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tomdo98@aol.com |
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Archives
Picture Portfolios
Random Pictures
Longhorns are National Champs!! Longhorns are National Champs! (1/4/2006)
Go Horns! The start of the Horn's disappointing season (10/31/2006)
Watch your back BJ Penn, I got my blue belt in Brazilian Jujitsu!
Everyone should try to quit smoking. Smoke free 2.5 years. (pictured in 2002)
Really gay over the shoulder pose. (pictured in 2003)
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December 2007 Archives |
movie reviews updated 11/28/2007
Painting and Drawing updated 2/21
Jujitsu/MMA commentary updated 12/04/07 The cast and crew of my life: Click on head for pics ordered by updates
Repeat Topics
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12/27/2007 S & M Family Center
There's barely a joke in this. I'll do everyone a favor and not spell it out.
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12/25/2007 Miley the Dog Interrupting My "Perfect Pushup"
I was trying out my gift, the "Perfect Pushup", at home but Miley the dog wouldn't leave me alone.
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12/25/2007 Merry Gelatinous Can of Cranberry Sauce
I'll take this tube of sauce over real cranberry sauce any day of the week. I hate cranberry sauce where you can actually see the berries.
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12/25/2007 My Garmin Dot Com Garmin Dot Com
Anyone who knows me knows that one of my greatest weaknesses is my sense of direction. Todd always makes fun of me because I never know what exit to take to the Rudy's down south. He always threatens to buy me a GPS system to which I say, "Please buy it for me!"
My GF asked me what I wanted for Christmas so I decided to see how much GPSes had gone down in price. The cheapest GARMIN one is $200. It's called the GARMIN Nuvi. I saw some cheaper ones in the local Fry's ads but they were some crazy brand that I'd never heard of. Everyone knows the Garmin dot com unibrow commercial.
The first GPS I ever saw in my life was about 10 years ago when a friend of mine came down from Korea and was driving a rental car with a built in GPS. I thought it was fantastic but I think the prices back then were over $1000. No matter how cool it was, it wasn't practical for me to buy one.
Jump forward to Christmas 2007 where I own my own Garmin Nuvi and I have to say it's one of the greatest inventions I have ever encountered. I used to go on for hours and hours about how great MP3s were but this invention really puts me in awe. To test the Garmin I drove from Beaumont to Dallas. This is a drive I have never made in my life.
There are so many things that amazes my about my Garmin. One is that roads, especially neighborhood roads, are relatively narrow so I'm amazed by the GPS's precision. I'm also amazed at how accurate the maps are. I know that it can't quite keep up with all the construction in the world but the Garmin shows me how every road I'm on twists and turns. It tells me when I need to turn, to exit and bear left or right. It tells me what side of the street my destination is on. It estimates how long my trip will take. One of the features that is hit or miss is finding businesses. You can look up businesses like you might look them up in the yellow pages and let the Garmin route you there. It can't really find a lot of small businesses but it did find me a lot of gas stations.
Today, I needed to go into Dallas to see my mom's studio and I usually don't want to drive because it's kind of annoying for someone to tell you every right and left and to tell you to go ahead and be in the right lane because you're about to exit. This time, I was confident because I knew Garmin would show me the way and we even went a way my mom never goes so we were at the mercy of the Garmin. It didn't let us down.
I'll never have to use Mapquest, Google Maps, or Yahoo maps again.
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12/19/2007 Merry Boogary Christmas
This picture kind of makes my stomach turn. It's old consulting friend of mine's kids and her 14 year old step daughter. I think this is going to be her Christmas card this year. Check out the booger.
She sent me the picture for the sole purpose of showing me her kid's booger. I have received consent to post.
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12/17/2007 Pictures From Saturday
I went to Hung's Christmas Party first for a few hours then headed over to say Bon Voyage to Wendy...
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12/14/2007 Random Memory and Picture: I Was Having A Good Game Back on 7/17/2004
Looks like I guttered my first ball but then started to get it together. Two open frames in the middle isn't good. The first score is a monster score. I think it's Dae's but I'm not actually sure if he was there with us. Oh actually it's Simon's. He used to go by SEVEN cause I think he liked the movie seven. Interesting, he's not a great bowler but is having a superb game.
