Hi. We're your neighbors.

rob

I have roommates. tho i seldom to never see them, i know they exist much the same way i know a pet monkey would make me the happiest kid on the block. Rob has a blog. I recommend it because everyday he goes through the drudgingly torturous task of noting the day's events and then commenting intelligently on them. The people he works with also have a blog. It reads about current events as well, but combines the wittiness of several contributors. Rob enjoys long walks to Little Ceasers, turning obscure sound clips into hot techno beats and digging up/burying things under the cover of darkenss.

chris

Stos, my landlord and second roommate, isn't just a tool of the democratic machine. He's the biggest tool. I first met Stos in the 3rd grade when we realized we were both trying to ram-rod a pro Paul Tsongas agenda down the throats of illiterate classmates. Later that year, we were able for a brief time to institute a regime change in a third world country, but lost playground privileges for a week because of it. You can check out his going ons here. At present he's logged 67 consecutive hours on garage-couch waiting for The Great Pumpkin.

i am jack's withered sense of accomplishment

--previously--

9:14am
Pump the gas

9:25am
Passerby's never seem to notice a white van parked in a lot. It's much the same way they never notice a guy carry a clip-board wearing a blue collared shirt. They pretty much let that guy go about his business because where ever it is he's going, it must be important. He Looks very official.

9:32am
Free Cell is my bitch. Gotta love the company laptop.

9:35am
You can't fake it with Free Cell. I mean, your mind has to be free and your chi has to be focused or else free cell will FUCK you up. And then you know what you got? A shitty statistics page. Think about it, if you want to maintain an 80% success rate, you have to pull off 4 wins per every 1 fuck-up. I think i need to put the free cell away before i hurt myself.

9:45am
i'm parked at a Mobile Station on Washtinaw St. in Ann Arbor. apparently there are no fire alarms or clock systems in the greater detroit area that need attention of any kind at this particular moment and as a result, I'm left with nothing more than passing traffic and my thoughts to pass the time. The only thing worse than a job that leaves you less than satisfied, is a job that leaves you unsatisfied with plenty of time to think about how you ended up where you are.

Aww Shit, Here comes Pac-Man...

DSC_0025
Originally uploaded by cszackie.

Here is the i mac in all it's slender Glory. This is the kind of computer you can grab on your way out the back window when Elron comes rollin in and he's looking for his mutha fuckin money and that bitch from Chi-Chi's still got ya ends.

Curiousity killed the cat but for a while there i was a suspect...

I have a map of the United States, it's actual size.

1 mile = 1 mile.

Thank you, Steven Wright

son of Jor-El, kneel before Zod!

Breaking News: I am your God now, imac.

i have finally mastered the multi-platform home network beast that is my house, thus allowing the imac to access the ludicrously large collection of obviously legal music files on my old PC. Unfotunately i can't take much credit. Indeed, the mac operating system is quite user-friendly, especially once you learn to embrace the shortcut keys.

TMI for the day: watching imac seamlessly pull music files from an antiquated win2k machine in the living room while SIMULTANEOUSLY retrieving photo archives from a wirelessly networked winxp laptop caused me so much joy i was tap dancing my way though the house like a school girl on crack. i am in engineer nirvana. i think my pants are getting smaller.

There's a new law in town

Finally, the imac is upon us and i am a mac user.

The good: The imac is like a fine woman, being both cute and sexy at the most appropriate times. (i may be attributing WAY too many human characteristics to the computer on my desk rigth now, but you have to see it to truly understand.) At night, the LED on the front pulses like a heart, slowly fading on and off.

The bad: I've spent all my free time the last 3 days setting up the old PC in the living room and trying to familliarize myself with the strange workings of the crazy mac world. I also single-handedly eliminated possibly millions of seemingly countinuously reproducing spyware programs when i re-installed windows on the old PC. I like to imagine that hundreds of monitors in some remote underground bunker, manned by a team of super monkeys, simultaneously went blank when hit that "format" command. But in all likelyhood, there was only two or three monkeys monitoring my goings on.

The ugly: I am a graduate of engineering. I went to college for electrical engineering. I *WILL* make OS-X and WIN2K commnuicate. Probably just not anytime soon.

Bombs Away

This is why i choose driving over flying.

Well, that and the whole "it feels like my brain is bleeding out of my ears" thing.

You can't spell caddy without P-I-M-P

Well shit. I was going to post a fine, nostalgic picture of the caddy in all her glory here, but since my computer is just once step of functionality above my washer, it's not going to happen. (When will the Apple Gods see fit to deliver me to my imac?)

Anyway, let me paint you a picture:
Shipping weight: 4156 lb
Length: 221 in (or about 19 ft)
Width: 76.5 in (or about 6.5 ft, i can lay down in back)
Bhp: 140 @ 3200 rpm (couldn't pass you on a bike)
Torque: 346 lb.-ft. @ 2000 rpm (can pull your house off it's foundation)
Compression ratio: 8.0:1 (comp this low typically seen on cars with, say a BLOWER!)
Fuel Tank : 25Gal

Everything about this beast said "look here world, i'm gonna throw a fist right in the face of convention and economy. Oh yeah, and i'm a BIG FUCKIN PIMP and your shit might get shot or run over if i see you lookin at my chrome crooked. And could you lend me some money because my ass is broke and i gotta fill this bitch up. P.S. Did ya check my neon, BITCH!"

