07SEP10: On the eve of the 2011 football season, I wanted to take a few moments to discuss a topic that has bothered me for quite some time:

WD-40

There is a lot of misinformation out there about WD-40. A good summary can be found here. First, WD-40 was created by the famous polygamist Walter Dimbsy (hence 'WD' - Walter, W and Dimbsy, D). Here is a picture of Walter:

Second, the 40 in WD-40 corresponds to the number of wives Old Walt was married to.

Finally, Walt didn't actually come up with the formula for WD-40. It was stolen from a poor man named Fineus Jones. Fineus was not the brightest fellow, but he sure had a great beard and could make a mean lubricant.

Until next time.

17AUG11: First - happy birthday to my oldest brother Tony. Believe it or not he just turned 296. It's pretty crazy that a Curda man has lived that long, but there it is. Tony Curda - 296 years old. Unbelievable, but true.

Second - there really isn't a second. Um. I have not really done much else with the PHP stuff. Not so much because it's really freakin' hard and I have no clue what I'm doing, but moreso that I'm a lazy bastard. So, I'll leave you with this:

Until next time.

11AUG11: Finally, after fuxxing around with PHP, I have a script that does part 1 of what I want it to do:

conciliate 

That's right - it returns a single word. Pretty awesome, I know. And it only took me a week. FUX YOU PHP! I freakin' hate you. Ok, so what's so cool about this word? Well, it should change on a daily basis. Right now, it's "billit". Er, "billet", sorry. So, if you come back in 24 hours, it will be a new word. This is called "dynamic content". I'm going somewhere with this. Eventually at some point. Anyway, cool.

Oh, if you get here and the word isn't billet, then wait 24 hours and it will be something else.

Until next time.

09AUG11: Summer is finally here in Seattle. I think.

I have zipcar. This means I'm not completely carless. I still have no class, but at least I have access to a car if I need one.

I highly recommend going to Discovery Park. It's pretty freakin' sweet!

Finally, I have finally re-installed Flash and Dreamweaver. I'm not saying that this means I'll be posting more often though.

Until next time.

05MAR11: What's worse?

1. A prayer to Jesus that consists of two chest bumps, a peace sign to the sky, and a slurred mumbling of "word to my peeps."

2. Appending above with "if I vomit tonight, please let it be to the side."

Until next time.

02MAR11: 2 things.

1. I watched S. Darko. There's a really cute girl on it. And, on top of that, it's a decent movie. The sound track is pretty good as well - check out this song.

B: All my life people have told me I'm smart. And all my life I have felt like a complete idiot (especially the last 6 months). I have had at least 3 iq tests in my life (that I remember), but I've never gotten the results. I know my mom got them, but I've never asked - mostly because I scared shitless to find out all those people that have told me I'm smart have only been saying so because they are actually below average (and if that's the case, as a society, we're fucked). That said, I'm going to get all up in Mensa. Or try to at least. Here's what their site says:

"Membership of Mensa is open to persons who have attained a score within the upper two percent of the general population on an approved intelligence test that has been properly administered and supervised."

Seems like a pretty decent group to hang around with. I mean, the top 2 percent of 4 billion is what? A lot of people, right? I'm sure they have a spot for me. And if not, I'm sure they'll let me know how stupid I am...

Wish me luck.

Until next time.

20FEB11: It's been a while. Lots of "stuff" have changed. "Stuffs" has changed? Stuff changed... You get the idea.

After not coming here for quite a while, I found out that one of the pages was not found and was redirected to some kind of crazy shit. So I deleted all the frames and I'll figure out a new format. Or something. I have the free time now, but I guess the thing I lack is the desire to use it on the site...

Since I don't really have anything deep (or entertaining for that matter), I will close with a picture that I go from the internet by searching for "dumb". I think it qualifies.

Until next time.

27MAY09: It is with ultimate sadness that I talk about the passing of my great friend Aaron Don Mills. Don left us on May 9th, 2009.

Don and his wife Heidi were our first friends in California. He and I started grad school the same year - he studied organic chemistry. Luckily for me, the chemistry and agricultural chemistry groups had a combined orientation class, which is where we met. I was in awe when Don slept walked through physical organic chemistry (think of a cruel combination of high level calculus with organic chemistry) while just about everybody else barely passed. Through a strange twist of fate, Heidi and Beth were at Texas A&M together and in the same program (journalism) but did not meet there. They originally contacted each other through a mutual friend also out here in California. Much to their surprise upon our first double date, Don and I already knew each other.

