First of all, can I say, that Tropic Thunder is THE BEST movie I have EVER seen.  EVER.  Period.  It is so badass that words can not explain how much I enjoyed that film.  Every single second fo the movie is absolutely hilarious, and packed with action.  The combination of Ben Stiller, Tom Cruise, Robert Downer Jr, and Jack Black, is absolutely perfect.  These guys just feed off of each other in a symphony of comedic perfection.  Seriously, I have never laughed so hard.  Ever.  Please, go see it.  You will not be disappointed.

I love war movies, and comedy, and the mixture of these two fused together, was just pefect.  I have to say that RDJ playing a black man was absolutely hilarious, even though he was really supposed to be portraying a stingy irish (English? not sure, basing off of accent, which I’m not a good judge), which was just hilarious on so many levels.

Anyway, go see it.  I guarantee that it is money well spent.  In fact, if you don’t enjoy it, I will pay your movie fees back.  Ok, I lied, I won’t pay them back.  But if you are one of the three people that read my blog, I know that you probably enjoy my sense of humor, and in that case, you’ll enjoy this movie. haha

On another note, I found that god damn annoying metallic vibrating noise that has been driving me crazy on my ‘56 pontiac.  I narrowed it down to something in the passenger side exhaust system (thanks to evan, and a lot of help from the guys on the HAMB on this thread I started:  http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=286674)

Anyway, took the poncho down to the muffler shop I had my dual Flow 40’s installed at (Bobs Discount Muffler on Grape Street, downtown), and talked to the owner, an old New Yorker named Bob Napolitano (hes a fuckin BA!), and he narrowed it down to being the heat riser in the passenger side exhaust manifold.  The riser is apparently blown out, and there is a butterfly in the riser that stays closed while the exhaust heats up through the engine, and when warm, the buttefly opens and allows the hot exhuast to run out through the manifold and out through the pipes.  Apparently that butterfly had worn out and was rattling around in the riser in the manifold.  Typical on old cars apparently.  I’m dropping her off at old Bob’s discount muffler on Monday on my way to work, and hes going to fix that and an exhaust leak I have out of my passenger side manifold during the day, and I’ll pick up after work.

God, I love that car!  Turns a lot of heads.  Was out for margaritas all afternoon today with Dani, Cam, and Chessmaster Cass, and got a lot of thumbs ups, and one from a guy cruising a sweet 1959 bel air.

Anyway, I’m heading to bed, we are cruising out to San V tomorrow morning around 5:45 AM (Me, evan, jamie, dani, cam, and Kjo) to get a good morning session in while the water is glassy, then will prob be chillin all afternoon.

Peace out T&Ters.

“Shit” might sound plural, like there are multiple things I hate about it…but I’m really writing this in regards to just one thing I really really really hate about blogging.  Well, actually multiple now because I just thought of another.

Blogging makes me think of some trendy nerd with those little thin rectangle glasses on, an ipod stuck in his ears blaring some emo shit, sitting in a coffee shop furiously typing away on his new macbook air.  This is the farthest thing from me that there is.  And I blog all the time.  although they are always writing about some new web technology, or cutting edge new programming language…I just can’t stay up to date anymore, so this basically just my online journal.  I’m kind of trying to unwire my life in a way, since I’m on a computer all day at work, I kind of like to unplug after and do some real life shit (like my 3 days at the river this weekend - will post on that later).

Anyway, back to what really pissed me off.

Why is every blog post a “10 Reasons Why Every Blog has posts about 5 Reasons to Not do Something “.

It seems like every blogger writes some list of some sort.  I’m not saying that I am not guilty of it as well, I’m sure you can dig up some list post I have done around T&T, but I resolve to never do it again!  Seriously, why does every blog post have to be a list?  Are people really reading blogs just because they can easily digest information in bullet point format?  I don’t know, its just so annoying.