I think Simon's girlfriend used to go by LA Shorty (giggle) and she's the third score. She must be the one who took the picture. I wonder where Dae was that day? Maybe working.
We used to call Thang the Nanny (last score) because he was older than us and had kids.
zoomed in to see the score
my GF hates the Old Navy Ribbed Shirts |
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12/14/2007 Handy Switch Is A Great Invention and Is Better Than The Clapper
I saw a commercial recently that said the Clapper had an update. For those you who've read my past blog (too lazy to link you,) I hate the clapper. It comes on at the slightest inflection of your voice and then when you actually want it to activate, you'll clap a million times and can't quite get the timing right.
The update to the Clapper has a remote where you can, for instance, turn the light on before you even enter your house (so you can perhaps scare off intruders before you walk in.) I went to Walgreens looking for the new clapper but all I could find was the HandySwitch.
The HandySwitch is COOL. You can plug anything into the HandySwitch and then place the remote switch anywhere you want. The remote switch looks like any other light switch.
Here are two uses for the HandySwitch I've thought of.
1. Too lazy to reach up and turn off your lamp while you're in bed? Plug your lamp into the handy switch and stick the remote switch right on your nightstand where you can lazily reach out and flick it off without even lifting your head. 2. Tired of banging your toe while making your way to the halogen lamp across the room in your dark apartment? Plug in the halogen lamp anywhere you want in your apartment and stick a HandySwitch right by your front door.
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12/12/2007 Is Someone Trying To Steal My Identity?
Yesterday, I was trying to rent an apartment and I went through the normal motions that I've gone through a million times. The first thing I did was turn in my credit application.
I have pretty decent credit. I don't have any delinquencies or collections and my credit to debt ratio is very good. Just recently, I applied for credit to Fry's to get a $1500 tv and they gave me $10,000! I don't believe the credit requirement to stay at some cheapo apartment is very high anyways.
I call the apartment people back a few hours later to make sure they had all the information the needed from me and they tell me my credit application was flagged. WTF!? They tell me that their system, which gets its data from Equifax, says that the birthday I put down doesn't match the birthday in Equifax.
I immediately freak out. I make sure they have the right SSN, and they do, and everything except the birth date pulls up correctly. Was someone stealing my identity?? I pay $9.95 a month for unlimited credit reports and credit alerts from Equifax ever since my wallet was stolen 4 years ago. Stupidly enough, I carried my SSN card in the wallet that was stolen so I've always been nervous about someone trying to steal my identity. I pull a brand new credit report from Equifax and my birthday is just as I know it to be. I call Equifax and they verify my correct birthday is on file and then they also tried to see if something called a "split file" happened that may have caused the error. They don't find anything.
Since Equifax is basically saying everything matches exactly the way I say it is, what could I possibly dispute? I call the apartment people back and tell them what Equifax told me but all the apartment people are doing is running my info through a web program and getting back that there's a fraud alert on my file. They can't actually see anything else. So who do I ask, the people that are pulling my file? The programmers??
I never actually got any of this resolved. I just brought proof of my SSN and birthday and they just accepted my application. I'm still really nervous about the whole thing. Your whole life is pretty muched linked to that SSN number and I'm not sure what I'd do if that number got out of whack for some reason
I upgraded my Equifax subscription to
monitor all three of the credit companies for 3 dollars more. Have
to stay vigilant. Watch out for the bad guys... |
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12/10/2007 Pictures From Saturday at Arm's Length
Here are some "arm's length" pictures from Saturday:
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12/10/2007 I Have A Lot To Learn About Cooking And Chicken Cordon Bleu
Trina Fischer had a "pot luck" dinner several weeks ago. Most of the people she invited never claimed to be great cooks so it was fun seeing what amateur dish everyone would bring. I always go through these periods of time where I try to cook, fail miserably, and then decide it might just to be cheaper to order out.
I had no idea what I was going to cook or would be able to cook. The only dish I've ever liked to prepare and eat is spaghetti out of a bottle. I used to cook a dish that had sliced potatoes, stir fried meat, and onions that I would eat with rice and ketchup but I don't think anyone outside the DO family would like that dish.
I tried my luck finding a recipe on the internet and headed towards the "easy" recipes on http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Cordon-Bleu-I/Detail.aspx.
