Score one for nature

Little chimpy don't like the bad man.

A hackneyed franchise deserves some recognition

Fox announced the feature trailer for Stars Wars Ep III would be shown on the March 10th episode of the OC.

I happen to come across this site promoting Lucas Is a Hack T-shirts.

I've grown to hate the Star Wars franchise ever since they introduced luggage and diners into their universe. Some things should never be messed with!

In Venice? Actually the Venetian Hotel and Casino. Locals made a big stink whenan older landmark hotel was torn down to make room for this euro fantasy theme park. They soon changed their minds once it opened to much fanfare. It does strike you kind of odd to see gondolas moving through what looks like a canal in Venice, Italy even though you're a stone throw away from walking on the casino floor.

The Startdust. Somehow you can't help feel that someone is buried underneath some concrete where this hotel was built. Supposedly, alot of the foundation on many of these hotels is so reinforced, many people suspect that the mob was trying to make them bomb proof. The Stardust and the Fronteir will most likely dissappear in a few years to make way for newer hotels somewhere down the line.

The old places are still some of the best bargains when it comes to meals. One thing you discover about Vegas is everything is expensive. Food ain't cheap and neither is the entertainment. I survived without seeing Lance Burton.

The strip at night. The lights that beam throughout Vegas can put NY's Times Square to shame. The Paris Hotel is in the background. I don't care what anyone says, there's no way you can walk from one end of the strip to the other in just a day.

Granted, you can just walk straight and see nothing and at the same time waste a vacation day. It takes a day just to walk through one of the casinos alone. Hotels like the Bellagio and Cesar's wear you out quickly.

This is one of the newer hotels on the strip. Unimpressive on the outside, Mandalay Bay is the size of two football fields (actually 64 acres) and nearly killed me. I had such nasty blisters by the time we reached the shark reef that's featured inside the hotel.

We didn't bother checking out the sharks (It looked like a rip off and my wife and relatives have already seen something similar back home.)

Waiting for the Mircorwave

This baby comes pretty close to the radiaton spreading contraption we have here at work.


I like taking my lunch at 1pm. Being here for several years, I found out its easier to get work done around noon when everyone's out to lunch and you don't have to deal with lines waiting to use the microwave.

There are some politics involved when it comes to heating up your food . For starters, people tend to hate you when you have to microwave something that takes more than 5 minutes. Some employees have no shame as they stand there greeting you as you hold your lunch in your hand and you watch the timer going 4:59, 4:58...These are the same people that add an additional 2 minutes once the microwave time is over to ensure that their food is fully nuked. The way you deal with this is taking your time responding to their e-mail inquiries.

Another issue one has to deal with is waiting on "the line." If you decide to take your lunch at noon, and you see that three people are ahead of you waiting to heat up their meals, you can average that its going to take 10-15 minutes till you're able to starting enjoying yesterday's leftovers (in my case, I had to wait 10 minutes for two Smart Ones Chicken and Fettucine and Ravioli something or other which took 4 1/2 minutes apiece). One reason for avoiding the line is having to stay in a room with someone you don't want to be with. Apart from discussing what they're heating up and making some comment about some puppy that wishes to be adopted posted on the bulletin board, there isn't much to say to that person if you spend 8 hours of your working day avoiding them in the first place.

People have tried beating the line by running to the microwave 10 minutes before their lunch hour, so by the time 12 noon strikes, they have their meal ready. Unfortunately for them, others have caught on to this and now you find lines forming aroud a quarter to noon. Some people try to avoid the line altogether by arriving on the line and leaving their food as a place holder. Some of us who are devious may be inclined to hide the person's food or scrape some of the gunk that sticks to the top of the microwave and sprinkle these horrid flakes on top of their meal. There's a reason why people say never leave your food unattended.

Sometimes, there are those akward moments when the microwave says "DONE" but the person whose food it belongs to, is nowhere to be found. In cases likes these, you have to do what you would do in a laundrymat. If you need a dryer, you take the clothes out and put your own clothes in. You deal with the person who is agitated at someone touching their food at a later time.
One thing you recognize is alot of employees are into the frozen food. I rarely touch the stuff (the Pepperidge Farms Chicken Pot Pies are an exception) since they're so high in sodium and if you have something that is labeled spaghetti and meatballs, you know you're getting more of the spaghetti and less of the latter.

I'm suprised people even use the microwave we have here. There's so much crap lining the inner walls, you can scrape it off and make some disgusting meal out of it. Seeing that there's so few options when it comes to eating out or even the cafeteria for that matter, people such as myself are willing to take our chances.

Sid

I'm not too crazy about snow. Snow is a novelty that wears out quickly living in the burbs. The beauty of a white blanket of snow covering your home quickly vanishes when the reality of cleaning your driveway dawns upon you. So here I was with hand in shovel preparing for the worst later tonight since I know I would pay for it with an aching back. As I was shoveling, I glanced up and I saw my neighbor three houses down cleaning his neighbor's driveway with his snowblower. He had already completed cleaning his driveway and his walkway. He was concentrated in his work for that morning making sure that any hint of snow was left undetectable on his property.

He's a man in his late 70's, short, with pudgy fingers, and a gravelly voice who I'll call Sid (only cause he looks more like a Sid than his actual name). Sid retired ten years ago from I don't remember what and spends his time (or in this case, his morning) waiting for things to happen. When I first moved to the neighborhood, Sid knocked on my door. He welcomed me to Teaneck and told me a little about the previous owner. (One thing I didn't want to know was that the owner past away in his bedroom, not in a hospital somewhere as we would have liked to have thought.)

He had a reputation on the block as the neighborhood watchdog, looking out for suspicious characters or to keeps tabs on everyone's pet in case one went astray. He was also a self proclaimed key guardian. Apparently, people on the block entrusted him with the keys to their homes in case they happened to lose them or if a police officer needed to get in for whatever reason. When we first moved to our home last spring, I was in the middle painting a bedroom when he knocked on my door so I still had my paintbrush in my hand which I found out was a clever excuse to give a hint to my fellow neighbors that I was too busy with something and had no time to be bothered. This didn't work with Sid. Sid kept on telling me more about himself and his lawn and insisted that my keys would be safe in his keeping.

I kindly refused his offer since I had no intention of giving an absolute stranger open reign to my new home. A long time ago, my family's apartment was robbed. We never were able to figure out who it was until one day my sister and I stayed home from school and as we were watching the Price is Right, our neighbor from downstairs comes walking from our parents room and into our living room. It was like a moment frozen in time where we both looked at one another wondering what the hell was he doing in our apartment? His excuse was that he was doing something or other on the roof and confused our apartment with his. Likely story.

Sid is often found watering his lawn before sunrise during the summer or taking out his leaf blower each morning and later in the afternoon for those few remaining leaves that are eventually blown onto the sidewalk. His garage is immaculate as he tends to it each morning at around 7am inspecting that all items are in their place. I tend to be that way at times when there's a slow day at work. I find myself organizing all my pencils and pens, fixing the position of my monitor so I get the least glare and adjusting my notes that are clipped to my wall so I have quick access to them. When weather permits, he'll take his car out of the garage and drive it around the block and leave it on his driveay. He drives it back inside when most of the neighbors are home from work.

By the time I finished cleaning my driveway at 7am, he was working on something that wasn't too clear to me. It looked like he was making sure that the snow was piled evenly along the sides of his driveway as he patted down certain snow banks. Watching him, I wondered if that's what's in store for me.