This is the post that set me off about this:

http://www.siteguide.us/2007/07/05/3-reasons-why-comment-relish-is-not-good-for-your-blog/

Instead of just casually discussing why he preferred to not use this wordpress plugin on his blog, he had to put it in some stupid numbered list.  WHY?  A “discussion with a friend” provided him with all of the reasons he listed on this post.

“On the contrary, I feel disgusted because the blog owner has treated me like a bot and not a human.”

This is just ridiculous.  In the world of blogging, anyone with good content is going to have some decent traffic.  If you send out a note to commentors on your blog, They aren’t going to be disgusted…maybe if your message just says - thanks for the comment, now subscribe already!  However, I use that plugin all the time for saying thanks, and pointing the commenter in a couple of directions - a link to my forum, a message about what makes my blog so interesting, a link to the contact form on my site so they can ask me a question.  All relative, valuable, worthwhile information.  So, I question whether this guy even uses the plugin correctly, or is just a cheap way to try and push people to add him to their feed reader?

I don’t know, and maybe I’m off topic, but thats just some blogging shit that really annoys me.

One of the books I have been intending to read is The Four Hour Work Week. I have heard good things about it, and truthfully, I am really just interested in cutting a day out of my work schedule. I hate getting stuck in the grind of working 9 hours every day only to get home, take care of a couple things before passing out and getting back up the next morning to do it all over again. Then I try to pack as much fun as I possibly can into the two days I have off for my weekend, before its back to doing it all over again. The only positive is that weeks tend to fly by when you are in such a repetitive grind, but god damn does it start to wear on you. Thats why when a buddy of mine sent me this link about Outsourcing Your Life in an attempt to achieve a condensed work week, I began to question if this could really be done. Intriguing:

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/outsourcing-life/

I borrowed that image from his site, but look at all the cool stuff he has time to do in that extra day!  Turn into a woman and get a massage, turn back into a dude and go skiing down mount everest, and enjoy an African sunset in the middle of the sahara desert.  I WANT THAT LIFE!  Well, maybe not the woman/massage part.  Well, I like women, and massages, but I don’t want to be one.  Anyway…

With such cheap outsourcing in India (I think he paid $4-10 per hour for outsourced assistants), why not do this to delegate the menial tasks that you are assigned with day to day? Granted, their English is not flawless, and you pretty much get what you pay for, but if these people can take care of your searching and reporting research for you, hey why not? This sparked an idea for me - why not start a blog that is written, inadvertently, by outsourced Indian personal assistants. Every day I could pass off a research topic to them to have formatted for a blog post ready for the next day. Essentially it could be my blog, containing topics I would love to write about but don’t have the time, and the content is created from their perspective. This could be a pretty interesting experiment in outsourced Blogging. “Outblogging“? no? “BlogSourcing“? Not web 2.0 enough? hmm… I’ll have to think this one over. What do you think?

On another note. I’m burnt out. I need to drink a bottle of wine tonight. SeeYuh!

I am a bit of a perfectionist with a side of OCD, I hate to say.  I’m the type of person who has a ton of things to do, and can’t rest until they are done.  I can ignore them for a while, and go on to other things, but my mind can not rest until I have gone through that list in my head and checked everything off.  Here is what my brain looks like:

1. do this
2. this too
3. don’t forget this
4. and then get this done
5. fuck you forgot this

This can be really frustrating because I intend to do all sorts of shit.  But if something is ahead of it in my list, I have to finish it first before I can move on.  And the worst thing to accompany this is the fact that I have no problem taking on way more than I actually can accomplish.  So now, I already have a list of things to do in my head, but I am taking on more responsibilities in addition to them, and it is not a good combo.  I need to work on this, because it leads to a lot of stress.

In other news, I came across a cool San Diego blogging website, www.sandiegobloggers.com.  Now, I have always blogged for me.  You may have seen some google ads on the side of this occasionally, and I experimented with some ads integrated into posts over time…but I was never really feeling it, so I took them all off.  Tech and Tonic has never been about trying to generate any sort of income, in fact most sites that have ads in their posts or all tagged over with that shit, I pretty much just pass by.  I don’t mind some related pictures or relevant advertising, but this shit has gone completely over the top.  Ahh, just realized I got off on a tangent.  Anyway, I found this SD Bloggers website and signed up for it, and I came across some other cool San Diego Blogs. 