This dish looked like it might be good: Chicken Cordon Bleu
INGREDIENTS
It actually is pretty damn easy unless you COOK IT TOO LONG! One of the age old curses of cooking chicken by amateur chefs is that they worry it's going to be raw and everyone's going to get sick from salmonella poisoning. I don't know if I've ever heard of anyone getting salmonella poisoning but as I was cooking the chicken I kept telling myself, that looks a little pink, better cook it another 5 minutes to be safe. Every five minutes turned the chicken from unsafe to safe to hard as a rock.
I guess you live and learn but this is why I keep quitting the cooking game. When you make a mistake, you have to force feed yourself your own crappy food because it's such a big waste if you don't and you're not about to cook a new dish. It pretty much ruins dinner for the night unless you have a backup.
potentially delicious chicken before it goes in the oven
looks like it might be good but too bad I overcooked it!
Other Dishes Involved
green bean casserole
enchilada casserole
pot pie
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12/05/2007 My Niece's Dog and Todd Eating Hot Dogs
I'm starting my own You Tube channel with whatever cheesy videos I have. You've all seen Todd eating hot dogs. Now watch Miley the dog.
Miley the Dog
Todd eating hotdogs
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12/05/2007 We're the Obnoxious People in the Restaurant and Frank Eats a Big Chunk of Wasabi
Frank Ruff likes to do eating dares. My GF and I have underestimated him more than once. He's eaten his own sun burned skin and one time we really overpaid him when we had him shoot a cup of hot buffalo sauce from Pluckers. I think we might have paid him $50 bucks for that.
This time, he said how much will you pay me to eat a big chunk of wasabi? I thought he was bluffing again because the wasabi chunk looked huge but I wasn't about to pay him anymore than 20 bucks. Someone else chipped in another five bucks and he went for it. Once again, it seemed a little too easy for Frank. He's really animated the entire time and instead of just swallowing it quickly, it appears as if he's just holding it in his mouth. We were all hanging out later and he appeared to have very little post ill effects. Where's the fun in that??
What's also funny is that I think we were loud as shit in Korea House but it seemed like no one even looked up at us. I know a lot of times when people are loud and obnoxious like we were, I don't want to give them the satisfaction of letting them know that they're bothering me.
Frank on a Wasabi dare
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12/04/2007 The Fall of All My First MMA Heroes
I've only really been an MMA fan for the past two years. I knew all about the original UFC champion Royce Gracie growing up but the UFC got really unwatchable once Royce stopped fighting and everyone learned how to play defense in rounds with no time limits.
I'm a little embarrassed to say that the first season of Ultimate Fighter on Spike TV is what got me back watching MMA and made me decide to take Jujitsu lessons. I was a huge fan of the current champions at the time. They were the faces of MMA and they had that aura of invincibility that you could really idolize.
But something happened along the away. Either they just got old or the new crop of talent is just better.
Rich Franklin was an impressive 20-1 before he defended the title against Anderson Silva. Silva destroyed Franklin at 2:49 in the first round and left Franklin with a gruesomely broken nose as a souvenir. Franklin came back strong with two impressive victories and a rematch was signed with Silva. Silva completely dominated Franklin again. What's left for a man who can pretty much beat everyone in his weight class except the champion? Not much. He may have to do what Randy Couture did after getting beat twice by Chuck Liddell and that's move weight classes or completely changing fight federations altogether.
As MMA was shooting up the popularity scale in America, this man's mohawk could be seen in every magazine and news article talking about the sport. He was an exciting fighter who wanted nothing to do with ground grappling. This man only wanted to knock you out. After taking his belt back from Randy Couture, Liddell went on to defend his title for over a year but then he ran into the only fighter whose loss he never avenged, Rampage Jackson. Some say that fight was stopped way too early but Liddell's next fight against the unimpressive Keith Jardine ended in a split decision loss. Chuck might still be able to make a comeback.
Before Matt Hughes's loss to George St Pierre, Hughes was often described as the greatest welterweight of all time. That loss to St Pierre wouldn't have been such a bad loss considering St Pierre was such a dynamic, up and coming fighter but St Pierre promptly loss the belt to Matt Sera in his first title defense. Hughes won his next fight after the loss by decision and will have an opportunity to regain his belt December 29th against Matt Serra.
