The Perfect Country and Western Song - For real!

I think this may officially be the first TOB post from the "New Blogger. The powers that be finally gave us the option of upgrading. Hooray. I'm going to work on tagging all previous posts. It'll be awesome.

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An escaped prisoner who evaded a manhunt across the Southeast by stealing three vehicles, including singer Crystal Gayle's tour bus, has been arrested, authorities said.

Christopher Daniel Gay, 32, was arrested around 11 p.m. Friday near the Daytona International Speedway, said Lt. Patrick Myers, spokesman for Daytona Beach Police.

Gay escaped from a prisoner transport van on Jan. 21 Sunday near Hardeeville, S.C., police said. Authorities have said his motive for fleeing was to see his terminally ill mother; it was unclear whether he ever made it there.

Authorities suspect Gay of stealing a pickup truck in South Carolina, and then the cab of a tractor-trailer in Georgia. He allegedly drove to Manchester, Tenn., where on Monday he hooked the cab to a Wal-Mart trailer filled with $300,000 in merchandise and took off again, police said. He abandoned the rig within 50 yards of his mother's house north of Nashville and fled into a wooded area after Tennessee authorities spotted the truck Tuesday, police said.

He was spotted Thursday night driving a tour bus at USA International Speedway in Lakeland, but drove off after speedway officials became suspicious and asked him for identification, police said. Link

Momma
Trains NASCAR
Trucks
Prison
Gettin' drunk (I was drunk when I saw the footage of this on the news.)

The perfect country and western song!

Pictures of our journey.

Here's the gist of it:

There was some ice.

Cody slept.

There were puppies.

And there was teabagging. (Sorry, Richard, kinda.)

All the pictures I took are available for viewing on a public Picasa Web Album. Go here to look at them. You may or may not need to be signed in with a (free) Google account for access.

Many much gratitude to Giz and especially Francis for accomodating us and playing host.

If any of you that went can remember anything at all about Sunday night, please enlighten me in the comment box. From what I can surmise it was the most eventful period of the trip, yet I seem to remember little to none of it.

Hooray, Northeast!

Beerfest

Go get this movie. Now. Don't wait for Netflix. Go to Blockbuster, and on your way back home stop and pick up a twelve pack for yourself. One twelve pack per viewer. And consume it in its entirety before the movie is over.

I watched this alone last night, but during every peel of laughter (countless), I actually heard the laugh of Bass, or Giz, or Cody alongside my own. It was like the movie evoked the spirits of drinking past. Broken Lizard's best outing yet, by a landslide.

Did I mention I'm still drunk?

Beerfest changed my life.

I saw three ships on Christmas Day

I seriously could've been arrested for DUI on the way to work this morning.

What's the only thing better than driving drunk at 6 in the AM? Driving drunk while listening to the Sufjan Stevens' "Songs For Christmas" at 6 in the AM!

As has so often been the case, I have Giz to thank for directing me to this great, great collection. Sufjan has really done something special here; both his reverence for the season and creativity are equally apparent. For the second straight Christmastime, I've had these on repeat non-stop. My favorite is "What Child is This Anyway?"

Down there is a video of him doing one of his original Christmas songs, live. It's good, but you really owe it to yourself to go here and listen to the collection in its entirety. I just ordered my hard copy from Amazon. It comes with a songbook and stickers!

Hooray, Sufjan! Hooray, Christmas!

Day 6: In which Cody comes to town...

...and the end result is more drinking, less movies. Hooray, Cody.

We will resume tomorrow with Poltergeist, for real.

For now, observe this gem from Urban Dictionary:


My alcoholism is definitive!

AIDS

So you know why I have been slacking in contributions lately, please review my daily routine for the past couple work weeks:

rise and shine and head to work
get swamped
attempt to throw myself out my 21st floor window
drive home
start drinking
hang out with the buddy
watch the astros
drink more
pass out

So basically, my thoughts haven't strayed an inch from baseball and work, and I don't really want to bore you with either.

I will fill your void on Monday, maybe.

Now, back to Austin to tear down the house.

It's a small moon after all

We must've been pretty bored to even begin talking about it, but Saturday night Marshall, Cody, and I agreed to disagree about whether or not the moon is actually larger when it is setting on the horizon. Cody and Marshall cited some sort of magnification effect produced by the atmosphere, while I maintained that the moon only appeared larger based on its relative closeness to objects on the ground.

The magnification effect is a misconception. As I conceded, the atmosphere does change the color of the moon, but it in no way enlargens it. In fact, the refraction that does occur due to atmospheric interference tends to make both the sun and moon appear smaller, and even squished, at the horizon. Also, we have to remember that the the moon is more than 4000 miles further away from us when we see it at the horizon than when we see it at zenith.

My armchair theory, that the perceived size of an object is affected by the context of its immediate visual enverionment, is actually Alhazen's. When we see the moon rising againt familiar objects such as trees, buildings, etc., we perceive it as being substantially larger than when we see it in the bare expanse of the night (or daytime) sky.

I think it's a pretty plausible explanation, but it is only one among many. This guy has has put together a pretty impressive compendium of several of the competing hypotheses. Some of them are fucking intense. Because the illusion has to be an artifact of the evolution of our Pleistocene ancestors' cognition, I would probably bet that the final answer, if one is ever discovered, is a composite of different theories.

