Go team Venture!

Have you ever watched a movie and then wished you could take those 2 hours of your life back?

That's how I feel after watching "Knowing."

It's Nic Cage, so I knew it wasn't going to be mind-blowing, but I didn't expect it to be so abysmal. And in truth, it really WASN'T that bad up until the last 20 minutes. That's when it took a turn from "Yeah, this is alright, I guess," into "WHAT IN THE NAME OF HELL WERE THEY THINKING? GOD, THIS IS STUPID."

( This movie made my brain hurt. )

To summarize, don't watch this movie. You would have a better time getting a root canal.

Funny story: I came home from work on Monday, and there was a note on our door. It reads as follows:

"_______ Pest Control [name removed to protect the stupid] will be out to spray your apartment on 9-30-09. 100% resident cooperation is needed for an effective cleanout. Please be prepared by having things removed from the KITCHEN & BATHROOM CABINETS, AS WELL AS COUNTER TOPS, AND/OR ANY OTHER PROBLEM AREAS. Pick up any loose items off of the floor such as laundry, shoes, toys, books, etc. and also clear away from the walls and corners of rooms. All pets must be locked in a bedroom with a note on the door stating which room the pest are in."

I give the full transcript just so you can get a scope of the rage I was feeling. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm fine with people coming out for pest control. It's a great idea, because it prevents fruit flies, bed bugs, and other creepy crawlies from invading our home because we have gross neighbors that let their dogs crap on the floor (I don't know for a fact that this is actually happening, but if you saw our apartment complex you'd get where the conclusion jumping comes from). What bothers me is that we were given 1.5 days notice to basically repack everything we had just finished unpacking. That in and of itself is only mildly irritating, but what really torques me is that we were told to do this durring the week. If they'd told us on Friday to get things ready by Monday, fine. We have a whole weekend. But we had to do all this schlepping in the course of two evenings, because Liz and I both have full time jobs with semi-normal hours. What ALSO bothers me is the fact that we have to move stuff out of the cabinets, but it can't be in the middle of the floor or against the walls. Where the hell else are we supposed to put it? The patio?!

Like most things in my life, this is just a petty gripe that isn't actually that upsetting or putting me out of my way a whole lot, it's just inconvenient and I would appreciate slightly less tool-bag practices from our management.

Oh yeah, and for those of you curious, Liz is still pregnant (This has been my stock response every time anybody asks "how's your wife?"). Further details: Nathan, Jr. (we still don't know the sex, this is just what I've been calling him/her/it since I've always thought it would be funny to name a child Nathan, Jr. because of Raising Arizona.) is growing healthy, roughly the size of a prune. Liz goes in for another OB appointment next Thursday. I think it'll still be too early to know the sex by then, but according to what I've read (and how far along I'm pretty sure Liz is. Have I mentioned that the conception date was roughly around my birthday? No more natal anniversary copulation for me!) we should be able to know by the following appointment. If it's a girl, I will still refer to her as Nathan, Jr. for my own amusement and because we still haven't really picked a name.

I don't think you've truly lived until you've had shaving gel explode in your hand. o.o

Mind you, this was not the can itself that exploded, but the actual GEL popped. It was surreal. I was spraying it into my hand to lather up, and suddenly there was a very loud POP!! I'm not entirely positive, but I think whatever keeps the gel as a gel before it gets lathered into a cream stopped doing it's job, or something, because now when I spray, it comes out directly as cream. Really really weird. It doesn't seem like the propellant, since it still comes out. I don't know. Weird is the only word I'm coming up with for this.

In other news, Liz called the apartment place today to find out what the hold up is. Apparently they were having a hard time getting a hold of our current landlord (no real surprise there, considering it took her almost a week to respond about us getting robbed). Anyway, long story short, they finally got a hold of her, and we'll actually have a place to live come next month. Yaaaaaaaay. My mock enthusiasm here is disguising my real enthusiasm, because I'm still so shocked about my shaving gel exploding. I really was genuinely conerned that we would have to live in a U-haul because our credit wouldn't get approved. This is Nathan. This is Nathan constantly worrying about everything. Notice the lack of change.

Dear Universe,

Please, just once, could you cut me some slack? As much as I enjoy continuing to go to the DMV and not being able to take a test for one stupid reason or another, I would really appreciate if you would stop taking monster diarrhea on me every day. I would just like to get my license so that I can get this stupid crap over with. Also, can you please explain to me how the driving instructor is perfectly okay with a huge crack in the windshield, but the fact that the third brake light is out, the one that I never look at when I'm driving behind somebody, the one I didn't even know we had until today, is reason enough for me to not be allowed to take the test. Being that we haven't been pulled over in recent history, I'm betting that most police officers don't actually care and have better things to do. That or our tint is so dark you can't see it anyway SO IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER.