Randy Couture, one of the most beloved MMA fighters of all time and did the impossible by moving up a weight class and defeating Tim Silvia for the Heavyweight Championship at the age of 43. He defended his belt once and then announced that he was leaving the UFC, leaving the belt, and leaving his commentator job. He went out a winner but left a lot of fans bewildered by the decision. He cited the UFC's failure to sign Pride champion Fedor Emalianenko and money as the reason he's quitting the UFC. When did Couture become so arrogant and money hungry?
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12/03/2007 Lars and the Real Weirdos (Who Are In Love With Their Life Sized Dolls)
I saw Lars and the Real Girl the other night. The movie had a good heart, nice acting, and a sweet message but there was one problem.
I saw the movie at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar and often times as a filler, the Alamo will show some crazy old film that no one has ever seen. This time, they showed a documentary about real men who lived with their life sized "love dolls" (they don't like them called sex dolls anymore.)
In the movie, Ryan Gosling orders a love doll and believes that she is a real person that can talk and has a past. In the documentary, these guys don't believe their love doll is real but they do treat them as a real companion in their life. Some of them try their best to delude themselves so that their love doll seems more real. The movie's main character didn't seem to have as many of the disturbing qualities of his real life counterpart which obstructed my suspension of disbelief.
These love dolls are not your common adult store plastic blow up jobs. These dolls cost about $8000 dollars a piece. I think they're made of silicone and weigh around 100 lbs. They are perfectly proportioned and are life sized. They are anatomically correct and even have a removable tongue. The dolls are completely customizable. There's a funny scene in the documentary where the doll makers talk about unusual requests. One person wanted a doll that was 80 years old. One wanted a ton of public hair that would run all the way up the back.
Three out of the four guys in the documentary have basically given up trying to find a real woman or as one of them called them, organic women. One guy said he had bad teeth, bad skin, and said if you haven't found a woman by the time you're 35 you probably won't ever find one. What?? These guys have just given up too early. Sure there are plenty of women that are unattainable but that doesn't mean all women on the planet are unattainable. These particular case studies makes me think that these love dolls might a bad thing and much more mentally destructive than a plain old masturbation tool.
The guy with the bad skin said he loved living with his two dolls because it meant he could do anything he wanted. He was basically the king of his world because he didn't have to be a door mat to women anymore and could live exactly the life he wanted. The British guy liked to stage pictures with his love dolls and himself. In one photograph, he had his two dolls and himself all looking at something in a magazine. He said it made them seem more real.
I think these guys are one step away from being a serial killer. They are so socially inept around women, they would prefer just to have the body with no resistance and the brain and personality that they create within their own minds. Using a love doll is probably like being a necrophiliac.
There's an episode of Futurama that talks about the dangers of dating a robot. In the cartoon Frye gets a robot that looks like Lucy Liu. Instead of going anywhere or doing anything, he just stays in and makes out with robot Lucy Liu all day. The cartoon's cautionary public service announcement said it would basically be the end of mankind because men would no longer try to procreate or do anything at all. It would completely rob them of all their ambition because they no longer strove to better themselves so that they could get chicks when their robot mate loved them so much. I kept thinking how these guys would absolutely flip out if robotics were added to these women in anyway. Hell, I should make an invention where you could program a woman's voice in a chip and a speaker that can be inserted into the love dolls' mouths.
Some of the stuff in the documentary is really freaky. They showed the Indian guy making out with his doll and then this other guy said it was the most fantastic sex he ever had because when he'd "push" on the doll, he could feel it pushing back. It's also a little sad. The Indian guy said he could take being alone but he couldn't take being lonely. The doll made him feel less lonely.
The fourth guy in the documentary was particularly serial killer like. He had just started dating this woman whom he told he needed someone who was "open-minded." He had eight different dolls and these dolls were the sluttiest things you have ever seen. They had huge boobs and he dressed them in tiny tank tops and school girl uniforms. He said he would be willing to give up his dolls for the right woman but he really wanted to have both. In the end, the girl leaves him and he's back with his 8 dolls. This guy may be worse than the previous 3 guys who couldn't interact whatsoever with real woman. This guy was dating and having sex with a real woman and basically choose his 8 love dolls over her.
Go see the movie to see a fine performance by Gosling and the support case but be sure to stay far away from the love dolls.
Here's the entire documentary.
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