A Random Thought...

Remind me tomorrow to do some quick research into Illinois employment law to see if there would be any issues with me firing people in my group for not subscribing to my blog.

Unrelated note: Send email to group tomorrow telling people to check out my blog...

That said, who would have thought KB, my mortal enemy, would be the first subscriber I got. Maybe he has already done some research into the appropriate employment statutes...

"Why October," you ask?

I've been swarmed with emails from my loyal followers today asking me why I've chosen to "blog my October." The answer is simple, yet complicated.

You see, I live in Chicago, Illinois. Chicago has some of the best weather in the world, and I'm defining "best" in this case to mean "worst." To make my blog appear more intelligent than it really is, I'm going to quote some random person on the internet.

I'm going to quote "DefyIntertia" from the FZ6 motorcyle forum I discovered when doing a random Google search for "Chicago weather sucks."

"Yes, the weather really does suck in Chicago. It's rarely nice, no matter the season...I'm not sure what's worse, the flat land and lack of ocean, or the horrible weather."

You can find this truism at the following link under the brilliantly headed forum subject, "Chicago Weather Sucks."

http://www.fz6-forum.com/forum/usa-midwest/15065-chicago-weather-sucks.html

Taking this thought to its natural nerd-tastic conclusion, I created a chart:

As you can see from the above, temperatures in the area fluctuate solely between 120 degrees with 100% humidity to -100 degrees with a blizzard. The only exception to this is the month of October when temperatures are a pleasant 50ish degrees. Thus, I love October.

Of course, there are three other mitigating factors that went into the decision of October being the month that I will be blogging my life on:

• My birthday is October 12. For those who don't know me, my Birthday is largely considered by those in the "know" to be sort of a conglomeration of the present mania of Christmas, the food of Thanksgiving and the Holiness of Easter, all rolled up into one, all-t00 short day. Seriously...I love presents.
• Halloween is, quite literally, the best non-present holiday ever conceived. I'll be sharing such wonders as the horror movies, Halloween specials, haunted houses, the midwestern phenomena called "corn mazes", as well as a hopeful trip to the place of this writer's birth, Pittsburgh, featuring "Kennywood Fright Nights." Also, I expect Halloween presents as well.
• Coats and scarves. I'm not kidding when I say that coats and scarves are, quite literally, the greatest clothing ever invented. I love coats and scarves. I have a scarf rack. I do. October is the first month of the year where I can wear these coats and Scarves, and I relish it. Sure, it may lack the panache of a top hat and monacle, or the pure comfort of a pantsless day in the midst of Mojito season, but in terms of good old fashioned comfort, nothing beats a coat. Take that, Snuggie!

In summation, I like presents. A lot.

OctoJabroni Kick-Off and Meet the Author Signing Event!

I can think of no better way to kick-off OctoJabroni AND to rekindle my love affair with actor's named "Woody" than to see Zombieland on opening night.













http://www.zombieland.com/

As an added bonus, this will be your first chance to meet the author and get him to sign whatever you are interested in him signing. Burt Reynolds picture? I'll sign it! Blank piece of paper? Consider it signed! Your favorite boxers? Already signed!

So...the details are as follows:

The film: Zombieland.
Location: Some movie theater that is playing Zombieland in the greater Chicago area.
Time: Sometime Friday night. Possibly a matinee on Saturday if I'm sleepy.

So, basically, if you happen to be seeing Zombieland at the same time and location I eventually decide to see it at, I will most likely not ignore your presence, and if you stick a pen in one of my hands and something to sign in the other, I'll probably scribble some nasty comment on the item.

Hope to see you there!

And So It Begins...

According to Science, there is literally nothing more pointless in this Universe than social networking. In fact, our learned founding father's noted this in the Constitution:

Social...site...s...destroy...the...core...of...our...nation.

Powerful stuff, no? Of course, these specific words and their placement happen to be throughout the document, but the fact of the matter is that those words ARE there, and the framers did in fact choose to use them in a fashion that allows me to randomly select them.


So, faithful readers of this blog from thebeginning, you must be asking yourself why I, a man of great taste and adequate personal hygiene, would choose to ignore both Science and several deceased men whom I've never met and chose to embrace social networking.

The answer to this question is convoluted and irrational, but also tinged with a delicate smoky flavor:

• People, who may or may not be exclusively limited to my mother, are constantly asking me for updates on my life. Can you blame them? I mean, I am constantly doing _things_. On any given day I may or may not wake up. I may or may not go to work. I may or may not watch something on television. Now, I may or may not write a blog post. The list of tedious, mind-numbing things I may or may not do is endless. Who _wuldn't_ want to read a detail description of some of these things I may or may not chose to share.

• The kids seem to like the facebook and twitter. The average age of my colleagues in games seems to be right in that sweet spot where they actually understand social networking and its apparent vital nature to modern society. As someone who will soon be celebrating my 29th birthday for the xth consecutive year, I'm definitely feeling the peer pressure to join this "revolution." I am, shall we say, concerned, given that the last revolution I took part in was centered around Crystal Sodas (and we all know that one set us back about 10 years). Despite these huge risks, none can argue that peer pressure is an important aspect of my life, so...full steam ahead.

"But", you collectively say, "what will you be blogging in regards to, dear sir?" Well, my intrepid reader, that is an excellent question. At the moment, I'm treating this as a social experiment just to discover what one is supposed to blog about...at the moment I have literally no idea.

My work, which is the stuff anyone in their right mind would actually be interested in, is largely covered under NDA. Then it hit me...OCTOBER! That's right, ladies and gentleman, I shall be blogging my October. Not my "day to day", of course, but literally things of and related to my life as they pertain to the general creamy goodness that is the month of October. To quote the author of this blog in real time, "If only everyone could blog about their October-related experiences during the month of October, then there would be a lot of blogs about people's October-related experiences."

Fin.