Ok so my point was that I write this blog basically just to get shit off my mind and share some of my thoughts with people.   Thats why I was stoked to come across some other local bloggers who seem to be doing the same thing.  I never really got involved with any sort of blogging community, mainly because I hate the word "blogosphere" and I think its fucking stupid.  That being said, I am trying to get involved in posting around/commenting on other people’s blogs, for the sole reason that I enjoy them.  I’m not trying to generate traffic or make money (coming full circle with my tangent now), but I would like to meet some similar people doing the same thing…and its cool to have met them. 

So…check out these other San Diego blogs and see what you think:

Gregg O’Connell

Antics So Blonde

Erica Putis

SD Dialed In

And sorry for this ridiculous, inconsistent, off topic post.  Buts that why you like Tech & Tonic, isn’t it

I just read Brianna’s latest post about her daily routine at work, and it made me think about mine. (Which is in some ways pretty similar to hers)

When I get to work there are a couple of websites I check out while sipping my green tea and possibly indulging on a bagel. While my computer is booting up I do the NY Times crossword puzzle and pass it back to my coworker who eventually will pass it back to me when he can no longer fill anymore clues in.
The websites that I check out EVERYDAY are at the right side cause I wouldn’t dare keep them a secret but sometimes new ones creep in which causes me to rearrange my daily order and leaves less room for finding out which celebrities dressed in a painfully terrible ensemble.
Regardless, I have a routine, a routine I like. I have websites that give me a little philosophical stimulation instead of the . . . bland business fact stimulation I get at work.
In Asia every hour that a kid is in school, 10 min are devoted to play time or some kind of a fun exercise. Every mind needs a change of pace.

I like her routine, because it makes me think of what I do every day (M-F):

1. Wake up. I am not a morning person. I hate mornings. Nothing pisses me off more than waking up, and its cold, and I am already in a bad mood. My bed is so warm and comfortable, and I like my room. I was probably up late the night before working on a website, so I am already sleep deprived. I hit the snooze at least 3 times before I am actually up. Then, since I am already late I jump in the shower, throw on some clothes, and hit the road.
2. Drive To Work. I am pissed off now because FREEFM in San Diego has been taken off the air. I am forced to listen to the shitty Cantori in the Morning show on 91x. I am actually looking forward to work because I can stream the Adam Carolla show over the internet. I curse Cantori because I maintain that any morning radio show that has to play music in between talking is a shitty show without any good content, so they have to take up time with music.
3. Get To My Office. I park, head up to my office, grab coffee on the way. We have an awesome coffee machine in our office that makes it from these little packet things, and its surprisingly good coffee. Throw my laptop on its dock, turn on my two monitors, take off my ipod, and sit down. If I remembered to bring a bagel, I eat it, otherwise I go hungry to lunch. As soon as my computer boots up I do a couple things. Log into netsuite where I spend most of my day. Open another firefox window and load up the Adam Carolla show. And, run a SQL query to check for errored orders in the system.
4. Work Through Lunch. Most of the time I’m pretty busy so I end up working through lunch and eating at my desk. If I have time, I head out and eat somewhere else, but not too often.
5. At 3pm: Tom Leykis. Fire up the Leykis show at 3 and prepare some laughs and women bashing. Usually talk to Lynsey who is also listening to show, to discuss why these people are idiots and how awesome Tom is. (+10 to awesome on Flash Fridays!)
6. Head out at 5. Head home, maybe take a motorcycle ride, hit up some wakeboarding, work on my bike, watch a movie, work on a website, hit some happy hour…who knows!

What have I learned from Cataloguing my day? Well nothing. Its a good routine. I’m used to it, I like it, and it normally makes for a pretty good day. I like that the weather is starting to get colder, Oct/Nov/Dec are my favorite months because of the weather, shorter days, and spending them with good friends.