links!

ever want proof that a six-shooter is a poor choice for zombie protection?

play this game .

guess that's it for the "links" promised in the title. screw it, i'm tired.

nerds

if you have any experience with "online gaming" you'll appreciate the hell out of this slightly large video of a some live gaming action.

LEEROY!

i don't know a damned thing about world of warcraft, but i know funny.

if i hit the switch i can make the ass drop

I have another interview with one of the big three this week for an engineering position. I don't know how i came to be so obsessed with cars and the auto industry, but i'm pretty sure i will not be happy until i've weaseled my way into a position that allows me to completely surround myself with cars, specifically their design. I think it might have a direct correlation with the habit of always looking for used cars of interest when i'm out; who else would just *happen* to know that there's a '97 bmw 850r with 11,000 miles for sale, askin $4700 O.B.O. (blue book retail 6500, i could work him down to $4300) just down the road from a cherry 1989 Cadillac Brougham with a mere 101,000 miles for $3400. That car ain't even broken in.

Here's a few stories that make my point... my senior year of college a bunch of companies were in town for the career fair recruiting and they had their respective products on display on campus. Caterpillar for example had heavy equipment to show and GM, among other cars had their newly released Hummer H2 on proud display. On my way to class i was distracted by this beast and had to stop to catch a gander. As I'm squatting down behind this thing, inspecting the underbody, some fellow comes up and starts small talk about the new truck. "Pretty impressive," he begins, opening the door to my ranting. "I don't know, i'm not too impressed with the ground clearance. That rear axle looks like it was ripped off a suburban." He pauses to take this in for a moment, while i continue "those foot steps would hang up pretty easy, i figure..." Well. as it turns out, he was the guy who designed that axle... surprisingly, i didn't get a job with GM that year. Or ever after.

Fast forward to three weeks ago. the most exiting event of the week was when i was passed by an EV-1 going east bound on I-696. two things kept me up for three nights after this event. First of all, the EV-1 was an electric vehicle leased only by GM to an exclusive group of customers in predominately warm, southern states. This little electric bitch, toted by the majority of the press "too little too early" passed me going about 80. The second thing is, these little guys made big news a few months ago when they were all crushed while celebrity protesters stood by. Well, there's a least one left and it's terrorizing work vans in detroit.

nerd out,
Curt

the funny

a guy walks into his bed room one night while his wife is lying there in bed, and under the guys arm is a sheep. The guy looks up and says, "You see dear, this is the pig i'm fucking when you're not around." The wife is a little shocked at this, but has the sense to realize something's wrong and replies "That's not a pig, that's a sheep..."

The guy says "I wasn't talking to you."

show me your light sabor

now that i've seen the new Starwars movie, i feel i should fulfill my roll as internet blogger and offer a review of the flick.

(warning, some spoiling may ensue)

The Bad: Not every fuckin sentence uttered by Yoda was meant to be delivered in reverse prose. Fuck, man, it was like my brain wanted to explode every time Yoda opened his mouth. Furthering the perversion, the computer generated Yoda simply does not look right. Not even close.

The Good: A return to the roots of sexy spaceships in action packed, sci-fi-tastic battles. Don't get it twisted, this was no Hoth battle scene... but the opening sequence was pretty good.

The Bad: Why is everything so cleanly computer generated? The whole fucking universe is shinier than Samuel Jackson's freshly waxed dome. I miss the dark sets; the grimy X-wings with blaster marks, the dingy Millennium Falcon's interior and dirty cross-dressing bars where Solo hung out.

The Good: over all, this movie kicked the first two right in the jimmy. Lucas should have made only this last one, since it's really the one part of the story that relates directly to the other three. Screw those other two.

For a good review that makes mine look like it was written by 3rd graders with head traumas, check out this piece by the New Yorker.

length for no particular reason other than boredom

I spent the other day working in a medium sized office building in downtown detroit. My coworker "e" (previously mentioned in a few entries here) said he used to work at an electro-plating plant just a few blocks away. It was his first job here when he first moved to the detroit area four years ago. If you're not familiar with the electro-plating process, it involves dipping metal components into various acid and chemical bathes, and then running high voltages through the liquid to form a chemical plating over the metal. Basically, think chrome. It's not a very pleasant process to be around, and any undesirable manufacturing process is magnified in suckitude when it's taking place in a dilapidated factory in Detroit's industrial section. Ed (or Easy-E as i like to call him) began telling stories of when the acid tended splash on his arms because the rubber gloves were so short and how certain chemicals would "make him high" because he had only a filter to protect him from the fumes and not a respirator. Easy Said he was commissioned with cutting up the empty 55 gallon chemical drums, which often had residual liquids in them, for easier disposal. Furthermore, he claimed his fellow workers, "the big black guys," would take his lunch and often made fun of his size and speech. The whole experience came to a head one particular evening when his ride home failed to materialize. See, Easy worked the evening shift. or the day shift. or both if they told him to. And on this particular early morning as he got out of work, he said in his broken english, he was forced to make his way to the bus stop to try to get home. Before he made it, a large women approached him and tried very persistently to sell him her body or some crack. (imagine poor ed now, trying dearly to accurately represent the deep voice of this immense women, in his own broken style of speech, "Hey you want buy my pussy?" he said while grabbing his crotch.) Easy-E fled from the women and took refuge in the most well lit area he could. it just so happened that his ride, the brother in law, did show up and edwin was safe for another night.

