wagon...

daily habits...

i drive by their house every day. i cross the main street at the stop sign, pass the set of mail boxes on my right, and stop again. to my right is a t-intersection, to my left, their house. the garage is rarely closed; often allowing passerby’s to peer into their lives for a 3 second stop. i almost always look. sometimes i find myself going out of my way to see if they are out.

now, i don’t mean to sound creepy in all of this, but it’s just interesting because in a weird way that family has become part of my daily life. just like if you get to work the same time every day and ride the elevator with the same person 5 days a week. they become “normal” or expected.

they use the 3rd removable seat from their suv/mini-van car as a couch. she is usually reading, i’ve seen her smoking a few times. sometimes she reads with their son. her husband usually has a beer, and tonight he was strumming on a guitar. the little boy likes to run around in the yard and on the sidewalk, careful not to cross the neighbor’s driveways or roll into the street.

they are moving too. like me. Iive witnessed the entire process. some time mid-january the house went on the market…no sign of sale yet. but they are packing already, maybe they already have a house ready elsewhere. over the past few days more boxes have piled up against the wall. there’s no room for the cars any more, now they sit in the driveway and block my view. the little boy was rummaging through what looked like an old box of toys recently, almost like he was trying to pick out a souvenir from the house.

i wonder what they think of me. or if they even notice at all that i drive by every night between the hours of 9 and 10pm. (man, i am a creature of habit.) do they hear the random selection of songs that emerge from my open windows, or have they heard nearly everything already since living there and have learned to tune out passing soundtracks?

one night they had a party. i assume neighbors and such. they were drinking beers and listening to music, chit chatting during the first days of daylight savings time. it made me want to buy their house. i wanted to pull over and ask if i could hang out…it looked like fun.

microsoft might be onto something...

so, while i was browsing my usual internet news sites (yahoo, bbc, google, cnn, etc.) i came across this article in the tech/sci section. quick summary: good ol' bill gates is launching a new ad campaign called "start something" encouraging people to pursue their passions via windows xp.

brilliant...absolutely brilliant. while some might think that this is mildly irritating - using microsoft to further your hobbies, interests, etc, but as far as the marketing plan goes, it's absolutely brilliant.

as mentioned before in one of my entries from a few months ago, americans are constantly searching for an identity. our world is too quick, so we find little things to latch onto in order to prove our existence and validity to others (quick example - pictures on cell phones being used to say "hey, guess what i saw today, you'll never believe it"). we worry so much that we'll lose ourselves in the world...and microsoft saw that.

so, by launching this new campaign, they're telling people who are scared to lose their identity that it's right on their desk in front of them. who you are is inside your computer. don't have time to actually take that knitting class...use windows XP to further your desire. look instructions up on line and do it yourself! want your kids to have a more academic themed computer, use windows xp to tailor little johnny's lap top for educational tools. wow...again, brilliant.

and again, as usual, i am conflicted about how to feel. the advertising-hating side of me despises how they are brainwashing people to sit in front of their computers and "see the world" through windows xp. the side of me that loves the ways in which people, including myself, are manipulated by simple images and ideas put on a bill board or in a magazine respects the fact that bill gates has a team of incredibly smart people working for him.

no longer do we need to get out of our chair to pursue our passions...they are in front of us, right through the windows on our screen.

sporadic afternoon comments on current events...

okay okay...so somebody keeps hassling me to post something new up here...so...i'm working on it. hold on...it's coming. eh, and gone.

so, that's a summation of my life lately. nothing. no thoughts...just enjoying the freedom of the pre-work world. i.e. college. probably a lot of the reason i haven’t been too active with this thing, or anything else for that matter. yah, i am your typical college senior...not doing a damn thing. i went to 2 classes this week. granted, 2 of them were canceled, but other than that...the post-college world is more important and so i spend my days applying to jobs and not going to class. it works...i'm happy...and already violated my “this blog is not about my life” rule.

anyway, that brings me to one of the things i want to write about now: happiness. i am not one of those people who needs money to be happy. put me in a cardboard box with my family and friends...i'm fine. yah, it sounds cliché and unreal, but i really don't need some high-paying job to be content. yah, i’d love to go on weekly shopping sprees and buy random things i don't need, but oh well. it's called saving.