Don was a special person. If you went to undergrad with me, he would have fit in our group perfectly. He and I hit it off pretty quickly as we had similar senses of humor. He was never afraid to push the limits of funny and I'm quite certain if he hadn't been a brilliant chemist, he would have been a brilliant stand up comedian. And if not that, a musician.

Don was an amazing musician and you rarely found him without some musical instrument, mostly a guitar, but also a harmonica. Upon occasion, he played both at the same time. He didn't dabble either - he wrote enough songs to fill a cd, which, if I'm lucky, I can actually find. He played in a church band and while I'm not one for religious music, I always enjoyed listening because he was so good. When I got my guitar for my 30th birthday, he was the first to teach me anything - even though he gave me a hard time about restringing it to play it left handed. I have restrung it right handed and started the process all over again.

It's bitter sweet for me because Don has enriched my life in countless ways aside from being someone I could laugh with. He was the first person in California that I told I when I was quitting grad school. And, afterwards, he showed as much enthusiasm about my post grad-school career as I showed in his (Don became a chemistry professor at the University of Idaho at Moscow, Idaho and researched cystic fibrosis cures throughout his professional career). The other side is that there is a gaping hole in my heart as I struggle with his passing and try to find some sense in this tragedy.

Don was my brother and this is why it hurts so much. I never got a chance to tell him how I felt about him as it's not something men do. We are so caught up in being men and giving chest bumps and punching each other in the shoulder that we don't say (or maybe even think about?) those things that we really should say.

Don was a great person and I miss him terribly. He was so easy to be around, which is one of those thing I never really thought about. Don did not care about a lot of the petty stuff that we all seem to get caught up in and that made hanging out with him so... Perfect? I don't know the words.

Beth read a poem at his memorial on the 16th and I would like to finish this entry by including it. Ever the accurate reporter, she tried to find someone to attribute it to, but her efforts were fruitless. Never the less, here it is:

Some People

Some people come into our lives and quickly go.

Some people move our souls to dance.

They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom.

Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.

They stay in our lives for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.

16FEB09: Michael Phelps and the woman that shat out 8 babies. Ok, she didn't actually sh*t them out, but I think we all know who I'm talking about.

Lets talk about Phelps first. He's a kid. Kids made dumb decisions. Dumb decisions, regardless of who you are, have repercussions. He got caught smokin' pot and now Kellogs' has dumped him. Big freakin' deal. Lets move on, ok? If it's really that big of a deal, quit buying Kellogs'es crap. Or, better yet, go into intensive training, win 50 billion swimming medals, get Kellogs' to pick you up, then publish pictures of yourself smokin' out. Otherwise, lets move onto something more important.

Which brings me to this woman with the 14 babies. #1. If you have 14 brothers and sisters, just shut up. #2. If you aren't willing to discuss a hard cap on how many "kids" a family is allowed to have, just shut up. For the rest of you, shut up already. Yes, it's effed up that this woman pooped out 8 kids. Yes, it's effed up that this woman has no job and probably used welfare money to pay to have fertilized eggs put in her. Yes, it's effed up that the doctor allowed this to happen. We all get it, ok? How about we move onto something more important - how about the deficit? Or the bail-out? Hell, I'd kill for someone complaining about Bush at this point... Or stupid Lost or that show where people sing and then people who watched the show spend the next day making fun of them.

It really makes me think about the country and how sh*tty it is... How out of touch with reality we are. Not the country, but the people in it. Our priorities are all backwards it seems. I just want something to come along so we can atleast pretend we aren't these backward people we portray ourselves as... Perhaps some superhumanairlinepilot can do the unpossible and land a plane upside down in quicksand.

Until next time.

30JAN09: The year 2009. Is it crazy that we can talk about stuff and say, "In the previous century, Tekken 2 was cutting edge, man."? My grandmother was born in '10 - that's 1910. How freakin' crazy is that? My mom sent me an email the other day and she put her birthdate and the "10" was like a kick in the stomach. It took me about 30 seconds to realize that my mom wasn't telling me that my grandmother wasn't a traveler from the future...

