Everybody lies. And then blogs about it.
Dan
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Homepage: http://www.lilkobi.com
Jabber/GTalk: dankober
Posts by Dan
The Polar Bear is a Sorcerer
Mar 2nd
New Jersey. After a four month traveling hiatus, I find myself soon bound for the Garden State. More appropriately, the Secret Garden State, because if there’s thriving greenery in New Jersey, it’s well hidden. The trip doesn’t promise any particular irregularities unless the weather acts up and I happen to become stranded there. The site of the installation is a fair distance from the airport of arrival. After considering all of the options, it turns out that the cheapest travel option in this case is a car service. That means, for the first time in my life, I’m going to go to the baggage claim and there will be a well-dressed chap with my name on a sign. This is the only time I will have something in common with big shot business types. What up.
My only real regret in taking the trip out east is that I will be missing precious days with the yet-to-be-released Final Fantasy XIII. I’ll probably get my pound of flesh in the form of taking that Friday off.
I didn’t provide much in the way of context, but I’ve obviously procured a copy of the Penny Arcade “Biography“. The boys over at PA are fantastic peoples and “The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade” is as good of a look into the mouth of madness as you’re ever going to get. Their thrice-weekly webcomic has been a staple of my internet experience for the better part of a decade. It should be in yours, too. That is, of course, unless you think that “NES” stands for the Canadian National Employment Service. Then this probably isn’t for you. I slept a little too long on PAX East, which is disappointing. If you had the presence of mind to get on board that train, I suggest you ride it and ride it hard.
At this moment, I am watching tonight’s episode of Lost (post-title reference here). If you’ve the misfortune of getting sucked into that trap too, I need you to explain something to me: why do we do this to ourselves? It seems they can do anything on this show and I’ll just gobble it up like mystery dick in an Olive Garden men’s room. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m in on this until the bitter end, but they better make it worth my while at the conclusion. Series Finale: Kate gets into a naked pillow fight with the female cast of Cougar Town. End scene.
Go see Shutter Island. Don’t let anyone (myself included) talk to you about it first. Opinions of any sort can only spoil that sweet, cinematic fruit.
OK! That’s about it until next time. The Kobers keep a pretty open calendar, let me know if you want to put some billiards and beers on the books.
Dk out.
1up
Feb 14th
Congratulations on collecting one hundred monetarily ambiguous gold coins! As your reward, you’ve been issued a very jovial looking jade green fungus. Please exercise caution when consuming undercooked happy mushrooms as feelings of invulnerability and euphoria have been known to occur. Consult your physician if these feelings last longer than 300s.
Another year has submitted to the unstoppable grindhouse that is Father Time. Two years now I’ve been in under my current employ with no major complaints to speak of. We picked up miss Pami as a first round draft pick and I am thankful for the presence of one other sane person around the proverbial water cooler. I’ve been fortunate to remain at the home base pounding keys instead of turning screws abroad. I’m sure the wife would argue differently.
I certainly don’t mean to slip into an “At the Movies” style segment here, but I will remark on a few things I’ve seen recently to possibly recruit or save you.
- Avatar – I guess if you’re going to go see this, do yourself the favor of seeing in 3D on the biggest sheet of canvas you can find. The Mrs and I, unfortunately, saw this in 2D on a very crappy screen (go to hell, Regal). The story for Avatar, in case you are not aware, is just Pocohantas in Space. It’s nothing groundbreaking and completely predictable. But the effects are supposed to be top-notch, which they very well might have been but I couldn’t tell.
- Sherlock Holmes – It’s funny. And more on-target to Doyle’s Holmes than the stereotypical Holmes you might think of. You should probably have a few beers and Redbox it.
- The Book of Eli – We were unfortunate to be the last ones into the theater on this one and got stuck in the second row of the theater. I’ve never had to actually rotate my head to pan across a movie screen before, and it’s not something I hope to do again. Luckily, there’s not a lot of reading in this movie. There is, however, a fair amount of Denzel Washington being a complete badass.
All right. The Olympics are on. I didn’t think I was going to care, but here we are. Let’s meet back here after women’s curling and we’ve replenished the spank bank.