brittany spears is pregnant. gross. that's all we need in this world...little smutty babies. little babies wearing "i heart my mom's boobs" on their bibs. really...the whole male population loves your mom's boobs (real or not), get over it.

the pope died. some time soon smoke will come out of the chimney and we'll have a new one. looks like a good excuse to party…in honor of the new pope (okay, and all you catholics, or others that are offended by that, deal with...people make cracks at current news all the time).

jay-z is a business genius. i read today that apparently he's the CEO of def jam now. wow...impressive. from the slums to CEO. nice job. props to him.

oh, and some rural pharmacies in america won't fill birth control prescriptions. what's that about? i mean, come on...leave your religious and political beliefs at home, don't take them into the workplace and prevent people needing medication from getting it. not all of us want to have 8 kids by the time we're 35 years old. see here for more.

so i can say with about 99.9% confidence that this is the most pointless blog i've ever entered, but there were just a few things i wanted to comment on, and yah, they might not be too well-thought through, but i was under time constraint. if anyone (because there are so many of you) wants me to expand on anything i will...just comment.

darth tater, and other food-wars characters...

okay, first: i am NOT a star wars fan. i've never seen any of the movies, i just found out 2 years ago that darth vader is luke’s father, and it will take a damn good bribe (and some duct tape) to get me to sit down and watch them all.

next...yes, this is about star wars (but who knows where it will go). but not just star wars. star wars and m&m's (another thing i despise for no apparent reason). i recently received a link to this article from a friend of mine. mildly bored, and a tad bit curious, i started to read this article about the toys r us midnight madness at times square in honor of episode III coming out this month. okay cool...just another ploy to get parents to trample each other for new toys and nerds to come dressed up as their favorite hero from the epic space story of our time. so i go on...

...and i read: "Finally, I saw what I came for: People...dressed as food...dressed as Star Wars characters." what?! and i glance up above the comment to see a giant, yellow, peanut m&m dressed as some star wars character (i told you i don't know anything about it). wow. odd. this is the most bizarre pairing i've ever heard of. using candy to sell a movie that's being promoted by a giant toy store. sounds like every kid in america's dream.

oh but it still gets better. (if you already know about this weirdo convention and it's characters, just don't bother to read it, i'm going to summarize it for those underprivileged people who care about what i have to say.) they were also promoting a new toy at this shindig: "darth tater."mr. potato head dressed as luke's daddy. i feel obligated to quote john (stewart) here, because nobody could have said it better: "darth tater...more machine than potato now...perfect for those who crave evil but wish it had more starch!"

so yah...i quit reading the article about 2 pages in (it's got to be over 8), but if you care a lot about m&m's, star wars, toys r us, mr. potato head, or the crazy marketing schemes of corporate america...go read it.

"As wonderful as the Star Wars M&M's are, they're not even anywhere near the most interesting food-related Star Wars item out there. For instance, did you know that there are now Star Wars Cheetos sweeping the nation...Cheetos that turn your tongue either "Yoda Green" or "Vader Dark?" Upstairs, the creator of reality shakes his head." - matt's article on x-entertainment.com

it's like christmas in april...

ah...new gadgets. i recently got a new phone (due to my old one's wires severing as a result of constant opening and closing, leading to my screen to no longer work). praise phone insurance companies...i got a newer version for only 50 bucks. significantly cheaper than had i walked in to renew my contract with cingular in 3 months. anyway...long story short, it's cool.

but, what it made me realize is how funny people are when they get new "toys." really...cell phones, computers, pda's...they are all adult toys (get your head out of the gutter). circuit city and best buy are the toys-r-us of the grown up playground called the real world. i get a new phone and i keep finding myself scrolling through my thousands of menu choices from my phonebook to browsing the web for weather. and then i keep realizing that i show the damned this off to other people. what do they care? everyone and their cat has one now. they all do the same things. and yet...

it's really not just with cell phone either. i think it's great when people will call me up or e-mail me to tell me all about their gadget of the month. ipods, new photo-editing program, beta trials of google, blah blah blah. (wow, i just made the people i hang out with...as well as myself...sound like hard-core dorks.)

regardless of my observations, seriously, one day go watch somebody on the street who just walked out of best buy with a new gadget. immediately, it's torn open in the car and already being charged for testing in 8 hours. it's good to know that adults can still have their toys.