Inside The Perimeter

Due to the New York Jets’ loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, today’s regularly scheduled entry “NY Jets Victory Celebration” will not be seen. In its place, please read this…

26 Reasons To Like Me
Shortly after Al Gore and I invented the Internet, we decided to kill some time by compiling these silly lists. Here’s another for you to read (stolen and slighty modified from one of my friend’s Live Journal entries — thanks Stacy)

A – Accent: none, which is surprising since I was born and partially reared in Queens, NY. I’ll blame the other part of my rearing in Florida for the loss of my accent.
B - Breast size: hmm, never measured — let me check; ok, it’s a ‘handful’
C - Chore you hate: mopping the kitchen floor
D - Dad’s name: Wilbur
E - Essential make-up item: a dozen roses, all women love to get roses; oh you mean like facial make-up, then my answer is ‘none’
F - Favorite perfume: anything that I cannot smell from across the room, but can during intimate moments
G - Gold or silver: silver
H - Hometown: Whitestone, New York
I - Insomnia: never, I can sleep anywhere at any time
J - Job title: manager of software development — NERD!!!
K - Kids: none that I know of, heh, heh
L - Living arrangements: flying solo in my house inside the perimeter (but you knew that, right?)
M - Mom’s name: Kathleen
N - Number of apples you’ve eaten: Do people know this? I’ll answer 42 because we all know that is the answer to everything.
O - Overnight hospital stays: haven’t been in a hospital since I popped out of mom
P - Phobia: many would say ‘commitment’, I’ll answer ‘heights’
R - Religious affiliation: I support them all
S - Siblings: Older brother, much older brother (sixteen years)
T - Time you wake up: Weekdays, 5:30-6:00am. Weekends, about 7:00am.
U - Unnatural hair colors you’ve worn: define ‘worn’. I guess I’ll answer ‘none’
V - Vegetable you refuse to eat: brussel sprouts — they is NASTY!
W - Worst habit: blogging; not taking life seriously enough; eating too much when I am trying to lose weight; I could go on for ever — oh yeah, self-deprication
X - X-rays: yearly dental and I once had an echocardiogram (a sonogram of my heart) done
Y - Yummy foods you make: of course everything I make is delicious, but if I had to pick a couple of real winners; jambalaya, beef stroganoff, chicken picatta, chocolate tofu pie
Z - Zodiac sign: on the cusp of Cancer and Leo

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - disappointed
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing Husker Du
Current Read - nothing today

Monday Morning Weigh-In
Starting weight - (approx since I didn’t have a scale) 198 lbs
Target weight - 178 lbs
Current weight - 196 lbs

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

It’s a Friday morning ramble kids. Put your seatbelts on.

It Was A Meal. It Was An Awesome Meal!
Yesterday my coworker David and I set out for lunch with no idea where we were headed. This is not unusual. Normally I am 100% sold on trying a new (at least to me) restaurant, especially when the cuisine is “ethnic.” But yesterday, David had to twist my arm to visit this new tacqueria [whose name escapes me -- I'll find it later] near the office. I am so glad that he did.

At first, the outing was a comedy of errors. The waitstaff and chef spoke virtually no english, the patrons (David and me) spoke very little (awkward) spanish. Through hand and facial gestures we managed to order — thankfully avoiding tripe and tongue. The waitress came to the table once and apparently offered to open a bottle of water and pour it into my cup. I understood nothing of what she said; I felt like such an ignorant American.

This meal rocked! Seriously, I could have recreated Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm in “When Harry Met Sally”. There is no doubt in my mind that I shall return, only next time with someone who speaks spanish. This place will hamper my “20 by 40″ goal, however.

Rock -> Paper -> Scissors
Exercise (paper) lost to socializing (rock) when I received a call to play trivia last night. “Meet The Hashers”, playing under the pseudonym “Meghan’s Problem Table” kicked butt in the inaugural Team Trivia event at Raging Burrito in Decatur. We were in first place by twenty-one points going into the final question, whose maximum point value under Team Trivia’s rules is fifteen. Needless to say, we won!