Well, That’s Terrifying
Dec 13th
If any of you out there are looking for a good show on the idiot-box, I highly suggest Showtime’s “Dexter“. I shouldn’t have to explain to you what this show is, but I will. There’s a very talented young man who makes a hobby of killing people who kill people. That’s all you really need to know to know this:
One scene of the most recent episode shows an unsub snatch a 12 year old boy out of an arcade in a very simple and scary manner. Have you ever been driving behind some soccer mom with a series of crudely drawn stick figure window-clings on the back? They’re like merit badges for married women to show people how many times they’ve had unprotected sex. Well, these merit badges come complete with labels for the aforementioned little trophies. Let’s pretend for a moment (just pretend, mind you), that I am a vicious pedophile. Hey! Now I know your kids’ names and super-rough, 3rd-grade quality sketches of them. Now I can refer to them by name when I roll up in the ole’ free-candy-van.
What the fuck is wrong with you people?
On Creeds, Assassins
Nov 16th
I can give you a hint, though, that may help create the preconditions for your enjoyment of AC2.
Turn on the subtitles. There is a ridiculous, almost comical amount of Italian in the game. I recognize that the game takes place in Italy, and that Italian is often spoken there, but it’s so dense at times that you may think you’ve purchased a disc for the wrong region. Aside from the pleasantries you could probably suss out from context, there’s a lot of colorful, interesting language that just evaporates when it isn’t anchored with meaning.
- Tycho
Who’s got two thumbs, two concealed spring-loaded throat knives, a white hoodie and is excited? This gulauchAAAAAARG…
Ruby Derailed
Nov 15th
On Sunday, I abstained from my recent ritual of shooting pool and watching football and spent some time playing on my Macbook. I had, sometime ago, downloaded and installed Xcode; the sort of swiss army knife of Mac software development tools. I found myself stumbling through a tutorial on Ruby. Ruby, as I understand it, is a neat little web language that I’ve heard about for some time. There was a time when I would play with something like that for as long as it took for me to make something useful out of it. After about five hours, I just sort of gave up. It wasn’t frustrating, or even that difficult. I just didn’t see the point.
I’d prefer that this single event isn’t the story of my life. It bugs me that this didn’t bug me. If you’ll remember, tinkering with this kind of shit used to be sort of a hobby of mine. Jesus, I hope this isn’t what’s it’s like to get old.
So! How about this weather? We’ve been fortunate enough to experience preparing a house for the summer and now I suppose that we have to prepare it for the winter. Oddly enough, it seems like Winter-preparation is Summer-preparation in reverse. Take apart patio furniture, kill any plants that don’t go dormant themselves. I was a bit confused about what to do for the lawn. On the one hand, there are parts of it that have gotten sort of wild in recent weeks and probably could use a trimming. On the other hand, we’ve had a sort of tough time keeping the grass alive in the first place. Maybe a little bulk will give it a better chance or surviving? We’ll find out come ~March.
At this moment, Tree is beating my ass at Fantasy Football. My entire team (read: my entire undefeated team) just laid down and died. Hopefully, they all just picked the same week to suck as and they will carry me forth unto victory after victory until the Stanley Cup. Or whatever.
I think my work related travels are at an end for the year. There are still plenty of trips to be made, but I think I have enough to do to keep me at my desk for the next four months without respite. This is, I’m told, a good thing. In one of the company’s better decisions, we’ve hired our first-ever legitimate Mechanical Engineer. You may know her as Pami. It’s a treat having someone I know and like around the office. Better still is it to have one more person around there who wasn’t old enough to vote for George H. W. Bush.
OK! Dexter‘s on the DVR and you don’t keep that son of a bitch waiting.
Light the Fires
Nov 6th
I need someone to kick my ass into updating this thing; who out there wants that responsibility? I remember in High School throwing up one or two posts a day and somehow that half-intelligent teenage drivel was satisfying. How is it my fully formed conversational tongue doesn’t want to put fingers to keys?