trying to digest the story i had just heard, while simultaneously dragging out the day's assignment to a full 8 hours, i made my way down to the parking garage for a bit of a wonder. The building housed mostly law firms so the garage attendant was also the valet. It was afternoon now and the morning rush had given way to the lull until the afternoon rush. It was one of the first warm days of spring and I found the attendant just outside the entrance to the garage, leaning back in an old chair, absorbing the sun's rays. He kept referring to it as "being on the beach" INitially i assumed he was making conversation, lamenting what a pleasure it would be to actually be sitting on a warm beach at that particular moment. but as he continued, i realized he really did believe (or at least imagine) he was sitting on a beach. He didn't go to and from the guard booth to park or retrieve cars, he walked to and fro the beech. Likewise, he admired the birds picking crumbs, sparrows i think they were, and how with a little squinting, you could see the long beaks and colorful feathers they flaunted. yes... the feathers... i think i'll enjoy my stay at the beach.

hmmmmm

at some point during the Detroit Tiger's game last night, probably around beer 6 or 7, Jon's women initiated a fresh conversation thread: She turned to me and with the straightest of face, asked "what if you had to choose between a fat, tight chick, or a super hot chick that was blown out?"

Damn. i need another beer. (merry cinco de mayo)

i see...

we don't need the taco jon's monkey to tell us it's not supposed to snow in May. not ever. especially not two days in a row.

well, you know what they say: april snow bring may snow.

"first i took away his weapon; both of them."

i learned four things in Wisconsin this past weekend.

1) shooting guns is fun.
2) sin city is possibly the best movie ever made.
3) a slipknot show is likely the most hard rocking experience i'll ever have.
4) there's some crazy stuff that goes down in a Bristol, WI gentleman's club.

sensory over load...

wonder boy

so yeah. this is the bat that paid the price of my emotional tsunami. damn i loved that bat. in fact, it has a little history behind it. The Hulkster (my bro) first used this stick in early 90's beer league softball matches. left behind at my folks house, i took her under my wing and started keeping it in the trunk of the Dodge Dynasty for protection in the mean street of the S-Gate! werd. escaping several intense, action-filled years in the burbs (without seeing any non-passtime action) it spent a few years in dry dock while i wasted my time and money at an institution of higher learning. (the effects of that last job interview are obviously still being felt) Anyway, now that i live near a batting-range, the old girl came off the bench and had a new found exposure, explaining how my recent roommate and exploding electronic music DJ, rob felt the serene pull of bashing helpless goods and found the black bat was the perfect tool for "playing out" shitty CDs. this particular happening became a popular and now folklore-ish event at one of the shows that would be a stepping stone to his now world-famous status, seen here.
Once rob had blown fully up, he was able to move on and leave the bat and I to our devices, which mostly consisted of devastating high speed, little yellow balls (20 pitches for $1.50, up a quarter from last year). That was, until furry and alcohol took my strength to a superhuman level, and the little bat that could, did no longer.

my failure is complete

as promised, i got the call today regarding the second interview at chrysler. i came in second. again. i didn't dare mention it at the time, but the guy i interviewed with made it seem like it was a sure thing that i would be hired. he joked about "can you start today?" and said the whole thing went really well. well, apparently some dude showed up who had already worked for chrysler in the past and then quit to go back to school. guess who got the gig. The interviewer said he would have preferred hire me for the long term, but this candidate was a better short term solution.

thanks. that makes me feel much better. makes me totally forget that in the end the whole thing was waste of my fucking time AGAIN, because no matter what i said or how well i hit it off, some fuck walks in with a brown tie and monosyllabic vocabulary, but he has experience at this company, so now this "entry level" position goes to him. what a joke. of course I'm left with the comfort of the bullshit fed to me for an hour about how "we have no problem hiring someone without automotive experience" and "this is the perfect entry level position for you."