Epilogue

1. Meghan was the lovely, yet sassy waitress putting up with our crap last night
2. I’m still miffed that Raging Burrito closed its midtown location a few years ago
3. If we play there again I want the team name to be “Lesbian Love Gods”

“It Looks Good On You”
I got my hair cut yesterday (one of those “nobody else but me will know” ones). It was the first time that my hairstylist has seen me bearded. Yes, she too complimented me on its appearance. As for the question “Does he color it?” Only my hairstylist will know…

The Sound Of Silence
This is all you will hear out of the Echo Lounge. Much to my dismay I found out that the Echo Lounge closed its doors last Saturday. Granted, the owner was dumb and ran the place illegally under the wrong liquor license warranting its closure, but live music is the one thing that keeps East Atlanta cool. Yes, we still have The Earl, but we need another quality venue. Hopefully someone with vision will swoop in and reopen the space.

Websites Of The Week (my name is Paulie and I have endorsed this message)
Here are some websites that I have visited during the week

• The Onion: Read It! Love It! Live It! You’ll be a better person for doing so.
• Cheese Racing: This site is dumb, but is so out there that I must mention it.
• PodFly: I am getting ready for the arrival of my iPod.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - spent
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing Elliot Smith
Current Read - the owner’s manual to my digital camera (still? Yes, still.)

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

20 by 40
That’s my story, and eventhough it’s going to be hard as hell for me to accomplish, I am sticking to it. Being the nerd that I am, or at least claim to be, I need a scale to track my progress. Apparently the scale I thought I owned has gone elsewhere, so I was forced to buy a new one. As I often do I went to Amazon.com and happened to find a scale which has received nothing but praise from my fellow Amazon customers. As a bonus this scale not only will tell me my weight, it will also calculate my body fat — although I am not sure I really want to know that number right now. Here’s the kicker… When I opened the Amazon box yesterday I read this wonderful tidbit on the side of the scale’s packaging

*Before You Buy:
This model is intended for Children (7-17) with inactive to moderately active lifestyles, and Adults with inactive or moderately active lifestyles. It is not intended for use by athletes or extremely fit people. Tanita defines “athlete” as a person involved in intense physical activity of approximately 10 hours per week and who has a resting heart rate of approximately 60 beats per minute or less. In addition, people who are involved in a “Lifetime of Fitness” and who are very fit, but are currently active 10 hours per are considered “athletes.”

Basically I think that I have bought a scale for lazy people. It’s a good thing that I am not one of those freaks who practices a “Lifetime of Fitness.”

Easy For You To Type
You don’t know how bad a typist I am. I took typing class in school — to meet girls. I became a computer programmer — obviously not to meet girls, but rather to make money. I should be a decent typist, but sadly I am not. I am thankful that we have electronic methods for making typing corrections, otherwise I would have spent a considerable portion of my salary on Wite Out Correction Fluid (shout out to Brookhaven Instruments Corporation, who have a link to Bic on their website — nice netiquette).

In my time I have worn out my fair share of Backspace keys making corrections. What made me think of this was the number of times I had to retype “athlete” above. More often than not it came out “atlhete” which of course is very different. I’ll blame the number of times I have typed “Atlanta” for this problem.

Another common typing error of mine is the combination of the words “in” and “the.” Over a decade of being a C programmer has forever ruined my ability to type the sequence “in the” correctly. If you know C you know that a common data type is “int”, hence I always wind up knocking out “int he” before backspacing to change it to “in the.”

Maybe I spend the day typing the phrase “I am an athlete living in the town of Atlanta” until I get these bad habits corrected…

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - upbeat
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing Oasis
Current Read - the owner’s manual to my digital camera

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

This sounds so serious, but fear not today’s entry is lighthearted.

I’ve decided that my life is stagnant and that it needs to be shaken up a bit. “Out with the old, in with the new” (a statement which has meaning in my past, but that’s another story).

