Inside The Perimeter

Ok, it’s a band name that I stole today…

It’s The Sound Of One Hand Clapping
Today marks the eighth of ten Valentines, known so far as the Atlanta Valentines, that I have been alone. Sadly, it embarrasses me to admit this fact. Happily, I’ve gone from hating (don’t be a hater) this day to taking it in stride. If you wish to deliver me a lovely Valentine I’ll be celebrating by doing my Monday night routine of playing team trivia at Taco Mac in the Highlands.

What Has A Fedora Or A Poof Of Blue Hair, No Decernible Head, And Two Hands Gripping The Top Of A Steering Wheel?
Old people driving.

Now before you jump all over me, hear me out.

When I was a teenager (yes, I can remember that far back) learning to drive in Florida I learned to be weary of drivers whose heads you could not see. Generally, they were old people driving American cars, made of American steel, by American workers, or what we used to refer to as ‘tanks’. These people were horrible drivers and were safety hazards (I was too but for completely different reasons — let a sixteen year old boy buy a 1968 Mustang, you do the math).

What reminded me of this were two different old people sightings last week. To me Atlanta is a youthful town, with the exception of The Collonade which looks like a community meeting at Del Boca Vista (Seinfeld reference).

First there were the three eldery ladies happily driving somewhere (my guess would be bingo, or to The Collonade to get a jump on the early-bird special) that I saw while driving into work last week. My guess was that there combined age was somewhere in the neighborhood of 225.

Second was a man, or more appropriately a fedora that was in front of me Friday as some co-workers an I headed out for lunch. No sooner did my story of Floridian drivers leave my mouth when the old man pulled out making a (legal) right on red. The problem with this old man’s maneuver was that he pulled out, and all but hit, a policeman riding down the road on a motorcycle! At the next red light I witnessed the two discussing the near-miss, but I don’t think that the officer issued a citation.

Watch out for all of those Mildreds and Alfreds out there, because even if they are looking out for you they might not see you.

What’s In A Name
Along the old-person lines, two people have referenced this fun website which graphically represents the popularity of baby names over the last 100+ years. Given the fact that I work with four other Pauls in an office of about 125 people, I was not surprised to see that my name (yes, my real name is Paul) was very popular in the 1960’s (Fab Four anyone?), what I was surprised was to see how much it has tailed off since the 1970’s. In case you were wondering I didn’t see a single entry for ‘Tread’, but mark my words, that will be a popular name in the next generation.

But I Don’t Feel Any Different
My super-duper new scale identified me as a thirty-five year old, 5′7″ female today. Either someone fucked with my settings last week, or my super-duper scale ain’t so bright. I was happy to see my body fat percentage drop 12% when I fixed the settings, however.

Monday Morning Weigh-In
Starting weight - (approx since I didn’t have a scale) 198 lbs
Target weight - 178 lbs
Current weight - 195 lbs (time to get serious)

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - forgetful, I know I had more to say today…
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing The Dresden Dolls - “Coin Operated Boy”
Current Read - nothing currently (are you noticing a trend?)

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

The overly-observant of you may have noticed a few additions to the Inside The Perimeter right sidebar. I have added “Voyeurville” where I will place links to other blogs I enjoy reading, and “Etc, Etc, Etc” where I will place my website Hall Of Fame (read “places I spend too much time”). Yes, they are both rather, um barren ;), but like some of the best things in life give them a little time and they will grow.

If You Had $50 At Amazon.com…
How would you spend it? I have a $50 rebate (which expires on March 2nd) and can’t seem to figure out how to spend it. Now before every comments about me buying them something tough titties, this one is for me. I am still curious to know, however.

My Child Is An Honor Student, And They Go To School In This Volvo
I have to start getting out of the house earlier again. I refuse to give up my new routine of stopping in for my morning coffee and worshipping Ellen at Joe’s Coffee Shop, but Holy Hell (Batman) I cannot stand the traffic around whatever elementary school is near the intersection of Highland and North Decatur. Why must all these parents drive their children to school? What will they be telling their children in thirty years or so? “You know Tread&sup1, when I was a child we had to get into Grandma’s Volvo and sit there while she drove us to school. We didn’t have personal jet-packs like you kids today.”

