back to my roots

now i remember why i wanted this job.... i saw the new Jeep Commander yesterday at work. I think it comes out next month and it looks very much like the old cherokees, though fatter and a little more bulbous on the rear roof line. I still like the new hummer h3 more than any other small/mid size truck. It reminds me of an older willies jeep. If i was a truck person, that's what i'd drive. Or an ice cream truck.

quick thoughts

if i had access to all of the internets while at work, i'd spend my days playing this game.

also, yesterday was the 24th centennial recognition of Holly's birth. Should you see her, be sure to nod approvingly at her continuing ability to not die.

Everyone seems to be fellating the new Batman movie. I hope to see it soon, so that i too can rave, but i'll probably see that new zombie movie instead. Damn i loves me some zombies.

Yesterday Rob and I went mountain biking (though we couldn't find any mountains). 4 or 6 miles into a 13 mile loop (read: farthest from our cars as possible), Rob's chain decided life was hard and gave up. We flagged down a rider-by who happened to have a chain breaker, and proceeded to break that poor man's hand tool, just before fully reassembling the chain. He told us to keep the corpse of a breaker as he rode off. We limped the bike to the next check point that happened to be near a beach with several pleasure boaters; Rob swam out to the nearest vessel while i frolicked on the beach. The boaters were not inclined to deliver us to the nearest port but the water was quite nice. It was clear the chain wouldn't hold up on the pseudo mountains and we had to find a flatter route home. We had zero thinking beers on hand but a fire trail presented itself which we were able to follow to a lovely dirt road. It, inevitably led to a second dirt road featuring an old man in a van, who would ultimately direct us towards pavement and the trail head. Several road miles later on thick-tired mountain bikes (the old man claimed 7.5 miles with an preciseness that demanded respect) we were back to our cars and none worse for the wear.

I think i'm going to buy a bike repair multi-tool.

reality makes a house call

Two days down at the ol' office, several hundred thousand to go.

I've spent the majority of my first two days rearranging an empty cubical and reading mindless and repetitive technical data. I have a computer and phone, but no one needs/calls me and my login account isn't active, making me and it 100% useless. In fact, about the only thing i've engineered in the last few days was a lunch.

i forgot to mention

but another old building dies in detroit because there's no reason for anyone to try to invest in rebuilding this place. Sniff you later Madison Hotel. Sniff you later forever.






Sorry about the size, but you really need the detail

for nick

i talked to the home-boys at DC. Told 'em what you said. It seemed to work.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/13/Autos/funonwheels/dodge_challenger/index.htm

careful

http://history.cookiethievery.com/071904/

http://history.cookiethievery.com/040504/

they might blow up your mind

a long time coming

Pistons in 3

that's right, Detroit will require only 3 games to win the best of 7 championship series against the Spurs.

If you're a self proclaimed home team fan, you HAVE to have faith that they will win and you gotta stand by it. This is doubly true for Detroit. The whole success of the Pistons is based on winning games they should never win with players that should never be good enough. And here we are again, and people are back at it with the "i don't know, sure they made it this far, but i think their luck is about to run out." type shit. Remember when the national professional sports analysts were hoping for just one win out of detroit against LA, to in their words "keep the series interesting?" And those folks that will commit to predicting a victory? They always have to attach some BS rider like "no way they take two in San Antonio" or "I heard Duncan is a robot and they're upgrading his battery pack." (side note: Tim Duncan IS in fact a robot, but is limited forever to his first issue components.)

Fuck 'em. I say Detroit sweeps. Ben Wallace EATS Tim Duncan at half court. And Darko Milicic (Or "the DMC" as we call him) will score a triple double... Twice.

just killing time

an informal collection of data reveals, the two most frequent searches that bring people to this page: "Son of Jor El" and "fuckthesouth.com"

(i had to check the data archives to reveal the perpetrator of "iMac'd my RAM all over her face." I mean, how can you put an integrated circuit on a woman's face? and how can the imac be the verb through which you did this? Anyway, that person is out of the will... JIM)

-C

yeah it's got a Hemi

while Chest is at the gym, i'll be working on my robot suit.

this is how Batman defeated Superman, you know...

must make entry before booze over takes senses...

hey. how 'bout that new imac?

i turned up the ram 200% in this sexy mutha, so now i can edit 10 photos and do all the associated web crap at the same time and it's smoof like butter. (this picture is PRE-ram added.) Incidently, Holly says "hi." At least she did say hi a few nights back when these photos were taken. It's never a good idea to try to maximize your ram-ness when there's a women looking to be paid attention to.