And I would say that's a pretty big IF. The mind is so damn complicated, I'm still not convinced that in this era of technology we've even made very many truly monumental discoveries about it. (Giz will probably kill me for saying that.)

A few years back I went on a Pinker reading binge, and I remember thinking that - wow, this is fascinating, and his stuff has to be on the right track, but shit. We've still gotta be centuries away from even approaching a real understanding of the mind's inner workings.

Then again, I studied math and alcoholism, so what the fuck do I know.

It's Friday for me

I finally got a chance to watch Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room last night. Idiotic partisan undertones notwithstanding, it made for quite the interesting watch.

Though by now the narrative is permanently ingrained in the cultural psyche, the story never ceases to amaze. However, it's not the corruption or the greed that awes me; those are far to commonplace to deserve a second glance. Rather, it's the fact that Skilling, et al had the vision to even formulate the exploitatory processes that they did, on the massive scale that they did.

Simply amazing.

My company nearly went the way of Enron, albeit on a much smaller scale, as a result of following its business model, and then suffering the consequences of its fallout. But thanks to a new baller CEO and the decision to pare back down to our core businesses (pipeline and E&P), we've mounted a hell of a comeback in the past few years.

Rah, rah, rah.

I'm leaving for San Antonio tomorrow for some R&R on the Riverwalk, and will be gone until Saturday or Sunday.

Call if you would like to join me on the Margarita Trail.

I am a fucking baller

Next day update: I may have been a little inebriated when I did this; hence the title.

Alright, way to go Donnie!

We went to Xtreme Super Bowling on Saturday night, where they turn out all the lights and let you bowl unlimited for like 15 bucks. The music pretty much sucked dick, but they had a real live bar. Score one for us.

Many a White Russian was consumed.

I guess the lunge position that your body naturally ends up in after you roll the ball eventually took its toll on my poor, un-exercised body. Even today my entire left leg from ass cheek to ankle feels tight and sore as hell.

Some of the things that are difficult to do in my current state of semi-immobilization:

Stand
Walk
Wipe my ass
Kneel (at church, not in the truck stop bathroom)
Pick up chicks

That's about it.

Hooray, bowling!

Cast summon monster IX!!!

I order my comic books online from Westfield. You pre-order 2-3 months in advance, then they ship once a month. Not only do they offer an outstanding selection from a wide variety of publishers, but you can get a pretty decent discount off the cover price. Still, nothing beats a real, live comic book store. After living down here more than a year and a half now, I decided last weekend that it was high time I visited a local gig.

The shop I found was down on El Dorado. While their comic offering was pretty typical, it was clear to see that their real bread and butter was tabletop gaming. About two thirds of the wall space was devoted to Warhammer, Magic, AD&D, and the like. What was most impressive, though, is that there were tables set up where kids (and adults, I guess) were actually playing games.

Sure, when I was a kid I spent my fair share of Friday and Saturday nights rolling my 20-sided die and casting magic missile, throwing LAN parties for some Warcraft/Starcraft/Unreal Tourney action, MUDding, or just being a general nerd. But that was all fun and games and mostly just something to do before I discovered the joy of drugs.

These guys were fucking hardcore, though. I mean, it was obvious that they had invested massive amounts of time and energy into building up their armies or decks or whatever they were playing with, and that you could probably find them in that exact same spot just about every weekend. Such dedication.

I was almost jealous of them, that they had found themselves such an intense niche. After all, everybody needs a niche, and theirs was possibly the niche par excellence. The camaraderie was evident, as was the advanced level of strategery. I also got a warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that even social losers like those kids had a place to go where they knew that they were a part of something.

Anyway, I didn't find any comics I needed, then I went home and got drunk. How's that for a niche?

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Not so much a niche as a way of life: Longhorn Football.

Dear [My Pseudonym Here],

Thank you for your ticket purchase. For future reference, your order confirmation number is XXXX. A summary of your order follows:


FBS - 2006 Football Season Ticket
==========================

North Texas
02 SEP 2006 at TBA
Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium

Ohio State
09 SEP 2006 at TBA
Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium

Iowa State
23 SEP 2006 at TBA
Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium

Sam Houston State
30 SEP 2006 at TBA
Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium

Baylor
14 OCT 2006 at TBA
Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium

Oklahoma State
04 NOV 2006 at TBA
Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium

Texas A&M
24 NOV 2006 at TBA
Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium

Price Type Qty Price Fee Cost
------------------------------ --- -------- --------- ----------
LASP Season Ticket 1 60.00 0.00 60.00

Delivery Method: Print at Home

==========
Item Cost 60.00
Order Charge 6.00
Total Cost 66.00

ALL SALES ARE FINAL. No refunds or exchanges.

Placing this request does not guarantee fulfillment of tickets. All requests are processed according to UT Athletics Department priority policies. These policies are available at www.TexasSports.com. Please call the Athletics Ticket Office if you have any questions or need any additional information.

If you requested Student Football Season tickets, you will receive emails in August if your order is able to be filled that will include attachments for your Print at Home tickets. You will then be able to print your tickets on your own and bring these tickets to the games in order to be scanned for verification. Individual away game tickets will have to be picked up at the Bellmont Hall Ticket Office.

If you have any questions regarding your order, please email... yadda yadda yadda.

Hook 'em Horns

You're damn straight.

Dog Beer?

Greatness.