&sup1 : It is my belief that “Tread” will be an ultra-cool name for a future generation

Yes, As A Matter Of Fact I Was Staring At You
Ladies, I have been looking at you in your cars for as long as I remember. If you catch me with an “extended glance”, ie staring, you don’t have to look so damn indignant. Believe it or not, I am doing it because I think you look pretty, not because I see a booger hanging from your nose or anything. Relax, Uh-kay. (said in the voice of Mr. Mackey from South Park)

Fill ‘Er Up!
10,000 songs my ass! Ok, I know that’s the advertised max my iPod can hold when songs are encoded at 128 Kbps. But my ears need more quality, so the lion’s share of my collection has been ripped to 160 Kbps (and would be 192 Kbps or higher if I was smarter). Last night I kicked off a download of as much of my music collection (in reverse chronological order) I could to my iPod. The result after four hours (damn USB 1.1 connection!) of downloading? I was able to download from …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead’s “World Apart” to Led Zeppelin’s “In Through The Out Door”. That’s 2005 through 1979 for those of you keeping score at home.

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. It’s a short list this week, but believe it or not, shorter can be better…

• Sarah Lane’s Blog: The beautiful and nerdy host of G4’s “The Screen Savers.” The show has gone to hell in a handbasket but I still drop by her blog occassionally
• The Twisted Ankle Half Marathon: Want to see one of the dumb things on my plate for this spring? Sure, I am a whimp — I only plan to run the half marathon

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - Ret’ to go…. Who’s with me?
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Morrissey - “First Of The Gang To Die”
Current Read - nothing currently

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

This has been the quietest week I have had in a while. One person has commented regularly (and I enjoy the repartee, Girl), and my email’s inbox has been virtualy dead, what did I do? Was it the Super Bowl party? Huh? Last time I checked I hadn’t hurt any cute puppies, or knocked the cane from a blind man’s hand. Let me know, because the silence is unlike you all and it is killing me.

That Sucking Sound You Hear Is Netflix Trying To Get Me Back
I was once a Netflix customer and loved it. The problem I have is that I rarely sit down and watch a movie. It’s nothing for me to kill time with sports, mainly because it doesn’t require my complete attention and I can do something else while it is on. Movies, on the other hand, require attention, although I never remember them anyway so I don’t know why I care.

Stranger yet is that my job provides me all of the television known to man, yet I have a hankering to watch movies that I missed in the theater, are out on dvd, but have not hit the pay-per-view scene.

You Down With OCD? Yeah You Know Me
Last week I introduced a few of my quirks, and now I have some questions for you to ponder.

• Can you walk by a microwave that has some amount of time flashing (remaining from the previous user) and not reset it?
• When you pull up to a stop light do you look at the license plate of the car in front of you? Do you look to see if their tag has expired?
• If a table in your breakroom has crumbs on it (let’s say from a cake) which obviously have been there for some time, do you clean the table?

I am ‘off’, that I understand. But as long as I am the only victim of my quirks, or my quirks make this a better place to live, then I am ok with myself.

It’s Birthday Time Again!
One of my longest-term friends, Robin, has a birthday today! Happy Birthday and I hope life in New Mexico is treating you well.

Have to run, work beckons; and I had so much more today. Tune in again tomorrow, same Bat channel, same Bat time.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - tickled
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing The Avalanches - “Frontier Psychiatrist”
Current Read - nothing currently

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I’m Sorry, What Did You Say Your Name Was?
At last Saturday’s hash I was sure that I had notched another hash name on my belt. For those of you who do not hash, hashing is a world-wide society of running-types that run trails which always lead to beer. Check out the web site for the Atlanta Hash House Harriers and Harriettes for more details. After five runs with a given hash group you are assigned a “hash name”, the name you will (most-likely) be called for the remainder of your hashing life.