fuck that.

the bullshit roller coster continues with the staffing agency now. "we haven't given up on you and we think you're a really great candidate." "I'm sure we'll get you something..." What comes next is either the best part or the worst part... which is more interviews, more time off work, more smiles and more bullshit small talk, which inevitably becomes more forced with each failure at bat. If i'm lucky.

today i drowned myself in booze, BBQ and the batting cages... which was either a really good idea or really bad idea as i shattered an aluminum bat with a well connected line drive.

if only i could smash myself into the job market with my bat. i need a god damned beer.

the reality

things that already exist. in my mind.

housemate and i are throwing ideas to compete in this.

it involves a lot of bicycles being sacrificed and the insertion multiple pulley systems and a honkin fly-wheel. (the last of which may or may not be jettisoned at some point during the ace with explosive bolts.

i need a welder.

okay

a less dramatic post.

the old familiar sting

*i hurt myself today*

got another interview tomorrow

*to see if i still feel*

same company as last time, different position

*i focus on the pain*

gonna have to call off work AGAIN

*the only thing that's real*

should i fail to achieve my goal, i move a step closer to inadvertently liberating myself from current source of income

gizmo understands me

full paralysis would almost be worth it.

almost.

(watch the movie)

fuck the fuckers

"it seems pretty strange to me that they'd act so positively about me on the day of the interview and then just break off all contact... "

"sometimes this happens; maybe he got too busy. Maybe they decided not to hire anyone. Then again, our computer still shows the position as open."

"this is ridiculous. He promised an answer that day. Then again on Monday."

"well, they are still our client so we don't want to bug them too much about it."

"so i guess i won't be holding my breath anymore waiting to hear an answer?"

"that's probably best."

data

well, time to prove to the world that i really should be an engineer.

In my quest to better understand these "humans," i've been collecting a well of data. first, i would like to show sophist blog attendance since i started crying like a 12 year old bitch with a skinned knee about my failures at life. with site hits blowing up in the past 4 days (and not even mentioning page hits) i can confidently say it's jumping off over here.

I'm thinking of finally dropping my amateur status and going pro. I suppose the alternative is you sick fuckers just really like to see me squirm and can't get enough of the human drama that is the Dudley St...

here's the fun numbers: My housemate Jon and I (Jon's idea) decided to measure the muzzle velocity of the $4 and $8 dollar air soft guns we bought at the dirt mall. (we needed to explain, scientifically, why the $8 versions were leaving holes in the blinds and dents in the walls) Using a measured distance down the main hall of the house, we set up a microphone and recorded the pop of the gun firing and also the sound of the BB ricocheting off our front door. Disregarding the time it took for the sound to travel back from the door (at just under 200 inches and 70 degrees, it was a mere 0.00203 seconds or something between 0.5% and 1% of the total BB travel time) we used the PC to measure the time the BB took to travel and merely divided it by the distance traveled. There's no pretty graphs here, but for extra credit you can produce the graphs yourself and turn them in. Here's the numbers:


Analysis: The colts (Chest and Notorious' pieces, as well) cost an amazingly low dirt mall price of $4 and produced a fairly decent shot. However, for a few more bucks, you can wreck some shit... or in Becca's case, get an obviously sub-standard mechanism. Also note, that Jon's Glock failed early in it's life, losing a few (what we thought were) useless pieces. Turns out those cracks were very detrimental to it's performance compared to a fully operational version.

Conclusion: if you piss me off, i will pummel you with 80 mph plastic death. Also, watch out for the little woman with the big gun.

if the world had an enema, this is where they'd put the tube

staffing company called. seems the dude i interviewed with at DC (diamler-chrysler) has fallen off the earth without letting anyone know who he picked for the job.

they claim, "you are still (i was before?) the leading candidate."

i swear if i get this job i'm taking everyone to the bar.

speaker for the dead

can't sleep. too much anxiety over tomorrow's decision about the job. though, i suspect the decision is already made, and i await only it's announcement.

too easy to wonder what mental state is most likely to please the gods and grant me my wish. a pendular sine wave of hopefulness and doubt play itself out in an overly analytical mind. i don't dare fantasize about how the events of life would unfold should i become an engineer for Chrysler... but sometimes in moments of weakness, i find myself imagining how i might go about giving resignation to a job i despise or what i could accomplish when finally awarded a chance to flex my engineering muscles. that has been my moment as a whiney bitch for the day.

all this lack of sleep has allowed me to chew up the first real book i've read in about 6 months: Ender's Game. Highly recommend. damn those buggers.

FYI: housemate snoring quite loud and odd sounding. will not investigate further.