I present you all now with this fine opportunity to flood the comments page with "that's what she said..." and "i gave her..." type remarks.

how 'bout

them pistons?

in other news...

The Piston beat the fuck out of Miami last night. You tell 'em 'Sheed....



Rasheed Wallace deserves an apology from the NBA for the officiating in game 5. Easily the worst called game i've ever seen, and very much a hot national topic after the dust had settled. An apology you ask? Well, turns out they fined him $20,000 instead for what they consider was him starting a conspiracy theory about the NBA. To the press, after commenting about how he "Had to put up with extra help they had out there," (referring to the refs being on Miami's team), he was asked if they would win game 6. I don't have the exact quote (the media world is very much not repeating it. anywhere.) But it went something to the effect of "We'll win game six because the league will send some good guys down there to help us out. They (the league) want there to be a Game 7."

I'll sign your hat

last night the strugglers convened at Comerica Park for a Tiger's game. The short version of this story is, we were sitting next to some quasi-famous athlete and these little leaguer's in front of us were lining up to get there hat's signed by him. Drunk and riding high, i stood up and proclaimed "Hey, I'm an engineer; I'll sign your hats.... I work for Chrysler." At least two kids fell for this and even went as far to search out a pen for me. My housemate claims the parent's eyes lit up with that "ohh, positive roll model!" stare of hope.

"wipe away the failure's frown"

Right. Before i get to it, just let me say this.

So yes, although I've been in way too much of a drunken stupor the last two days to report the following, i have officially been offered an electrical engineering position at Diamler Chrysler Corporation in their battery engineer group. (You can read the initial leaks here and here.)

This group is responsible for all battery (and associated technology) engineering/packaging/releasing/quality tracking for the Chrysler group. Though not terribly exciting, people from this department tend to move onto the HEV (Hybrid Electric Vehicle) Group and that, my friends, would pretty much be a life dream realized. (the trunk monkey division of DC (if you don't know what i'm talking about, you should have watched the video at top) was not hiring due to the spectacular failures realized after cold day's of Detroit's last winter).

My emotions of late have run a gamut, but i can't deny the overwhelming wave of self pride. I try to avoid lengthy reflections here, but since graduation in Dec '02, i feel like i've had my ass kicked by life. But you know what, i didn't tap out (well, i may have tried a few times, but i always ended up back in the five-sided-fistagon) and i'll admit i've tended to be a mopey, alcoholic son-of-bitch lately, but i reversed that shitty hold life had on me and i stabbed that muther fucker "fate" in the face with my rusty boot knife.

[makes stabbing motion to accentuate point]

But i digress. I turned a 6 month period of unemployment into a job selling websites (designed by coke-heads) to businesses that didn't need them. I flipped that into a job in a factory that eerily resembled a scene from "8-mile." Desperate, I pulled some strings and scammed a job setting tee-times for rich fuckers that couldn't golf to save their drunken, hollow lives. With the change in seasons, I sold suites, until i stumbled ass-wards into a job driving a van. I accumulated these jokes (with a little help from my friends) into a resume that read like a well written dirty novel; juicy, verbose and always giving the reader exactly what they wanted in the end. And then i sold it to the Germans.

But even with the pride of finally being able to tell my folks that "yes, i have a real job now," There's a funny subtleness that i fear is lost and never want to forget. Alas; the struggle was not in vein. I never would have appreciated this new job a fraction as much had I scored it straight out of college. Likewise, I would never have had the humility that can only be gained by being a part of the working class. I mean seriously fucking living the life everyday and not just some stupid summer job. And finally i never would have met some real important people.

No longer struggling, but still representing,
-C

"unmolested"

I was never too impressed with the new NIN single, Bite the Hand that Feeds, until now.

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.