To date, and the best of my memory, I have come up with the following hash names and have given my explanation as to how I arrived at them (timid readers should skip to the next section now)

• Some Assembly Required (he was brought to the hospital with his mandible separated from his skull after a motorcycle accident)
• Au Whatta Pair (she has nice, um breasts, and worked as an au pair in Europe)
• Ho, Ho, Ho (this unfortunate girl decided to where a Santa hat to her first hash)
• Stool Pigeon (someone told a story about her showing off a poop as a child)
• Sunken Semen (she was from Hawaii, ComeOnIWannaLaya had been taken, and something about Pearl Harbor was involved)
• Cumsicle (rumor has it that she can only achieve climax when it is cold outside)

For completeness the name I nominated Saturday was Boweling For Dollars (the guy is doing irregular bowel research), and my name is Wee Little Bit (obviously jealousy was involved).

When Fat Tuesday Becomes Lethargic Tuesday
Last night I was sluggish (gee, I wonder if four days of non-stop partying and a wealth of food yesterday had anything to do with it?) After stumbling around Best Buy for awhile looking for new toys I went home and laid down on the couch around 8:30pm. I woke up this morning to the alarm clock at 5:30am. My mother called sometime between these two times and I never even heard the phone ring.

Yes, my carpeting still needs to be vacuumed. At least I did manage to get the majority of the trash to the curb.

Looking For Playlists
“In the day” we kids called them mixtapes, now playlists determine the musical ordering of mp3’s. If anyone has suggestions of playlists for the music on my iPod, please leave them. I may not have all the songs you recommend, but I’ve got skillz for getting them.

Trying For Legacy Status
I have submitted “blomage” — to pay homage to another’s blog — to the Urban Dictionary. I am hoping that it will take off that I will be seen as the “Father of the Blomage” — which of course is very different from the “Father of the Blowjob” a title which I would never be an applicant, and “Father of the Bride” a title I wouldn’t mind obtaining at some point in my life, but time is ticking away.

Happy Chinese New Year!
Welcome to the year of the rooster, or as some cultures call them cock. [insert your own filth here] I just might go for some Chinese at lunch, I hope my fortune reads “You will get lucky this year.”

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - recovered and invigorated
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing isadore (another band with which I am unfamiliar)
Current Read - employee performance reviews

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Today I come to you red-faced with embarrassment. I did one of those things that while they are far from fatal, are so silly that I had to stop and wonder how I make it through each day.

Last night after getting home from a lackluster trivia outing (we finished third out of an abnormally small field) I decided that my basement needed to be cleaned up from Sunday’s Super Bowl party. The biggest casualty from the party was my authentic 1960’s/1970’s shag carpeting. (As an amusing aside, once when I was looking for shag carpeting on Sears’ website I typed ’shag’ into their search engine and it kept returning screws and screwdrivers. Put it together — think what ’shag’ meant in Austin Powers — there you go). Luckily the abuse was more along the lines of fumbling chips and peanuts rather than spilling red wine.

My vacuum cleaner is a twelve-year old Dirt Devil purchased on the recommendation of Paul Harvey. It sees little use these days since the majority of my house has hardwood floors (ananonymousgirl if you read this, that one’s for you). I have disliked this vacuum since I bought it, damn you Paul Harvey, and last night was no different. As I pushed and pulled I kept noticing that dust was coming out of it. My assumption was that the bag was nearly full and that I would replace it once I finished. This morning I took the cover plate off the vacuum only to discover that I apparently never put a new bag in the last time I finished using it. D’Oh Fucking D’Oh! To the vacuum’s credit there was some accumulation in the vacated cavity, but as you can well imagine, last night’s exercise was an exercise in futility. I effectively recycled the dust and dirt. Want to take a guess as to what task has reappeared on my To-Do list?