I realize that, anymore, blogs always seem to be themed to a particular type of content. I don’t think I can continue on my current path of random book/music/video game recommendations as a legitimate means of broadcasting a pulse. In a similar vain, I don’t think I can contribute regular, useful postings on a topic that I may or may not have proficiency in. So… ideas? I’ll even go so far as to write short stories to the topic of your choice. I’m desperate to justify this medium. Entertain me!
Ghetto Love
Sep 15th
I couldn’t tell you why I all of a sudden got a wild hair up my ass to update this thing. But, here we are.
I recently finished the complete works of Tom Robbins: a Seattle based author who’s been pounding pulp for almost forty years. His works are full of great little philosophical nuggets. I should have read them with a highlighter. I will loan to anyone who is looking for fall/winter reading material. Be prepared for a wash of intravenous drug use and nun-sex. Wicked.
I think we might be all settled in here at the homestead. Took advantage of a lot of Labor Day Sales and picked up some furnishings on the cheap. Finally re-felted the pool table and now we’re all set up in the Rec-Room. Bummed my folks’ old turn-table since it seems vinyl is on the rise. My first purchase was technically pre-ordering Brand New’s new album, “Daisy”, which comes out in a couple of weeks. Without admitting anything, I’ll say that “Daisy” is pretty good. Definitely not like much else you’re hearing these days.
Inglourious Basterds was worth seeing and probably worth owning. Also probably not Tarentino’s best movie (that right is still Pulp Fiction), but it certainly beats Jackie Brown and maybe the Kill Bill Volume 2. I would recommend it to anyone who liked any other Q movies. Or wants to nail Brad Pitt.
The office is sending me around a country (read: continent) a bit more. Since our last chat I believe I’ve been to Boston, Long Island and Prince George. Prince George, is in British Columbia. More specifically, the middle-northern region. Where Jesus lost his snow-shoes, if you will. My career takes me all sorts of places. Awesome places. Hopefully the next one will be awesome. Actually, I think the next one will be Kent State. Hrmm.
So what happened to summer? Yard work. I can’t tell if this is a good thing. I’ve got a tan, but it’s not the right kind. But the end of summer means the start of Fantasy Football. Don’t ask me why I give so much of a shit, but I’ve grown to love the game. Not the actual sport mind you. Just the numbers end of things.
Speaking of games: play Scrabble on Facebook. I will have as many open games going at once as I can physically handle. I’m half-retarded at it, but it’s still the shit. Hit me up.
All right. There’s more useless things on the internet I could be doing now.
Seatbelts.
Remember Bingo Pajama
Jul 9th
All right, let’s back as much information into the next 20 minutes or so as my little fingers will allow for. A chronology, as best as I can place it:
/root
So, we’re homeowners. Well, that is to say, we’ve 10% equity in a house. Slaves to the mortgage, really. We got the keys at the end of May after a long fought battle with some other jackass. Since then, our weekends and evenings have consisted heavily of painting, cleaning and yard-work. The first week or so with the keys we had a myriad of helpers with the paint (too many to give their appropriate shout-outs here). It took around 10 people about 10 days to finish painting three rooms and all of the house’s common areas. The bedrooms and bathrooms remain unpainted and in moderate shape. Honestly, I don’t even see nail-holes anymore. If you want to come by for the tour or have gone by our previous domicile in Hilliard, knocked on the door and been greeted by strangers, let me know and we’ll give you the ten-cent tour. The address, if you’re curious, is accessible if I also happen to be stalking you on Facebook. There are couple of lesser-interesting stories from the move and re-renovation of the house, but the most interesting occurred the morning of the big move…
Where Ever U-Are, That’s Where U-Haul
Having had the keys to the house for a little over a week before finally vacating our apartment, many of our smaller knick-knacks and personal belongings had already been moved into the house’s basement. The only things remaining in the apartment were the big ticket items that we’d need a moving truck for but would only take a morning to move. We awoke then, the morning of May 31st to pick-up the U-Haul moving truck that Shannon had reserved for us. We were in the trusty Accord, in the apartment parking lot, motor running, before realizing that we did not have the address of the vendor in question; only that it was on Broad St. Trusty iPhone the first (that story later) in hand, I was began a search for U-Hauls on Broad St only to discover that there were several.