Sometimes You Have To Let The Man, Part Two
This morning I purchased an iPod. It’s not one of those new, fancy flash-based iPod Shuffles announced yesterday by Apple at Macworld, nor is it one of the hip U2 models that somebody I know just scored, but it will be sufficient enough to raise my “Coolness Level” from yellow to orange. The only thing I need to figure out is how it’s going to be able to play my cassette tapes…

Sock It To Me
A Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In reference you ask? No, actually a sock drawer reference. It amazes me how one event triggers another. After the t-shirt epiphany the other day, I started examining the rest of my clothing collection (and by collection I mean “clothes accumulated over the past ten years” and not “this year’s Fall collection”). Holy shit I own a lot of socks — far more than any one individual should. Granted, I own different socks for different occassions (as if this justifies my habit); I own socks for running, biking, hashing (they go all the way up to my knees), dressing up, cold weather wool socks, etc. Name an occassion, I’ll name the sock (which oddly reminds me of the movie City Slickers where Billy Crystal’s character is challenged to name a food and Ira or Barry Shalowitz (I can’t remember which) would come up with the perfect ice cream flavor).

You Say Cuss, I Say Curse
I had a good laugh last night watching a program called “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” on BBC America. The premise of the show is that Gordon Ramsay, a brash, foul-mouthed chef in Britain (is “chef in Britain” a contradiction?), has taken on the task of visiting small restaurants in order to correct their deficiencies — all in a week’s time. The tagline for the show is “If you can’t stand the heat you shouldn’t be in the f**king kitchen.” It makes me laugh that apparently even on “The Beeb”, at least the American version, you cannot say “fuck”, although “shit” is dropped often, as is “bollocks” (which essentially means “fuck up”, or refers to one’s testicles). Odd, very fucking odd.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - thick
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing Sonic Youth
Current Read - the owner’s manual to my digital camera

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I love it, I mean really love it, when a system works as advertised!

For the first time in my adult life I participated in my company’s Flexible Medical Spending Plan. Basically, for all of you old enough to remember, it’s like a Christmas Club account where each paycheck a pre-determined amount of my salary is diverted (pre-tax) to a fund that must be used for medical expenses within the specified fiscal year. If I fail to use the money within the fiscal year the unused portion is forfeited (not sure to whom, but suffice to say it is not returned to me). I guess you could say that I was betting “The System” that I would be getting sick enough last year to spend the X amount of dollars I was setting aside. Given the fact that I have no dental insurance and knew that another crown was imminent in 2004, it was a safe wager. The plan states that when I spend money for qualifying medical expenses I need only to fax in copies of the itemized bill proving payment and I will be reimbursed (up to, but not exceeding X).

This all sounds great in theory, but in practice it is usually a fucking hassle dealing with administration, paperwork and waiting for reimbursement.

Yesterday in the mail I received a check for the amount corresponding to receipts I faxed in just last week! Holy Fucking Hell, somebody has done it right! (and there was much rejoicing!!!) Congratulations PayFlex, I love you!

When Do Ten Brains Not Fare Better Than One?
Last night at Johnny’s Pizza’s version of team trivia “Meet the Hashers”, usually a juggernaut when together, failed to answer the following question correctly.

Place the following four inventions in order of creation from oldest to newest
1) Otis passenger elevator
2) Machine gun
3) Goodyear vulcanized rubber
4) Richter scale

We got it completely wrong, plummeting us out of the money. Truthfully, I had no idea of the proper order and I still don’t. I guess next week it’s back to Taco Mac.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - mixed emotions
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing Radiohead

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I participate in a lot of activities which give t-shirts away. I’ve been known to do running and biking races, do hashing events, as well as work in the computer industry for the last thirteen years (a computer geek without at least one t-shirt from the DotCom days is not really a computer geek). I must own somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 t-shirts. I’ve never actually counted them, but the stack is tall and quite cumbersome to lift when I am trying to put away clean laundry.

Last night while doing laundry I realized that I was folding a t-shirt that I have owned for ten years! The shirt I was folding was nothing extra-ordinary (unlike the authentic Pat Benatar t-shirt that I acquired at my first concert in 1980); it was a softball t-shirt obtained during my stint at a company called Daugherty Systems.