Happy Mardi Gras
Today is Fat Tuesday! To celebrate our company potluck I am stewing up a “jambalaya” in a crockpot. I make an awesome jambalaya (if I do say so myself), but today’s recipe is different from the one I normally use. I’ll have to see if I like this one.

Since today is Fat Tuesday, that must make tomorrow the start of the forty-day suffering called Lent. If I decide to give up anything this year it will be complaining about petty things. (note: I have never given up anything for Lent, so don’t get your hopes up)

But Just In Case…
IT’S CALLED A ‘ZERO’ NOT AN ‘O’ — THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT! Don’t ask me why, but I cringe every time I hear someone give a phone number and say ‘o’ instead of ‘zero.’ Maybe it is because I am old enough to remember the days when people used letters (my childhood phone number was given out as IN3-8945) and since ‘o’ is on the key labelled ‘6′ I think we should be more careful. What if people took this literally and started dialing 464 instead of 404 for Atlanta’s largest area code? Huh, what if? Maybe I should start doing it and pissing off the people in Chicago’s suburbs.

THAT LITTLE LEVER ON THE LEFT SIDE OF YOUR STEERING WHEEL COLUMN GOES UP AND DOWN! WHICH WAY YOU MOVE IT CORRELATES TO THE DIRECTION YOU WILL BE TURNING! THIS SIMPLE ACTION LETS OTHERS KNOW WHERE THE FUCK YOU ARE GOING! USE IT! — I don’t care if you call it a turn signal, blinkers, directional signals, whatever, just use the damn thing. Some poor fuck, or group of poor fucks, spent a lot of time designing this elegant solution which allows others to know that you no longer intend to travel in the direction you are currently headed. They even figured out how to make it turn off automatically (most of the time) for you!

There, I feel better…

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - exhausted, but recovering
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Clem Snide (no, I hadn’t heard of him before either)
Current Read - resume land

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Eventhough I once bore a resemblence to Christopher Reeve I confirmed yesterday that I am not Superman.

I really could have used Superman’s ability to fly back in time by circuling the Earth. My poor social planning found me forty-five minutes late to my own Super Bowl party. Let me say that it is both embarrassing and heart-warming to pull into your driveway and find fifteen people waiting for you.

I ran around the house for a good hour trying to get things the way they should have been prior to my guests’ arrival; most of which was food re-heating/preperation. Luckily, my friends are ususally kind enough to bring food, so theirs was eaten first.

By the way, I am told that the Patriots won. I saw no more that five minutes of the game. Ironic, as I am a huge football fan, but I can never get out of ‘host’ mode for my parties.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - exhausted
Current Music - none, silence is golden today
Current Read - resume land

Monday Morning Weigh-In
Starting weight - (approx since I didn’t have a scale) 198 lbs
Target weight - 178 lbs
Current weight - not taken — eh, it’s the day after the Super Bowl…

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Actually it must have been user error Thursday. It wasn’t until 8:30 last night that I realized I never posted yesterday’s entry. Damn, no wonder why no one commented on my brilliant prose! Oddly, and somewhat sadly, no one asked me where the entry was either.

Go look, it’s worth the five minute read…

Welcome LiveJournal Readers!
I think I have stage one of syndication correct; friends of mine on LiveJournal can read my blog via syndication. Those of you over there ‘hello’, and I promise the formatting looks much better if you go either to http://www.InsideThePerimeter.com, or http://insidetheperimeter.blogspot.com. I’ll work on this…

Meep? What The Hell Does That Mean?
I took this Battle Cry quiz today, here is the result…

what’s your battle cry? | mewing.net | merchandise!
At least they got the easily amused part right.

Caffeine A Go-Go
Well, I managed to work every Friday in January, so to celebrate I have taken the first Friday in February off! Yippee! As I did in December, I have come up to hang at Joe’s Coffee Shop and do some people watching. In reality today is meant to be spent doing household chores before tens of friends invade my house for the Super Bowl on Sunday.