Things that tried to stop the caddy:
-state cop
-hill behind Lee's Apt.
-(now famous) tree
-neighbor's car
-Wisconsin
-off road trails of various slopes
-a local cop
-lawn couch
-some ford's rear end on College Ave.

And even in the face of all these challenges, the caddy rode on. I see it from time to time, since the neighbor kid owns her now. I can always hear her coming down my street, calling out in her raspy, smoker's voice. I gotta say, she's looking sexy for her age.

Freedom. Terrible Freedom.

Today is Thursday, arguably the most bitter-sweet of all the days a typical week has to offer. On one hand we're so close to the weekend you can almost taste the tender juices of total freedom lurking just around the bend, and yet the reality is your lazy (and probably soon to be hung-over) ass still has to wake up at the crack of existence tomorrow and make it in to work.

I ordered my tickets for the Bash at the Big House today. Section 21 in case anyone cares. It should be a fun day because not only is Tech's football team mysteriously undefeated, but also because Gary the acoustic master will be playing TWO action packed shows. The very idea makes tingle with excitement.

Finally, ever wonder why shit things tend to fall upon good people, or have you come to simply know it as nature's law, like i have?

Reason #37 to vote against Bush: My Girlfriend can't find a decent frickin job.

hello there little fella

Here i am, blogging again. It's a strange feeling to have just dumped myself into the world of the blogs. I still feel like i'm in that awkward "getting to know you phase" of my relationship with my blog. You know, not really ready to expose myself fully, but kinda wanting to get all up in that? Honestly, how do i even know who's out there reading? Can i just hop up on stage and start philosophizing on life like a whiney teenager or a drunk toga-wearing Greek? Isn't this the equivalent of talking to yourself? And why are there so many questions in this paragraph?

Such is life. I see no evidence indicating that there's anything more out there than cops pretending to be little girls and porn dealers anyway. Oh, and political propaganda.

so much political propaganda.

Free Washer. No Refunds

Now i will begin the "there should be a law" portion of the blog.

Why would someone put a washer on their front lawn with an enticing sign that says "free" when they know damn well the thing doesn't work? And not only does it not work (i was well ready to put a little effort into making my new free washer road worthy) but the item this person is imparting on the world is the appliance equivalent of the Titanic AFTER it hit the ice burg. And you know how to determine that your new washer would be better suited at the bottom of the Detroit river? You put it in your van (by yourself, whistling "Eye of the Tiger" for motivation), drive it home, convince a friend to help you load it into your house, hook it up, scratch your head in confusion and finally disassemble and prod it's mechanical innards with a pointy stick. Again i ask, Why? Do my neighbors get a sick pleasure knowing that poor, washer-less people like my housemates and i would carry that damned machines on our backs if it meant we no longer had to leave the house to do laundry?

But i digress. That's the past and here's the future: What do i do with the washer? As i see it, there are three equally appealing choices

1) re-attach the "free" sign and toss the washer in front of my house, thus perpetuating the spin-cycle of hate and misery.

2) Fill the washer with gas-soaked rags, return it to the original lawn from which it was plucked and torch the bitch.

3) Hollow out the space-consuming insides of the washer and use the white cube as my own little isolation chamber.

Ultimately, i think justice would be best served by returning the washer to it's home with it's original sign proclaiming it's greatness to the world. But i'll be sure to put an amendment on that sign, in an attempt to save future passerbys from the woes i have suffered. It's the only Christian thing to do.

This is not a test

This photo was taken moments before the great cloud invasion of 1989.

Visa is your God now

I ordered an iMac yesterday. I'm so excited i could puke.

I've never owned an apple product before, but the simplicity and minimalist nature of the iMac is too much to pass over. Plus my PC, old faithful, has been rendered useless through a highly effective combination of spyware and old age. I seriously considered getting a Dell, dude, but then i visited an iMac at the mall and was seduced by that highly regarded apple operating system.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only one coveting the new Mac, so i have to wait in line with the other kids. None the less in 3 to 4 weeks i'll officially be "one of those people" who use Apple computers. To an engineer, this could be more socially traumatic than coming out of the closet.

In the beginning there was rice in a bag. And it was good.

Picture this: My roommate and I are standing in the kitchen, watching a pot of water attempt to boil. One of us narrates aloud; "here we are in our mid-twenties, watching water boil." In a furry to avoid the dreary road of observation this comment could lead to, i choose the "hey, what's this in my hands" method of conversation alteration: "you know, i really like these Rold Gold Honey Wheat Pretzel Twists," which is true. They're damn good.

"Why don't you have a blog yet?" he asks.

"You really think people are interested in my favorite pretzels?"

"sure," he says, prying the melted rice-in-a-bag plastic from the side of the sauce pan.

hmmmmm....