LOST Theme Songs

Over the past few months I have become quite the LOST-ie. It helps to have hours of time to waste but I've found it's quite a show. Action, adventure, mystery, it's got it all. the only thing LOST is missing is a good theme song. Thanks to the lovely people on the internet I've found a few good candidates. All of these have potential to be classics.

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Button Pushing

I've found that at various hairy situations in my life that the solution can often be as simple as pushing a button. Buttons are everywhere. Without buttons, I feel humanity as we know it would not exist and a button-less existence would be a woeful one. From making the "go-up box," go up to buttons that can start cars with only a minute amount of finger pressure, buttons surely make the world go 'round. The button has had a profound effect on my life in three specific instances that come to mind.

The First button pushing experience wasn't actually my experience, but this push of a button by my friend B. had a ripple effect of 4 years. While pursuing my higher education there was a draw to explore every aspect of the University and its' campus. Others that felt this draw and myself would frequently find the empty football stadium particularly interesting for any number of reasons, but one being that the very top was so high up, one could see for miles around. Unfortunately, due to this draw effecting previous generations, there were a few security measures in place to try to make it very difficult for normal adventurers from pioneering all the way to the very top, including multiple 10ft high fences on the ramp leading up to the top. One faithful night our exploring leads up to try to summit the structure but the fences were doing their jobs and we were deterred. This is where B. comes in. There is an elevator that bypasses the fences and the ramp altogether but no one had ever thought to see if it was working. With what I assume was his left index finger, B. bushed the "up" button and low and behold, the doors parted and we had our path to the top. This single event allowed us to have many, many, MANY trips up to the top of Byrd Stadium and also allowed us to conduct a few physics experiments that otherwise would have been neigh impossible without the elevator.

The Second is a similar story about how I couldn't get into a building late one night on the same campus, but this time it was for a legitimate reason, I swear. All the doors were locked but with a quick brush of the handicapped button the door swung open and I got to where I was going. Button to the rescue again!

Today, the Third and most recent button pushing event transpired. I work at one of about a million tax preparation shops in the area and all of our work, as with many professions, is done primarily on the computer. This means of course that if catastrophe strikes and something like, I don't know, the power were to go out, the entire office becomes about as productive as an olive loaf. The apparently unforeseeable happened at about noon. Tax Professionals and their clients who had been entering data for hours were now S.O.L. This included myself. After about 20 minutes of making calls and taking down numbers, the office clears of clients and soon the Tax Professionals joined the rest of the office park on the porch area because, after all, it was a gorgeous day and we all just lucked into a few moments of sunlight. I hear a beeping coming from around the corner. I follow it only to discover a small security console with messages flashing. I can't understand the code but decide to push one of the three buttons. I push it once and the beeping stops. A second time and the power comes back on. We can all resume our normal, Saturday afternoon work schedule. Hooray.

So from assisting in mischief to cutting short a Saturday Siesta, button pushing, to me, is almost a motif of my life. I plan on continuing to push buttons as I come across them. And, although I may not always understand the affect a particular button will have on my life, I can confidently say that all buttons are meant to be pushed.

Meat is the new bread!

The Question has been asked: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables? Well after much thought and deliberation i've come up with this answer:

You must grasp logical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are those? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of feild grass, a green leafy vegetable. And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable slop

Writing about writing

I seem to remember when I had a xanga journal in high school I could post on a daily basis about absolutely nothing in particular. Now I am struggling to find material. Something about announcing to the world every little aspect of my life doesn't seem interesting anymore. Also, I rather not write about me. Who cares about me and the stupid stuff I do on a daily basis? Hopefully people have better things to do with their time.

I'm sure that every blogger who isn't good at blogging has at least one post about having nothing to write about or a reflection on why they're really blogging. Other than the paragraph above this will not be one of those posts. Here is a rant and rave about good blogs I enjoy reading and how pointless and stupid I feel twitter is.

First the good stuff. I subscribe to maybe 10 personal blogs through my google reader. I love spending my time reading well written posts about other peoples trials and tribulations and interesting musings. Only half of these people actually know that I may be reading their blog, but thanks to the anonymity of the internet, this is not only possible but in a way, encouraged. Sometimes the topics and the style of writing makes me feel like an inadequate blogger until I remind myself that it's the internet and it doesn't matter what or how anyone writes. My favorite posts are the ones about small events in peoples lives explained in great detail to help explain the bloggers thought processes. My least favorite posts: random updates about pointless things WITH NO EXPLANATION. And yes, I do understand the irony here, but it leads to my next paragraph: my loath for twitter.

If you don't know what twitter is and you use the internet on a regular basis then you've been using it under a rock. An internet rock. Whatever that is. Check out this TED.com video on twitter by one of it's creators, Evan Williams. It is actually interesting how these technological "advances" come about but I still don't understand the necessity for twitter. Basically, twitter is a way to update anyone who's subscribed to your "tweets" on what it is you are doing at any given moment. Recently there was a campaign to get members of congress on twitter, which in itself is a neat idea, I'd rather get updates from the leaders of our country that get paid by my tax dollars instead of some random people/friends. Unfortunately, during Obama's "state of the union" or whatever it was, a Congresswoman was caught tweeting DURING HIS SPEECH. I didn't even know they allowed blackberries/mobile phones into the chambers but apparently this woman got one in. Although this situation is rather funny, we have to ask ourselves if updating others of our situations has become more important than actually living our lives. In the near future I fully expect a twitter sequence to go like this:
TooMuchTimeGuy1: Driving home from work
TooMuchTimeGuy1: It's raining pretty hard
TooMuchTimeGuy1: There's a car coming right at me!
TooMuchTimeGuy1: On the side of the road waiting for paramedics
TooMuchTimeGuy1: Going to the hospital
With the internet now everyone has the opportunity for a "published" voice but soon enough those voices will become overwhelming and twitter is the first step in the wrong direction of mass communicating useless information. We have enough of that everywhere already.