If I hadn’t planned a million activities which run abut to one another this weekend would be awesome. As it stands now I may need another day off on Monday in order to recover.

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

• AnAnonymousGirl’s blog: paying props to my most vocal reader. Glad to see you are updating more often.
• BlogRolling: a site to link blogs. I haven’t played with it much, we’ll see how useful it will be
• MLA Magazine: specifically this article about tApple’s top ten failures
• Digg: non-flashy geek stories posted by geeks for geeks
• Ghost Gallery, the museum of e-failure: see some of the business plans that didn’t work

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - nervous: Super Bowl Party ‘T Minus Two Days’, but happy because the sun has returned
Current Music - random jazz in the coffee shop
Current Read - websites

Got to run, the laptop battery is about to puke and I don’t have my power cord with me…

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

We begin today’s entry with a little verse that popped into my head this morning whilst driving t work.

What is this light which catches my eye
It most certainly can’t be the sun
Oh, I get understand now
This land once had a tree, and now there is none

Some Strange Things About Me

• I care, I notice, I listen — traits which are not found in many men
• I cannot tie just one shoe — If one shoelace becomes loose I must, and repeat must, re-tie both laces. It’s got something to do with symmetry.
• While I don’t dislike change, I’m not a fan of it either — Change in color, furniture arrangement, etc catches my eye and forces me to stop and process what has changed. Many people assume this means that I am displeased, but really I am just trying to figure out what has changed.
• I like to plan, I like routine — I want to know where I am going, even if I don’t eventually make it there.
• I like to surround myself with things that make me smile — My desk at work is cluttered with toys that amuse me, as well as a picture of myself taken when I weighed 235 pounds. The picture is what I turn to remind myself that things could always be worse.

Is It Irony?
I remember a few years ago when Alanis Morissette had her big hit “Isn’t it Ironic”. I thought it ironic that the State of the Union address for President Bush’s second term of office occurred on Groundhog Day. Let’s hope he can learn from Bill Murray in the classic movie of the same name and make things better. *dismounting soapbox*

It’s Time For Another Birthday!
Today’s birthday boy is my one and only sibling, Ronnie! Luckily, he doesn’t know about, nor read my blog, so he won’t know that I have mentioned this. My brother and I are sixteen (yes, sixteen) years apart; I am the younger of the two. While we have the same DNA origins, and look similar (I was lucky enough to keep my hair) we are different animals. It makes sense to me, we were both were raised as ‘only children’ (he was married and moved out of the house when I was two), and while the names of our parents were the same, the people who raised us were vastly different (think about this — my mother was 19 when he was born and 35 when I was born — were you the same when you were those ages?).

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - nervous: Super Bowl Party ‘T Minus Three Days’
Current Music - The Faint. This is playing on my satellite tv and spinning in my car’s cd player as well.
Current Read - resumes, again — separating wheat from chaff

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

I’m away from my keyboard today doing on-campus recruiting at Georgia Tech. So, please read this lovely entry that I prepared earlier…

Urban Redevelopment
The other night’s pre-trivia walk was again through the Highlands. I went down the street on which my friend Bill used to own a house until about a year ago. From what I saw the Virginia-Highlands has entered Stage Three in my classification of urban redevelopment (note: I purposely didn’t call this ‘preservation’)

Stage One - ‘Let’s make them better’: During this phase a neighborhood is deemed ‘viable’ for gentrification and people with disposable income, called Urban Pioneers, start to move in and fix up the existing houses. The first houses to be snatched up are those which need minimal work, but soon thereafter the fixer-uppers are taken for a song and restored. Not all houses in the neighborhood are sold, some long-term residents manage to continue to live in the area.

Stage Two - ‘Let’s make them bigger’: During this phase a neighborhood is deemed ’safe for families’ and people needing larger houses move in and add on to the existing houses. Often time the addition is a second story, in many cases detracting from the original lines of the house. More houses now go up for sale because the cost of additions is great and long-term residents can turn their house for a profit.