With lots and lots of rage,
Nathan

So, apparently I won the Brittish Lottery. Which was held on June 1st, 2009.

It's like spam e-mail isn't even trying any more.

I'm so angry, I'm updating twice in a day.

So, we were planning on going to see My Bloody Valentine 3D tonight, because Liz and I are sick. Unfortunately there are only two theatres playing it in 3D: one in downtown, and one in Moore. The Moore theatre is newer, so it's more expensive, so we decided to go downtown.

What we didn't plan on, however, is that there is an Arenacross event this evening. We could not find parking. At all.

What follows is a list of the stupidity of downtown OKC:

1. Arenacross? REALLY? wtf is wrong with this state?
2. The theatre, which has about 30 screens, shares a parking lot with Toby Keith's bar and grill and Bass Pro Shop. You'd think this lot could acommodate like... 2000 cars. You'd be wrong. It only acommodates about 300. wtf, seriously.
3. Despite the "NO EVENT PARKING" signs, people were still parking there for the stupid event. Probably. I don't know this, but I assume it, because it's not like they can actually enforce that.
4. All the pay lots were full, so was valet, because of all the STUPID REDNECKS in this state.

God... we need to leave the South...

***ETA***

Okay, maybe it's not arenacross. It's for a basketball game. Still, the point remains that I'm mad and the parking lot for the theatre is moronic.

These are some of the really curious recommendations Amazon.com has offered me... Sorry they're big, I'm lazy, and life is far more difficult without photoshop. Not that I couldn't just use my work computer. So mostly I'm just lazy.

( Something strange this way comes... )

Okay, so I’ve had a bit of time to recoup from the ordeal that was Miami International Airport and I’m no longer riding the high of being on vacation. So, you know what that means: it’s time for Nathan’s update about the honeymoon (Don’t worry, it’s PG. PG-13 at worst)! Rather than actually having journaled about it ever day, I decided to just take notes so we would have more time to enjoy ourselves. But, it’s still conveniently broken up into what I’m dubbing “Day Chunks.”

( Day 1 – departing Miami and sea day )

( Day 2 – First full day at sea )

( Day 3 – Cozumel! )

( Day 4 – Another boring day at sea )

( Day 5 – Grand Cayman )

( Day 6 – Jamaica )

( Day 7 – Yet another boring day at sea )

( Day 8 – Debarking and heading home )

( Day 9 – Damn, now we’re not on vacation )

That’s it. That was our grand adventure. I typed this up in a word document, and it’s about 6.5 pages, so I really don’t expect anybody to have read all of it. Just rest assured it was the best vacation I’ve ever had.

Hilarious work story time (I know you're excited)!

We use stock photography for most of our book covers. Until recently we were using istockphoto, but we switched to shutterstock. I like it much better. One of the neat things it has is categories. So, I was browsing through "abstract" today, looking for something inspirational for a book about communication (I can see how excited you all are), and I came across this. My first reaction was this face: 8-| and in my head going "who the crap would post a picture like that in stock photos!? SURELY that's not what I think it is!" See, there are nude shots, but they're all tasteful and don't blatantly portray the bathing suit area.

Upon further inspection into his portfolio, I found another picture which uses the same illustration, only not in silhouette form, and it's just a sleeve. Still, that's just a really REALLY unfortunate coincidence, because the actual illustrations he as are rather nifty.

I'm the design maharashi for tomorrow. What does this mean? It means I pick a project or design related article, and make my peers bow to my whims. I decided to have everyone come up with a super power and what they would do with it. I've already decided mine: amazing web-slinging powers, because I'm too lazy to go across the room to get the remote. And... y'know, it's a way cooler way to travel than by a smelly ol' car.

Attention video game nerds: start reading here, because my work life is ultra boring!

In geek news, Smash Bros Brawl released yesterday. It is everything I expected and so much more. My favorite new characters so far (I haven't unlocked Snake yet. Sadness) are Meta Knight and Pokémon Trainer. There's still a few more I have to try out, but some of the new ones are... really lame. Like Diddy Kong. He sucks. If you have a Wii, you should pick it up. It rocks hard core. I've been waiting for this game for like... 2 years. Now I have nothing left to sit on pins and needles for except Mario Kart. Which is going to be epic awesome.

So, that's like... all the interesting information in my life of late. There's a reason I don't update any more.

So, ice storm. Our power was out from 10pm sunday until like... 3ish today.

Now it's back. We all kind of smell, and I need to shave.