfriend and asked her to marry me on July 4th.  Ten seconds after my proposal, fireworks erupted in the sky (the best place for them to erupt).  Upon hearing of my engagement, Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning.  Other than that, it was a quiet month.

August saw the first ever decline in the US credit rating by Standard & Poor’s.  This was also the month the Republican race for the Presidency became a side show, blooming into a full circus over the rest of the year.

September was another month for numbers geeks.  We had 09/10/11 which was cool.  Herman Cain was beginning his ascent to become an unlikely front-runner for the Republicans.  His downfall was like watching a movie you’ve already seen.  You know how it’s going to end, but you love watching it anyway.

In October, The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series.  I hate the fucking Cardinals as much or more than I hate the Steelers!  We also saw an increase in Occupy Wall Street, but I just couldn’t care enough to participate.  It was a nice distraction for all the homeless people who finally had some cool kids to hang out with.  This month was when I ran my third and final marathon of the year.  I ran the Toronto Marathon with a time of 4:15.  I worked my ass off over the summer to achieve this time, so I’m pretty damn proud of it!

November, sweet November.  Just when I thought we were through with the sexcapades, we found out Herman Cain had more women than Tiger Woods!  I didn’t really have much fun with the whole Sandusky episode – it was just too sad.  Hearing him try to talk his way out of the charges was mildly interesting.  This month had my favorite day ever – 11/11/11 – the day that went to 11!!!

December just finished a few days ago.  If you can’t remember what happened, you’re out of luck.  December is always consumed with Christmas, so there’s that.  Oh yeah, the Cincinnati Bengals were preparing for their biggest game of Marvin Lewis’ life.  That’s the one where they lost to Houston.  It’s a good thing he gets to play them again next weekend!

See what I mean?  2011 didn’t suck at all!  2012 on the other hand . . .we’ll see.

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