Stage Three - ‘Let’s replace the old with bigger and newer’: During this phase a neighborhood starts to lose the houses (and larger lots) which once defined it. The older houses, some of which underwent additions in Phase Two are levelled, along with many mature trees, so that mini-mansions can be erected in the space. Long-term residents, if they still exist, realize that the price offered for their house, in addition to the immenent raising of taxes, is too great to turn down, and move out.

Would You Like To Rent Some Space For Your Shit?
America loves the ‘big house.’ I admit that my house is too large for a single individual, but in my defense I was not looking for a house this size, I just happened upon it.

What baffles me is that Americans own so much shit that we have created an entire industry to rent us space in which to store it — the Self Storage industry. Clusters of locked, sometimes climate-controlled, garages are present across our country housing the accumulated wealth of Americans who don’t have enough space within their own dwelling to store it. Amazing!

Short of needing secondary storage I am as guilty as the next person in this country. It’s one of my character flaws, definitely something I intend to work on.

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - nervous: Super Bowl Party ‘T Minus Four Days’
Current Music - none
Current Read - resumes

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]

Once upon a time I used to get up early and work out in the morning. Now I enjoy that extra hour of sleep too much. My new routine is to support my local coffee shop, Joe’s, on my way into work. As of today I have recognized three morning employees, two girls and a guy, and I have learned but one name, the aforementioned Ellen.

I’m happy with this new routine, it complies with my credo “Think locally Support local businesses.”

You Say Chipotle, I Say McDonald’s
Did you know that the latest “cool burrito” joint in Atlanta, Chipotle, is owned by McDonald’s? Yep, sure is. To their credit they have allowed the founder of the chain to continue with the standards which made the chain popular. I’d love to tell you to go to Frijoleros, or Tortilla’s for a locally-owned burrito, but they have moved into the “Atlanta’s Past” category. I say skip the burrito and do yourself a favor by getting some jerk chicken or pasta at Eats on Ponce de Leon.

Second Place Is First Loser
Since I changed the title of an elementary school workbook from “Learning to Compute” to “Learning to Compete” I have known that I have a fierce competitive streak. I hate to lose. I attempted to play competitive sports until I was eighteen eventhough my skills were far-less-than average. I failed miserably, by the way.

You would think that as I near the age of forty this would have subsided, and to some degree it has. I know that my physical skills will never be what they were five, ten, fifteen years ago, but Fuckin’ A (love that 80’s slang) my mind should not have dulled. I am turning forty, not eighty!

Last night’s team trivia outing at Taco Mac found Meet The Hashers finishing in second place for the third week in a row. Marcus Allen! Marcus Allen? I should have known that Marcus Allen was the player to hold the NFL scoring title prior to Emmitt Smith. It’s sports trivia — it’s what I do!

Before my teammates read this and ridicule me, let me say that I love hanging out with you all, but I also love the thrill of victory and the extra $20 that first place brings.

Do You Mind If I call It A Blomage?
As a blogging homage I am copying some material from ananonymousgirl’s blog, with a slight twist.

(A) First, recommend to me:
1. a movie that I should avoid:
2. a book that I should avoid:
3. a musical artist, song, or album that I should avoid:

(B) I want everyone who reads this to ask me three questions, no more, no less. Ask me anything you want — keep in mind you might not like the answers I post

(C) If you are a blogger, go to your blog, copy and paste this allowing your friends to ask you anything they want!

Going To Syndication
Look for this blog to syndicate to LiveJournal under the username InsideThePerime (stupid ass limited user names!). I will try to have the dots connected by Friday. Why syndicate? How else am I going to reach World Domination status? I am sure that if Hitler were around today he would be blogging on ThirdReich.com (which even if it does exist I’d refuse to link to it) [it's a joke people, keep calm]

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood - nervous: Super Bowl Party ‘T Minus Five Days’
Current Music - Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Interpol
Current Read - “iPod & iTunes Hacks”

Cheers!
Paulie [eatl/ga]