But if you think about it, maybe there is something to being old and time travel. Remember how "grown-ups" would tell you that time goes faster when you're older? Well, it's freakin' true, man. Just yesterday it was the 16th of September, 2008, ok? I swear, it was just yesterday and now, it's 2009 and almost a full month into the new year...

If like 4 months went by in a day, that means that roughly every 30 years, one hour increases 2880 times (roughly 4 months between September and January multiplied by 30 multiplied by 24) so, by the time you're 60, one hour is roughly 5760 hours.

The speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s (please see wikipedia for this number). So, what this number means is that light (whatever that is) travels really fast over 1 second. This is probably why you could never make it to bed before the light went out when you flipped the light switch.

Anyway, that's freakin' fast. There's an idea out there somewhere that says that as you approach the speed of light, time actually slows down. It sounds pretty far fetched to me, but perhaps that's why time goes so slowly when you're young and time goes so fast when you're old...

Originally, I was thinking that if you're old enough, you can travel at the speed of light, but obviously that's not the case because time is in the denominator and as time gets larger, the meters would get smaller... Maybe fetuses can actually move at the speed of light...

Something to think about...

Until next time.

16SEP08:

Tattoo artist? Motocross Champion? Drummer for a moderately famous band? Douche bag?

All wrong (except for the douche bag part). This is Guy Fieri. He's a chef. And apparently from the looks of it, an ass-kickin', base jumping, whiskey-binge-drinking-slap-your-wife-around-when-she-gets-out-of-line chef. That's right my friend's, he'll serve you some duck l'orange then kick your teeth in for good measure.

There are 2 issues here (aside from this joker looking like a douche bag). 1. Celebrity recognition and 2. This whole extreme issue. I'm going to deal with #2 first. Please read Maddox's take on the extreme marketing trend from many years ago. Enough is enough, ok? At this point, this whole extreme thing is more corporate than Haliburton. And dude, you're a chef. Behave accordingly. You've got the pudgy part down (and probably the sweaty fat guy act down as well) - now get a hair cut reflective of your position and shave your face in a fashion that doesn't multiply your douche baggery.

1. Celebrity recognition - I pretty much live under a log these days, so when I see Guy Fieri and the guy below,

I get confused because OBVIOUSLY these to douches are capitalizing on some sort of celebrity recognition and I'm totally missing it. I don't know what to do... Am I missing out on something because I live under a log or do TGIF and UPS have this sinister plan to throw a bunch of douche bags at us in the hopes that it will pique our interests and drum up some business? Please, STOP WITH DOUCHE BAG ENDORSEMENTS AS ALL THEY DO IS CAUSE CONFUSION!

Douche bag/combination thereof count: 8

Until next time.

30AUG08: It's been a while since I have added anything - mostly because I've been swamped at work but also because I've been super lazy.

As some of you may or may not know, my father passed away on the 12th of August. Since I really don't know what else to say, here's a picture of my dad and my brothers.

This was taken probably in '84 or '85 - maybe... Bottom row, left to right, me, Robert, Mark; back row, left to right, Dad, Tony. Mark gave me this gem - his shirt is an OP (Ocean Pacific) hoodie and he thought he was bad ass when he wore it.

Until next time.

29MAR08: It's actually almost the 30th and I really have nothing to contribute tonight. Oh, wait, no, I have something.

So the other night was Beth's birthday. We were at a bar in Davis celebrating and while I was taking a leak, I noticed that some brilliant person had carved an anarchy (that silly A with a circle around it) sign in this decorative piece of wood above the urinal.

This got me to thinking about when I was a
(younger)
kid and how one of the ways to "fight the man" and be "rebellious" was to make the anarchy sign on various surfaces with a sharpie. Little did we know, "the man" didn't care that we put the anarchy sign on various surfaces - he cared that we put something on the various surfaces that he didn't want there.

Aaaaanyway, I digress. Thinking of this nonsensical nonsense lead me down another path as it inevitably always does (I think inevitably always is probably) which was how the heck did we find out what the heck that sign stood for anyway?

I figured it'd be pretty easy to determine on the internet these days, but what did we do before the internet? Again, this lead me down another path - most recently, right now, as I'm typing - which was just how easy is it to discover how easy it is to figure out what that symbol means on the internet. So I figured I'd give it a shot. Below I've listed the steps I used to unravel this mystery.