A Monster-truck announcer breaks up with his girlfriend

K-K-K-K-K-KARENNNNNNNNN,

This SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY, I'd like you to have all your stuff moved OUT OUT OUT of MY MY MY APARTMENT APARTMENT APARTMENT, because I'm b-b-b-b-b-breaking up with YOU YOU YOU!!! I don't know what to say, really. I feel b-b-b-b-bad about all this, but it's like we're just not c-c-c-c-c-c-communicating like we used to.

Let's just be m-m-m-m-mature about this and try to remain friends. We should get coffee sometime, in case one of us needs some CLOSURE CLOSURE CLOSURE. I know no one PLANS PLANS PLANS for things to turn out this WAY WAY WAY.

Call me if you think this is a MISTAKE MISTAKE MISTAKE MISTAKE.

Sorry,
Keith

*Found on McSweeny's Internet Tendency page, alas I cannot take credit.

Confessions of a Tax Associate

Sitting in an empty H&R Block office night after night leads me to ask one question: Why aren't people doing their taxes?
I constantly am coming into work fully expecting no business. Maybe it's our demographics. The families and business in this particular area are bit "well off" so chances are they have their own CPAs and accountants.
Maybe people are waiting unitl the last minute to complete their returns because they know they'll owe money and want to hold onto it for as long as possible. If this is the case, we'll be swamped in a few weeks.
It is rather disheartening that my first "professional" job post college is already what many would consider a dead-end. I've been attending career fairs and calling up some conects, but I have that 7.6% national unemployment in the back of my mind. Who would hire me of all the people looking for jobs? I guess this is just another situation where I keep my head down and power through, something is bound to come up.

Air Strike on a Motorcycle

I swear I just heard that Israel retaliated for post cease fire bombings by having an air strike target a motorcycle. Air strike on a motorcycle...wow.

I never thought I'd see the day...

...when Dave Neal would get an ovation of sorts for coming in off the bench. I never thought I'd see him start either but that's neither here nor there, since the terps really have no one else to put in. It is a sad state of affairs when there's no inside presence with the obvious lack of a big man, our potential 3-point sharp shooter can't hit a bucket under any pressure and our most passionate player is a big ball hog. Tonight I went to the UVA v. Maryland basketball game and observed one of the worst games ever played at the comcast center. Our zone defense was working only because the UVA players can't pass worth shit, the refs couldn't seem to get any calls right and the Maryland players couldn't get a rebound to save their lives. I'm disappointed in the team, the fans(an ACC game, versus UVA, and the stands were half full), and the coach. Gary's got one more year before I start chanting for the hook. I shouldn't really complain I guess because the Terps did win, even though through some very stupid mistakes, UVA never seemed out of it.

In other news, the Inauguration went off without a hitch. I arrived early enough to stand and wait in the streets of D.C. with 2 million of my now closest friends. I ended up getting pushed about 200 ft. closer than I ever expected to get, due mainly to some very brave souls crossing the frozen reflecting pool to try to get an even better view. After the ceremony I went to a lunch thing that Sen. Barbra Boxer was holding which was part "yaaay Obama!" and part "yaaay I'm running for re-election in 2 years, I better start campagining now." But hey a free lunch is a free lunch, plus I got to meet members of her staff as well as the Senator to whom I remarked, "I loved your scene in Curb," to which I recieved a "haha, nice to meet you" as she moved on down the line. Overall, I'd say it was a rather successful day which started off with some regret as I prepared to freeze my tail off. One note though: being forced to stand ass to elbows with completely random people allows for maximum random schmooze time as well as a way to keep warm on a bitterly cold January day.

Inauguration Ticket

So my mom came home today with a surprise. A ticket to Obama's Inauguration. Don't believe me? Here's proof(also, I dunno how many of you will get a chance to see an Inauguration ticket):


Pretty sweet huh? When I first found out about this I was like, "Hells no, It's gonna damn cold." But then I thought, I'm a trooper and there are a ton of people that would love this opportunity, so why should I waste it? To give you an idea of where I'll be here's the map that came with the ticket:

I'll be in the silver section. I get the idea that the orange, blue, purple and yellow ticket holders will be really close to(if not on) the steps of the capitol while I'll be with the rest of the ticket holders in the front part of the mall. At least I won't be stuck in the middle of the mall somewhere, though chances are I'll see more of the ceremony via a Big Screen T.V. than with my own eyes. Gates open at 8am, so I guess I'll have to be there round 7. I plan on wearing 2 possibly 3 layers under my coat. God damn it's gonna be cold.

As for other updates, I got back from my family vacation in the Bahamas with a bit more money than I originally had, thanks to the fish at the poker table. The weather was awful so the best thing to do was sit inside in the casino. After a quick turn-around I was in Israel for 10 days which was completely amazing. The people I met were awesome, the country is beautiful, I want to go back again and again and again and again. If anyone has a few hours on their hands and wants to hear about my trip I will be much obliged.
I've started working at H&R Block in cloverly. Taxes are boring as hell but it's a good stepping stone job and I'll know some ins and outs for when I need to do my own taxes. If anyone needs their taxes done, let me know by January 23rd so I can get you on a special friends and family list, it'll be a ton cheaper. Even if you don't make it onto that list and want your taxes done, swing by cloverly and I'll see what I can do for you.