Hi, My Name Is Paul And I Have A Problem
I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a problem getting rid of the past. I am not a pack rat, although I wish I could have been one of the Rat Pack. There is a theory abound that you should never display pictures in your household. Pictures represent the past, and if you dwell upon the past you will never be able to concentrate on making the future better. I cannot say that I subscribe to this belief, although I believe it has some merit.

T-shirts are just one example of my problem. I can’t seem to put the Palm III that I have owned for a good six years out to pasture. My PDA is a dinosaur in the world of electronics; it can’t do most of today’s cool tasks, but in its limited way it serves my needs. I seem to have a loyalty to it, the same way I have a loyalty to people who have treated me well.

So, What Did I Learn This Weekend?
If you read this space on Friday you’ll remember my grand plans

• buy refrigerator
• read up on html
• understand how to use Flickr.com

Well, I was 0 for 3. Ooops. Actually what I learned this weekend is that I currently need a lot of social interaction and sleep. Much hashing, drinking and sleeping were the orders of the day. Who can blame me when it is sunny and 68 degrees in January? Oh well, there is always next weekend…

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - puzzled
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing William Shatner

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Loverboy. Yes, Loverboy. Unlike Journey, it would have been okay for a high school girlfriend to like Loverboy. In hindsight, I really had a warped sense of reality back then.

Today is the first Friday I have worked since the one prior to Thanksgiving. As I have chronicled it is my ‘tradition’ to take every Friday between Thanksgiving and New Year’s off from work (read the fine prose posted from Joe’s in prior posts). Tradition or not, this first Friday back to work is hard to deal with. I keep wanting to scream “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” (Clerks reference)

Refrigerator Magnet
Today is ‘The Day’ boys and girls! I am finally putting the old refrigerator out to pasture. Armed with gift cards I am swinging over to Sears after work to purchase a new one (to be delivered just in time to keep all of the Super Bowl party food safe from all those nasty things that live in inferior refrigerators). Maybe with my purchase I can help them make enough money to steal that crystal football sponsorship back from ADT.

I’ll See Your Party, And Raise You One
As always seems to be the case I am double booked tonight (my, aren’t I popular). Well, it’s seems to be the case except when I have nothing to do. Gee, maybe those free nights would have been well spent seeing The Incredibles, but I digress.

Tonight I am to attend a birthday party for my good friend, and fellow East Atlantan, Glenn. Happy 39th Glenn! I’ll tell you what it’s like to hit forty when I get there later this year. From there I’ll be heading over to a ‘wine and re-gifting’ party hosted by my good friends and fellow Survivor dinner party hosts. I’ve got a doozy of a re-gift which I shall not divulge just in case anyone else who will be attending the party is checking in today.

Learning, Always Learning…
If I have learned one thing from this blogging exercise it is that I am not the greatest speller. Dictionary.com along with a right-click plugin for Firefox have been my saviors (which I spelled correctly, thank you very much). M’ster if you ever read this you’ll understand my troubles playing Scrabble.

Although already packed with activity I am really going to try and start to educate myself again. On what you may ask?

• html - I feel like this blog template is too limiting
• Flickr.com - I’ve got pictures to post and a camera phone I want use better

Wish me luck.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - anxious
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing William Shatner

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Made You Look! Ah, childish humor it makes me laugh at least.

When Streets Get Humped, We All Get Screwed
The other day I found out through the East Atlanta email list that Ormewood Ave, a main street which connects Flat Shoals Ave and Moreland Ave, was getting speed humps installed. I hate speed humps! Speed humps (along with the not-so-approved technique of leaving big metal plates covering roadwork) have become a popular defense against this city’s shitty drivers.

Do speed humps slow down drivers? Yes, but to a damn snail’s pace. When many drivers encounter speed humps they slow to a speed which would safely ensure the transport viles of nitroglycerine. It’s even more frustrating to see people in SUVs slow as if their vehicles were not designed to encounter bumps (which really may be the case, but that’s another story).