1. Using google, I searched for "common grafitti".
2. Clicked on the "Did you mean: common graffiti"
3. Clicked the wikipedia link that was #1
4. Scrolled through for a picture of the anarchy sign
5. Went back and clicked the second link
6. Went back and performed the search using an image search
7. Clicked on this link since I saw a picture of some dude with a mohawk that said beautiful losers which got me thinkin' punk rock, which got me associating anarchy and punk rock.
8. Was disappointed to see what looked to be a political endorsement for Obama '08. You can't get any further from punk rock than a political endorsement... Well, atleast what I think punk rock is about. Which is eating glass, wearing clothes that are dirty enough to wear clothes, and either urinating on people or drinking urine.
9. Went back and refined my search to "punk rock graffiti".
10. Got side tracked for "a bit" looking for naked punk rock chicks because the 10th picture had a naked chick on it.
11. Sent an email sharing my discovery.
12. Switch back to searching the web since I kept getting pr0n and kept getting distracted
13. Clicked on random links
14. Gave up...

So, after about 30 minutes (11:58 now), I have determined that finding out what the anarchy sign is isn't as easy as I thought it would be with internet access at my fingertips. Now, I won't get into determining whether or not it's because there was pr0n or if it's because I have ADD (mostly because I want to return to the site with the pr0n), but what I will do is contact my bestest cousin who knows a little bit about the dewey decimal system to see if maybe using the public library would be an easier approach.

Until next time.

21MAR08: The De-mannin'I-zation of the American Man

A while back I was listening to the radio and the disc-jockey guy was talking about ugg boots and how it was ok for men to wear them because they were comfortable. I'm all for being comfortable, but not at the cost of my god given right to manliness. Ugg boots are for women, ok? It doesn't matter how comfortable they are, they are for women. If high heels were comfortable, would that make men wearing them ok?

So this got me to thinking about how far from manly American men are becoming - what I like to call the
De-mannin'I-zation of the American Man. From capri pants to murses to anything emo, it seems that the swagger that our ancestoric forefathers carried has disappeared.

With that in mind, I have devised a 4 step program that is sure to get ALL American men back on the right track to completely fullfilling their birthrights.

Step #1. Go to your closet and throw all your clothes that were not purchased at Wal-Mart or Target* in the trash. These are not manly clothes. Likewise, throw all your non-religious (wooden pagen trinkets,ok; something shaped like the symbol Prince became, not ok) related jewelry in the trash as well. Jewelry is for women unless it's something that might possibly save your soul. Finally, if you encounter a woman wearing a similar article, you must throw that item away - and preferably immediately so as to exhibit your manliness.

Step #2. Chop wood.

Step #3. Pick up some type of self-destructive habit. I'm not saying you need to start cutting yourself or pick up a heroine habit, but look at all the manliest of men and they ALL have some type of self-destructive behavior. Chuck Norris has karate. Andre the Giant had being a giant. JFK had a penchant for getting shot. Jimi Hendrix loved shooting up peanut butter.

Step #4. Bar fights. The Friday after you read this, go to the local bar and get into a bar fight. Nothing really drives home the fact that you are a REAL man more than betting drunk and beat the crap out of someone/get the crap beat out yourself.

It's time for the American man to return to his roots. Our country has not been around long enough for men to be acting like a bunch of French weeners.

Until next time

*Target can be questionable. If you are ever unsure what is ok, remember this catchy rhyme: When in doubt, throw it out.

05DEC07:

What do the pictures above have in common? At first glance, it's obvious. Duh, they're all station wagons. Then, if you're wired a little different, you might say they all have 4 doors and/or wheels. But the biggest thing all of these vehicles have in common is that none of them are cool. Whether it's a buick, mercedes, volvo, or subaru, station wagons just aren't cool.

There are a lot of people out there that will disagree with me, but the reality of it is they are flat out WRONG. When was the last time there was a tv show or movie based upon a station wagon? Never. Meanwhile, there's been those herbie the love bug movies and knight rider for other cool cars.

What about celebrities? When was the last time you saw Paris Hilton driving in a station wagon? Um, like, never. What about Tom Brady? You think he drives a station wagon? I think not.