“I think there’s a 12 or 14 in the address,” said Shannon.
“Well, there’s a U-Haul on 1428 W Broad St, ” I replied.
“I’m going to get the paper I wrote everything down on.”
“Yeah, you do that.”
And back into the apartment she scurried and quickly returned with parchment in hand.
“6612 W Broad St,” she recited.
“Well, that has a 12 in it. All right. Let’s punch that into Google Maps and get directions.”
And off we went. The 6000 block of W Broad St, in case you are wondering, is actually just outside the outer-belt, a little bit to the west of Rome-Hilliard Rd. Our apartment practically on said road, our trip was easy. We soon arrived at the street corner marked by the maps little red pin and gazed upon this. It is, by appearances, a U-Haul vendor. But, the parking lot was completely lacking in the particular size of moving truck that we had reserved.
“Let me see that note,” I asked, my puzzlement bordering on alarm.
“Here,” said Shannon as she forfeited the scrap of paper.
The hand-written note contained pricing, sizing and pickup information as well as the phone-number and address where our beloved truck could be picked-up. I print that information below in as close to a re-creation of that format as this medium will allow for.
614 478
6612
1428 Broad St
Imagine however, the “1428″ printed so far to the left of the street name that when glanced at vertically, quickly, the address reads “6612 Broad St”. So, you see, we confused the last four digits of the phone number as the street address… and ended up at a U-Haul.
I don’t know if the gravity of this mistake will hit you, as it hit us. Let me re-iterate: we, with the intention of going to a U-Haul, essentially punched in a complete fucking random address into Google Maps and arrived at a goddammed U-Haul. I challenge anyone to try to re-create this phenomenon with any commercial establishment and have it succeed so spectacularly. Easy Mode: Starbucks, Hard Mode: White Castle, Legendary Mode: In-and-Out Burger.
We arrived at U-Haul-actual a little late.
Beantown
I was sent out on another installation this past Sunday-Tuesday in lovely Boston, Masturchewsets. The details of the installation itself are only of mild interest; I’ll mention only that on my departure from the customer’s facilities I realized that they seemingly specialized only in research regarding erectile dysfunction. So, there’s that.
Monday evening, I met up with Grove City’s own India for a few hours of wandering Boston and stuffing our faces with whatever fare the city had to offer. Pretty good Greek food, even better genuine guinea baked goods. Apparently the Monday I was in town was the only non-rainy day in Boston for three weeks. Not one person thanked me.
The Rest
The rest of the last couple of months saw the following, which, while possibly interesting, I won’t be dedicating more details than I could fit into a tweet:
- The beginning of June marked 9 years of time spent with the Mrs. I could swear it only feels like 8.
- Concerts! Manchester Orchestra, Nightmare of You. The former out-performed the latter.
- I know I got pretty blackout drunk one night. I was told I crashed in bed with my Aunt-in-Law. I was skeptical, until pictures emerged.
- After a wonderful 2 years with my trusty 1st-gen iPhone, I bit the bullet and upgraded to a 32gb 3GS. I regret nothing less.
That might be it for now. Only with persistent harping will you find me updating this thing more frequently. Harp away.
Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.
Snowy Creek
Apr 21st
OK. It’s been a few weeks. I realize this. But I have an excuse that smacks of legitimacy. The wife and I started house hunting in mid March and each time it seemed like we had something to report, it all went sour and all of a sudden it became a waste of time to talk about it. I don’t really have the energy to go into all the gory details but the long and short of it is: we have a house. We won’t close on the place for another couple of weeks, but we had a home inspection today and we’ve been assured that the place is not going to fall down on us after we move in. So we’re golden there. The details of the procurement story as well as the house itself will follow once we’re sure everything is going smoothly. Suffice it to say we have a shitload of painting ahead of us.
Other than that, nothing really new to speak of. I have not had to travel since my last installment which has been nice. I’m hoping to go six weeks in a row in Ohio for the first time since November.
Tomorrow I turn the big 24. Which is not really big at all, actually. I’m not really one for birthdays or anything, and this year has been even less so because of the excitement/panic of house hunting. The only really important birthdays are your first and your last.
Until next time.