Furthermore, speed humps cause people to take alternate routes, which simply moves the danger rather than eliminating it. The people whose street gets humped may get the problem out of their front yard, only to have passed it along to their neighbors — and that’s not very neighborly. Finally, speed humps do nothing to solve the other issues of traffic safety ignorance such as running red lights (by coincedence yesterday I came upon two separate accidents which occurred in the middle of intersections controlled by traffic signals), ignoring stop signs, not paying attention (read ‘cellphone usage’, ‘food eating’, ‘reading’, etc), or seeing pedestrians and cyclists as annoyances on the road which must be eliminated.

Okay Einstein What’s Your Solution?
Education and enforcement are the only ways to curb dangerous driving habits. We will never completely eradicate traffic safety problems, especially in a city which loves its cars, and whose mass transit system (again, another story) is abysmal, but we need to try.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - ready for the weekend
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26, playing Razorlight

Drive Safely — and I mean it!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

One of the ramifications of claiming that you plan to lose twenty pounds in fewer than eight months is that you must exercise regularly if you have any hope of backing it up. Well, I suppose I could become a bulimic, but that seems a bit extreme — at least this early in the game.

Don’t Call It A Comeback
Last night’s exercise was an hour on my bicycle trainer. This is a common exercise routine for me (yeah yeah the weather is gorgeous I should get outside, and run or bike. Whatever!), especially when I can pop on some tv to help pass the time. Little did I know that by not bringing the remote control to the bicycle that I would have to exercise my restraint in addition to my legs. I decided that would watch, in spectacular HDTV, the 71st (FedEx) Orange Bowl broadcast on ABC which is owned by Disney. The winning team would become the proud possessor of the ADT National Champion Trophy (um, crystal football), which of course used to be called the Sears National Champion Trophy, and oh yeah, some worthless (at least monetarily) thing called pride. Do you get what I am after here? Embedded somewhere in the last few sentences is the concept of sports, winning and pride, all obscured by marketing. Yes, I know it’s the “American Way” but hasn’t it gotten way out of control? Oh, and lest I forget, the game was horrible.

By half-time the game was essentially over and I had about ten minutes left in my ride. Not being a quitter, I decided that I would finish my ride even when I found out that the half-time entertainment (which I think was the “Pontiac High Performance Half-Time”) consisted of a U2 video, and “live” performances from Kelly Clarkson, some guy named Trev Atkins, and your favorite lipsyncer and mine, Ashlee Simpson. Can you say “train wreck?” I knew you could.

In the scorecard of life I think I gained some extra credit for being able to finish my ride without getting off the bike to change the channel. Come to think of it, had I walked across the room to change the channel and then gotten back on to the bike, I would have gotten more exercise. Damn! Why didn’t I think of that then?!?

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - upbeat
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 26 — unfortunately playing Trent Dabbs

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Wow, Meet The Hashers kicked ass and took names last night at Johnny’s Pizza in Inman Park. Ending the game a mere eight points from perfection (we actually only lost three points due to our only incorrect answer — the other five points are accounted for in the points we wagered on the final question.) I believe we racked up the highest score ever seen in The Trivia Factory’s history. My contributions last night consisted of helping the table look good, not drinking much beer, and not interrupting the teammates who brought their “A” game last night. Yes, I am the consummate team player.

Slow News Day
Today my coworkers have brought in yet more free cake. BRING IT! I care not, for I have reintroduced ‘discipline’ into my eating vocabulary.

Toy Of The Day
My continual search, slowed momentarily by the Visa bill I received in the mail yesterday, for my next toy continues. The latest playa is the iPaq rx3115. Having given up on bringing all of my life together into a single device (T-Mobile, lower those rates and you’ll have another Sidekick II customer) I am looking into going toward a new PDA which can also do music/video (sorry Palm, I just don’t think you have the lasting power you once did). Of course, no purchase can be made until this year’s Consumer Electronics Show is over so that I know what the next wave of electronic toys will look like.

And This Just In….
My friend Stacey just sent me a link to this article in Sunday’s Boston Herald. The article discusses a temporary Starbucks advertising campaign being used by some of Boston’s cabs.

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]