Like minivans, station wagons are a breed of car that will never be cool. You can dress it up in fancy clothes, but people will still look at you like you're an idiot.

Please, stop buying station wagons. Actually, continue buying station wagons, but please stop showing them off. Owning a station wagon is nothing to be proud of. This is something that should be kept secret, much like your New Kids on the Block cd collection.

Until next time.

01DEC07: HAPPY DECEMBER!

I have been playing a lot of Madden lately. One thing I have noticed is the amount of random oddness has gone down as the Madden franchise has progressed. There was this one glitch where you could stiff arm and for some reason it would spin your little man in a circle back in the '99 version. Things like that have slowly but surely disappeared.

However, the other day, I experienced a random oddness and fraps'ed it for your pleasures. View it below for the hotness.

Until next time.

28NOV07: "Ticker: Would Jesus run for president?"

Something from CNN.com caught my eye. Would Jesus run for president? I doubt it. But this lead me to look for Jesus pictures on the internet. I made a collection of those I thought were the best.

Until next time.

27NOV07: Flavor Chemist. I'm sitting here trying to find something that is interesting to type about and I'm drawing a blank. As I usually do in situations such as this, I let my mind wander and it stopped at "Flavor Chemist." Imagine the Wheel of Fortune or that wheel from Price is Right.

WTF is a flavor chemist? Is that like an educated Flavor Flav and instead of a clock around his neck, he's got a golden beaker or something equally ridiculous? Or is a flavor chemist some kind of euphemism (big word courtesy of the word of the day calendar) for someone who brings "spice" to a party? After randomly stumbling upon this odd combination of words, I have content.

A search of wikipedia yielded nothing, but I did learn that some anonymous person on wikipedia is quoted as saying "For the greater good of the world". Without the benefit of the full quote I am left to assume this person is referring to wikipedia and not something as trivial as pizza or beer. This person should be shot.

Moving on, I shifted gears to Ask.com. Apparently, someone has asked this question before and suddenly I feel less weird. Feeling less weird is a weird thing in and of itself for me, if that makes sense. Thinking of this, the less weird I felt when I learned someone had Ask.com'ed "what is a flavor chemist" has suddenly disappeared. I'll reflect on this later.

Ask.com does not disappoint and provides me with this tastey little morsel of information:

"A Flavor Chemist works to determine the chemistry behind the different flavors in food."

AH HA!

I also see that there is a society of flavor chemists, which I visit without hesitation. Their site needs some help. Maybe my expectations are high, but I'm thinking that a person (let alone a society) would have a site reflective of his experiences determining "the chemistry behind the different flavors in food." I've had a lot of food in my days and those flavors are varied and interesting. This website is neither.

They have a members login, so I'm going to try to hack their society. Using my extensive knowledge of flavor chemistry, I choose "Flava Flav" as my user name and "GOLD TEEFS!" as the password. Apparently, no one in the society of flavor chemists uses this username/password combination.

Since their site is unhackable, I decided to check out the "Become a Member" section. Inside, I hit the jack pot when I click on the link to their by-laws. For those that don't know, by-laws are a product of highly advanced societies. Based upon this, I have determined that this society is highly refined (like refined sugar, har har).

Since I'm getting sleepy and probably have beaten the flavor chemist stuff to death, I'll just mock their by-laws.

1. THE PRINCIPAL OFFICE shall be located at the office of the Secretary.
   -that's a by-law? I'm not impressed
   
   
2. ANNUAL DUES: Dues will be $75.00 (seventy-five dollars) for each Certified, Apprentice, and Affiliate member...
   -WTF? You're a freakin' chemist. Do you really need someone to spell out 75?
   
   
3. ORDER OF BUSINESS at the Meeting of Members:
   Introduction of Speaker (when scheduled)
   Speaker (when scheduled)
   Acceptance of the minutes of the previous meeting
   Reports by the Secretary, Treasurer and Committee Chairpersons
   Unfinished Business
   New Business
   Adjournment
   -What, no crack whores?
   
   
4. ARTICLE X. SEAL
   -I totally would join the Society of Flavor Chemists if they have a pet seal. That would be so awesome. Those little guys are cool with their barking and what-nots.

That's all I got really. Don't shoot me.

Until next time.